The Little Blitz

The Little Blitz

Author: John Conen

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 9781781553084

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The Little Blitz on London in the early part of 1944 is briefly mentioned in most accounts of the aerial war against the UK during the Second World War but is seldom deemed worthy of more than a few lines. The Little Blitz is the name applied to the air raids on Britain which were the manifestation of the Luftwaffe's Operation Steinbock, planned in the last few months of 1943 and put into effect from the middle of January 1944. The raids, planned as revenge for the destructive RAF raids on Berlin, were mainly targeted London, and after nearly three years of respite from air raids, the Little Blitz was an unwelcome surprise for residents of the Capital. The offensive was largely ineffective but some of the raids caused significant casualties and damage, and some alarm amongst the population and the authorities. This is the first account of the Little Blitz to explore these bombings in detail and assess their impact on London. This book describes the raids, making use of some vivid personal accounts, to give a gripping picture of the effect that these little-known events had on a complacent city.


The Blitz Companion

The Blitz Companion

Author: Mark Clapson

Publisher: University of Westminster Press

Published: 2019-04-02

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1911534491

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The Blitz Companion offers a unique overview of a century of aerial warfare, its impact on cities and the people who lived in them. It tells the story of aerial warfare from the earliest bombing raids and in World War 1 through to the London Blitz and Allied bombings of Europe and Japan. These are compared with more recent American air campaigns over Cambodia and Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, the NATO bombings during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, and subsequent bombings in the aftermath of 9/11. Beginning with the premonitions and predictions of air warfare and its terrible consequences, the book focuses on air raids precautions, evacuation and preparations for total war, and resilience, both of citizens and of cities. The legacies of air raids, from reconstruction to commemoration, are also discussed. While a key theme of the book is the futility of many air campaigns, care is taken to situate them in their historical context. The Blitz Companion also includes a guide to documentary and visual resources for students and general readers. Uniquely accessible, comparative and broad in scope this book draws key conclusions about civilian experience in the twentieth century and what these might mean for military engagement and civil reconstruction processes once conflicts have been resolved.


The Luftwaffe's Blitz

The Luftwaffe's Blitz

Author: Chris Goss

Publisher: Crecy Publishing

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13:

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Due to the failure of the day campaign during what has become known as the Battle of Britain, on 7 September 1940, the Luftwaffe commenced bombing London and major cities, predominantly by night. What became known as the Blitz continued until 10 May 1941 with many towns and cities across the country being attacked and London being attacked 57 nights in succession. By the end of May 1941, over 43,000 civilians, half of them in London, had been killed by bombing and more than a million houses destroyed or damaged in London alone. The Blitz failed to break the morale of the British people and any thoughts of a German invasion were cancelled with German attention quickly being transferred to the Soviet Union. Accordingly, the intensity of the attacks against mainland Britain lessened considerably. Much has been written about the Blitz from a British perspective but The Luftwaffe's Blitz tells the story from the viewpoint of the German aircrew involved, many of whom were shot down and taken prisoner. Using over 30 first hand accounts and previously unpublished photos, The Luftwaffe's Blitz details the Luftwaffe's assault against the United Kingdom in 1941, covering the major attacks and those that occurred during the remaining months of that year. Integrated with accounts from the aircrew of RAF's embryonic night fighter force as they fought against the Luftwaffe night after night in very difficult and sometimes primitive circumstances, this book provides a new perspective on the Blitz from the attacker's point of view. Book jacket.


The Blitz

The Blitz

Author: Juliet Gardiner

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Published: 2011-03-01

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 9780007386611

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September 1940 marked the beginning of Nazi Germany's sustained attack on civilian Britain. Lasting eight months long, the Blitz was the form of warfare that had been predicted throughout the 1930s, that everyone had expected since Neville Chamberlain's declaration that Britain was at war with Germany. The ferocity of the Luftwaffe attacks, combined with images of the City of London burning are widely considered to be iconic snapshots of Second World War history. Though compared with other great moments of that war -- D-Day, Dunkirk, V E Day -- the Blitz remains curiously unexamined. Apart from fragmentary accounts and local records, there is little in the way of a comprehensive account of the Blitz experience that so many British civilians went through -- as well as the social, political and cultural implications of the bombardment. Designed to break the morale of the British population, the nightly bombings certainly did devastate. But, as Juliet Gardiner shows in this hugely important book, they also served to galvanise the nation; from those eight months of terrifying Nazi onslaught, a new determination amongst people and politicians steadily emerged. Revealing, original and beautifully written, THE BLITZ is a much-needed exploration of one of the most important moments in Second World War history.


Fire and Fury

Fire and Fury

Author: Randall Hansen

Publisher: Anchor Canada

Published: 2009-09-15

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 0307372383

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National Bestseller An enlightening and utterly convincing re-examination of the allied aerial bombing campaign and of civilian German suffering during World War II–an essential addition to our understanding of world history. During the Second World War, Allied air forces dropped nearly two million tons of bombs on Germany, destroying some 60 cities, killing more than half a million German citizens, and leaving 80,000 pilots dead. Much of the bombing was carried out against the expressed demands of the Allied military leadership. Hundreds of thousands of people died needlessly. Focusing on the crucial period from 1942 to 1945, and using a compelling narrative approach, Fire and Fury tells the story of the American and British bombing campaign through the eyes of those involved: military and civilian command in America, Britain, and Germany, aircrew in the sky, and civilians on the ground. Acclaimed historian Randall Hansen shows that the Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, was wedded to an outdated strategy whose success had never been proven; how area bombing not only failed to win the war, it probably prolonged it; and that the US campaign, which was driven by a particularly American fusion of optimism and morality, played an important and largely unrecognized role in delivering Allied victory.


The Bombers and the Bombed

The Bombers and the Bombed

Author: Richard Overy

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2015-04-28

Total Pages: 609

ISBN-13: 0143126245

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“An essential part of the literature of World War II.” —Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post From acclaimed World War II historian Richard Overy comes this startling new history of the controversial Allied bombing war against Germany and German-occupied Europe. In the fullest account yet of the campaign and its consequences, Overy assesses not just the bombing strategies and pattern of operations, but also how the bombed communities coped with the devastation. This book presents a unique history of the bombing offensive from below as well as from above, and engages with moral questions that still resonate today.


The Myth Of The Blitz

The Myth Of The Blitz

Author: Angus Calder

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2012-06-30

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 1448104041

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The Myth of the Blitz was nurtured at every level of society. It rested upon the assumed invincibility of an island race distinguished by good humour, understatement and the ability to pluck victory from the jaws of defeat by team work, improvisation and muddling through. In fact, in many ways, the Blitz was not like that. Sixty-thousand people were conscientious objectors; a quarter of London's population fled to the country; Churchill and the royal family were booed while touring the aftermath of air-raids; Britain was not bombed into classless democracy. Angus Calder provides a compelling examination of the events of 1940 and 1941 - when Britain 'stood alone' against the Luftwaffe - and of the Myth which sustained her 'finest hour'.


The Blitz Then and Now

The Blitz Then and Now

Author: Winston G. Ramsey

Publisher: After the Battle

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 664

ISBN-13:

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The day-to-day, blow-by-blow account of the Night Blitz. Beginning with the first mass raid on London on September 7th, 1940, the story is continued through the winter of 1940-41 with the description of Luftwaffe operations over Britain. The author's account of each night's operations brings into focus the details of the escalating attacks as one raid exceeded another in size, damage or deaths. Every German crash on land is listed with its crew, and footnotes are included on all those which are known to have been investigated or excavated since the end of the war, together with photographs of discoveries. Over twenty features and special articles by historians and eyewitnesses intersperce the daily happenings, illustrating life at the time on both the civilian and Service fronts, and contrasting descriptions by German airmen give the reader an insight into what it was like to be on the other side. The book presents a record of a period which changed the face of Britain and cost the lives of 40,000 on her people.


The Battle of Britain: Luftwaffe Blitz

The Battle of Britain: Luftwaffe Blitz

Author: Philip Kaplan

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2013-08-14

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 1473829658

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This new collection of archive imagery from Philip Kaplan offers a gripping, graphic view of the routine repeated each day and night, from the summer of 1940 through to the following spring, by the German bomber crews bringing their deadly cargoes to Britain. Through mainly German archival photos, it profiles airmen on their French bases and in the skies over England; the aircraft they flew, fought and sometimes died in; their leaders; their targets and results; the R.A.F pilots and aircraft that stood in opposition to the German forces, and the losses experienced on both sides. The images, from the Bundesarchiv and other German and British photographic sources, vividly convey a real sense of events as they played out, as do the compelling first-hand accounts from a host of participants on both sides, eyewitnesses to one of the most brutal sustained bombardments of the Second World War.


The Spirit of the Blitz

The Spirit of the Blitz

Author: Paul Addison

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2020-08-06

Total Pages: 545

ISBN-13: 0198848501

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Edited and introduced by two leading historians of the period, this volume tells the inside story of Home Intelligence and why it proved so controversial in Whitehall, the complete and unabridged sequence of reports provide us with a unique and extraordinary window into the mindset of the British during a momentous period in their history.