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Blitz

Blitz, the German word for 'lightning', was applied by the British press to the tempest of heavy and frequent bombing raids carried out over Britain in 1940 and 1941. This concentrated direct bombing of industrial targets and civilian centres began on 7 September 1940, with heavy raids on London.

The scale of the attack rapidly escalated. In that month alone, the German Air Force dropped 5,300 tons of high explosives on the capital in just 24 nights. In their efforts to 'soften up' the British population and to destroy morale before the planned invasion, German planes extended their targets to include the major coastal ports and centres of production and supply.

The infamous raid of November 14 1940 on Coventry brought a still worse twist to the campaign. 500 German bombers dropped 500 tons of explosives and nearly 900 incendiary bombs on the city in ten hours of unrelenting bombardment, a tactic later emulated on an even greater scale by the RAF in their attacks on German cities.

The British population had been warned in September 1939 that air attacks on cities were likely and civil defence preparations had been started some time before, both on a national and a local level. Simple corrugated steel Anderson shelters, covered over by earth, were dug into gardens up and down the country. Larger civic shelters built of brick and concrete were erected in British towns and a blackout was rigorously enforced after darkness.

The night raids became so frequent that they were practically continuous. Many people who were tired of repeatedly interrupting their sleep to go back and forth to the street shelters, virtually took up residence in a shelter. This gave rise to a new spirit of solidarity and community.

Londoners took what seemed to them an obvious and sensible solution to the problem and moved down in their thousands into the tube stations. At first, this was actively discouraged by the government. However, this popular action held sway and it was a common sight for a traveller on the Underground in wartime London to pass through a station crowded with the sleeping bodies of men, women and children and their belongings.

The main air offensive against British cities diminished after May 1941, with the change of direction of the German war machine towards Russia. However, sporadic and lethal raids, using increasingly larger bombs, continued for several more years.

Daily Mirror's account

September 9, 1940 - Second Night in the Battle of London

German bombers  © The battle for London was on again last night, when Hitler once more launched his bombers at the city. Bombs crashed in the London area.

All day long London had been coolly 'patching up' the damaged spots left after the heavy and prolonged attacks made on Saturday - the first day of the battle.

Immediately after last night's warning - it was London's second of the day - a fierce anti-aircraft bombardment opened up. It started in one outer district, shaking doors and windows, but in a few seconds the Central London guns were in action.

There was the sound of a screaming bomb and an explosion.

Raiders approached London from the north-west. Several planes droned over a suburb.

A second wave came toward the East London area three-quarters of an hour after the warning.

The German machines approaching from the south-east could be seen at a great height. A.A. shells burst round them and they changed their course.

Some bombs were dropped on a suburb, including incendiaries, which started a blaze.

Fires Their Guide

Some of the German machines appeared to turn over another district owing to the fierce A.A. gunfire and flew back toward the coast without, apparently, reaching their main objective.

It was evident that the German airmen had used the smouldering fires of Saturday's raids to guide them, for the attacks were directed at the same area - London's dockland.

The first hour of the attack was considerably less formidable than Saturday's raid - fewer enemy planes were penetrating the intense defensive barrage from the coast to London. At the end of an hour there was a hushed lull.

Ten minutes passed - then, 'like all hell let loose', the whole of London's defence barrage roared and crashed into action, heralding the return of the raiders.

Dull menacing crunches, whining and quivering reverberations were heard. Livid flashes leapt across the darkened sky as the planes dropped their bombs.

A.A. - 3 in Minute

The London area's first warning sounded as formations of raiders attempted a daylight attack.

As one big formation emerged from clouds over a south-east area, three Dorniers were blown to pieces within a minute by A.A. fire. The brilliant marksman was a gunner aged 22.

When the planes were hit their bombs were released and fell over a wide area. Shops and cottages were badly damaged, but all the occupants escaped injury.

The bombs set light to a schoolroom at a boys' home and the matron's house. A master gave the alarm and the elder boys fought the flames.

Members of the Home Guard, disbanding after a church parade, captured one of the airmen who had baled out. He told them that four others were close.

The Myth of the Blitz

Bombed houses  © The account of the Blitz - as Britain's major cities experienced a sustained and unrelenting bombardment by Nazi Germany - has been etched into our country's conscience ever since the war years. The question has to be asked, however, as to whether the subsequent victory in the war, and the following 60 years, have coloured the way in which it is now generally seen?

Our heritage industry has encouraged a 'Myth of the Blitz', that differs from the reality of wartime experience. The myth is that we all pulled together, that spirits were up as young and old, upper and lower classes muddled through together with high morale under the onslaught of the Nazis.

But the 'Myth of the Blitz' is just that - a myth. As members of the establishment were able to take refuge in country houses, in comfort and out of the way of the bombs, or in expensive basement clubs in the city, the lower-middle and working classes were forced to stay in the cities and face up to the deadly raids with inadequate provision for shelter.

It was a time of terror, confusion and anger. Government incompetence - almost criminal in its extent - displayed what was almost a contempt for ordinary people. It was time for the people to help themselves to the shelter they needed. It was a time of class war.

Since the end of World War One, air attack had been seen as the warfare of the future. Predictions about the unstoppable destructive power of bombing had been terrifying. Nothing seemed safe, as industrial and domestic buildings were equally threatened. There was a real fear that society would quickly collapse, under a concerted bombing campaign. Provision of shelter from the anticipated bombing was a major issue of concern.

At first no one in authority seemed concerned about the people of Britain's towns who, unlike the upper classes, could not leave their homes and find shelter in the country. Hitler had provided large, sanitary and comfortable indestructible shelters for his people, but in this country it was a different story.

The government had understood that the safest means of shelter seemed to be deep underground shelters, so a shelter for the use of government officials was built in the disused Down Street tube station. It was fitted out with bathrooms, offices and living quarters, and it remains in place to this day - forgotten and dusty.

Finsbury, in London, was a communist borough and its councillors also recognised the need to shelter its people safely. However, a pre-war scheme designed by pioneering engineer Ove Arup to build deep shelters in its garden squares was halted.

The government expressed concern that a deep shelter system might create a 'deep shelter mentality': the fear that hordes of people might descend into the bowels of the earth and never come out, rendering them useless to the war effort and hampering war production. Unfortunately, the shelter that the government actually provided for the people was a lot more meagre.

Shelter for the people

Anderson shelter  © In the first years of the Blitz, Anderson shelter were provided by the government, and 150,000 of these were distributed to houses with gardens. They were constructed of corrugated iron, many quite poorly, and were usually cold and damp, but they did provide a little private shelter for those who had them.

Many people did not want to leave their homes, and even owners of Anderson shelters would forsake their shelters for the comfort of the understairs cupboard. The Morrison shelter was an iron cage that doubled as a table, but was designed to protect the family as their house collapsed around them. The theory was that they would crawl out from the rubble unhurt. However, if they were trapped and the house was on fire, they would die, powerless to save themselves.

But what of those without a Morrison or Anderson shelter, those without a garden and who lived in high density housing? For these people, communal shelters were constructed in the basements of certain houses, to be used by those who happened to be out and about when the raid happened. The government also decided to build surface shelters, in streets. These were built of brick, with concrete roofs, and were for families in surrounding estates.

Due to the incompetence of the Government's construction specification, however, an ambiguous instruction was misinterpreted, and resulted in a sand and lime mix being used in the construction, without the benefit of cement. These dark shelters quickly became squalid, unsanitary and dangerous. When the bombs began to fall, these inadequate shelters simply crumbled, and many people sheltering in them died.

On 7 September 1940, as the bombs began to fall on London, it quickly became clear to those seeking shelter that there was not enough space for everyone. And that even those in the poorly constructed surface shelters weren't safe. Without anywhere to sleep at night, public anger rose ,and people felt that it was time to take the responsibility for shelter into their own hands.

The demand for deep shelter returned, but this time more strongly. The obvious and most popular move in London was to take over the underground tube system. The government had previously ruled out - indeed forbidden - the use of the tube. But for many it was the last place of refuge. So by simply buying a ticket and staying underground for the duration of the raid, people slowly began to occupy the underground system.

The shelterers made it clear that they intended on making these new sanctuaries their homes. The government had to bow to pressure, and began to supply bunk beds and toilets for the tube dwellers. Nightly, a community of 60,000 would convene underground in London. A community was born, and the first victory for the people was won.

Deep shelters

An Anderson shelter which remained intact after taking the full force of a bomb (London, March 20 1941)  © Following the victory over the tube stations, people began to occupy the safe basements of other public buildings. In church crypts throughout the country, terrified people possibly missed the irony of sheltering among a room full of corpses.

The people of Liverpool used the crypt of St Luke's church for shelter, and here they sat, literally surrounded by death, as the bombs fell around them. When the city was hit on 3 May 1941, British morale had never been so low. Liverpool and its leadership collapsed. Its citizens were caught up in a war that they did not want to be involved in, and that many of them probably did not even understand. They were ready to surrender, but what could they do? Their story was suppressed by government censorship.

In its attempts to cover up low morale, the government made what has come to be seen as a huge mistake. They tried to show that life in London was carrying on as normal, and there was much coverage in the press of people going to parties, dining out and clubbing in the West End. This propaganda certainly backfired in London. The majority of the population, particularly in the East End, were not dining and partying in reinforced basement clubs. For them, shelter was either completely non-existent, or extremely poor.

In response, on the evening of 15 September 1940, about 100 people burst into the Savoy Hotel, on the Thames Embankment, demanding shelter. During the confusion the air raid alert sounded, and the manager realised that he could not send the invaders out into danger. The police were called for advice, but before the manager had to decide where to put his unwelcome East Enders, the 'all clear' sounded, and the interlopers retreated. They had made their point for specially designed, comfortable and safe shelter. They were sure that officialdom would now take notice of their concerns.

In late 1940, the tubes began to show their weakness, especially when bombs fell directly on Balham and Bounds Green underground stations. In early 1941, 50 people were killed when a bomb blasted through a ticket hall at Bank station. Perhaps after all it was not the tubes that were going to be the most successful solution, but another scheme championed by the people of the East End - the astonishing shelter known as Mickey's Shelter.

Mickey's was a notorious example of people finding shelter for themselves. It was in the massive vaults beneath the Fruit and Wool exchange in Brushfield St, and it was taken over early in the war as a shelter for 5,000 people. However, on the first night it was opened, twice that number of people crammed in to a space that quickly became the black hole of London. By 7.30pm every bit of floor space was taken up. The floor was awash with urine. People slept on piles of rubbish, and the passages were loaded with filth. The lights were dim or non-existent. There was no room to move.

Out of this chaos, there came a system of rules to make it more bearable. When the shelter was finally recognised by the authorities, toilets were installed. All of this was thanks to Mickey, a 3ft-tall hunchback optician, who had established a shelter committee that went on to elect its own leaders. Mickey's shelter was the people's success - regulated, but not as regulated as the tube system. Here some 10,000 people slept under the same roof, resulting in nightly scenes of fighting, sex, music and laughter.

The people had helped themselves, and it was thanks to their action that the government began to build specially designed deep shelters, linked to the underground system. The class war was won, but the gesture was too little, too late, with the government using the lame excuse that the Germans were using heavier bombs to justify the change in policy.

Eight deep shelters were eventually completed, 80ft to 150ft under the ground. Each of them could hold some 8,000 people. However, none of them was ready until the end of 1942, which was long after the Blitz had started, and thousands of British citizens died due to government incompetence and prevarication in the months immediately before the war.

Stories of the Blitz

Londoners taking shelter in the Tube  © Billy and John took shelter in the Blackstock Road shelter in Liverpool ,which was hit by a bomb. Billy lost his mother, and six brothers and sisters. Billy feels that the government didn't provide the necessary deep shelters in time to give him, his family and his neighbours protection against the bombing.

Peter Prichard took shelter in the London underground tube system. He remembers that it was really dirty down there. Toilet facilities consisted of an iron bucket, with a seat on it. People would make love there, as though they were still at home. 'They weren't the wonderful times that people talk about today.'

Stan Watkinson remembers running for the safety of the shelter with his mother. They made it, but the daughter of a family friend was killed. Stan remembers seeing the corpses of children from his school after the raid. His experiences of the bombing had such a traumatic effect on him that he became very ill. It was so serious that his father was allowed to come home on compassionate leave.

Find out more

Books

The conduct of the Air War in the Second World War edited by Horst Boog (1992)

Bomber Command by Max Hastings (1979)

The Bomber Command War Diaries by Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt (1985)

Blitzkrieg: From the Rise of Hitler to the Fall of Dunkirk by Len Deighton (Vintage/Ebury, 1996)