Part 3 - The London Blitz

For every single night of the rest of September and every night of October the bombers came, the fires burned and the
death toll mounted. By the end of September - in twentyfour days - 5,730 people had been killed and nearly 10,000
badly injured in London. Roads were cratered, telephone systems crippled, gas mains fractured, electricity supplies
destroyed. Hospitals all over Greater London were damaged, some severely. But "life" went on - we still went to work
or Home Guard or Air Raid duty. We all suffered from lack of sleep, food was severely rationed, it was easy to be
hungry but we persevered - but then - we had no option. Electric, telephone and gas lines were patched and repaired but few homes
(especially in the "poor" East End) had telephones at that time. I shall never forget the sour and acrid
smell of burning and the next morning smell of burnt material (and some still smoldering), water soaked.

October 1940 seemed to produce a lessening of the size and scale of the attacks, although the bombers came every night
and more people died. On the night of the 15th. October, with a full moon ("bomber's moon"), over 400
bombers dropped over a thousand bombs. In that one raid another 430 men, women - and children - were killed, 900
badly hurt. No break came until the night of November 2nd, which would have been the 57th consecutive night of the
Blitz when London prepared for the usual devastating rain of high explosive and incendiary bombs. But the raiders
miraculously did not come that night. I am still searching the Luftwaffe archives to find out why!

During November, there were only three nights the Luftwaffe did not come, and again they concentrated
their biggest effort around the full moon on the 12th. The 14th. November saw the German bombers attack
Coventry a cathedral but industrialized (mostly auto industry) city.

Although Churchill knew of this raid in advance, Coventry was not forewarned, due to the need to keep the British
decryption of the German Enigma Code a secret from the Germans, lest they change it. The raid on Coventry
destroyed the famous Cathedral and devastated the city. Churchill was frequently criticized after the war for this lack
of forewarning, but I doubt that forewarning would have saved many lives anyway.

By the end of November 1940, 12,696 civilians - men, women and - tragically - children in London had died, about
20,000 had been severely injured and approximately 36,000 bombs had fallen on England's capital. After November,
the Germans decided (and I think they were incorrect in making that decision) that this strategy, an attempt to crush the
British "will," would not work. If they had kept up those raids - if they had not diverted much of the Luftwaffe to the
east in preparation for the invasion of Russia, I think the will or at least the nerves of the British public to resist might
well have been crushed eventually. Every Londoner's nerves were stretched very, very tight. Perhaps close to
breaking point. How long could the strongest will survive the coninuous battering?

But the Luftwaffe did change the pattern and the number of bombers and the pattern of bombing became more
widespread but just as destructive, with great fire raids on the City of London in December and more raids in
January 1941. The raids on London continued until May 1941, by which time 40,000 civilians had been killed and 46,000 more
seriously injured. Over one million homes had been destroyed or damaged (including ours). RAF involvement was
mainly the contribution of light fighter/bombers and fighters equipped with the new airborne interception radar to
intercept the German bomber formation at night and was not very effective at the time. Neither were the British
anti-aircraft guns - numerous as they were. In fact, walking around London at night as I sometimes did with my friends, when not
on Home Guard duty, was as dangerous from falling shrapnel (pieces of the antiaircraft shells) as it was from bomb
blast! For years after the war I kept two such pieces, quite large enough to at least injure. Both pieces were about
one quarter inch thick, one was three inches in length, the other just over four - that had fallen close enough to me
for me to find - after they had cooled off enough for me to pick up - not knowing how hot they would be I got
badly blistered fingers the first time I attempted to pick one up! Frequently, when so walking, I would
kick against or tread on such pieces - but, even more frequently there was the broken glass - everywhere, from the
thin stuff of ordinary house windows to the thick plate glass of shop and store windows. House and store windows
would shatter as far as a half mile from where a bomb actually fell - while some that were closer did not. One night I actually
saw a store plate glass window "sucked out" rather than blown out - for a brief fraction of a second it seemed to swell out from its
mounting. Bomb blast was extraordinary in its peculiar behavior - sometimes it damaged by creating a momentary
vacuum.

The "real" London Blitz finally ended soon after an extremely heavy raid on May 10,1941, when almost 1,500 people
were killed on that one night and the House of Commons was severely damaged. Over 2,000 fires raged over a wide
area of the capital. I was on Docks guard duty that (again a Saturday) night - we were then convinced that an airborne
invasion was imminent.

Two small personal incidents from that night - we patrolled the docks on foot and in pairs, carrying just our rifles
(for which we only had 5 rounds of ammunition!) - and there were many bombs falling close by. Hearing one loud
"whistle" - I shall never forget the sound of bombs "whistling" - that seemed headed directly at us - my partner and I
dived under a big truck, parked nearby and already loaded with a ton or two of material. We lay flat just under the
hood (bonnet) of the engine. The bomb actually missed us by a hundred or more yards but we both clearly saw (fires
all around, plenty of light by which to see) the blast lift the wheels of the truck clear of the ground - and drop them
within a foot of our heads - that is when we learned that under a truck is NOT a good place to take cover when a
bomb falls nearby. But in those days the instinct was to "duck" - under anything that looked liked shelter.

Second incident - the Germans were by then using quite a number of delayed action bombs (their theory being that -
because no one knew for how much time the bomb was "delay" action fused - it would prevent anyone from going
near the area for as long as a day or two, keeping factories evacuated, homes empty and thus delaying production) -
but the Army Royal Engineers and Artillery regiments already had "bomb disposal squads" working - the most nerve
wracking and dangerous job you could imagine - anyway that night they dropped one largish delayed action bomb
right in the middle of the street of houses leading down to the gates of the dock we were guarding - going off duty
next morning at about 8 a.m. we had to climb over and around the crater it had made for itself and it could be clearly
seen. Well - it was Sunday, all the houses in the street had been evacuated by the Air Raid Precaution people -
standard practice with delayed action bombs - the people being sheltered in a nearby school - but Sunday remained the
traditional day for a hot midday meal (although we were rationed to only a few ounces of meat per person per
week) and at about 10 a.m. a group of the housewives who lived in that street persuaded the policeman on duty on
the barrier at the end to just let them "slip home, to get the meat and veggies for the Sunday meal and a few extra
pieces of clothing" - unwisely he did so and went with them - and that bomb exploded while they were approaching -
over 20 of them, including the policeman, were killed. Two or three survived to tell this tale. All for the sake of a meal.
But ordinary people did extraordinary things during the blitzes. If you told me now that there was an unexploded
bomb down the road I would run a mile - but then I was 18 and was hungry for my breakfast so I just clambered over one.

In the following weeks smaller attacks continued on London and other cities, but by the early summer of 1941 the vast
majority of the Luftwaffe's striking power had been redeployed in Eastern Europe prior to the launching of Operation
Barbarossa, Hitler's planned surprise attack on Russia. The "real" London Blitz was finally over. London had by then
been been subject to well over 150 raids in 200 days - receiving over 18,000 tons of high explosive - more than
the rest of the country put together.

Another bizarre episode from the blitz - early in 1943, with the air raids being intermittent many
Londoners were still leading "normal" lives - such as "going to the movies" - but during a small air raid on the night of March
3, 1943 the British air defences used a new kind of anti-aircraft weapon that emitted an eerie and new sound in the
night. A crowd of moviegoers - having just left the local cinema's last show of the day - panicked at hearing it and made for
the nearest shelter - the then under construction Bethnal Green Tube Station - my "local" tube
station (although it wasn't completed and in service until after the war - the "tunnel" - deep underground was there)
less than a mile from our new home and widely used as an air raid shelter. In an uncontrolled surge to get below
ground someone descending the single steep flight of steps down to the station entrance slipped and fell - the crowd
pushing from behind made more people fall over him or her - and, before the panic ended - 173 people were
crushed/suffocated and died in that panic - no bomb - just panic caused those deaths. At the time I was away at my RAF
base and and no-one of my family was involved but it was "close to home" and tragic. A reminder of how close the Londoners
- and particularly the East Enders - were to being simply overwhelmed by the Blitz. We were frightened.
We lived with fear - I was just a teenager who all feel themselves "fireproof" but now I wonder what were the
feelings of our elders - our parents - their fear must have been greater and greater still the fear of those who had
already lost someone in the family or dear to them. They did a remarkably courageous job of hiding them - it was a subject
that was never discussed - then. I wonder if I could have been as hardy as I was - if I were their age then?

The citizens of London, had more to face in the later years of the war, with Hitlers' "vengeance weapons" raining
destruction on London once more. The V1 "doodlebug" pilotless jet aircraft/bomb with its ominous throbbing drone
"drom, drom, drom" and then almost silent fall, and the deadly, unstoppable faster-than-sound rocket V2 , launched from
sites in Holland and France. Only when the allied forces captured and overran these sites in 1945 did the raids cease.

It was in June of 1944 that the Germans launched the first V1 - the "Doodlebug" - it essence it was a jet-propelled
pilotless automatic one ton flying bomb with a limited range of 150 miles and generally flew at only a few thousand feet
altitude. Originally they were launched from sites close to the French coast aimed vaguely at London and automated
so that when they had flown a certain distance their engine would cut out - and they would fall - as a bomb.
The jet engine that flew it had a peculiar throbbing sound unlike an ordinary aircraft - more like a distant
powerful motor cycle - Londoners got very used to listening to that sound, relieved when it passed over and
beyond them - diving for shelter when the engine stopped overhead! By the middle of June London and its eastern
surrounds were getting as many as three hundred a day falling. In August the Prime Minister - Winston Churchill - made
a statement to the House of Commons and said after seven weeks of non-stop V1 attacks, 5,340 having being
launched toward Britain, that 4,735 civilians had been killed, 14,000 injured and 17,000 houses completely destroyed
by them.

Victory in the ‘Battle of the Doodlebugs" was proclaimed after only 80 days of V1 bombardment with over 8,000
flying-bombs launched, with approximately 2,300 reaching London. By that time the Allied Forces in Europe had
overrun all the bases from which they were launched.

But then, in September the Germans launched their faster-than-sound V2 rockets from mobile launchers in Holland
and it was not until the end of the following March they too were stopped by the allied advance in Europe. It was
reported that in all 1,115 V2s were fired at Britain, - an average of roughly 6 every day, causing 2,754 deaths and
over 6,000 serious injuries. Funny thing about the V2s - you could not say they landed - you had no advance warning
of their coming - when they "hit" there was tremendous "bang" plus a tremendous shockwave and - for a mile or so
around - the ground really trembled - then silence and a huge crater. The shock of hearing one close was so great
that it felt as though one's heart was stopped by fear - but then came the breathless realization that "if you heard
the bang - you were OK!" But there was no doubt that of all the bombardment of London, the V2s were the most frightening.
Afterwards!

One way and another - the civilian population of Britain and especially London was under bombardment from
early in September 1940 until late March of 1945 but "The Blitz" generally refers to that strategic bombing campaign
conducted by the Germans against London and other cities in England from September of 1940 through May of
1941.

The way the ground used to shake and the huge and vicious bang when there was a "close one" - the fading "rumble"
of collapsing masonry that followed and - if it was close by - the glass shattering and falling. Especially
with the V2s - during their "period" later in the war, I was on leave and visiting one of my old school friends (also on leave)
who - by then - lived further out of London - in the "countrified" eastern outskirts to which his family had been moved after their
London house was damaged beyond repair - it was one Sunday and we went out for a morning walk. Birdsong - the
birds never deserted London - and peaceful quiet and then a V2 hit almost a mile from us. The ground shock - even at
that distance - was so sharp that he stumbled and fell and I fell on top of him. We looked at one another and we were
both as white as sheets and I swear it took us a couple of minutes before we realized we were perfectly safe. When we
got up, we were still trembling.

What things to completely forget! ................................Most of all the birds still singing.

The V1s weren't as "scary" - they didn't make as big a bang nor caused the ground to shake so much. Once,
during the V1 era - remember it lasted less than 3 months - I was home on leave - and so was my sister Violet's
husband - Cyril (also RAF) - when a couple of V1s fell close - one in a nearby London Park the other somewhere up
toward "the City" area. At that time (in our "new" house, which had no semi basement) we had one of those
quarter inch 6 ft. square steel "table" shelters in the "front parlour" room of the house - only houses without
basements got them. My mother ("in the comfort of her own home") and Vi were already in it - - and also with us
there was the widow lady from next door who didn't have a shelter.

It wasn't that bad a night, just one every half hour or so and Cyril and I were standing outside the front door
having a smoke so we heard that peculiar throb, throb, throb of the V1 engine close by and when it stopped we
looked at each other and yelled "everyone under the table" - you had somewhere between 20 to 30 seconds
after the engine stopped before the explosion (it depended on what altitude they were flying at
when their engine stopped) - and dived for it ourselves. But the lady from next door had a great Alsatian (German
Shepherd) dog and - with the uproar - it got all excited and stood there barking and snarling at us, daring us to come
further. Anyway I remember Cyril literally grabbed that big hound and threw him across the room and we dived under
- my legs were still outside when the bang came - it was the one in the nearby Park and of course - falling there
it harmed no one but blew out a lot of windows locally, including ours.

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