page_title: Portsmouth
section_title: Edwardian to Second World War
hierarchical_section_title: Portsmouth / History / Edwardian to Second World War
caption_attribution_description: King George VI inspecting the crew of the Norwegian destroyer HNoMS Draug at Portsmouth. (Info from Hansen, Ola Bøe (ed.): "Sjøkrigens skjebner - deres egne beretninger", Sjømilitære Samfund ved Forlaget Norsk Tidsskrift for Sjøvesen, Gjøvik 2005 ISBN 82-92217-22-3 p. 92-93)
context_page_description: Portsmouth is an English port city primarily built on Portsea Island in the county of Hampshire. It is also known as Pompey, a nickname shared with HMNB Portsmouth and the Portsmouth Football Club. The United Kingdom's only island city, it is 70 miles south-west of London and 19 miles south-east of Southampton. Portsmouth's population was 205,100 in the 2011 UK Census. The city is part of the South Hampshire metropolitan area, which also includes the city of Southampton and the towns of Gosport, Fareham, Waterlooville, Havant and Eastleigh.
  Portsmouth's history can be traced back to Roman Britain. A significant naval port for centuries, it has the world's oldest dry dock. Portsmouth was England's first line of defence during the 1545 French invasion. By the early nineteenth century, the world's first mass-production line was set up in Portsmouth Dockyard's Block Mills; this made it the world's most industrialised site, and the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. Portsmouth was the most heavily-fortified town in the world and was considered "the world's greatest naval port" at the height of the British Empire, during the Pax Britannica.
context_section_description: When the British Empire was at its height of power, covering a quarter of Earth's total land area and 458 million people at the turn of the 20th century, Portsmouth was considered "the world's greatest naval port". In 1900, Portsmouth Dockyard employed 8,000 people – a figure which increased to 23,000 during the First World War. On 1 October 1916, Portsmouth was bombed by a Zeppelin airship. Although the Oberste Heeresleitung (German Supreme Army Command) said that the town was "lavishly bombarded with good results", there were no reports of bombs dropped in the area. According to another source, the bombs were mistakenly dropped into the harbour rather than the dockyard. About 1,200 ships were refitted in the dockyard during the war, making it one of the empire's most strategic ports at the time.
  Portsmouth was granted city status in 1926 after a long campaign by the borough council. The application was made on the grounds that it was the "first naval port of the kingdom". In 1929, the city council added the motto "Heaven's Light Our Guide" to the medieval coat of arms. Except for the celestial objects in the arms, the motto was that of the Star of India and referred to the troopships bound for British India which left from the port. The crest and supporters are based on those of the royal arms, but altered to show the city's maritime connections: the lions and unicorn have fish tails, and a naval crown and a representation of the Tudor defensive boom which stretched across Portsmouth Harbour are around the unicorn.
  During the Second World War, the city (particularly the port) was bombed extensively by the Luftwaffe in the Portsmouth Blitz.
  Portsmouth experienced 67 air raids between July 1940 and May 1944, which destroyed 6,625 houses and severely damaged 6,549. The air raids caused 930 deaths and wounded almost 3,000 people, many in the dockyard and military establishments. On the night of the city's heaviest raid (10 January 1941), the Luftwaffe dropped 140 tonnes of high-explosive bombs which killed 171 people and left 3,000 homeless. Many of the city's houses were damaged, and areas of Landport and Old Portsmouth destroyed; the future site of Gunwharf Quays was razed to the ground. The Guildhall was hit by an incendiary bomb which burnt out the interior and destroyed its inner walls, although the civic plate was retrieved unharmed from the vault under the front steps. After the raid, Portsmouth mayor Denis Daley wrote for the Evening News:
  We are bruised but we are not daunted, and we are still as determined as ever to stand side by side with other cities who have felt the blast of the enemy, and we shall, with them, persevere with an unflagging spirit towards a conclusive and decisive victory.
  — Sir Denis Daley, January 1941
  Portsmouth Harbour was a vital military embarkation point for the 6 June 1944 D-Day landings. Southwick House, just north of the city, was the headquarters of Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower. A V-1 flying bomb hit Newcomen Road on 15 July 1944, killing 15 people.
caption: George VI inspecting the crew of the HNoMS Draug in Portsmouth during the Second World War
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