The "Second Great Fire of London", 29th/30th December 1940.
Between 6 pm and 6 am the next day, more than 24,000 high explosive bombs and 100,000 incendiary bombs were dropped on London by the Luftwaffe. The raid and the subsequent fire destroyed many Livery Halls and gutted the medieval Great Hall of the City's Guildhall.
The largest continuous area of Blitz destruction anywhere in Britain occurred on this night, stretching south from Islington to the very edge of St Paul's Churchyard. The area destroyed was greater than that of the Great Fire of London in 1666. The raid was timed to coincide with a particularly low tide on the River Thames, making water difficult to obtain for fire fighting. Over 1500 fires were started, with many joining up to form three major conflagrations which in turn caused a firestorm that spread the flames further, towards St Paul's Cathedral.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill insisted that the Cathedral be saved at all costs.
160 civilians died during that 12 hours. 14 firemen died fighting the fires and 250 were injured. Buildings completely destroyed in the fire storm included 19 churches, 31 guild halls and all of Paternoster Row. Paternoster Row was the centre of the London publishing trade and an estimated 5 million books were lost in the fire.
Probably everyone today is aware of Herbert Mason's iconic photograph of St Paul's Cathedral standing proudly and seemingly untouched amid a sea of smoke and flame on the 29th/30th December 1940, the night that became known as the Second Great Fire of London. This photograph was circulated around the world and became a symbol of the British people's defiance against the Nazi hordes waiting across the Channel.
The truth is that far from being undamaged, the famous old cathedral did in fact sustain quite serious damage on a number of occasions during the War and on the night that Mason's photograph was taken, came within a whisker of joining the ten Wren churches destroyed within the Square Mile on that fateful night.
During The Great War, the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's had formed the St Paul's Watch in order to guard the Cathedral against German air attacks, which in those days came from the giant airships colloquially known as Zeppelins and the Gotha biplane bombers. In that conflict, the Cathedral had survived unscathed and the Watch had been disbanded in 1918. In 1939, the Watch was reformed as a dedicated team of three hundred fire watchers and fire fighters formed mainly from the Cathedral's own staff but augmented by members of RIBA - the Royal Institute of British Architects - including the future Poet Laureate, Sir John Betjeman. About forty of the Watch were on duty at any one time, with more being drafted in during air raids. On the night of the 29th/30th December, it was estimated that some eight hundred incendiaries fell on and around the Cathedral, all of which were successfully dealt with by the Watch - all except for one rogue bomb which lodged in the lead covering of the Dome. This bomb was too high for those stationed on the Stone Gallery to reach and too far down for the members stationed on the Ball high above street level. As the incendiary fizzled and burst into life, the onlookers could only watch helplessly and pray that somehow the bomb would not fall into the Dome and ignite the timber framework that supported the whole structure, for if this were to happen then the Cathedral was certain to burn like the rest of the City, leaving just a shell. Just as things were looking desperate, either a miracle or a result of gravity occurred, depending on one's point of view and the bomb fell outward, bounced down the side of the Dome and landed on the Stone Gallery where it was pounced upon by members of the St Paul's Watch and quickly extinguished.
The St Paul's Watch was disbanded once again after the war but was reformed once again in 1952 when it was renamed The Friends of St Pauls who today sell guidebooks and assist visitors to the Cathedral.
St Paul's Cathedral and the surrounding area today
Blitzwalkers: Saving an Icon: The St Paul's Watch and a Flawed Hero
Second Great Fire of London - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
