IT was a defining chapter of World War Two, when Britain stood at the mercy of Hitler as the full force of his Luftwaffe rained down.
Now the fiery hell that engulfed towns and cities during the Blitz has been brought to the big screen in a movie that stirs painful memories for survivors who were there as the nation stood on the brink.
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Oscar-winning director Sir Steve McQueen’s new film, Blitz, starring Saoirse Ronan and Paul Weller, recounts real events from the time, including the destruction of London’s Cafe de Paris as the band played, and homes collapsing on owners.
It also reveals the heroism, with a child wriggling through the locked gates of a flooding underground station in Balham in the capital to raise the alarm that people were drowning.
For the survivors of the eight months of almost nightly raids on London from September 1940 to May 1941, the trauma was all too vivid.
Rosemary Dovey, 89, is tearful as she tells The Sun that her neighbour died in the rubble, and how she dodged flares from enemy planes during a trip into the city.
While Fred Lacey, 91, remembers nearly being hit by shrapnel, and Barbara Seaton, 98, recalls the windows being blown out in her school.
Most people think that children were protected from German dictator Adolf Hitler’s Blitzkrieg — meaning lightning attack — as more than 1.25million citizens were moved to the relative safety of the countryside.
‘Memory is still so fresh’
But 7,736 children were killed and 7,622 seriously wounded as the Nazis attempted to break the nation’s resolve.
Other cities, including Liverpool, Coventry and Hull, also bore the brunt of the bombing campaign.
Of the 43,000 civilians who died during the Blitz, 13,000 were outside London and 200,000 homes were totally destroyed across the country.
Singer-turned-actor Paul Weller’s own father saw the devastation of World War Two when exiting an air raid shelter as a child.
He says: “When they came out in the morning, the whole street had been flattened.
“My mum was evacuated as a child. For those of that generation, the war is still so fresh in the mind.”
I said, ‘I don’t want to be evacuated.’ My mum said, ‘No, if we’re going to die, we’re going to die together’
Rosemary Dovey, 89
Retired seamstress Rosemary tells how the train line backing on to her family’s terraced home in West London was a target for German bombers because the Royal Family used it.
But her dad William, who worked in a coal yard, and laundry worker mum Florence chose not to send their only daughter to stay with strangers outside of the capital.
Rosemary recalls: “I said, ‘I don’t want to be evacuated.’ My mum said, ‘No, if we’re going to die, we’re going to die together.’”
McQueen, best known for award-winning 12 Years A Slave and the Small Axe TV series, centred his story on a boy who does not want to be parted from his mum, played by Saoirse, and grandad — Paul’s role.
The reality of that risk became all too clear to Rosemary, who was five when the Blitz began, when her step-brother came through the door.
Rosemary says: “We heard this explosion. Jimmy came in. He was wearing a white shirt, covered in blood. It wasn’t his blood.”
Jimmy, then 20, had survived the destruction of the house that he lived in across the street and tried to save another resident in the wreckage.
Not everyone, though, was pulling together for the national good, which is reflected in the movie by actor Stephen Graham’s portrayal of a thief raiding a wrecked jewellery store.
Rosemary remembers Jimmy had to clamber through the debris to get to his wardrobe before thieves got hold of his collection of tailored suits.
The mum-of-two says: “Looters would climb all over the wreckage looking for people’s belongings.”
One evening when Rosemary went to see a pantomime at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire she had to dodge an attack from the air going home.
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She says: “A German plane was dropping flares on us as we went along. But fortunately we got home.
“It was scary being in London — you didn’t know if that day was going to be your last.”
The capital’s suburbs did not escape from the conflict either. Barbara Seaton, 98, was taking her exams in Surbiton in the south west of the city when she heard an explosion.
Luckily, the pupils were in the basement.
She says: “The blast went up Palace Road, Surbiton, and then it hit the first building — the school — and all the windows came out.”
It was a stirring defence of the city from gunners on the ground and Spitfires in the air which eventually persuaded Hitler to end the attack.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s decision not to surrender to the Germans proved to be a major turning point in the war.
‘Nobody asked questions’
Barbara says: “We were near the railway.
“There were naval guns travelling up and down the railway line, trying to shoot down bombers coming over to get to central London.”
The Keep Calm And Carry On attitude kept the country going.
Even though the number of children in Barbara’s class reduced from 35 to 12, she never found out why.
She says: “Nobody talked.
“Nobody asked people questions.
“Nobody wanted to find out anything.”
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Retired librarian Barbara, who was 14 during the Blitz, also remembers her father Stanley wearing wellies on his way to work because of the damage.
The mother-of-four, who now lives in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, says: “He was walking through what he thought was water, but it was liquid glass just running across the road from buildings.”
Fred Lacey, 91, also witnessed the conflict at the opposite end of the capital in Ilford, East London.
A lot of people got injured by the bullet cases coming from the skies. In Ilford quite a few people were killed.
Fred Lacey, 91
He was evacuated to Ipswich when war was declared in 1939, but returned home after a few months because so little fighting took place on the Western Front in the first eight months of the conflict, which was nicknamed the “phoney war”.
Six when the bombings started, he watched the RAF fending off the Luftwaffe.
Fred says: “I would watch the Spitfires and Hurricanes in dogfights.
“I remember being dragged into a shelter by someone because you could hear the shrapnel coming down the road.
“A lot of people got injured by the bullet cases coming from the skies. In Ilford quite a few people were killed.”
Fred, who would play in destroyed buildings, adds: “Us kids, we would pretend to go mountaineering up the side of the craters left by the bombs. It was exciting.”
Retired fireman Fred slept in a small cage, known as a Morrison shelter, in their dining room.
It was only him and his mum at home as his father Fred Snr had been called up.
But many of the home shelters were inadequate and it was only due to intense protests that underground Tube stations were opened up to scared citizens at night.
The countless stories of brave locals trying to defuse unexploded bombs also led to King George VI introducing the George Cross for gallantry away from the battlefield.
Together, Britons found a way through this country’s darkest days.
McQueen says: “As a Londoner, I grew up acutely aware of the impact the Blitz had on the city.
Read more on the Scottish Sun
“It was a time of communal resilience, when people came together with the shared primal purpose of survival and, in some corners, a ‘Blitz spirit’ took hold.”
- Blitz is in cinemas from today before it streams on Apple TV+ from November 22.
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