Blood, sweat, toil and tears
The prime minister spent Sunday, September 8, 1940 walking from one bomb site to another. Fires were still burning across the East End and on both sides of the Thames. Surrey docks was a square mile of flame. The raid had been no mere warm-up. Swarms of Heinkel and Dornier bombers – 250 of them, plus 50 Messerschmitt fighters – flew in over the east coast at 4.30pm on September 7. Meeting no resistance, they tracked west along the Thames.
The high explosive bombing began at the Ford car factory in Dagenham. Next to be hit was Europe’s largest gasworks and then the docks with their warehouses packed with ammunition and food. Tar, rubber and soap factories were reduced to rubble, as were hundreds of homes in the streets squeezed in and around the docks.
