The night London burned for a second time – inside the worst night of the Blitz

84 years ago today, Londoners woke up to a hazy morning as smoke filled narrow streets after the worst blitz during World War Two.

More than 100,000 bombs were dropped across the city by Luftwaffe planes. American journalist Ernie Pyle watched the chaos unfold, and dubbed it the ‘Second Great Fire of London’.

As the planes roared over London at around 6.15 pm on December 29, 1940, and dropped their deadly bombs until around 9 pm, central London was heavily impacted, with the square mile destroyed.

160 people were killed immediately and dozens more died from their injuries in the days following.

Recalling the fire, Mr Pyle wrote: ‘For on that night this old, old city – even though I must bite my tongue in shame for saying it – was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen.

‘You have all seen big fires, but I doubt if you have ever seen the whole horizon of a city lined with great fires – scores of them, perhaps hundreds.

‘The greatest of all the fires was directly in front of us. Flames seemed to whip hundreds of feet into the air. Pinkish-white smoke ballooned upward in a great cloud, and out of this cloud there gradually took shape – so faintly at first that we weren’t sure we saw correctly – the gigantic dome and spires of St. Paul’s Cathedral.’

St Paul’s Cathedral had its designated watch after Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared: ‘St Paul’s must be saved at all costs.’

28 incendiary bombs hit St Paul’s that night, but the building remained standing tall above the London skyline, resulting in a stunning photo named ‘St Paul’s Survives’.

To make matters worse throughout the city, it was mainly incendiary bombs used, meaning the flames spread quickly and were hard to extinguish.

The River Thames was also at low tide when the majority of the bombs landed, meaning fire services had trouble pumping water to fight the flames.

A former London firefighter, Sam Chauveau, told the BBC before his death: ‘By the time we finished tackling the fires on the roof of the stock exchange, the sky, which was ebony black when we first got up there, was now changing to a yellowy orange colour.

‘It looked like there was an enormous circle of fire, including St Paul’s churchyard.’

The Nazis had intended to destroy the centre of the City of London, aiming for train stations and other key areas throughout the capital.

The Dean of St Paul’s during the bombing, W.R. Matthews, recalled the aerial attack in the book ‘St Paul’s Cathedral in Wartime’.

He said: ‘In half an hour fires were raging on every side of the Cathedral, but we had no leisure to contemplate the magnificent though terrible spectacle for many bombs had fallen simultaneously on different parts of the Cathedral roofs.

‘Watchers on the roof of the Daily Telegraph building in Fleet Street, who had a full view of St. Paul’s from the west thought that the Cathedral was doomed and told us later that a veritable cascade of bombs was seen to hit and glance off the Dome.’

The watch at St Paul’s managed to extinguish most fires near the Cathedral using only sandbags and stirrup pumps due to the increased demand for water for firefighters elsewhere.

Dean Matthews added: ‘Some of the bombs were easily dealt with, as that one which fell to the floor of the Library aisle and was extinguished by Mr Allen and myself.

‘I have a special affection for the scar left by that bomb on the floor – it represents, I feel, my one positive contribution to the defeat of Hitler!’

Though December 29, 1940, was the worst night of the Blitz, between September 1940 and May 1941, 100 tonnes of explosives were dropped on 16 British cities by German bombers.

During the Blitz, London suffered 71 aerial attacks and was bombed for 57 consecutive nights.

In the first 30 days alone, almost 6,000 people were killed and twice as many were badly injured.

Ultimately, the deadly campaign killed over 20,000 people in the capital, left another 1.5 million Londoners homeless and changed the London landscape more than at any time since the Great Fire of 1666.

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