September 7 - The Blitz Begins

This Day in History: 7 September 2020

 

7 September 1940

 

80 years ago, today, the Blitz began as 300 German bombers raided London. This would continue until May 1941. After Germany's successful occupation of France, it was only a matter of time before they set their sights to England. Hitler wanted Britain to be submissive and neutralised so that he could concentrate on the East, more specifically, the invasion of the Soviet Union. Since June, England and Germany had been fighting in aerial battles, in an attempt from Germany to wear down the Royal Air Force. However, this was failing, so instead of perusing an unrealistic land invasion, he instead chose terror as his weapon.

 

By the end of the first day of the Blitz, 337 tons of bombs had been dropped by German planes on London. Even though civilians were not the primary target that day, the poorest area of London, the East, felt the fallout heavily, as they faced direct hits from bombs and fires that broke out and quickly spread. That afternoon and evening, 448 civilians were killed. A state of emergency was declared in England once British military units were alerted that the invasion had begun, and home defence units were put to the ready. A key strategy of Hitler's was to underestimate the will and courage of the British people, but instead they did not run or submit to his tyranny and fought hard.

 

Want to find out more about the Blitz? Click here for more information, or here for a video about life during the Blitz.

The Dambusters

BBC2 showed a programme about the Dambusters on Sunday night. This was the name given to the RAF bombing raid during World War 2 that aimed to destroy German dams (and therefore create massive flooding damage) using special bouncing bombs. The story is well known, particularly because of the 1955 film which celebrated 617 Squadron's achievements. The BBC programme was more reflective. It pointed out some of the factual errors in the film, most of which were designed to make the heroes more sympathetic. In the film Guy Gibson, the squadron leader, is quite easygoing whereas in reality he could be quite aloof and focused on the job. In the film Barnes Wallis, the inventor of the bouncing bomb, comes up with the idea of bombing the dams but faces opposition from the War Office. In reality, the idea had been discussed before war had even begun. The film also gave plenty of time to exploring the effects of the successful destruction of the dams, interviewing Germans who lost their families and houses in the flooding (over 1600 people were killed, many of them allied prisoners of war in labour camps). This tone suggests perhaps that our attitude to events in World War 2 is changing as it moves ever further back into the past and fewer people are alive to remember it (there is now only one remaining veteran Dam Buster). Britain's experience of the war has an important place in our national identity and culture, but a gap of 70 years perhaps allows greater opportunities of a more balanced assessment of its significance.

PS: There is plenty of information about the Dambusters around. Here are two examples. The National Archives has an online exhibition of significant documents here.
PPS: Here is a (genuinely exciting!) 10 minute YouTube clip from the Dambusters Film where they attack the first dam. It is said that George Lucas was inspired by this for the final scenes of Star Wars...