The Blitz At 85, Part Three: Crescendo of Destruction
As night followed night during 1940-1941, civilians and civil defence teams across Britain were confronted by shocking sights and sounds. The spine-tingling, stomach-churning wail of air raid sirens. The distinctive, sinister drone of enemy aircraft engines. The whistle of falling high explosive bombs, their ear-splitting detonation and lethal blast waves. The metallic tinkling sound of incendiaries dropping onto rooftops before igniting in a white-green flash. The dazzling, probing beams of searchlights and pounding anti-aircraft guns. The deafening roar of collapsing buildings. Choking smoke and dust. Blasted streets strewn with heavy debris, masonry rubble, bomb splinters and shrapnel. Flying shattered glass, inflicting lacerating injuries. The urgent bells of passing emergency vehicles. The menace of unexploded or delayed action ordnance. Ripped-open utility capillaries; burst coal gas and water mains, ruptured sewers, severed telephone lines, sparking mains electricity and broken overhead tram and trolleybus wires. The searing heat of major fires out of control. Flood damage from fire service water hoses. Corpses and body parts found entombed under smashed brick, metal and wood in destroyed houses and shelters. Dazed and injured civilians requiring first aid and the furtive activities of looters.
The authorities’ primary civil defence concerns were public shelter, protection, population dispersal and rehousing after property destruction. During the Blitz, over 2.25 million British people were made homeless (1.5 million in London). Pre-war plans to construct a series of deep underground public shelters - for the envisaged primary target, London - had still not been acted upon when the Blitz arrived. In October 1940, the government finally agreed to build eight such shelters (each designed to accommodate 4,000-8,000 people). But the pace of construction was slow; the first deep shelters were not completed until mid-1942. Instead, Londoners sought refuge from the nightly air raids in brick surface and underground street shelters, in trench shelters in city squares and parks, in the basements of large public buildings, offices or under railway arches. 27% of Londoners relied on corrugated steel Anderson shelters in back gardens. Many others stayed at home, taking cover in the most secure parts of their houses; under staircases, in cellars or in Morrison indoor shelters (mass produced sheet steel cages). Key government buildings – particularly in Westminster and Whitehall – were protected against high explosive bomb blast by banks of sandbags. One man steel shelters were also provided for ARP wardens and staff members at important transport hubs and roof observation points.
Each public shelter in London was administered as efficiently as circumstances permitted. Many required tickets. Most soon acquired local characteristics and were maintained with varying degrees of sanitation. Some, such as the Tilbury Shelter in Stepney in the East End became notorious for overcrowding and lack of basic facilities. Others, such as the underground shelter of the Savoy Hotel (Strand) and the basement Turkish Bath and gymnasium of the Dorchester Hotel (Park Lane), hosted society grandees in comparative style.
4% of Londoners (177,000 people) sheltered in 79 Underground stations – such as Aldwych in Westminster - across the London Tube network. Initially, the authorities attempted to prevent Londoners occupying the stations during the nightly raids. Under public pressure, they were forced to reconsider and soon each station was regulated by ARP wardens, London Transport staff and volunteers. Each acquired a familiar night-time routine. After the power was switched off, people slept on the platforms, escalators and in the tunnels on the tracks. Apart from platform sleeping spaces or prefabricated bunks, most Underground stations offered chemical toilets (in others just buckets behind screens), refreshments, even library facilities. In some stations tube trains pulled in to dispense tea and foodstuffs. Public singing on the platforms and public address new reports echoed along the platforms until the morning All-Clear air raid sirens sounded.
Shelterers in the London Underground stations - memorably captured by wartime artists such as Henry Moore and Edward Ardizzone – may have felt safer but were by no means free from danger. From September 1940 to May 1941, 198 civilians were killed in Underground stations across the city. Several stations took direct hits, killing shelterers. These included Marble Arch, Trafalgar Square, Bounds Green, Balham and Bank. On 12 November 1940, bombs fell on Sloane Square station, hitting a passing train, wrecking the platforms and killing or seriously injuring 79 civilians. All mainline overground termini in London, 23 other railway stations, 12 trolleybus and tram stations and 15 bus stations were hit (1940-1945). London Transport reported 181 staff deaths in the Blitz and over 9,000 separate damage incidents.
In London, the Blitz became ever more destructive as 1940 ended. A major raid took place on 8 December 1940. German bombers dropped over 380 tons of high explosive bombs and at least 115,000 incendiaries. 250 Londoners were killed and 600 more seriously injured. In the West End a parachute mine badly damaged Portland Place, W1, including BBC Broadcasting House, for a second time.
On 29 December 1940, the historic centre of the City of London was consumed by fire after German aircraft delivered over 20,000 incendiaries and 120 tons of high explosive. 160 civilians were killed. 14 firemen died and 250 of their colleagues were badly injured fighting over 1,400 major incendiary blazes. The Guildhall and eight 17th century Wren churches were burnt out and five mainline rail stations suffered direct hits. The area around St Paul’s Cathedral (completed 1710) became a sea of fire, although the Cathedral itself was saved by the strenuous efforts of its own firewatchers and a seemingly Providential change in the weather. A famous press photograph (taken by Herbert Mason) captured the Cathedral surrounded by fire and smoke, but mercifully intact. It promptly dominated world newspaper front pages.
From 11-19 January 1941, London was attacked a further four times. During March, West End buildings were again struck during night raids, among them Buckingham Palace, Leicester Square and the Café de Paris nightclub on Coventry Street W1 (killing 35). A large raid – 130 tons of high explosive and 25,000 incendiaries dropped – took place on 8 March 1941. 100 tons of high explosive and 16,000 incendiaries fell on the capital on 15 March. On 19 March, 470 tons of high explosives and 122,000 incendiaries struck the East End and the docks. Over 1,700 people were killed or seriously injured. Additional very heavy night raids on London took place on 16-17 April (1,000 killed) and on 19-20 April 1941 (1,000 tons of high explosive and 153,000 incendiaries dropped with 1,200 killed).
The Blitz reached its crescendo on the night of 10-11 May 1941, when German aircraft wrought unprecedented destruction across London. Under a full moon, 505 Luftwaffe bombers attacked the capital, unloading 711 tons of high explosive and 86,000 incendiaries. 1,436 Londoners were killed and 2,000 others were seriously injured. At least 2,000 separate incendiary fires were started. 10,000 buildings in London were destroyed or badly damaged. These included the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, St Clement Danes Church (Strand), the Queen’s Hall (Langham Place), St James's Palace, Piccadilly, Eaton Square, Park Lane, St Martin's Lane, Pimlico, parts of Soho, Mayfair and Knightsbridge. Elsewhere, bombs rained down on the docks, the East End, the City of London, Marylebone, Waterloo, Holborn (including the British Museum), King's Cross, Lincoln's Inn and Gray's Inn, Chelsea, Lambeth Palace, St Thomas's Hospital, the Tower of London, Paddington, Kensington, Hammersmith, Elephant and Castle, Nunhead, Peckham, Bermondsey, Greenwich and Hackney.
Major disruption was caused to London's transport infrastructure. All but one mainline railway terminus and four bridges across the Thames were temporarily closed. In total, a shocking 700 acres of the capital were burnt down or pounded into rubble.
By mid-May 1941, German aircraft had dropped over 18,000 tons of high explosive bombs and hundreds of thousands of incendiaries on the capital. Yet, London was a huge target. Prime Minister Churchill calculated that the city could absorb great punishment (possibly for years) as he tried to secure direct American entry into the war.
Respite came as Hitler turned eastwards. By May 1941, the Nazi leader was finalising his grand strategic plan – the invasion and defeat of the Soviet Union. This invasion – Operation Barbarossa – was launched on 22 June 1941, diverting many German aircraft from attacks on Britain. The Blitz was over. The nation breathed a sigh of relief.
Even so, air attacks on Britain did not cease until 1945. The sirens continued to sound. Sporadic, smaller scale night raids took place in the so-called 'Lull' of 11 May 1941 to 21 January 1944. Major conventional air raids then resumed in the 'Little Blitz' from 21 January to 19 April 1944. This was followed by the final, highly destructive V-Weapons flying bomb and rocket campaign of 13 June 1944 to 29 March 1945.
Echoes
85 years on the Blitz still finds echoes in Britain and beyond. In 2025 television news reports from Ukraine routinely show cities under extended air attack, to the accompaniment of blaring sirens. It is also no accident that the British government has chosen Sunday 7 September 2025 – anniversary of the start of the Blitz in 1940 – to test Britain’s own current civil defence readiness. At 3pm on 7 September the British government will test a National Emergency Alarm (a 10-second siren sound) to all (87 million) mobile phones across the UK.
The most enduring historical echo from the Blitz is that conventional (i.e non nuclear) bombing of cities does not in itself break a nation’s will to resist. Relentless allied bombing of German cities from 1940-1945 reduced them to rubble, killing around 353,000 civilians, including an estimated 25,000 in Dresden (on 13-15 February 1945). Over 55,000 aircrew from RAF Bomber Command and some 26,000 USAAF (United States Army Air Force) aircrew died in the process. Nazi Germany continued to fight on until a devastated Berlin was taken by Soviet ground forces on 8 May 1945. In Japan, allied conventional air raids killed between 330,000-500,000 civilians, including some 85,000 in Tokyo (9-10 March 1945). Further Japanese resistance looked probable, at high allied cost, before US President Harry Truman settled the argument. Only after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima (6 August 1945) and Nagasaki (9 August 1945) did Japan capitulate (on 15 August 1945). The bombing of cities was no longer to be just a matter of high explosives and incendiaries. A new age of nuclear weapons had arrived.
