| Original caption: “Firemen at work in bomb damaged street in London, after Saturday night raid.” These firefighters were photographed working on Newgate Street the morning after a bombing raid on December 29, 1940. Known as Red Sunday, the City of London was hit by 1 of the heaviest night raids of the Blitz. Almost all of the buildings on the south side of Newgate Street were destroyed. Some of the worst damage occurred around Saint Paul’s and Paternoster Row. Practically all the buildings on the south side of Newgate Street were destroyed. The attack was opened by the pathfinder unit Kampfgruppe 100 (KGr 100) at 1817 hours, with 10 aircraft dropping 11,520 incendiary bombs in the space of 13 minutes. 7 aircraft of Kampfgeschwader 26 (KG 26) Löwengeschwader (“Lion’s Wing”), which delivered 5 Sprengbombe Cylindrisch 1000s and 1,008 incendiary bombs. In total, 147 aircraft from Kampfgeschwaders 4, 27, 51, and 55 dropped a 120 tons of high explosive and 27,499 incendiaries in just over 3 hours in a tiny, concentrated area of the City of London. For Londoners, this night would be 1 of the most dramatic of the War when this major attack ignited the “Second Great Fire of London” and challenged the capital’s fire service to an unfair battle that would see 16 of its men die, with 250 requiring hospital treatment. In a relatively brief attack between 1800 and 2130 Hours, this was not the heaviest bombardment directed at London during the “Blitz.” Still, the fires that erupted rapidly threatened to turn the City into 1 massive conflagration, thanks to an unfortunate set of coincidences. Sunday nights were regularly the occasion of major air raids because Civil Defences were deemed to be at a more relaxed and less alert level. More to the point, the commercial premises targeted for raiding were empty of people, and on this night, their doors were securely locked, thereby denying access to the few fire-watchers on duty in the City. The vital early action by fire-watchers in dousing incendiary bombs was absent. In the case of Paternoster Row, a repository for around 6,000,000 books, this would prove fatal. Like many of the City’s historic areas, by morning, it was a shell and would disappear forever. Additionally, the Thames was experiencing a neap tide this night. Hence, the river was particularly low, making it extremely difficult to access water for the 2,300 pumps operated by 9,000 firefighters, assisted by countless soldiers and civilians who, nonetheless, fought until dawn in their attempt to get the blazing City under control. If these unusual factors were not enough, the gentle southwesterly wind of the early evening built up to gale force, no doubt encouraged by the updraft from the flames. The result was a furnace-like firestorm. Terrible damage was inflicted on the City and casualties were high: as well as the many offices, warehouses, and commercial buildings destroyed, the 15th-century Guildhall was gutted, and 8 Wren churches were destroyed. With more immediate consequences for firefighting and defense, the Central Telegraph Office was destroyed, and the Wood Street telephone exchange was burned out — a serious disaster, as most defense communication was by telephone. The greatest miracle of this hellish night was captured by Daily Mail photographer Herbert Mason, who surveyed the bombardment from the roof of the newspaper’s building. As the smoke from the many fires engulfed the city, he captured the moment when the smoke swirled away, revealing the undamaged dome of Saint Paul’s Cathedral lit up by the blaze. This photograph would become the iconic memento of the London Blitz and a great symbol of hope and deliverance for the nation. Post Office supervisor Nellie Violet “Nell” Carver (September 18, 1891 – June 4, 1970) was due to start work at the Central Telegraph Office at 9, just before sunrise. The lack of trains from West Norwood seemed ominous, but she had managed to catch a Number 68 bus. The conductor had more information to offer than the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) – the whole City was still in flames from last night, he said. But Carver knew that “people so often exaggerate,” so she wasn’t very worried — yet. “I wasn’t prepared for the horrible sights which met my eyes as I got out in Holborn,” she recorded in her diary that night. “Most of the station was gone, and the rest still blazing away. Several other buildings in Newgate Street were on fire, and the smell of smoke was strong.” She picked her way with difficulty over a mixture of broken glass and water. When she got to King Edward Building, she knew, the moment she got inside, that something was very wrong. “All the rooms & corridors were simply crammed with people – nowhere for them to go. They looked agitated & the noise and confusion made my heart sink – it was so reminiscent of September 11, [1940].” United States war correspondent Ernie Pyle (August 3, 1900 – April 18, 1945) was in London and saw the conflagration. The next day, his nationally syndicated column told the American public about the disaster. “London, December 30, 1940 – Someday, when peace has returned to this odd world, I want to come to London again and stand on a certain balcony on a moonlit night and look down upon the peaceful silver curve of the Thames with its dark bridges.” “And standing there, I want to tell somebody who has never seen it how London looked on a particular night during the holiday season of 1940.” “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.” “It was a night when London was ringed and stabbed with fire.” “They came just after dark, and somehow I could sense from the quick, bitter firing of the guns that there was to be no monkey business this night.” “Shortly after the sirens wailed, I could hear the Germans grinding overhead. In my room, with its black curtains drawn across the windows, you could feel the shake from the guns. You could hear the boom, crump, crump, crump, of heavy bombs at their work of tearing buildings apart. They were not too far away.” “Half an hour after the firing started, I gathered a couple of friends and went to a high, darkened balcony that gave us a view of one-third of the entire circle of London.” “As we stepped out onto the balcony, a vast inner excitement came over all of us – an excitement that had neither fear nor horror in it, because it was too full of awe.” “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 closest fires were near enough for us to hear the crackling flames and the yells of firefighters. Little fires grew into big ones even as we watched. The big ones died down under the firefighters’ valor, only to break out again later.” “About every two minutes, a new wave of planes would be over. The motors seemed to grind rather than roar, with an angry pulsation like a bee buzzing in blind fury.” “The bombs did not make a constant overwhelming din as in those terrible days of last September. They were intermittent – sometimes a few seconds apart, sometimes a minute or more.” “Their sound was sharp when nearby and soft and muffled far away.” “Into the dark, shadowed spaces below us, as we watched, whole batches of incendiary bombs fell. We saw two dozen go off in two seconds. They flashed terrifically, then quickly simmered down to pinpoints of dazzling white, burning ferociously.” “These white pinpoints would go out one by one as the unseen heroes of the moment smothered them with sand. But also, as we watched, other pinpoints would burn on, and pretty soon a yellow flame would leap up from the white center. They had done their work – another building was on fire.” “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 Saint Paul’s Cathedral.” “Saint Paul’s was surrounded by fire, but it came through. It stood there in its enormous proportions – growing slowly more transparent and more precise, the way objects take shape at dawn. It was like a picture of some miraculous figure that appears before peace-hungry soldiers on a battlefield. The streets below us were semi-illuminated from the glow.” “Immediately above the fires, the sky was a deep, angry red, and overhead, forming a ceiling in the vast heavens, a cloud of smoke was all in pink. Up in that pink shrouding, there were tiny, brilliant specks of flashing light – anti-aircraft shells bursting. After the flash, you could hear the sound.” “Up there, too, the barrage balloons were standing out as clearly as if it were daytime, but now they were pink instead of silver. And now and then through a hole in that pink shroud there twinkled incongruously a permanent, genuine star – the old-fashioned kind that has always been there.” “Below us, the Thames grew lighter, and all around below were the shadows – the dark shadows of buildings and bridges that formed the base of this dreadful masterpiece.” “Later on, I borrowed a tin hat and went out among the fires. That was exciting too, but the thing I shall never forget above all the other things in my life is the monstrous loveliness of that one single view of London on a holiday night – London stabbed with great fires, shaken by explosions, its dark regions along the Thames sparkling with the pinpoints of white-hot bombs, all of it roofed over with a ceiling of pink that held bursting shells, balloons, flares and the grind of vicious engines. And in yourself, the excitement and anticipation and wonder in your soul that this could be happening at all.” “These things all went together to make the most hateful, most beautiful single scene I have ever known.” Photos showing the destruction were taken the morning after the bomb fell by Police Constables A. Arthur Cross (January 26, 1902 – March 7, 1993) and Frederick G. Tibbs (July 23, 1902 – April 1971). Initially expecting this assignment to last a few weeks, the constables, charged with documenting the destruction of London by the Luftwaffe, took hundreds of photographs during World War II. Their collection is now in the London Archives. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0989.jpg |
| Image Size | 928.92 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2908 x 2275 |
| Photographer | Arthur Cross, Frederick Tibbs |
| Photographer Title | The New York Times |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | December 30, 1940 |
| Location | |
| City | London |
| State or Province | London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-306-NT-901C(11) |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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