Battle of Britain

1. Battle of Britain World War II World History A view of Big Ben through barbed wire entanglement.

2. London during the Blitz Bombing campaign conducted by the Germans against London and other cities in England September of 1940 through May of 1941 Targeted populated areas, factories and dock yards.

3. At a London railway station, arriving troops pass by children who are being evacuated to the countryside

4. Snuggled together, trying to get a good night's sleep in a Southeast air raid shelter.

5. The first German attack on London was an accident. On the night of August 24, 1940, Luftwaffe bombers drifted off course and instead dropped their bombs on the center of London destroying several homes and killing civilians. Public outrage followed, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, believing it was a deliberate attack, ordered Berlin to be bombed the next evening.

6. An aircraft spotter on the roof of a building in London with Saint Paul's Cathedral in the background.

7. The Germans were utterly stunned by the British air-attack on Hitler's capital. It was the first time bombs had ever fallen on Berlin. Germans had been repeatedly assured that it could never happen.

8. The first mass air raid on London, September 7 , 1940, showing the scene in London's dock area as Tower Bridge stands out against a background of smoke and fires

9. Beginning on September 7, 1940, and for a total of 57 consecutive nights, London was bombed. Up to that point, the Luftwaffe had targeted Royal Air Force airfields and support installations and had nearly destroyed the entire British air defense system. Switching to an all-out attack on British cities gave the RAF a desperately needed break and the opportunity to rebuild damaged airfields, train new pilots and repair aircraft. "It was," Churchill later wrote, "therefore with a sense of relief that Fighter Command felt the German attack turn on to London..."

10. Firefighters at work in a bomb damaged street after a Saturday night raid in 1941.

11. British cities targeted during the Blitz included; London, Portsmouth, Southampton, Plymouth, Exeter, Bristol, Bath, Cardiff, Birmingham, Coventry, Nottingham, Norwich, Ipswich, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, Hull, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Newcastle and also Glasgow, Scotland and Belfast, Northern Ireland.

12. The London Necropolis Railway Station, a privately owned station in Westminster Bridge Road, after London's biggest night raid of the war.

13. A double-decker tram silhouetted against the fire storm.

14. Hitler's intention was to break the morale of the British people so that they would pressure Churchill into negotiating. However, the bombing had the opposite effect, bringing the English people together to face a common enemy. People became determined to hold out indefinitely against the Nazi onslaught. "Business as usual," could be seen everywhere written in chalk on boarded-up shop windows.

15. Daily life in a damaged residential neighborhood.

16. A crowded scene in a West End air raid shelter reveals people making the best of the situation including two young men playing the harmonica

17. By the end of 1940, German air raids had killed 15,000 British civilians. In London, on the night of December 29/30, the Germans dropped incendiaries resulting in a fire storm that devastated the area between St. Paul's Cathedral and the Guildhall, destroying several historic churches. Other famous landmarks damaged during the Blitz included Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and the Chamber of the House of Commons. The Blitz climaxed in May of 1941, leaving 375,000 Londoners homeless.

18. A stately old building completely wrecked after fire bombs and high explosives rained on the capital for many hours. April, 1941.

19. Three children who have been left homeless by the random bombs of German night raiders, sit outside the wreckage of their home.

20. The RAF, utilized the newly developed radar technology to track and plot the course of German bombers from the moment they took off from bases in Europe. RAF fighter planes were then dispatched to attack the incoming bombers. As a result, the Luftwaffe never gained air supremacy over England, a vital prerequisite to a land invasion. Hitler indefinitely postponed invasion of England, in favor of an attack on the USSR. The Blitz came to an end as Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe transferred to eastern Europe in preparation for the invasion of the USSR. In all, 18,000 tons of high explosives had been dropped on England during eight months of the Blitz. A total of 18,629 men, 16,201 women, and 5,028 children were killed along with 695 unidentified charred bodies.

21. British children huddled together in a makeshift bomb shelter experience a range of emotions as they endure an attack by Hitler's air force.

22. Saint Paul's Cathedral stands gloriously in the distance amid the wreckage caused by the German fire bombing of London. Sunday, December 29, 1940