Luftwaffe Fire Rains: London Burns After 200 Die

The Luftwaffe dropped over 100,000 incendiary bombs on the City of London on the night of December 29, 1940, igniting a firestorm that destroyed a square mile of the oldest part of the capital and created the most iconic image of the Blitz: the dome of St. Paul Cathedral rising untouched above a sea of smoke and flame. The photograph, taken by Daily Mail photographer Herbert Mason, became the defining symbol of British defiance. The raid was deliberately timed. German intelligence knew that Sunday between Christmas and New Year would find the City deserted, fire-watchers on holiday. The Thames was at exceptionally low tide, making it difficult for brigades to draw water. Buildings locked for the weekend had no one to extinguish incendiaries. The combination created the worst conflagration London had experienced since 1666. Approximately 1,500 fires merged into two major conflagrations, one north of St. Paul and one to its south, creating a furnace of such intensity that firefighters reported the metal fittings on their helmets becoming too hot to touch at a distance of several hundred yards. Nearly 200 civilians were killed, and the fire destroyed or damaged dozens of Wren churches, the Guildhall, eight of the livery company halls, and countless commercial buildings. The area around Paternoster Row, the center of British book publishing for centuries, was annihilated, taking with it an estimated five million books. St. Paul survival was not accidental. A volunteer fire watch organized by the cathedral Dean had been stationed on the roof throughout the Blitz, and that night they extinguished over twenty incendiary bombs that landed on the dome and in the galleries. The raid prompted Churchill to issue an order that St. Paul must be saved at all costs, and subsequent fire-watching requirements were dramatically expanded across London. The burned areas were eventually redeveloped into the Barbican Estate and the modern financial district.