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Thousands of 500lb Nazi Bombs Raining Down on London During The Blitz, 1940.
The Blitz was a German bombing offensive against Britain in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and is the German word for 'lightning'.
The Germans conducted mass air attacks against industrial targets, towns, and cities, beginning with raids on London towards the end of the Battle of Britain in 1940, a battle for daylight air superiority between the Luftwaffe and the Royal Air Force over the United Kingdom.
By September 1940, the Luftwaffe had failed and the German air fleets (Luftflotten) were ordered to attack London, to draw RAF Fighter Command into a battle of annihilation.
Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, ordered the new policy on 6 September 1940. From 7 September 1940, London was systematically bombed by the Luftwaffe for 56 out of the following 57 days and nights.
Most notable was a large daylight attack against London on 15 September.
The Luftwaffe gradually decreased daylight operations in favour of night attacks to evade attack by the RAF, and the Blitz became a night bombing campaign after October 1940.
The Luftwaffe attacked the main Atlantic sea port of Liverpool in the Liverpool Blitz and the North Sea port of Hull, a convenient and easily found target or secondary target for bombers unable to locate their primary targets, suffered the Hull Blitz. Bristol, Cardiff, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Southampton and Swansea were also bombed, as were the industrial cities of Birmingham, Belfast, Coventry, Glasgow, Manchester and Sheffield.
More than 40,000 civilians were killed by Luftwaffe bombing during the war, almost half of them in the capital, where more than a million houses were destroyed or damaged.
In early July 1940 the German High Command began planning Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.
Bombing failed to demoralise the British into surrender or do much damage to the war economy; eight months of bombing never seriously hampered British war production, which continued to increase.
The greatest effect was to force the British to disperse the production of aircraft and spare parts.
British wartime studies concluded that cities generally took 10 to 15 days to recover when hit severely but exceptions like Birmingham took three months.
The German air offensive failed because the Luftwaffe High Command (Oberkommando der Luftwaffe, OKL) did not develop a methodical strategy for destroying British war industry.
Poor intelligence about British industry and economic efficiency led to OKL concentrating on tactics rather than strategy.
The bombing effort was diluted by attacks against several sets of industries instead of constant pressure on the most vital.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz
Orphans left homeless in the east end of London after the Blitz, 1940
People lived on food rationing and blackouts of street lighting each evening during WW2. Lights were frequently blacked out by compulsory law to make it difficult for Nazi planes to detect cities and towns on the ground.
A milkman continues with his morning duties of delivering milk to people after the Blitz, 1940
Londoners took shelter in the deep and historic London Underground tube stations during the Blitz. People would sing songs, read books, etc, to keep up their spirit and morale. Other people across the UK took shelter underneath the stairs in their homes, or in air raid shelters underneath the ground whenever Air Raid sirens alerted people to take cover.
More than 30,000 500ib bombs fell on Britain during the Blitz, Adolf Hitler's prolonged air war of British cities which lasted from Sept 7th, 1940 to May 21st, 1941.
Over a period of 267 days, London was attacked 71 times and bombed by the Luftwaffe for 57 consecutive nights.
More than one million houses were destroyed or damaged and more than 40,000 civilians were killed.
The long dark night of 29th December, 1940;- the Germans attempted to bomb Great Britain into submission and surrendering.
The Blitz attack on London shocked the world.
The targets were civilians.
The bombing failed to demoralise the British into surrender or significantly damage the war economy.
London became an inferno which was engulfed in fires.... rather like the Great Fire of London that burned the City of London down in 1666.
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