On this day, 1940: London blitzed by German bombers

The German air force has unleashed a wave of heavy bombing raids on London, killing hundreds of civilians and injuring many more. The Ministry of Home Security said the scale of the attacks was the largest the Germans had yet attempted. "Our defences have actively engaged the enemy at all points," said a communiqué issued this evening. "The civil defence services are responding admirably to all calls that are being made upon them." The first raids came towards the end of the afternoon, and were concentrated on the densely populated East End, along the river by London's docks. About 300 bombers attacked the city for over an hour and a half. The entire docklands area seemed to be ablaze as hundreds of fires lit up the sky. Once darkness fell, the fires could be seen more than 10 miles away, and it is believed that the light guided a second wave of German bombers which began coming over at about 2030 BST (1930 GMT). The night bombing lasted over eight hours, shaking the city with the deafening noise of hundreds of bombs falling so close together there was hardly a pause between them.