With the threat of war looming an Act was passed creating the Auxiliary Fire Service, which on the outbreak of war saw the AFS members working alongside the regular fireman. The Blitz started from late summer in 1940 and saw widespread devastation all over London. Thousands of men and machinery were called in to deal with the fires.
On Saturday, 7th September, 1940, Air-Marshal Goering directed the fleets of his Luftwaffe to destroy London. For nearly a month the Battle of Britain had been fought in the skies. During this period German planes had bombed ceaselessly the aerodromes of our fighter squadrons; but with all his gigantic air-strength Goering had failed to fulfil his object-the destruction of the fighter forces of the R.A.F. Then, on 7th September, England learned that he had changed his stratagem. The air armadas appeared over London. The Germans came flying in their Dorniers and Heinkels to shower their bombs of fire and high explosive over the East End of London.
When those first bombs were dropped, 25 000 firemen of the Auxiliary Fire Service followed the London Fire Brigade into their first major action-the most intense series of conflagrations that London had seen since yet another September far back in 1666, when the Great Fire ravaged a London built of wood. Some of these auxiliaries had fought fires before: but for the great majority it was their first fire -fighting job. With little or no practical experience these men were suddenly plunged into a savage inferno of bombardment and fire far beyond the experience of even the tried firemen of the regular Brigade.
The attack took place in the middle of the afternoon. It was a day of sunshine and blue skies. The afternoon was warm and drowsy. Outwardly the London atmosphere reflected that summer peace-although in many minds there were misgivings. In the previous week enemy raids had approached close to the capital. But up to that hour there had been no intimation of a big-scale attack on London itself. Now the attack came, and soon the docks and the working-class homes of the East End were ablaze. Thousands of feet up Spitfires and Hurricanes fought a valiant battle against vastly superior numbers. On the ground the alarm bells sounded and the Fire Service manned its machines to race East for their baptism by fire. That night the Luftwaffe struck again, mercilessly bombing fires that had been started in the afternoon. Through this intense bombardment, on their first day of action, the London Fire Service proved itself once and for all. They stuck right down to their job. They did not take cover. They worked savagely and ceaselessly and beat the spreading flames. The Nazis have named their vaunted terror-film "Baptism of Fire." That day saw, indeed, the literal baptism by fire of many thousand men. But the Nazi forgets that baptism does not destroy; it purifies and strengthens. Overnight, those untried men of an untried organisation knew they could hold their own, just as the heroes of the R.A.F. were doing high above in the blue summer skies.
The following day, as the men returned to their stations to snatch a few hours' sleep, an internal official communiqué from Fire Service Headquarters read: "The way in which the situation was dealt with gave rise to real confidence in the organisation and mobilising arrangements-and in the morale and efficiency of the auxiliaries."
From 7th September onwards, the Luftwaffe raided London day and night. R.A.F. fighter interception prevented many of the daylight raiders reaching Central London. But at night the bombers swarmed through under cover of darkness. A gigantic barrage of anti-aircraft gunfire Curtained the skies and hampered the Luftwaffe's movement. Yet they came on-and each night, they dropped their burden of fire-raising bombs. At first the attack was confined to the docks and working-class districts of the East End. Then, as the nights passed, the attack gradually moved west, over 'the centre of London's West End and farther-until the whole town and its outlying suburbs came within the target area. The Luftwaffe was bent on battering down the morale of all London.
At times it seemed, too, the Luftwaffe attempted to encompass London with fire. Although no night passed without the glow of flames, there were some occasions when the whole of inner London was deliberately ringed with incendiaries. There seemed to be a plan to burn London out. Possibly it was an attempt to disperse our fire-fighting forces. But, whatever the object, it was not achieved. Usually all fires were under control by dawn or before. The amount of fire bombs varied from night to night and the number of fires oscillated erratically. Many "fires" were merely small outbreaks confined to the room or roof in which they started, but several times great conflagrations, or spreading groups of large fires, illuminated the night skies. In every case these were checked.
The tempo of bombing did not, decrease until 5th October. From. then onwards raids continued nightly, but with less ferocity, until 8th December, after which the attack on London was withdrawn and the fire services had their first real respite after three months of effort.
But let us return to September. During that first hair-raising, fire-raising, temper-raising month London's fire-fighters fought a phenomenal battle. Raids lasted from dusk to dawn, an eight-hour stretch in September which gradually extended to twelve hours as the winter nights lengthened. But fire fighting seldom stopped with the dawn and it was quite usual for the men to work from ten to fifteen hours at a stretch. A fireman who is really "in amongst it" gets drenched through to his shirt in the first five minutes; so that those long hours of hard work were spent in clothes heavy with water. The nights grew colder and the hardships of exposure consequently more wearying. And throughout, fires were fought in the open when bombs were falling. Fired districts were an especial target for the bombers. They provided the only certain light on the dark map of a blacked-out city. Night after night heavy explosives screamed down on the unfaltering fire-fighters. Firemen were exposed to direct hits from these bombs. Another indirect peril was the crumbling of a wall already weakened by fire. Added to these dangers was the constant risk of being hit by A.A. shell-splinters that peppered the streets with their peculiar glassy tinkle.
The reputation of the service was greatly enhanced at this time and during a famous speech by Winston Churchill he dubbed the fireman as "heroes with grimy faces."
Copyright © 2002 Peter
N. Risbey.
