…in 1940 the Blitz began. The night of September 7th was the first of fifty-seven consecutive nights of bombing across London and the UK by German bombers.In all, the ‘lightening war’ lasted for eight months, and was ultimately a strategic failure for the Axis powers – Hitler had grossly underestimated the British ability to ‘grin and bear it’.

Children of an eastern suburb of London, made homeless by the Blitz, wait outside the wreckage of what was their home. September 1940. New Times Paris Bureau Collection. (USIA)