How The Home Of Armed Forces Day Became A Wartime Target

This year's home of Armed Forces Day played a vital role during the Second World War. 

Liverpool was the destination of many wartime Atlantic convoys and home to the Western Approaches Command, which controlled maritime traffic.

As a result, the city suffered heavy bombing losing many buildings and lives. 

In April 1940, 4.2 million tonnes of goods were shipped into Liverpool, a 31 per cent loss out of the total coming into the country.

The famous docks handled vital supplies to keep British troops fighting and the country fed. 

The convoys of merchant ships were defended from German U-boat attacks by Royal Navy Destroyers, Frigates and Corvettes.

The life-and-death struggle the sailors endured helped keep Britain safe during the war and became known as the Battle of the Atlantic. 

An unassuming building, just a block back from the waterfront, holds a vital secret... It’s the wartime headquarters for the Western Approaches Command.

This operations centre, buried under tonnes of reinforced concrete, controlled the incoming convoys and deployed Royal Navy ships to protect them from the German Navy, as Professor Charles Esdaile, from the University of Liverpool, explains:

"They had a large fleet of submarines which they sent out in to the North Atlantic to basically cut us off from the rest of the world."

Britain did win the Battle of the Atlantic, but 3,500 merchant ships and 175 warships were lost. However, the supply lines were kept open.

Liverpool handled over 75 million tonnes of cargo from 1939 to 1945 and as the years went by, many of those supplies were destined for the invasion of Europe and D-Day.

But because the city was so vital, it became a target itself and Liverpool was extensively blitzed.

In fact, after London Merseyside was the second-most bombed area. Photographs like this show how the city was changed forever because of the bombing. 

Heavier than the cost of lost ships, was of course, the loss of human life, as around 4,000 people were killed. 

Liverpool suffered to keep our nation supplied during the Second World War.

Watch live coverage of Armed Forces Day in Liverpool, from 11:00 BST on Forces TV, Sky 264, Virgin 277 or Freesat 165. Forces TV is also broadcast to British Forces overseas via BFBS TV on channel 9.