"Your indefatigable, courageous attacks on the head of the British Empire, the city of London with its eight and a half million inhabitants, have reduced the British plutocracy to fear and terror" Hermann Goering, Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe "London is in flames", crowed Goering to his admiring wife over the telephone on the evening of September 7, 1940. His Luftwaffe had returned its attention from the destruction of RAF airfields to the bombing of the cities. At last, the long awaited terrors of the blitz had begun. It was fear of the blitz that had driven the Appeasers to try to make terms with Hitler in the thirties. Pre-war military planners had warned of appalling casualty rates: 600,000 killed in London and 1.2 millions wounded in the first six months of bombing; total breakdown of life in the Capital; between three and four millions driven insane; corpses unburied, epidemics and hysteria. It was widely feared, by the authorities, that a 'deep shelter' mentality would develop: that people would go down into the tube stations and refuse to come out.
Goering's failure to clear the RAF from the sky led to Hitler abandoning his invasion plans. NINE MONTHS OF HELL This was the nightmare all expected. Terrible though the reality of the blitz was, it was not as bad as planners feared. Civilian deaths by bombing, for the whole country for the entire war, were only 60,595. According to the forecasts the 18,000 tons of bombs that fell on London should have killed over 280,000 of her citizens. Some 300 bombers brought the blitz to London's docks and East End streets on the afternoon of September 7. That torch blazed into the night to light the way for the next wave of bombers who struck over 300 tons of HE bombs and more incendiaries. It was the start of an agony that was to last nine months. The memories of those who lived through it, in London, Liverpool, Hull, Plymouth, Bristol, Southampton, Clydebank, Portsmouth and Glasgow remain undimmed. There were strange, unforgettable sights. Flocks of city pigeons flew all night, bemused by the strange light in the sky. When sugar warehouses caught fire, the molten mass flowed into the docks and burned on top of the water. Gin poured over the Thames, too, burning with an unearthly blue flame. Wooden cobbles in the streets burned underfoot. Standing in his cathedral, the Dean of St. Paul's watched, in awe, as the stained glass windows were illuminated in all their glory by the fires outside. SPIRIT OF THE BLITZ Out of all this, the spirit of the blitz emerged. It has gone into history as a spirit of straightforward stoic courage and endurance: a refusal by the people of Britain to collapse into the hysteria or madness expected. The reality was not quite so straightforward. The heroism was immense: the role of firefighters, wardens, ordinary men and women will be accounted in later issues. But there is no doubt-and understandably-that there was real terror and confusion, not reported in the newspapers. Thousands fled the towns, in a phenomenon known as 'trekking'. In the west they trekked to Dartmoor, curling up on wet moorland to sleep. From London, they trekked to Epping Forest, camping out as best they could. Official 'Rest Centers' were dismal places. The official history of the war recounts 'dim figures in dejected heaps on unwashed floors in total darkness...disheveled, half-dressed people wandering between the bombed houses and the rest center salvaging bits and pieces'. 'SEE YER IN THE MORNING' But the cheerfulness of the blitz is not a myth. Those who stayed and took it had good reason to be proud: there was a feeling of exhilaration, adrenalin in the bloodstream. For those who had been lonely and poor, trapped in the drab depression of the prewar years, the war was-to say the least-a time of excitement and togetherness. Between September 7 and 9 only four out of hundreds of raiders had been shot out of the skies. With furious energy Sir Frederick Pile assembled 199 AA guns by the 11th and, knowing the skies to be clear of friendly planes at night, ordered his gunners to shoot off all their ammunition at anything that flew. The effect of the barrage on the spirits of the Londoners was heartening, despite the injuries sustained from falling shrapnel. The raiders were alarmed into flying higher and some simply dumped their bombs in the surrounding countryside. Industrial morale ran high, too. Many Coventry factories were in full production again within six weeks of their particular catastrophe. One aircraft factory worker recalled: "You would see men staggering at their work from lack of sleep, snatching a ten minute doze in the canteen over their food, and still, when knocking off time came, going off with a cheerful, 'See yer in the morning, boys!" The blitz was not restricted to industrial centers. The Allied raid on the beautiful port of Lubeck produced a German response that became known as the Baedeker raids. They raided towns of tourist interest in an attempt to destroy their fine buildings and the pride of their inhabitants. These raids fell on towns and cities such as Canterbury, Exeter, Norwich and Bath (where 400 people died). It was an extravagant gesture which failed to advance the German war effort. PUSHED TO THE LIMIT Nevertheless, the government had reason to fear morale might collapse. It cannot be known how much punishment the British could have absorbed before defeatism set in. 'People cannot stand this intensive bombing indefinitely...sooner or later the morale of towns will go, even as Plymouth's has gone' confided Harold Nicholson to his diary on May 7, 1941. Though Churchill, touring the blitzed areas, felt himself encompassed by 'an exaltation of spirit in the people' it is arguable that by the time the blitz ended, the British had been pushed close to the limits. LONDON: 2,200 FIRES IN A NIGHT In London, the end came on May 10, 1941: 2,200 fires burned in the metropolis that night. A record 1,436 died. The War Office, Westminster Abbey, the Tower, the Mint were among key buildings struck; 250,000 books burnt in the British Museum. At the moment, there were many who waited for the final blow: the onslaught that would bring in the nightmares imagined in the 1930's. And, at that moment. Germany turned her attention to the Russian Front. Once again, as in the Battle of Britain, providence seemed to take a hand in our destiny. As reported by the War Papers
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