The Blitz

The name is short for the German Blitzkrieg. When the Luftwaffe failed to destroy RAF Fighter Command by day, Hitler and Göring turned the bombers on London: the first great raid struck the docks on 7 September 1940, and the city was then bombed almost every night for nearly two months. From November other cities and ports were targeted too, among them Coventry, Birmingham, Liverpool, Glasgow and Belfast.

The last great raid on London, on the night of 10–11 May 1941, was also the deadliest; the Luftwaffe was then moved east. The Germans hoped to cripple industry and break morale but achieved neither. The Blitz entered British memory as a time of shared ordeal, though historians note that propaganda helped shape that picture.