Blitz: The diary of an air raid
Phase 2
29 December 1940: 7pm
Calls to the London Fire Brigade are building an alarming picture. Fire is spreading fast and furiously through the most combustible district of the City. As well as St Paul's, the area the German bombers are targeting is a maze of narrow alleys that is home to the press, cloth and publishing industries, with five million books stored within its streets.
Two auxiliary firefighters are dispatched to Shoe Lane, an alley just west of St Paul's. They are some of the new recruits – writers, artists and pacifists drafted in at the start of the Blitz to support the fire brigade.
Firefighting during the Blitz in London
www.firefightersrealstories.com/ww2.html
Interesting, if somewhat technical, article by an American firefighter on how Londoners were forced – again and again – to fight the flames caused by the Luftwaffe.
It is nearly an hour into the raid and phase 2 of the attack is underway. Thirty more bombers are approaching London. This time, alongside the incendiaries, they carry cargoes of high explosive bombs.
The wave of bombers now passing over the city is being guided in by the fires burning around St Paul's like a beacon. In this phase of the attack, scores of 550-pound bombs are unleashed directly into the fires below. Their purpose is to overwhelm the firefighters, to spread the fires beyond their control.
In Shoe Lane, the bombs have multiplied the fires around the two auxiliary firefighters – artist Leonard Rosoman and writer William Sansom – with terrifying speed, having already swept through the newspaper buildings of neighbouring Fleet Street in less than 15 minutes.
We were drenched with the cold hose water trickling in at our collars and settling down the tails of our shirts. The heavy brass coupling felt moulded from metal ice. We were playing a 50-foot jet up the face of a tall City warehouse and thinking of nothing at all. You don't think of anything after the first few hours. You just watch the white pole of water lose itself in the fire. And you think of nothing.
William Sansom, auxiliary firefighter
The Blitz: Westminster at war by William Sansom (Oxford Paperbacks, 1990). Out of print; may be available from libraries or specialist bookshops.
First published in 1947, this eyewitness account of the Blitz is by one of the leading writers of the day who served in the Auxiliary Fire Service. Sansom recreates the impotence that civilians felt at not being able to fight back, and records the shrugging off of peacetime responsibilities and the jaunty attitudes that existed, paradoxically, at times of the worst bombing. Tragic though the continual destruction was, Sansom also discovered humans thriving in the most unlikely situations.
Leonard Rosoman, artist
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/desertislanddiscs_20020609.shtml
An account of Rosoman's appearance on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, with a list of his chosen eight records, book and luxury.
29 December 1940: 7.15pm
It is clear that the scale of the fires is beyond anything that the City has encountered in the Blitz so far. A London Fire Brigade film unit films the scene as the centre of London, street by street, begins slipping beyond the firefighters' control.
An hour into the raid, some 200,000 people have taken cover in every underground space in and around the City.
From north of St Paul's to the river, whole areas are now burning in vast conflagrations. And yet in one hotel, less than half a mile from the nearest fire, a part of London life continued quite undisturbed. In the midst of one of the most violent air raids in history, American reporter William Lindsay White stops by the Savoy.
People were still dancing. People would come in evening dress, it had to be in evening dress to dance. The American Bar was busy as well.
Joe Gilmore, then barman at the Savoy
Many of White's fellow foreign correspondents were billeted at the hotel, enjoying a lifestyle that few Londoners could afford.
The [hotel's] attendants looked uneasy at what they knew was going on outside, but of course, they were well-disciplined British servants. The people at the other tables were well dressed. They had placid, serene, appeasement-looking faces. Marguerite [a foreign correspondent and supporter of the Free French] and I agreed on how easy it is to get very fond of the British people, who on the whole are so brave and so truly courteous and friendly and tolerant. If only you stay out of the Savoy.
William Lindsay White, war correspondent
A world away, in streets of the fire zone, the full implications of the attack are now apparent. The prime minister is informed that the most symbolic landmark in London is in serious danger. A short time later, an extraordinary order comes back to Fire Control.
One of the officers comes up to us and he said Churchill had made it clear to the fire chiefs: 'Save St Paul's.' Because he felt if that could be saved, you know, we've got something to hold on to. We were told: 'Whatever you do, fight those fires and save that church.'
Richard Holsgrove, wartime firefighter, then 17
But when the fire brigade film unit climbs to the roof of St Paul's, the images they capture reveal for the first time the true scale of the task the firefighters face. The dean of St Paul's and his staff are gradually being enclosed by fire.
Incendiaries were still landing all over the cathedral and the fires raging all around St Paul's, when Mr Churchill sent a message to the fire brigade. The message was passed on to us. We were grateful for this voice from the outside. But I cannot say it inspired us to greater efforts. We were already working to the limit of human endurance.
Walter Matthews, dean of St Paul's
In the Savoy, reporters William White and Marguerite are beginning to realise that this air raid is turning into a news event that will make headlines across the world.
29 December 1940: 7.31pm
An hour and a half into the German air attack, a Heinkel bomber releases a 550-pound high-explosive bomb. It takes approximately 35 seconds to fall four miles to the streets of London below.
Well within its half-mile target radius, it hits the Keyworth Street shelter, a brick-and-concrete structure located off Borough Road in Southwark, across the Thames from St Paul's. Thirty people, including five members of the Feldon family, are trapped underneath the wreckage. Rescue workers begin combing the rubble for survivors. At 7.45, they spot 16-year-old Winnie Feldman, who is rushed to intensive care.
Three major hospitals are in the target area and they are fast becoming overstretched: moments before the Keyworth Street shelter was hit, 30 people were killed in a direct hit on a tram as it travelled along the Embankment.
By now, the raid has been underway for two hours and the city is reeling. The Post Office's Central Telegraph Office on the corner of Newgate Street and St Martin's Le Grand has been set alight by burning debris from adjacent buildings and its interior completely destroyed. Waterloo, Cannon Street and London Bridge railway stations are all on fire, and at Moorgate underground station, the heat is so intense that the railway lines buckle and curl. At the Barbican, where the Museum of London will later be built, the destruction reveals, for the first time in centuries, part of the wall erected round London by the Romans.
Shortly afterwards, firefighters report their most dreaded nightmare: the wind is increasing. It is doing this most rapidly in the area west of St Paul's, around Shoe Lane. The timber interior of a Victorian book warehouse is now a furnace, only its five-storey brick walls keeping it standing. The two auxiliary firefighters, Rosoman and Sansom, are trying to cool the brick with water when they hear something above them.
We were worn down and shivering. There was black water puddling the alleys and our hands and faces were as black as the water. Suddenly we were sharply interrupted by an unusual sound; a long rattling crack of bursting bricks and mortar perforated the moment. I was thinking of nothing at all and then I was thinking of everything in the world.
William Sansom, auxiliary firefighter
Fires Were Started
UK 1943
Directed by Humphrey Jennings
A classic docu-drama of World War II about firefighting during the Blitz. These scenes are reconstructions: director Jennings set fire to some already bombed buildings and the firefighters demonstrated how they would put out the blaze. One of those featured is writer/firefighter William Sansom, who becomes 'Fireman Barrett' in the film.
Sansom and Rosoman know that the noise is the first warning that the brick walls are weakening. The two friends have no means of calling for help, and there is no one to come if they could have done so. All the firefighters from their station have their own ordeals to survive in the surrounding streets.
29 December 1940: 8pm
A mile to the west of Shoe Lane, reporters William White and Marguerite are trying to head into the very area that the firefighters would gladly have evacuated. It is 8pm before they find a taxi driver willing to risk the journey.
But that won't be quite as simple as they imagine. The fire zone is now ringed with police cordons, closing off an area crammed with every fire engine and pump in London.
We told him to drive for the reddest area of the sky ahead, and when he got into it, to try and steer for St Paul's. We held our press passes through the window and the policeman waved us on through. This impressed the driver greatly. After that, every time we passed a police line he would lean out and say importantly, 'We are the press.'
William Lindsay White, war correspondent
As the journalists' taxi heads into the fires, another wave of bombers is approaching overhead. The raid has been underway for two hours and still planes are crossing the coast of England … heading for London.
The planes seemed to be flying much lower than before. Most of the guns were firing overhead now, but the shells seemed to be bursting higher than the planes were flying.
Bill Regan, rescue worker
Beneath them, the temperature of the fire is now escalating with frightening speed. The spectre of a firestorm is growing by the minute.
29 December 1940: 9pm
It is now three hours into the raid. To the west, firefighters from across the fire zone have been ordered to abandon the burning areas and encircle St Paul's. But the heat is so intense in the narrow alleys that spontaneous combustion is occurring.
You'll see buildings not affected by the fire originally all of a sudden burst into flames. The heat is so great that any woodwork would suddenly ignite and up it goes. Then you realise: 'Any moment, this is going to jump and St Paul's is going to catch fire.'
George Wheeler, wartime firefighter, then 18
At 9pm, the fire brigade film unit is back on the roof of St Paul's. Ludgate Hill, Farringdon Road, every building in Paternoster Square – all are now alight. The fires are less than 25ft (7.6m) from the cathedral walls.
The supply of water to the fire hoses – from water mains smashed by high-explosive bombs – dwindles to a mere trickle. The cathedral has emergency supplies of water: every bath and basin in the church is full. But for the firefighters in the streets below, it is the beginning of a desperate crisis: they are beginning to run out of water.
It was a picture of confusion and destruction. Burning debris was whirling up from the neighbouring fires and the roof was gradually growing hotter and hotter. Then we discovered something even more alarming. The first bombs we had been able to extinguish from the water from the mains, but then the water ceased to flow and our hydrants and hoses were useless. Any fire would have to be tackled with small pumps and buckets of water.
Walter Matthews, dean of St Paul's
It is the very scenario that the Germans had been hoping for. They know that tonight there will be an exceptionally low tide in the Thames. When the firefighters try pumping water up from the river, the pumps clog with mud. They toil for hours dragging heavy suction pipes across an expanse of mud and shallow water from fireboats in midstream before water can be brought to the bank.
While they struggle, the historic heart of London is burning to the ground street by street. The medieval Guildhall is alight, and so too are a cluster of churches that date back to the 17th century, erected to replace those lost during the first Great Fire of London in 1666. Journalist William White and his colleague Marguerite stop to investigate a report that one of those on fire is a Christopher Wren masterpiece: St Bride's with its wedding-cake spire.
It was like a Christmas card picture of a church at night, a black silhouette with light streaming from its windows. From within the church came a noise deeper than a roar. The smell of this fire was now all around us. Marguerite remarked how curious it was, not at all unpleasant but almost like incense or some very sophisticated perfume. It was the spiced odour of oak beams put in after the first great fire of London. It was the scent of the city of London burning.
William Lindsay White, war correspondent
St Bride's Fleet Street
www.stbrides.com
Well-organised website for the 'church of the press, printing and journalism'. The 'History' section has a good account of the night of 29/30 December 1940, when German bombs destroyed most of the interior, and of the restoration that followed.
29 December 1940: 10pm
Four hours into the German air attack:
Suddenly there's a different noise and you realise it's not the pumps you hear – it's a harsher noise. And then you suddenly feel this burning wind hit you. And that is when the firestorm is starting up.
George Wheeler, wartime firefighter, then 18We came on a group of firefighters brought in from the distant boroughs of London. We showed our press passes and they let us through. Then we noticed the wind, which snapped Marguerite's skirts and picked up bits of paper in a mad dance. Firefighters were trying to hold a water barricade to keep the fire from sweeping over the cathedral, but the breeze had now risen to a gale.
William Lindsay White, war correspondent
To the amazement of the dean of St Paul's and his staff, ordinary people are starting to appear at the cathedral doors.
A group of men and women arrived at the entrance to the crypt. The gatekeeper tried to persuade them there wasn't a safe place in the cathedral but they insisted they must come in. They were frightened and distressed. Coming to the cathedral was somehow an act of faith.
Walter Matthews, dean of St Paul's
29 December 1940: 10.30pm
By now, some 50 tons of high-explosive bombs and 15,000 incendiaries have fallen on the city. And still it goes on.
The pilots who fly the follow-up waves are novices, eager to drop their payloads and go. Stray bombs can fall anywhere – and do.
29 December 1940: 11.45pm
In the wreckage of the earlier bomb on the Keyworth Street shelter, the frantic search for survivors is still underway. Only 16-year-old Winnie Feldon has been found alive so far. Then her eight-year-old brother Cyril is pulled from the wreckage.
The death toll in every hospital is mounting, but the figures are a closely guarded secret. Next morning the papers will report only that several serious accidents occurred in the night.
The inferno is now so close to one hospital that, when the power fails, they simply pull down the black-out curtains and work by the light of the fire.
As they do so, the 'all clear' sounds. At 11.50pm, after five-and-a-half hours, the bombers turn back for their bases in occupied France. In all, 136 German planes flew over London. In their wake, an inferno is now burning.
