The Blitz - The Bombs Rain Down

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THE BLITZ - THE BOMBS RAIN DOWN


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http://www.whatifyou.com/ww2memorial/wwii__chapter_7.htm

On 30th August 1940, the German News Bureau announced to London "The attacks of our Luftwaffe are only a prelude. The decisive blow is about to fall."
For once, the German propaganda machine spoke the truth. At 4.56pm on the fine, late summer afternoon of Saturday September 7th, London's air-raid sirens, later to be known less than affectionately as "Moaning Minnies", announced the arrival of 375 German bombers and supporting fighters. They came up the Thames to London from the sea and set the London docks ablaze. As darkness fell, the fires burnt fiercely all over East London, and illuminated the efforts of a London Fire Brigade that was to have no rest for almost two months. This was the beginning of the London Blitz, and the only mass daylight raid of a campaign of terror that was characterised by the undaunted spirit of the civilian population. Although the daylight bombers were gone by 6pm that evening, the fires were still burning fiercely when the night raiders arrived to inflict more damage at 8.10pm.
The raid lasted until 4.30am. Seemingly endless sticks of incendiary bombs and high explosive rained down. By dawn London had nine major conflagrations: huge spreading areas of flame, nineteen fires that would normally have called for thirty pumps or more, forty ten-pump fires, and nearly a thousand lesser fires, any one of which would have made the front pages in peace time. Thousands of houses in the inner suburbs along the Thames were destroyed or damaged in one night. Some 430 men, women and children were killed and 1,600 were seriously injured.
The next night, the German bombers came again, this time attacking the ancient square mile of the City of London, financial capital of the world, as well as the London docks. For nine and a half hours, 200 bombers droned overhead, causing no less than twelve conflagrations, putting the railway network to the South of London out of action and destroying hundreds of houses. A further 412 civilians were killed, and 747 were seriously injured.
On Monday night, 370 were killed and 1,400 injured. On Tuesday a similarly frightening trail of destruction was left by another mighty raid. But on Wednesday London began to fight back, as the anti-aircraft batteries in the middle of the great sprawling city opened up with their reassuring racket. No aircraft were destroyed, but casualties were fewer and damage reduced.
Every single night for the rest of September the bombers came, the fires burned, and the death toll mounted. By the end of the month, 5,730 people had been killed and nearly 10,000 badly injured. Roads were cratered, telephone systems crippled, gas mains fractured, electricity supplies destroyed. Hospitals all over Greater London were damaged, some severely.