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4 unusual facts about The Blitz


Mudchute

The Blitz started on 7 September 1940, and on 8 September the Guardroom, canteen and stores was destroyed by landmines, but there were no casualties.

Squares in London

Another is that some older squares were irregularly shaped to begin with, or lost their original layout due to the city's many transformations, not least following the Great Fire of London and The Blitz.

The Blitz

General Sir Frederick Pile's anti-aircraft defences fired 8,326 rounds and shot down only two bombers.

Thomas Forbes

After the war, his house in Highgate was left badly damaged by German bomb raids and the majority of money he earned from publishing his work was spent on repairs.


Art destruction

Other works of art were destroyed in the Blitz, in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and throughout Southeast Asia.

Bulford Kiwi

During World War II, the Kiwi was camouflaged with leaf mould, out of concerns that German bombers would use the Kiwi as a navigation marker during their raids over Britain.

Danny La Rue

When the family home was destroyed during the Blitz, his mother, a seamstress, moved her children to Kennford, a Devon village where young Daniel developed an interest in dramatics.

Detleff Neumann-Neurode

She opened a clinic for children of poor families in the East End of London, and kept it going through the years of the Blitz, insisting on crediting Neumann-Neurode despite pressure to avoid using the German name.

Digory Kirke

40 years later, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie stay with the now 52-year-old Professor Kirke at his house in the country during The Blitz of London.

Fires Were Started

Fires Were Started (1943) is a British film written and directed by Humphrey Jennings, filmed in documentary style showing the lives of firefighters through the Blitz in World War II.

Fullbrook School

The plaque design is very much in the Art Deco style and it is possible that it came from a London building destroyed during The Blitz.

Goodbye Blue Sky

Next, naked, gas-masked people (the frightened ones) are seen running about on all fours and hiding from The Blitz.

Joan Bartlett

She opened a residential home for the elderly homeless, having been inspired by hearing Violet Markham speak at Caxton Hall about the plight of many elderly people who had been bombed out during The Blitz.

John Gilbert Winant

The remark, for a country that had come through the Battle of Britain and was in the midst of The Blitz, was dramatically on the front page of most British newspapers the next day.

Johnny and the Bomb

He goes back to his town, Blackbury, during the time of The Blitz with his friends Stephen, aka Wobbler, Bigmac, Kirsty and Yo-less (possibly because Johnny has been obsessing about the destruction of Paradise Street in a German raid).

Kent Fire and Rescue Service

It was these local brigades and the Auxiliary Fire Service – also formed in 1938 – that valiantly coped with the consequences of the Battle of Britain and much of The Blitz.

Louis Napoleon Le Roux

Eventually, and perhaps surprisingly, he became private secretary to the Conservative politician Harold Macmillan, before being killed during the London Blitz of World War II.

Parachute mine

Al Bowlly was killed by a parachute mine outside his flat in Jermyn Street, London during the Blitz on 17 April 1941.

Paternoster Row

It was devastated by aerial bombardment during the Blitz of World War II, suffering particularly heavy damage in the night raid of 29–30 December 1940, later characterised as the Second Great Fire of London, during which an estimated 5 million books were lost in the fires caused by tens of thousands of dropped bombs.

Petticoat Lane Market

The severe damage inflicted throughout the East End during the Blitz and later German bombing of World War II served to disperse the Jewish communities to new areas.

Richard Jury

The heaviest bombardment of London occurred during the Blitz, 1941-1942, but the Germans targeted London with V1s and V2s as late as March, 1945.

Robin Hood Battalion

The regiment was involved in the German Blitz against British cities, the Robin Hoods serving in Derby, East Midlands.

Ruislip-Northwood Urban District

During the war, the urban district saw a high number of bombing raids by the Luftwaffe during The Blitz, between 8 September 1940 and 9 May 1941.

Simcha Blass

The pipes for which had been used in London during The Blitz for extinguishing fire and bought by Blass after World War II.

St John the Evangelist, Upper Norwood

The church was damaged by the bombing during the Second World War and restoration work was carried out by the conservation architects Caroe & Partners between 1946 and 1951.

Victory of the Daleks

In the episode, the Doctor (Matt Smith) and his companion Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) arrive in London during the Blitz, where Winston Churchill (Ian McNeice) has employed "Ironsides", a scientific creation from Professor Bracewell (Bill Paterson) to be used as weapons in the war effort.


see also

Birmingham Blitz

On 8 October 2005 a memorial sculpture, named 'The Tree of Life' sculpted by Lorenzo Quinn, dedicated to the victims of the Blitz was unveiled adjacent to St Martin’s Church.

Bonzai Records

It was formed by DJ Fly, Yves Deruyter and Franky Jones in the back of record-shop The Blitz in Belgium in 1992 as a sublabel to Lightning Records, which went bankrupt in March of 2003 and was subsequently replaced by the Banshee Worx label.

C*Base

It was written in Commodore BASIC 2.0, with some speed-critical routines hand-coded in 6502 machine language; the BASIC portion was compiled with the Blitz! compiler.

East Finchley tube station

American chat show host and former mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, Jerry Springer claims he was born inside the station on 13 February 1944, during the Blitz, but he may be mistaken and it's more likely that it was Highgate station where his mother was sheltering since there is no deep shelter at East Finchley, a surface station.

Fairway Solitaire

Originally designed by John Cutter of Big Fish Games, Fairway Solitaire is built in the Blitz programming environment and was initially developed by Grey Alien Games and published by Big Fish Games, before being completely redesigned by Big Fish Studios.

The Blitz Brothers

The Blitz Brothers were a New Wave band based in Merseyside, England, comprising Chris Hughes (drums and FX), Dave Bates (vocals), Steve Lovell (guitars) and Hugh Jones (bass).

Valkyria Chronicles II

In a blog post on the official website, chief producer Shuntaro Tanaka has revealed that the game will keep the BLiTZ system with wireless ad hoc to be implemented.