The London Blitz 12/29/1940

The most horrific air raid London ever endured through the eyes of a sixteen year old volunteer fire watcher

I was sitting in the parlor with me best mate Nevin having leftover Christmas cake for tea when we heard the Sirens.
"Bloody 'ell" Nevin said. "Jerry's coming. We better get a move on."
I glanced up at the clock. Eight minutes after six. I told me mum me and Nevin were going down to the fire station and to take sis to the shelter straight away. She was already in the kitchen frantically going through cupboards and packing tins of food into her bag. Her hands were trembling.
"It'll be alright mum." I reassured her. "You'll be safe in the shelter."
She grabbed my hands and gave them a mighty squeeze. She looked hard into my eyes and said:
"You bloody well better be careful out there boy. I can't do this alone."
Her intensity startled me.
Nevin was already heading out the door.
"Oi! Wait up mate!" I shouted after him.
We bolted down the stairs and out into the dark, narrow streets. People were running about. Heading for shelters, tube stations, fire stations, AA batteries, where ever. Lights were going out everywhere as the air wardens enforced the black out. One of them marched passed us.
"Get to a shelter lads." He said.
I was to excited to be scared.
The sun had set an hour ago and the city was pitch like coal but the night was clear so you could see where you were going alright. The sirens filled the air with their low, ominous wail but you couldn't hear the bombers just yet. It took about twenty minutes after the sirens started before you could. I reckoned we had a good ten minutes left. We made our way down to the fire station and went inside. Firemen and volunteers were everywhere, getting organized, checking equipment, have a smoke, whatever. We found the fire chief in the middle of a huddle arguing with his men. We boldly stepped forward.
"Nevin Hancock and George Shaw reporting for duty sir!" Nevin proudly said.
The chief stared at us.
"'Eh? What's your business here then lads?" he asked
"We're volunteers we are!" Nevin said beaming.
"Alright then" said the chief. "Go stand over there with the other volunteers and I'll be with ya as soon as I can."
He pointed over to some lads standing around a truck. About twelve in all. We joined them. Me mate Rodger was one of them.
"Oi Rodg." I said. "It's gonna be some night what."
"Yeah." Rodger replied. "Those dirty b******s are gonna give it to us this time."
Rodger wasn't much of an optimist. Ever since his brother got it at Dunkirk.
By now you could hear the low, steady drone of the approaching bombers. It sounded like they sent the whole bloody Luftwaffe.
"Maybe Rodg is right this time." I thought. I swallowed hard.
The chief cleared the huddle and walked over to us. He paced back in forth in front of us like a General inspecting his troops.
"Any of you lot got any experience fightin fires?" He asked
No one raised their hand. The chief sighed.
"Alright then. I reckon we'll just...
THUNK-------THUNK THUNK----- THUNK-- THUNKTHUNKTHUNK
The chief was interrupted by loud, thunking sounds from outside. We ran out to see what was up when we saw them. Jerry was dropping some kind of burning metal tube. They were about two foot long and only a few inches around. They shot a long, glowing phosphorus flame out one end and shot sparks in all directions.
"What's that then?" Nevin asked. "Is that a flare?"
"That be no flare" One of the firemen replied. "That's an incendiary. A fire bomb."
I looked up the street and there were dozens of them. On the road, on roof tops, on staircases, on balconies, everywhere and all of them shooting that eerie, phosphorus flame a good four feet behind them. Suddenly I was very scared.
Incendiaries rained down on us by the bushels. Firemen with buckets of sand were rushing about putting them out. A truck pulled out of the station and firemen started spraying the little burning monsters with hoses but for every one they put out it seemed like ten more came down. Soon the calls started pouring in. Charring cross was a fire, Hammer Smith station was burning, Knights cross was an inferno and Saint Pauls, the Dome of Saint Pauls Cathedral was on fire.
The chief was barking orders to his men and everyone took off leaving the volunteers to deal with the fires around the station. We stared at each other dumbstruck.
"Core blimey mates!!" Nevin exclaimed. "We've gotta do something!!"
We frantically looked around the station for equipment. We found some fire suits, buckets and bags of sand. We put on the fire suits and grabbed the bags and buckets. We went out into the street and snuffed out all the incendiaries we could. More incendiaries fell and the buildings around us were starting to blaze. Someone found a few hoses. We hooked them up to the hydrant and we started spraying as the fires grew larger. Soon we were battling a raging inferno. It was blistering hot, smoke was choking my lungs, there was a loud, steady sizzle in the air from the flames and a constant barrage of frightening sounds. Long, low moans and groans, loud pops and cracks, glass shattering, weird eerie whistling. It was a symphony of deafening, frightening noise. The smoke smelt strangely sweet. Like me mums perfume. It was the scent of our history going up in flames. Now I knew what hell was like.
    No incendiaries had fallen for some time as we battled the massive caldron of flames when I heard the insidious drone of more bombers overhead. Next I heard loud whistling followed by thunderous crashing. Jerry was dropping high explosives on us. The whistling and crashing worked it's way closer to us. Like the fists of giants crashing down on the Earth. One of the volunteers cried out.
"GIVE US A CHANCE YOU B******S!!!"
Bombs hit just a few streets away on either side of us. The ground shook violently with every explosion. A panic stricken woman came running out of the night screaming.
"Where's my child!?" I can't find my child! Where's My Child?!"
"Go back to the shelter miss." I yelled back to her. "It's to dangerous out here."
She grabbed me and with a look of insane horror in her eyes she screamed in my face:
"THERE AIN'T NO MORE BLOODY SHELTER!!!!"
She ran off into the glowing red night.
Then came the dreadful wind.
It swirled it's way around everything feeding the flames and carrying hot embers. The fires were burning hotter and brighter than anything I could have ever imagined because that wind. It was so surreal I went into a kind of trance. I looked around and saw young men and boys. Some on hoses, some throwing buckets of sand, some running around screaming to terrified to do anything. It didn't seem real. Like I was in a bad dream or some other dimension like what I read about in Science fiction stories. It was a queer feeling indeed. I stood behind Nevin holding onto a hose. He was the rock I clung to.  Suddenly I heard a really long, loud groan followed by terrifying popping sounds then an all encompassing roar. I looked up to see the building we were under giving way to crash down on to the street on top of us. For a moment I was frozen, mesmerized by the flames shooting out of the huge gaps in the falling masonry that was heading straight for us. Then a voice in my head said:
"RUN!!!!!"
I got out of the way just in time. Nevin wasn't so lucky. As soon as I realized what happened I grabbed a shovel and started digging though the smoldering rubble Frantically shouting his name. I never found him.
   A fire truck came by and the driver told us to get on. I didn't want to leave but he said I had to. The area was to dangerous and if I didn't want to get crushed by falling masonry I bloody well better.
I got on.
   We drove through the city streets as I had my first look around. Bright white search lights were lighting up a glowing red sky as the flash of anti aircraft fire blew brightly only to fade away. Fires were all around us as the distant drone of bombers and explosions filled the night air. I couldn't believe Nevin was gone. I was to frightened to know what to think, what to do, what to anything. If Nevin were here it would be alright. He could make sense out of all this madness. He was nineteen, three years older than me. I looked up to him and now he was gone. I just couldn't take it in and I felt ashamed for leaving him. I should have died by his side. I felt like I was nothing.
We were dropped off at a shelter that had taken a direct hit and were told to look for survivors.
    By morning most of the fires were under control. The heart of London was a smoldering ruin but Saint Pauls Cathedral defiantly stood. A monument to British Bulldoggedness if ever their was one. As the smoke rose from from the carnage of the blackest morning London ever saw I was digging through the rubble when I found her. A little girl. Maybe six, seven years old. There wasn't a mark on her but she was dead. I gently picked her up in my arms and held her. As I looked down into her peaceful face I felt a heavy sadness rise up in me and I started to weep. I tried to stop it but I couldn't. I just stood there holding that poor dead child weeping uncontrollably, for her, for Nevin, for England, for humanity I wept. Another man who had been digging near by put his arm around my shoulder and wept with me. Several others gathered around us. Mourners of humanity in the darkest sunrise of history. Nevin was dead, I had no clue where my family was, my city lay in ruins and all I wanted was revenge. This was total war.

Author's Note

The raid delivered to London on December 29 1940 was a new type of coordinated air assault using a combination of incendiary and high explosives specifically timed to overwhelm the fire brigade in an attempt to cause a fire storm and burn London to the ground. Thanks to Luftwaffe bungling and foul weather over the English channel the last wave of Bombers never made it to London and the city was spared an even worse fate. The raid was at the time the most devastating raid ever to be visited upon a civilian population in history. British bomber command would prefect this type of raid and use it to devastating effect on German cities such as Hamburg and Dresden as the war dragged on. Over the Japanese mainland American B-29 crews would lay waste to Japan's wooden cities with a horrific new weapon called Napalm. It was an indifferent war on civilians on an unprecedented scale with a horror and brutality not yet seen in history. Historians debate the effect these raids had on the final outcome of WWII as well as who was responsible for starting them. It's easy to blame the Aggressors of WWII for every act of inhumanity that happened during the war. They did start it after all. They also lost and history has a habit of blaming losers and denying atrocities visited upon them as well as glossing over the victors acts of barbarity. The truth is the raids on Hamburg, Dresden and the Japanese mainland was every bit as barbaric as the raids on London were and it's historically unclear who started the indiscriminate bombing of civilians. War quickly degenerates into "an eye for an eye" and the massive fire bombing raids of WWII were a particularly huge and brutal example of that mentality. Sir Author Harris, head of British bomber Command said of the German Raids on London "They have sown the wind and so they shall reap the whirlwind" and "reap the whirlwind the civilian population did.

Reviews

[saratogaparty]

When I first started reading this, I was really confused. I think I triple checked to make sure it was you who wrote this! I was like, what the hell?! He's British now?! haha

But once I got over the southern being British I found out DAMN, not only was this story well told, I was AMAZED. Seriously amazed. Your storytelling is seriously captivating.

[Baby Ricochet]

Thank you so much.

[TL Boehm]

This is formidable writing! The tone, the pace - the descriptive narration and even the dialogue puts the reader right there. I couldn't "Stop" reading even though I knew the outcome was not going to be good. Your story telling skills are amazing - one of my peeves with the cafe is that stories don't get as much attention as poetry - seems many won't invest the time in a longer work. And this deserves to be read by a wide audience.
It makes me think about humanity in general. It seems that conquest and brutality are hardwired into us as a species. Consider Rome, the Mongols, the Assyrians, the Aztecs....Seems like every few hundred years we perfect the art of wiping out those we deem inferior. The difference I see - and you discuss it is in the delivery system. We no longer deal as much in face to face combat. Now we can take out an entire town with the push of a button....My dad in the 70's was a Titan II missile maintenance man in the USAF. When they phased out the TItans he went to work for the laser defense division of the space shuttle program. In the human psyche - it becomes a game. Hitting a target. you don't have to cradle the dead child...its so easy to take out half the planet now, you know?
This story is so impressive - especially for those in my generation and the generation of my kids - they need to know this - beyond the text book presentation because killing has become too easy and human life - too casual.
Stellar write.

[Baby Ricochet]

Thank you TL. I appreciate your input.

[TL Boehm]

If you have more stories send me RR's - I would love to read them

[icelandicblue]

This is an excellent story and your author's commentary speaks to the change of the use of weapons against populations rather than soldiers. As Winston Churchill said, - "History is written by the victors." And very often it takes decades if not centuries to root out the truth. Just look at the Crusades or what Christopher Columbus did to the indigenous peoples he came across. We must always be vigilant and never smug where human life is involved. Thank you for writing such a riveting story and for making us all look at history with a new eye not to the victory but to the truth.

[Baby Ricochet]

Why thank you Blue. I appreciate your input.

[Marie]

Baby, this is so good, that I wonder whi you don't write more stories. Perhaps it's because this is primarily a poetry site. Your poetry is interesting. But your stories reach my own high standards.

[Baby Ricochet]

Thank you Marie

[Keith]

That night a 16 year old George was changed forever, from gung ho and excited lad to experiencing the full horror of WWII. Well told.

[Baby Ricochet]

Thank you keith

[C.E.K. Nelson]

I could tell that from the way you wrote this piece, you were totally in touch with the write/subject... Read easily, flowed wonderfully. This story kept my attention. Additionally, I believe that your using the actual language added so much realism, I felt like I was there with the characters. This write is excellent!

[Baby Ricochet]

Thank you Nelson. I appreciate your input.

[Tai Ryens]

The 20th century was, no doubt, one of the most terrifying centuries known to modern-day mankind. Psychological projects (MK-ULTRA, for instance) took place on unwary orphanages, prisons, and prisoners of war. If it weren't so true, I'd say it would be just ~lovely for a sci-fi novel.

[Baby Ricochet]

Yeah. That was some weird s**t. Thanks for dropping by Tai

[Nia Hope]

Absolutely speechless and it takes a lot. To make me speechless lol " mourners of humanity in the darkest sunrise of history" I love it!! Fantastically wonderful and amazing job!! :D

[Baby Ricochet]

Why thank you Ankara. I appreciate your kind words.

[dw817]

⊰ℛℛ⊱
I have to admit, I like your style of writing, Rico, very legible and very easy to read.
You have, "Oi Rodg" which is cool cause you can say whatever you want in human speech and often I do in my own stuff but after that I think you get a smidge confused and use, "Yeah." Rodg replied. The reader knows the speaker but - it's inconsistent with his true name.

This is a writing on death & bombing so - it's not really my cup of tea (which I like with lotsa sugar). While I was never witness to the horrors of war, I hope in my lifetime I never will be.

And that's your requested review !

[Baby Ricochet]

oh, okay. I'll switch it to "Yeah" Rodger replied. Thank you for your review. dw. I appreciate it.

[dw817]

Take care ... And feel free to check out my latest post. Might add a little 'harmony' to your writing. :)

[Rita L. Sev]

A frighteningly vivid depiction of what that event must have been like for the people of London. You captured the character of a sixteen year old brilliantly, down to the inclusion of dialect. These eras of history come to life in your pen, Mark!

[Baby Ricochet]

Thank you Rita