back-streets contained many independent shops, hotels, and pubs. At the corner of High Street and Wine Street stood the 'most loved fragment of Old Bristol': The Dutch House. Bombing of 24 November 1940 On the afternoon of 24 November 1940, 148 aircraft of the Luftwaffe left airfields in Northern France heading for Bristol. The concentration point was to be the City Docks, and their objective was to destroy Bristol's industry and port facilities. 135 aircraft reached the target area, and dropped of high explosives, of oil bombs and 12,500 incendiaries. As the raid progressed, the fires could be seen from away. Wide areas of the city were struck, but the most concentrated damage occurred in the area between Broad Quay and Old Market where fierce fires burnt through the night. By the morning, 200 Bristolians were dead and 689 injured, four Luftwaffe crewmen were dead, one injured and four captured, two aircraft were lost, and a large part of the historic heart of Bristol was a smouldering ruin. The destruction was not total, however. Post-war photographs show that out of around 500 buildings some 80 survived intact, High Street, Castle Street and Peter Street. The west end of Narrow Wine Street, a 'fantastic little old thoroughfare', was more or less intact; Castle Mill Street and Castle Green received little damage, and Upper, Middle and Lower Terrace survived. More importantly, the irreplaceable mediaeval street plan remained. Replanning The idea that Bristol's main shopping area should be moved away from the Castle Street and Wine Street area was first proposed to Bristol Corporation's Planning and Reconstruction Committee by the Multiple Traders' Federation (MTF), representing the larger retailers and chain-stores, in October 1943. They suggested that the pre-war shopping area should be set aside as a civic area with perhaps a concert hall or similar building and an open space, and that the central shopping area should be moved to a less-constrained site. This suggestion formed part of the City Engineer's Master Plan of February 1944, which envisaged that the area would contain a limited number of buildings such as a conference hall, with underground parking for 2,000 cars. The removal of the shopping area was considered desirable because the fire that had destroyed so much of the area was in large part sustained by its congested nature, and in any case many of the chain-stores represented by the MTF wanted larger sites.