Blitz on London

One of the most famous images of World War II, this photograph shows the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral rising out of the smoke and flames of an air raid on London. During the Blitz, the British capital endured 57 consecutive nights of German bombing. However, the air attacks on London and other cities were the result of a strategic error by Adolf Hitler which lost Germany the Battle of Britain: infuriated by a British bombing raid on Berlin in early September 1940, Hitler ordered that German bombers should switch from their former targets, the airfields and radar stations crucial to British air defence. By the autumn of 1940 the British were shooting down bombers faster than German industry could produce them, and the opportunity for a German invasion of Britain had been lost.

THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE

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Blitz, The; Britain, Battle of

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