London Blitz - what's to celebrate?

In view of the current celebrations, my son, who fortunately hasn’t experienced war first hand, thought my infrequent blog ought to feature my memories of the London Blitz. They are sparse as I was 4 at the time but I do remember the night sky lit up red from the burning buildings pierced by roving searchlights. They were invariably ineffective as they attempted to pinpoint the intruders but their presence as with the anti-aircraft balloons were intended to give us Londoners confidence that we were not being beaten by the Nazis. Our propaganda was as good as their propaganda.

We lived in Wood Green, North London and in September 1940 Hitler’s bombers began attacking London before other cities and as soon as the sirens went off alerting us to the imminent arrival of waves and waves of opposing Luftwaffe aircraft – we headed for the Anderson shelter in the garden. In one night for instance, although we didn’t count them – 1,000 bombers and fighters sent down high explosive and incendiary bombs.

Shelter was a euphemism – it consisted of a cement dugout some 9 feet by 7 feet, covered by a rounded sheet of corrugated iron. Any near hit would obliterate everything in its path. But limited as the shelter was – we quickly headed for the dark, dank space in our pyjamas armed with candles -necessary if we hoped to see anything as the ‘tomb’ had no ‘mod-cons’.

And there we stayed listening to the scream of the bombs heading earthwards and the explosive crunch as they made contact. We stayed there until we heard the all-clear siren. But sometimes it meant rushing out again in the middle of the night if another wave of bombers arrived. This continued on consecutive nights until May 1941. I understand that a million London homes were destroyed and only some 43,000 Londoners died.

My dad was in the AFS (Auxiliary Fire Service) later to be the NFS (National Fire Service) so he truly earned his medal for fighting the fires. He was unassuming as always and when I later asked him what memories he had – he only commented that once he’d fallen off the fire engine as it rounded a corner and he was picked up by the Station Commander and reached the fire before the fire engine. But the movies made of that event show only a part of the heroism and sacrifice made by all who were involved at the time.

Later in the war having gone with my mother to Yorkshire to escape the continual bombing we stayed only three months as my mother said ‘we can’t leave your dad on his own’. So we came back – just in time for the buzz bombs (V1 flying bombs) and V2 rockets which added another 9,000 civilian deaths. Then, I do remember the drone of the buzz bombs; the silence as the engine cut out; the counting up to ten as the bomb silently angled down towards the ground and the sigh of relief we breathed when the crunch we heard didn’t include us. V2 rockets gave no warning. Next morning at ‘Assembly’ we schoolchildren would look around at the spaces left by the missing children.

Hitler didn’t dent our morale and the figure of 600,000 deaths by bombing that were predicted fortunately didn’t happen. Ultimately Britain defeated Germany... again. Now the countries’ rivalry extends to the soccer pitch with much emotional pain but with much fewer deaths.

To sign off, I attach a youngster’s view of the war. My father’s as a 13 year old at the time of World War 1. It’s one of few pieces of memorabilia I have of him and reminds me that any artistic talent I may have emanated from him. What do you think, Pop?