David L Baker Photography

Tag: WW2

  • Finally

    Don’t forget you can (should!!) click on each image to see it full sized.

    I found that Coventry Cathedral was more like an art gallery than a traditional cathedral, so I just wanted to share these last three artifacts.
    The first is called Reconciliation and was installed in 1995 to maek the 50th anniversary of the end of WW2. A duplicate casting is also at Hiroshima.
    The second is the West Screen at the entrance to the new Cathedral, featuring 66 images depicting saints and angels. These were all hand-engraved by the artist, and took ten years to complete.
    After the bombing raid, the cathedral stonemason saw that two wooden beams had fallen in the shape of the cross. He immediately tied them together and erected the cross in the rubble as a symbol of defiance and hope. The original is image 3, which was moved inside the new cathedral for protection.
    Image 4 show a copy that was placed in the original location, with the message Father Forgive carven in the stone behind the alter.
    Now I have to take some more photos I guess.

  • Survival

    This image is not particularly good, and is a heavy crop to show something I did not even see. Yesterday we went to Coventry Cathedral. The old cathedral was heavily damaged in a bombing raid in 1940, but a lot of the remains are in place next to the new cathedral. This window arch is part of that old cathedral, and you can still see what is left of the stained glass – 86 years later!
    Mind blown.

  • Lancaster

    This life-sized steel sculpture of a Lancaster bomber is called On Freedom Wings, and was erected in honour of the RAF crews in World War 2. I caught it in the evening light, although it is not yet fully open to the public. However, if you accidentally go up a private road because you don’t see the sign that it is private until too late because you are focused on finding the sculpture, you can get a pretty decent view. There is also a layby on the northbound A46 which provides a better view, but it was full when I went past it.