The Blitz At 85, Part Two: The Blitz Widens
As the Blitz progressed (from 7 Spetember 1940-11 May 1941) the undulating sound of German bomber engines became a nightly, dreaded sound over London and other British cities. The Luftwaffe fleet sent against London was composed of waves of twin-engined Heinkel HE-111, Dornier Do-17 and Junkers JU-88 aircraft from Luftflotten (Air Fleets) Two and Three, based in northern France and the Low Countries. They were accompanied by Bf-109E fighters by day but flew unescorted to the capital by night. From October to November 1940 – the so-called ‘Messerschmitt Month’ – Bf-109E fighters were also given new roles as fighter bombers, flying in daylight at higher attitudes to evade interception and dropping 250kg (550lb) bombs on parts of London, including Waterloo Station. The Luftwaffe also deployed several Junkers JU-86P high-altitude bombers (with pressurised cabins for operations up to 40,000 feet) for daylight photo reconnaissance.
The number of German aircraft sent against London and other British cities in the first months of the Blitz averaged 200-300 bombers per raid, some flying multiple sorties. This rose to over 400 in individual night raids from October 1940, to over 600 (London 16-17 April 1941), and to over 700 (London, 19-20 April 1941).
Night Raiders
The bombers flew by night to the capital up the Thames Estuary or directly in over Kent and Sussex guided by Knickebein (‘crooked leg’), X-Gerat and Y-Gerat on board navigation aids. These systems - variants of the pre-war Lorenzcivil aviation navigation aid – picked up powerful directional radio beams transmitted from separate locations in occupied France. Directed by a radio tone on their headsets, Luftwaffe pathfinder bomber crews ‘rode’ these beams until they converged over London. On moonlit nights, the air crews used the glistening ribbon of the Thames or glinting railway lines as reference points. During the heaviest raids, navigation was elementary: the red glow of the burning capital was visible from sixty miles.
In September 1940, Luftwaffe pilots flying in daylight were equipped with maps demarcating specific districts in London to avoid (mostly street addresses of neutral embassies) and those areas to target deliberately. The latter included the City of London (finance and economy), key transport hubs (railway termini), official government buildings and the docks. During late 1940-1941, this element of precision ceased. As the Blitz progressed, London was designated an ‘area target’ to be saturated at night from high level.
Once over London, German pathfinder bombers dropped parachute flares to illuminate whole streets, followed by canisters ('bread-baskets') of incendiary bombs. The vast majority of bombs dropped during the Blitz were incendiaries. Each German bomber could carry as many as 700. When released, the canisters split open, scattering dozens of small 1kg (2.2lb) incendiaries filled with a Thermite (magnesium) mixture which ignited on impact. Lodged in roof spaces, often inaccessible to firemen, they burned fiercely. Subsequent bomber waves were guided in by the incendiary fires burning in the streets below.
Next, the bombers dropped hundreds of high explosive bombs of varying power, ranging from 50kg (110lb) to 2,500kg (5,500lb), as well as oil-incendiary bombs and highly destructive, 8-ft long 1,000kg (2,200lb) SC1800 parachute mines, which drifted down indiscriminately, until their timer fuses detonated. Containers of 2kg (4.4lb) SD2 butterfly anti-personnel mines were also unloaded on London. After releasing their bomb loads and heading home to their airfields in occupied France and the Low Countries, the night raiders swept back east over Essex and the Thames Estuary or south over Kent, Surrey and Sussex.
Right from the start of the Blitz, these effective tactics threatened to overwhelm the capital’s defences. The air defence of London at night (coordinated by AA Command, part of the Royal Artillery) was a story of many deficiencies. In September 1940, only 90 batteries of manually guided 3.7-inch, 4.5 inch, Vickers Mark VIII 3 inch, 2-pounder and 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft ('ack-ack' or AA) guns were available in the capital’s parks and at key concentrations in the suburbs along the bombers’ routes. This number was rapidly increased to 264 and their deafening barrages boosted Londoners’ morale. Yet, along with attempted interceptions by RAF Bristol Blenheim, radar-arrayed Bristol Beaufighter and Boulton Paul Defiant night-fighters, the anti-aircraft response was largely ineffective. During 1940-1941 the night loss rate of German bombers was a mere 1.5%. 264 batteries were simply not enough and their range predictors proved imprecise. Falling anti-aircraft shells exploded or fell unexploded in London's streets, causing civilian casualties and diverting scarce bomb disposal team resources.
Nevertheless, the heavy barrages (effective up to around 20,000 feet), accompanied by manually operated and, later, electrically directed searchlights (effective up to around 12,000 feet), forced the German bombers to fly at higher altitudes, further denuding their targeting ability. Thousands of barrage balloons, tethered by steel cables, were deployed to deter low-flying German aircraft and became a familiar sight in British cities, ports and next to factories. Static water tanks - to ensure a backup supply for fire pumps during air raids – were erected in many city centres. Large smoke canisters, designed to obscure Britain’s cities and towns from air attack (in the event of a confirmed invasion) were also held in reserve. Under the leadership of Dr R.V Jones, Churchill’s Assistant Director of Intelligence, the British learnt to disrupt the German bomber Knickebein navigation aids with their own radio countermeasures (in the so-called ‘Battle of the Beams’). But Britain's AA defences remained woefully ineffective until 1943, before introduction of radar-controlled guns, proximity fuse shells and new anti-aircraft rocket batteries.
Regional attacks
Luftwaffe attention was not confined to London. The Blitz witnessed concentrated night bombing of British regional cities, industrial and aircraft production centres and the main ports which supplied the British population from the sea. German air raids were subsequently launched across Britain to smash munitions production and to support the U-boat campaign from 1940-1943 against allied merchant shipping convoys sailing to and from Canada and the United States (the ‘Battle of the Atlantic’).
On 14 November 1940, Coventry - a centre for aircraft and automotive production – was devastated by 440 German aircraft in a twelve-hour attack. 500 tons of high explosive bombs and over 30,000 incendiary bombs were dropped. 568 people were killed, 1,256 were seriously injured. In November, raids were made on Birmingham and in December on Merseyside, Southampton, Sheffield and Manchester. On the night of 2 January 1941,100 German bombers attacked Cardiff in a ten-hour raid, dropping 14,000 incendiaries and hundreds of high explosive bombs. 165 were killed and 427 seriously injured. On 3 January, Bristol was struck: 149 were killed, with over 300 injured.
The campaign against the provinces and port cities was unrelenting: Portsmouth (10-11 January 1941, 68 killed, over 160 injured), Swansea (19-22 February 1941, 219 killed, 260 injured), Cardiff (26 February-11 May 1941), Plymouth (20-21 March 1941, 591 killed). Bristol, Portsmouth, Southampton, Birmingham, Coventry, Clydebank, Tyneside were all bombed again heavily from mid-March to April 1941. Belfast was raided on 7-8 April, 15 April and 4 May 1941 inflicting over 700 fatalities. On 8 May it was Nottingham's turn. From April to May 1941, Hull and Liverpool.
Civil Defence
Across Britain, the Blitz of 1940-1941 witnessed a huge demand for national Civil Defence workers, both voluntary and conscripted. In September 1939, hundreds of thousands of Britons of all backgrounds had volunteered for civil defence service. As compulsory military service drew off men aged 18-41 (September 1939), then women aged 19-30 (December 1941), the need for additional manpower became urgent. Over 1.5 million Britons (200,000 in London) were enrolled as volunteer Air Raid Precaution (ARP) wardens. 95,000 (23,000 in London) were recruited as novice firemen into the Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS). Fire watching was made compulsory in Britain from January 1941 and dereliction of duty was punishable by fines or imprisonment.
Many other Britons volunteered for service as nurses, in the Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) and Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), as car, ambulance and mobile crane drivers, motorcycle despatch riders, communications staff, medical orderlies and stretcher bearers. Others worked in Heavy and Light Rescue crews, utility worker groups, decontamination teams and for public transport and the police.
After basic training, these volunteers were responsible for keeping Britain going. After their normal working day, they reported bomb incidents, watched for and fought small and more serious fires, treated the injured, enforced blackout regulations, gave out information, ran temporary Rest Centres and mobile canteens, assisted in the rescue of trapped bomb victims from the mangled ruins of city buildings and the removal of the dead to mortuary vans. Subsisting on monotonous food rations (strict rationing was imposed across Britain from 8 January 1940), they also conducted poison gas and incendiary bomb precaution exercises, took censuses of local buildings, guided civilians to safety, roped off streets and controlled access, helped to clear debris, reported damage, kept order in public air raid shelters and in London’s Underground stations and rehoused the homeless.
Official censorship – and press self-censorship – ensured that the precise details of each bomb incident were obfuscated, even if the damage was obvious to the naked eye. The prevailing British public response to the nightly air raids -as revealed in government surveys of civilian opinion in London and other cities - was one of general fatalism, that survival was largely out of one’s hands. By late October 1940, the public’s fear of invasion was also receding. Socialite Lady Diana Cooper, who experienced the Blitz in London’s Park Lane and worked in a YMCA canteen on Parliament Square, wrote to her son on 20 September 1940: ‘Comfort we have to find in the argument that only one thing matters – not to be overcome’. As the Blitz unwound, this attitude, plus the public-spiritedness of civilian volunteers and conscripts would be tested - to the limit.
