The cost of bomb damage was estimated at £20 million (1952, £726,885,099 as a consumer price equivalent), with 3,000,000 square feet (280,000 m2) of factory space, several oil and flour mills, the Riverside Quay and 27 churches, 14 schools or hospitals, 42 pubs and 8 cinemas ruined; only 6,000 out of 91,000 houses were undamaged at the end of the war.

[7] We lived in the middle of an industrial area that was a regular target for German bombers .. One night as we were all filing into the air raid shelter Mam dashed back into the house.

An intended raid on London by Zeppelin L9 was diverted to Hull owing to bad weather and on 6/7 June 1915 dropped 13 explosive and 50 incendiary bombs, destroying 40 houses and killing 24, and led to mobs attacking shops belonging to people believed to be of German origin.

In this June bombing, a device dropped through the roof of the original Edwin Davis department store on South Churchside, destroying it; Holy Trinity, Hull's central church sited opposite, was miraculously spared.

[9] An attempted raid on Hull on 8/9 August 1915 bombed Goole by mistake owing to a navigation error.

Bombs were dropped on Earles shipyard (Docks) and on Paragon station (city centre) resulting in deaths.

The raids showed that Hull was completely unprotected from aerial attack and public anger led to service personnel being mobbed.

[13] Hull's first air-raid warning was at 02:45 on Monday 4 September 1939: as an 'air-raid yellow' all operational crews were called to their posts.

The first large attack targeted the River Hull corridor with damage to paint businesses in Stoneferry; the second on St Andrew's Dock, a public shelter in Bean Street nearby was hit by a parachute mine (also known as "naval mines") causing multiple deaths; the third major raid lasted six hours, and resulted in nearly 100 deaths, bombs dropped over a wide area of Hull, concentrated on the River Hull corridor, with many bombs also causing damage west of the river.

[27][19] The practice of 'trekking', or travelling to the countryside to sleep in the fields when bombing was expected, had begun in the First World War and by 1941 an estimated third of the population were leaving the city at night.

[29] Minor attacks continued approximately monthly until the end of the year, with serious bombing in the early morning of 18 August and the night of 31 August/1 September.

[30][19] Attacks were reduced in 1942 compared to 1941,[19][31] a major bombing raid on 19/20 May targeted Alexandra and Victoria docks and the surrounding area.

On 1 August another raid centred on the eastern docks killed 24 people at Grindell Street when a 1,800 kg bomb was dropped on it.

[38][39] The bombing campaign in Britain resulted in 121 people in the East Riding of Yorkshire being killed – 82 civilians and 39 military deaths.

In addition to rural East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire children were evacuated to Lancashire, Norfolk, Northumberland, Leicester and elsewhere.

[44][45] After the major raids of 18/19 March 1941, 18 July 1941, 18 August 1941 and 24 June 1943 the city was named but in the reporting of the attacks of 7–9 May 1941, the target was referred to by the Air Ministry as being in the Humber area.

The British Port of Hull, with its multi-purpose dockyards, its wharves and its strategically important industrial sites – this was our target yet again today.

Along with the other aircrews of our unit, we took off last night, having taken aboard the bomb load which we intended to deposit to good effect in the middle of the great dockyards .. [...]The city was rebuilt in the post-war period,[48][6] A grand scheme, the "Abercrombie Plan", was commissioned from Edwin Lutyens and Patrick Abercrombie but not carried out.

[48] At the site of the Hull Municipal Museum, destroyed by fire during the Blitz, many items of the collection were rediscovered during redevelopment during the 1990s and recovered as part of an archaeological excavation.

[35] The former National Picture Theatre was hit by a parachute landmine (1,600 lb) in 1941, it blew the whole of the back end off the auditorium.