BLITZ SPIRIT

‘The air was filled by the roar of 348 bombers escorted by 617 fighters’

London was unusually warm on 7 September 1940, the bricks still glowing deep red by the light of the fading summer and the sky a brilliant clear blue. The Second World War was just over a year old, but it still had surprises left in it. These were recorded in sobering detail by the London Fire Brigade, and are now held by the London Metropolitan Archive.

At around 5.30pm the air was filled by the roar of 348 German bombers with an escort of 617 fighters. The anti-aircraft batteries across the city coughed plumes of smoke against the onslaught, and the solitary silhouettes of Spitfires and Hurricanes crossed the sky in retaliation. Over 30 minutes, the Luftwaffe poured the beginnings of an estimated 650 tons of high explosives and 800 incendiary bombs onto the city. Incendiaries burned white-hot, setting anything nearby alight