The Blitz

WWII The Blitz - Scenes From London During The Blitz 1940/41

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• published: 12 Oct 2011
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Some scenes of London ablaze with fire fighters and civillians during the blitz 1940/41 WWII (World War 2 Blitz) The Blitz (from German, "lightning") was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed. More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged, and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, half of them in London. Other important military and industrial centres such as Glasgow, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Coventry, Liverpool, Manchester, Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Southampton, Swansea, also suffered heavy air attacks and high numbers of casualties. Hull and Birmingham were the most badly damaged cities after London, with a significant percentage of their buildings destroyed or made uninhabitable. Birmingham and Coventry were heavily targeted due to the Spitfire and tank factories in Birmingham and the many munitions factories in Coventry, the city centre of Coventry was almost completely destroyed. The bombing did not achieve its intended goals of demoralising the British into surrender or significantly damaging their war economy. In fact, the eight months of bombing never seriously hampered British production and the war industries continued to operate and expand.[8] The Blitz did not facilitate Operation Sea Lion, the planned German invasion of Britain. By May 1941, the threat of an invasion of Britain had passed, and Hitler's attention was focused on Operation Barbarossa in the East. Several reasons have been suggested for the failure of the German air offensive. First, the Luftwaffe High Command (Oberkommando der Luftwaffe, or OKL) failed to develop a coherent long-term strategy for destroying Britain's war industries. It frequently switched from bombing one type of industry to another, and no sustained pressure was put on any one of them. Second, the Luftwaffe was not equipped to carry out a long-term strategic air campaign. It was not armed in depth, and its intelligence on British industry and capabilities was poor. All of these shortcomings denied the Luftwaffe the ability to make a strategic difference.