#ju 88

[deutschland-im-krieg]

Junkers Ju 88 night fighters awaiting scrapping at Grove airfield in Denmark, 2 August 1945. For more, see my Facebook group - Eagles Of The Reich

[theworldatwar]

A German Junkers 88 from I./LG1 gets ready for another mission - Gerbini, Sicily, Summer 1942

[usafphantom2]

2nd June, 1943. A Sunderland flying boat of 461 Squadron RAAF, searching for survivors of BOAC Flight 777 over the Bay of Biscay, was attacked by 8 Junkers 88Cs of KG40. In the ensuing engagement, the Sunderland was severely damaged but managed to limp back to crash land in Cornwall. 3 Ju88s were claimed shot down by the gunners.

Pictured:

L) Sunderland of 461 Squadron on its beaching trolley at Pembroke Dock, Wales. Of the 11 crewmen aboard the aircraft involved on 2nd June, one was killed and several wounded. A DFC, DSO and two DFMs were awarded, as well as a Mention in Dispatches. Eight of the men returned to operational flying the following month, but all were lost with their Sunderland on 13th August 1943 following another Ju88 attack.

📷 Australian War Memorial UK0121

R) Junkers 88Cs of KG40 in flight. These heavily armed long range fighters caused significant losses among Coastal Command aircraft. Research into Luftwaffe records suggests that no Ju88s were in fact lost by KG40 on 2nd June, though they do confirm that a lengthy engagement took place. This does not in any way diminish the achievement of the Sunderland’s crew in fending off a determined attack and managing to return to base. Interestingly, one of the German pilots, Lt Friedrich Maeder, also claimed to have brought the Sunderland down!

📷 falkeeins.blogspot.com

@JamieMctrusty via X

[usafphantom2]

JU-88A’s

[airmanisr]

Perma_000162 Permann Collection by SDASM Archives Via Flickr: Perman collection Image Two Mistel composite aircraft, make up from a Ju 88 (unmanned) and a pilots FW 190 fighter--Please tag these photos so information can be recorded.---Note: This material may be protected by Copyright Law (Title 17 U.S.C.)--Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum

[italianiinguerra]

80 anni fa, a Bari si verifica il più grande disastro chimico del secondo conflitto mondiale

La città di Bari era stata occupata dalle forze britanniche l’11 settembre 1943 durante la campagna d’Italia iniziata con l’invasione della Sicilia del 10 luglio dello stesso anno. Dopo lo sbarco sul continente, il porto della città diventa di fondamentale importanza per gli eserciti alleati che risalgono la penisola. Esso è il nodo principale dell’organizzazione logistica dell’VIII armata…

[tanadrin]

but i take a pretty dim view of the modern conception of citizenship in the first place. anybody should be able to participate politically in the life of the polity they live in and work in and pay taxes in; we tolerate some 200-odd apartheid regimes worldwide because most of them are comparatively soft--it is at least possible under law to be naturalized in the United States, or Mexico, or Canada, or Sweden, and so forth, and many countries also observe various jus soli rules that mean children can become citizens of the place they were born. (the absolute jus soli of the United States is rare, and should be treasured.)

in only a few places like qatar are those regimes not only harder, but taken to an absurd extreme: you can have a country so dependent on "foreigners" that 88% of the country is "foreign"--that it would instantly collapse if everybody there went back to their "home" country!--but which still denies the people its entire economy, its basic infrastructure, is dependent on the right of political participation. there are sections of the economy of some large states dependent on migrant labor (agriculture in many parts of the US is one example), but if every "foreigner" left Qatar or Kuwait or the UAE, it would be a catastrophe on par with the country being nuked. plagues don't kill nine in ten inhabitants of a country, outside science fiction scenarios. this is not citizenship on the modern model; it's not even citizenship on the ancient model, outside of, like, Sparta.

[gurorori]

watched graveyard of the fireflies...

[de-gueules-au-lion-d-or]

[tomcat-tango]

for OG Lutzi boi:

☠ - angry/violent headcanon

☮ - friendship headcanon

ൠ - random headcanon

☠ - angry/violent headcanon Oh you gonna disappear in a dark hallway/alleyway. Your remains will be found in approx 3-5 business days when he tells Delta/people find where that smell is coming from. ☮ - friendship headcanon Lutz prefers quieter people, but he'll make acceptions. He's the quiet friend who'll give you a hand if you need it. Will come out of left field with his humor. ൠ - random headcanon If you tell Lutz to catch something he's gonna watch it sail through the air and hit the ground. He thinks its funny.

[pinturas-sgm-aviacion]

1940 05 Westland Lysander MkIII - box art Italeri

The Westland Lysander was a short take off and landing (STOL) aircraft that was initially employed in the forward observer/artillery spotter/army cooperation role. It would later provide air support for what would subsequently be called covert operations in Occupied Europe. It first flew on June 15, 1936 and was a factor in the post-war development of a STOL requirement by the world’s major air forces. Entering service with the Royal Air Force in June 1938, its design was significantly influenced by the German Henschel Hs 126, a similar aircraft in the Luftwaffe inventory. The Lysander was fully operational with No. 16 (Army Co-operation) Squadron at the time of the Munich Crisis in September 1938, and began the R.A.F’s process of phasing out its then designated artillery spotter aircraft, the Hawker Hector bi-plane.By the time war broke out a year later, it was in service with seven squadrons, six of which deployed to France in the first months of the war (Nos. 2, 4, 13, 26, 613 and 614). When hostilities in the West began in earnest in May 1940 with Germany’s invasion of France and the Low Countries, Lysanders began reconnaisance and artillery spotting operations, with Nos. 2 and 4 Squadrons re-deploying to Belgium.On occasion, Lysanders gave a surprisingly good account of themselves when pitted against state-of-the-art German fighters. In one action, a group of Lysanders was attacked by six Messerschmitt Bf 110s over Belgium, and the rear gunner of one of them, L.A.C. Gillham, shot down one of the 110’s, before his pilot could escape at low level. In the coming weeks, Lysanders were frequently set upon by Bf 109’s, particularly when unescorted by their own fighters. While not fast, they were highly manueverable; if they were lucky, they would escape with mere battle damage. But between May 10 and May 23, 1940, nine crews and 11 aircraft were lost to enemy action. On the 25th still more were caught on the ground in a strafing attack at Clairmarais and destroyed.By the time of the Dunkirk evacuation, the Lysander squadrons had been decimated, having virtually no serviceable aircraft. Often their crews flew against intimidating odds, being called upon to air drop supplies without fighter escort to British or French troops, or provide ground support with their loads of 40 lb. bombs, all in skies increasingly dominated by the Luftwaffe. They inflicted damage along the way; on May 22 Flying Officer Dodge shot down a Henschel Hs 126 with his forward machine guns, while his rear gunner downed a Junkers Ju 87 Stuka. But this was the exception. Of 174 aircraft deployed to France, 88 were lost in air combat and 30 more destroyed on the ground by the time the French capitulated.

After Dunkirk, contemplating a loss rate of 63 percent, the RAF had little choice but to withdraw the Lysander from front line service — at least for daytime operations. The Lysander would go on to its greatest fame as the aircraft of choice for Special Operations Executive, a covert auxiliary of (and competitor to) the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), charged by Winston Churchill with covert operations in the Occupied Countries and a mandate to “set Europe ablaze.” Soon, on a regular basis, Lysanders of No. 138 Squadron (Special Duties), painted matt black, inserted agents and their weapons, ammunition, explosives and other supplies, and withdrew shot-down airmen. Sometimes they withdrew people wanted by the Gestapo, or brought Resistance leaders back to London for briefings. Lysanders would later be used by both the British Commandos and the American Office of Strategic Services on similar operations in Europe and the Far East.

Landing in unprepared clearings or meadows at night, the landing ground identified by small torches lit by members of the Resistance, Lysanders helped sustain hope in Occupied Europe and Asia. By 1942 they were equipped with larger fuel tanks (starting with the Mk. IIIa) to allow penetration deeper into France, and their ladders touched up with flourescent paint to allow quicker ingress and egress from the plane. There was constant danger – one on occasion, a Lysander guided to a landing by torches touched down, only to be met by German machine gun fire. The pilot, Squadron Leader Conroy, slammed the throttle open and struggled to get airborne, stemming the blood from a neck wound by clamping his hand over it. Brushing the treetops at the edge of the landing field, he managed to return safely to England.

In the Middle East, Lysanders were able to operate longer in their original roles of artillery spotting and reconnaisance since Axis fighter aircraft were not as readily available. In Palestine, they flew throughout 1940 doing aerial blackout inspections, coastal watch, and general co-operation with the Palestine Police. In North Africa, No. 6 Squadron was deployed to Libya and was ordered to remain in Tobruk when the British retreated from Rommel’s Afrika Korps, providing close air support over the beseiged garrison, which continued to hold out. During the war, Lysanders were operated by Britain, France, Ireland, Canada, Finland, Egypt, and South Africa. By war’s end they were a rarity, except in Canada, where relatively large numbers of them persisted until the 1950’s.

[deutschland-im-krieg]

Focke-Wulf Fw 190A/Junkers Ju 88A Mistel, Germany, post-war. For more, see my Facebook group - Eagles Of The Reich

[coimbrabertone]

NASCAR Numerology: How NASCAR's Current Teams Got Their Numbers: Part Four.

Welcome everybody to the mission creep blog! We've done Trackhouse, Penske, Wood Brothers, RCR, SHR, Hendrick, RFK, and Spire, which means we've cleared the first ten numbers!

Today we're going to talk about:

Joe Gibbs Racing, who runs the #11, the #19, the #20, and the #54 this year.

Kaulig Racing, who runs the #13, the #16, and the #31.

Rick Ware Racing, who run the #15 and the #51,

and 23XI Racing, who run the #23, the #45, and sometimes the #50.

So, starting with Joe Gibbs Racing...and their story starts with none of their current numbers! Rather, it starts with the #18 in 1992.

Why the #18? Once again, it was a story of lowest available number, as 1-12 were taken, the #13 was being used by a part time time along with various superstitions around it, and #14, #15, #16, and #17 were taken as well. Thus, JGR debuted in 1992 with Dale Jarrett in the Interstate Batteries Chevrolet. This partnership won the Daytona 500 in 1993 and won at the fall Charlotte race in 1994, but for 1995, Dale Jarrett would leave. He moved to Yates Racing to take over the #28, subbing for the injured Ernie Irvan, and when Irvan returned to the #28 in 1996, Jarrett moved to a second Yates car, the #88.

Thus, JGR had to make their own story with Bobby Labonte, who impressed immediately by winning the 1995 Coke 600 and sweeping Charlotte.

1997 would bring only one win, at Atlanta, so for 1997, JGR switched to Pontiac. This era of JGR, with Bobby Labonte running the Interstate Batteries #18 Pontiac, is when the team really broke into the top of NASCAR.

Bobby would finish second to Dale Jarrett in 1999, but in 2000, Bobby Labonte would win the championship for JGR.

This was also the time that JGR became a two car team for the first time, but more on that in a moment.

For now, Labonte continued in JGR through the end of the 2005 season, with his last three years in a Chevrolet as GM began phasing out the Pontiac brand in NASCAR. Upon his retirement, he was replaced by JGR development driver JJ Yeley, but Yeley would only last two winless seasons.

He would be shuffled off to Hall of Fame Racing for 2008.

This is when JGR experienced its biggest change in history when, feeling like they were second or even third fiddle at Chevrolet, they switched to Toyota for the 2008 season. Toyota looked downright bad in 2007, but with a year of experience and JGR making the switch, there was hope.

Another reason to hope was that Kyle Busch, the hotheaded but fast kid from Hendrick Motorsports, made the switch, with JGR signing M&Ms as a sponsor over from Yates.

Thus, one of the most recognizable partnerships in modern NASCAR began, with Kyle Busch, Toyota, and M&Ms - they won the 2015 and 2019 championships together, took countless wins, and along with Kevin Harvick of SHR and Martin Truex Jr., Kyle formed part of the "Big Three" drivers that dominated the late Gen 6 era of NASCAR, particularly 2017-2019.

However, during the 2022 season, Mars Inc., parent company of M&Ms, announced that they were ending their NASCAR sponsorship. Kyle Busch was forced to move to the #8 car at RCR, while Joe Gibbs announced that his grandson, Ty Gibbs, would move up to the NASCAR Cup Series.

Rather than the #18, he would continue in his Xfinity number, driving the #54.

Ironically enough, the #54 originates with Kyle Busch, as Kyle Busch Motorsports has long run the #51 (a tribute to Days of Thunder antagonist Rowdy Burns, who Kyle has nicknamed himself after) and the #4 in trucks. When KBM moved up to the second-tier Nationwide series in 2012 neither number was available, so they ran the #54 instead.

Kyle and Kurt Busch split the season, with Kurt taking its only win at Richmond.

For 2013, KBM's Nationwide team was sold to Joe Gibbs Racing, where, in 2022, Ty Gibbs ran the #54 to the Xfinity series championship (for those who don't know, Busch, Nationwide, and Xfinity are all the second-tier NASCAR series, it just doesn't have a proper name so it has always been known by its title sponsor, which has changed a few times).

So, the #18 became the #54.

Meanwhile, Joe Gibbs' second number was the #20, introduced in 1999. Why the #20? Because the #19 was taken by a part-time team at the time, so the #20 was the next available number after #18. This number was initially ran by Tony Stewart with immediate success, winning the championship in 2002 with Pontiac and 2005 with Chevrolet. The Home Depot #20 was one of the iconic cars of NASCAR's boom era, and Tony Stewart was its superstar driver. In 2008, however, JGR switched to Toyota, while Tony was an all-American GM guy to his core.

The awkward partnership only lasted for one year before Tony left JGR to start his own team with Gene Haas, forming SHR.

Joey Logano replaced Tony in the #20, showing flashes of brilliance, but with only two wins in four seasons, Logano was replaced with Matt Kenseth for 2013. Logano would move to Penske, with much more success there than he had at JGR.

Matt Kenseth, meanwhile, saw the #20 switch from Home Depot sponsorship to running a Dollar General primary. Nevertheless, Kenseth showed immediate success, taking seven wins and falling just nineteen points off championship leader Jimmie Johnson.

Two years later in 2015, Kenseth was on for another championship contending season before being spun out from the lead at Kansas by none other than Joey Logano. Getting caught up in a wreck at the next race at Talladega saw Matt Kenseth get eliminated in the round of 12, while Logano won his third race in a row at Talladega to sweep the round of 12.

In retribution, at Martinsville two weeks later - the first race of the round of eight - Matt Kenseth wrecked Joey Logano as the crowd cheered. Kenseth was suspended for two races, but getting wrecked at Martinsville, a tyre problem at Texas, and failing to win Phoenix meant that Joey Logano didn't advance either.

A historic feud between drivers of the #20.

Kenseth would leave JGR after 2017, handing the #20 over to Erik Jones for three seasons, before it ended up in the hands of current driver Christopher Bell in 2021.

Bell has made the championship four in both 2022 and 2023, but finished fourth in the standings both years.

JGR's third car was the #11, co-owned by JD Gibbs and running the #11, which was the number JD used in college football at William & Mary. The #11 debuted in 2004, running various drivers such as JJ Yeley, Jason Leffler, Ricky Craven, and even Terry Labonte before settling on Denny Hamlin at the end of 2005. Hamlin went full time for 2006.

The team, with primary sponsorship from FedEx, has run ever since.

Denny Hamlin and the #11 team have won three Daytona 500s, fifty-four races, and have basically done everything in NASCAR besides winning a championship. Truly the Chicago Cubs of the stock car racing world.

Last on the list for JGR is the #19, which Joe Gibbs was finally able to secure in 2015. They had already poached Matt Kenseth from Roush for the #20, so Gibbs decided to do it again and nabbed Carl Edwards for the #19, a partnership that lasted two years before Carl abruptly retired at the end of the 2016 season for reasons NASCAR fans still speculate about to this day.

In the words of Carl Edwards himself...he had taken too many knocks to the head over the years and with him then starting a young family with a neurosurgeon wife, he decided to retire.

Daniel Suárez replaced Edwards for 2017 and 2018, before the other leading Toyota team in the form of Furniture Row Racing collapsed, giving JGR the chance to pick up 2017 champion Martin Truex Jr. for the 2019 season. Truex brought sponsors Bass Pro Shops and Auto Owners Insurance over with him.

2024, however, will be Truex's last season. Chase Briscoe will take over the #19 for 2025.

One team down.

Kaulig Racing has two full time cars, the #16 and the #31, as well as a part-time #13. The #31 is driven by Daniel Hemric, the #16 by AJ Allmendinger, Shane van Gisbergen, Josh Williams, Derek Kraus, and Ty Dillon, and the #13 has been used by Allmendinger in races where both he and SVG were running, such as COTA and Chicago.

Kaulig took #16 since it was available in 2021 (their usual Xfinity numbers, #10 and #11, were both taken), the #31 was chosen for their chartered entry for 2022 since RCR had vacated it after 2019, and the #13 because one: it was vacated, and two: it's the inverse of the #13. Yeah, not much story there, Kaulig is a new team and their numbers don't have much historic meaning behind them.

I mean, Roush ran the #16 for a long time, most successfully with Greg Biffle, but there's no link between that and Kaulig.

Kaulig does have two wins - Indianapolis Road Course 2021 and Charlotte Roval 2023 - with AJ Allmendinger, which is the most success the #16 has had since Biffle, for whatever that's worth.

Now onto Rick Ware Racing.

Rick Ware Racing has built up their history as a start-and-park team running the #51, and initially their numbering scheme was built on that, running numbers such as #52, #53, and the #54 as well. This is also the number that Rick Ware uses on its co-entries in other series, such as its alliance with Dale Coyne Racing in Indycar - where the #51 is currently run by a slew of drivers, of which Katherine Legge is expected to finish out the season - and IMSA LMP3 racing, where Rick Ware runs his son Cody.

Cody Ware was arrested in 2023 for assaulting and strangling his then girlfriend, so that's the first and only time I will mention him on this blog.

Anyway, more recently Rick Ware Racing has started professionalizing its NASCAR efforts, with Justin Haley showing promise in the #51 car that he runs in alliance with RFK Racing. Their other car, the #15, is still somewhat of a revolving door of drivers, but it does appear to be improving.

So, that's the #11, the #13, the #15, and the #16. Roush has the #17, the #18 is currently vacant, JGR has the #19 and the #20, Wood Brothers has the #21, Penske the #22...that means 23XI is next.

23Xi Racing, a joint venture by Michael Jordan (the 23 part) and Denny Hamlin (the 11 part, or XI in Roman numerals) is another new NASCAR team, having entered NASCAR in 2021 in alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing.

The history of their numbers is quite simple, the #23 is Jordan's jersey number, and the #45 is the number he wore when he returned to the Chicago Bulls in 1995 after a brief sabbatical during which time he played for the White Sox's minor league affiliates.

Bubba Wallace has run the #23 since it was established in 2021, while Kurt Busch was the initial driver of the #45 before a career-ending crash at Pocono. Ty Gibbs was drafted in to replace Kurt, before 23Xi briefly switched Bubba into the #45 to compete for the owner points playoffs. Daniel Hemric and John Hunter Nemechek also had starts in 23XI cars in 2022.

For 2023 though, Tyler Reddick has been brought in to drive the #45, winning twice in 2023, and another two times so far in 2024.

Bubba, meanwhile, won Talladega 2021 in his #23, and Kansas 2022 while filling in in the #45.

23XI's third car was initially the #67 - get it, like 2,3,4,5,6,7? - but this year, in a promotion with sponsor Mobil 1, it has run as the #50 to celebrate their 50th anniversary.

Travis Pastrana, Kamui Kobayashi, and Corey Heim have all started in the #67/#50, while Juan Pablo Montoya is scheduled to run the #50 at the 2024 NASCAR Cup race at Watkins Glen.

So yeah, we started with a college football number in the #11, and we finish on a team named after basketball numbers with 23XI.

I believe tomorrow will be the end of this series, as Front Row Motorsports with the #34 and #38, Legacy Motor Club with the #42 and the #43, and JTG Daugherty with the #47 are the only remaining full-time teams.

Higher numbers are a bit sparse in NASCAR these days, huh?

[usafphantom2]

Guarding the burning remains of a Junkers Ju 88 shot down during attacks on airfields in Yorkshire on 15 August 1940. (Photo source - © IWM HU 63859)

Colour by RJM

@WW2airfields via X

[a-4skyhawk]

Ground crew refuel Junkers Ju-88

[whencyclopedia]

Eyewitness Accounts of the London Blitz

The London Blitz (September 1940 to May 1941) was a sustained bombing campaign by the German Air Force during the Second World War (1939-45). Londoners were subjected to nightly bombings that killed thousands, destroyed homes, and necessitated long and uncomfortable nights spent in air raid shelters. This article tells the story of the Blitz through the eyes of those who experienced it firsthand.

After the fall of France in the early summer of 1940, the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) set itself the task of destroying the British Royal Air Force (RAF) both in the air and on the ground, a necessary prelude to an invasion. However, as the RAF began to win the Battle of Britain and so maintain air superiority, the Luftwaffe switched objectives to the bombing of cities, particularly London, in the hope of destroying civilian morale. Colonel Adolf Galand of Luftwaffe Jagdgruppe 26 explains this switch:

We didn't know at the time why he changed to London: we had only to obey orders. I believe today that Hitler and Göring wanted to make use of their advantage of having the capital of the enemy in the range of their fighters which could therefore escort the bombers. On the other side Berlin was far out of the effective range of the RAF at this time...Nobody knew at the time how much was needed to destroy a great part of the town. Perhaps Hitler and Göring hoped that they would force England to negotiate after these attacks.

(Holmes, 138)

Peter Stahl, a crew member of a Junkers Ju 88, noted in his diary his experience of bombing London in one of the first raids in early September 1940:

It must be terrible down there. We can see many conflagrations caused by previous bombing raids. The effect of our own attack is an enormous cloud of smoke and dust that shoots up into the sky like a broad moving strip.

(Holland, 731)

On the ground, F. W. Hurd, a member of the Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS), describes the sound of a bomb dropping close to him when fighting a fire in a London gasworks:

Guns started firing, and then I had my first experience of a bomb explosion. A weird whistling sound and I ducked behind the pump with the other two members of the crew. The others, scattered as we were, had thrown themselves down wherever they happened to be. Then a vivid flash of flame, a column of earth and debris flying into the air and the ground heaved. I was thrown violently against the side of the appliance…what a sight. About a mile to our right was the river front. The whole horizon on that side was a sheet of flame. The entire docks were on fire! On all other sides it was much the same. Fire everywhere. The sky was a vivid orange glow…And all the time the whole area was being mercilessly bombed. The road shuddered with explosions. AA shells were bursting overhead…The shrapnel literally rained down. It was now about midnight and still the racket kept on. It surprised me how quickly one got used to sensing whether a bomb was coming our way or not.

(Gardiner, 15-16)

Bombs landed on all sorts of places, but it was local landmarks being destroyed that often shocked the most, as explained by Anthony Heap, a local government official:

I heard that Tussaud's cinema caught a packet last night. So as soon as the All Clear went at 6.25 I dashed along to see. And by gosh it had too. Only the front of it in Marylebone Road and the proscenium was left standing. The rest was completely demolished as were some buildings behind it as well…not a single window in any building in the vicinity remained intact. Huge crowds thronged along the Marylebone Road to see the ruins. It was one of the sights of London today.

(Gardiner, 44)

Londoners went on with their daily lives as best they could, as explained here by Phyllis Warner:

One of the oddest things about our everyday life is its a mixture of ruthless horror and every-day routine. I pick my way to work past the bomb craters and the shattered glass, and sit at my desk in a room with a large hole in the roof (a block of paving stone came through). Next to a house reduced to matchwood, housewives are giving prosaic orders to the baker and the milkman. Of course, ordinary life must go on, but the effect is fantastic. Nobody seems to mind the day raids. It is the nights which are like a continuous nightmare, from which there is no merciful awakening. Yet people won't move away. I know that I'm a fool to go on sleeping in Central London which gets plastered every night, but I feel that if others can stand it, so can I.

(Gardiner, 48)

Sometimes people had no time to seek shelter, as told here by an anonymous East Ender:

The day I was hit was October 13th, 1940. About ten to eight I said to my wife and my in-laws, 'Well, I'll be off now,' and I just walked out the door. Lovely, big three-floor houses they were and I just walked up the approach road about twenty yards from the church which was our air-raid post and suddenly there was – shh – nothing. I heard nothing and I fell flat on my face. I picked myself up, I turned around and all I could see was just a grey curtain hanging down the middle of the road, about twice as wide as this pub. It was just a brownish-grey curtain hanging there and I thought, My God, something's happened. So I staggered down to the post and I said to the post warden, 'Jim, I think something's happened up at the Prince of Wales.' When we went up there and when I saw it I said, 'Christ almighty, the family's down there!' And there it was – we were there, about fourteen of us all on this big row of houses, and it was just one bloody great hole.

(Holmes, 140-1)

The authorities took some months to build communal shelters and then make sure they were not themselves unhealthy death traps. Barbara Nixon, an Air Raid Precaution (ARP) volunteer, describes the poor state of shelters in her district in Finsbury:

They were poorly ventilated, and only two out of nine that came in my province could pretend to be dry. Some leaked through the roof and umbrellas had to be used; in others the mouth of the sump-hole near the door had been made higher than the floor, and on a rainy night it invariably overflowed to a depth of two inches at one end decreasing to a quarter of an inch at the other, and rheumaticky old ladies had to sit upright on their benches for six to twelve hours on end, with their feet propped up on a couple of bricks. four or five times during the night we used to go round with a saucepan and bucket baling out the stinking water…There were chemical closets usually partially screened off by a canvas curtain. But even so, the supervision of the cleaning of these was not adequate. Sometimes they would be left untended for days on end and would overflow on to the floor…Then there was the question of lights…We had one hurricane lamp for about fifty people…The one paraffin light was the only heating that there was in those days. It was bitterly cold that winter.

(Gardiner, 62)

A shelter was not a guarantee of safety. Margaret Turpin recalls the night her shelter was hit by a bomb when she and her family found themselves buried in rubble:

I must have had lots of periods of unconsciousness…I remember seeing an ARP helmet, and it was way, way up, a long way away. And then suddenly it was quite near. I do remember the man saying to me, 'We'll soon have you out.' He said, 'All we've got to do is get your arm out.' And I looked at this arm that was sticking out of the debris, and I said, 'That's not my arm,' and he said, 'Yes it is love, it's got the same coat'…and I don't remember coming out of the shelter. I do remember being in the ambulance, and I think for me that was probably the worst part…I felt somebody's blood was dripping on me from above, and I found that awful - mainly I think because I didn't know whose blood it was, whether it was someone I knew and loved or not. And I tried to move my head, but of course it was a narrow space and I couldn't get my head away from the blood. And I heard a long time afterwards that the man was already dead. But it couldn't have been my father because he was taken out of the shelter and he didn't die till two days later…He died, my mother died, my baby sister died, my younger sister died. I had two aunts and they died, an uncle died…I knew almost immediately because when I came home from hospital…there were milk bottles outside and I just knew then that nobody had come home to take them in…The seven were all buried on the same day. My brother said that they put Union Jacks on the coffins…They sent me to Harefield…But unfortunately the people at Harefield could see the raids on London, and they used to come out to watch, to view it like a spectacle, and I couldn't stand that.

(Gardiner, 64-5)

The stations of the London Underground were a popular refuge, with people sleeping on the platforms in rows. A journalist describes the scene in the Elephant and Castle station:

From the platforms to the entrance the whole station was one incumbent mass of humanity…most of this mass of sleeping humanity slept as though they were between silken sheets. On the platform when the train came in, it had to be stopped in the tunnel while police and porters went along pushing in the feet and arms which overhung the line. The sleepers hardly stirred as the train rumbled slowly in. On the train I sat opposite a pilot on leave. 'It's the same all the way along,' was all he said.

(Gardiner, 84)

Some families preferred to stay near their homes, and so they erected an Anderson shelter in their garden. Made of sheet metal and packed around with soil, they could resist close calls and flying debris but not, of course, a direct hit. A London air raid warden, Mr Butler describes one tragedy where the Anderson shelter survived but not the occupant:

There was an Anderson shelter and apparently there was a little girl inside. Her parents had gone round the corner to visit their friends or relations or something and the shelter was more or less caved in and covered with soil. I got down into the shelter and there was this little girl about fifteen or sixteen and her mouth was full of soil. Naturally, I got hold of her hand, which is our job to console these people and try to quieten them down. She was in a pretty bad state and I cleaned her mouth out; she laid back and as she was catching her breath, sort of breathing heavily, some stupid devil walked over the top of the shelter, soil came down and went back in this girl's throat and as she squeezed my hand like that she just faded out. Now I had the feel of that girl clenching my hand for weeks and weeks and weeks. I could never forget it and I don't forget it now.

(Holmes, 144)

One family that stayed at home was the Royal Family, who earned much respect for remaining at Buckingham Palace. When the palace was slightly damaged on 13 September 1940, Queen Elizabeth was not too distressed:

I'm glad we've been bombed. Now I feel we can look the East End in the face.

(Ziegler, 121)

The government was keen to keep tabs on people down in the shelters and find out if any social unrest could be bubbling under the surface. There was a Mass-Observation unit that sent out secret observers who then compiled reports on the public's behaviour. Mostly there ended up next to nothing to report beyond rumours as to what some couples were getting up to in the darker corners or the existence of a black market in getting the best positions to sleep in. One mundane report is typical, the highlight being a little aggravation between understandably stressed family members:

First was a girl, shouting and screaming at her mother. In the end they were separated by force, and led away from each other, struggling and screaming. The other case was of a man and his wife. The wife wanted him to sit down, the husband wanted to walk about. She became very excited, and a crowd of 'rubberers' formed round them. She bit his ear and tore out his hair. He smacked her face and threw her to the ground.

(Levine, 88).

The number of homeless kept on rising, and the need to look after them inspired such organisations as the Women's Voluntary Service (WVS), as here remembered by an anonymous East Ender:

A big morale booster was the Women's Voluntary Service – the WVS…When the Blitz started they certainly proved their worth. They went out with mobile canteens right in the middle of the Blitz; the following day they had their clothing centres open. People who had lost everything were fitted up with clothes and then taken along by the WVS and be given a cup of tea and a bun, then taken along to the assistance people who doled them out £10 or £20, whatever the size of the family was.

(Holmes, 142)

Tragedies were everywhere as people lost much more than their property. Frances Faviell, a Red Cross nurse in London recalls one woman's grief:

There was a little woman from Dovehouse Street sitting on a bench…Dovehouse Street had had a parachute mine on it and the Chelsea Hospital for Women had dealt with many casualties. Suddenly her control gave way and she began screaming in a frenzy of grief…'He's gone…He's gone and I'm all alone and no home, nothing. No one wants me…Why didn't I go with him, it's cruel, it's cruel, cruel. Why? Why?' Her anguish was terrible.

In the appalled silence with which officialdom treats such outbursts – almost as if she had said or done something obscene – a sleek, well-dressed clergyman…told her sternly to desist – that what had happened was God's will and that she must accept it and thank Him for her own deliverance from death. She looked at him in dazed misery as if he spoke a foreign language and began screaming even more wildly. 'God! There's no God! There's only Hitler and the Devil'

(Gardiner, 317)

A spirit of defiance drove people on, as evidenced by this anecdote from Anthony Eden, then Foreign Secretary, who was with Wendell Wilkie, the US politician sent to determine the mood of Britain during the Blitz:

We were coming out of the Foreign Office and his leadership. But immense credit is also due to the British people, because it was their victory.

(Holmes, 147).

The 'Blitz spirit', the pulling together of strangers from different levels of society to defiantly resist the terrors of the bombing, was, for many, the defining experience of those dark days of 1940 and 1941. Much has been made in recent times of a 'myth' of the Blitz with undue emphasis given to rare incidents of social unrest, looting, and prejudices against perceived outsiders. The vast majority of eyewitnesses speak of people simply getting on with their lives as best they could in terrible circumstances. Another recurring theme in witness accounts is that people had an all too clear sensation that they were playing a role in a drama that would have consequences for the future of Europe. As Caryl Brahms noted in her diary in December 1940:

These are the days to be alive in. These days now. They are hard, unhappy, lonely, wasted, infuriating, terrifying, heartbreaking days. But they are history. And in them we are a part of history. We are lucky to be living now.

(Levine, 313)

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