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London bombed during WWII
On September 7, 1940, amidst the aerial “Battle of Britain,” designed to soften British air defenses sufficiently for a German invasion across the Channel, the German Luftwaffe shifted its tactical emphasis and began an extensive period of nighttime bombing raids of British cities and industry.
The intensification in the terror bombing of civilian targets came in the wake of the British Royal Air Force’s late August bombing attacks on Berlin. Hitler had threatened the British he would “erase their cities” in response, in a speech on September 4.
Beginning September 7, London was bombed for 57 consecutive nights, and then for 71 nights out of the next 267, with one million homes destroyed and 40,000 civilians killed. Between September 7 and October 31, 13,685 tons of high explosive and incendiary were dropped upon the capital.
Other British cities, especially those like Glasgow, Birmingham and Sheffield with heavy concentrations of industry, mechanical engineering, and port facilities, also suffered heavy damage.
During the war the killing of civilians through bombing raids was even more wanton among the “democratic” imperialist powers. In Germany alone some 500,000 civilians were killed by Allied campaigns, according to a post-war study carried out by the West German Federal Statistics Office.