As far as Britain is concerned, the Blitz is one of the central episodes of the Second World War. Many cities were heavily bombed from September 1940 to May 1941, but the attacks on London are often made to represent them all. From 7 September, the capital was bombed every night for 76 consecutive nights, with one single respite. Approximately 43,000 people were killed or wounded and more than a million homes in London (roughly one in six) were damaged or destroyed.
Despite the heavy bombing of London, Coventry, Liverpool, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Glasgow, Southampton, and other cities, Hitler did not bomb Britain into submission. Law and order certainly broke down in places, and many local authorities proved hopelessly incompetent when it came to dealing with the problems of bomb damage and displaced families. The concept of ‘we was all one’ has often been absurdly exaggerated in popular mythology. But, overall, Britain’s spirit did hold up.
So it is rather surprising that very few British films have been made about the Blitz. During the war, the ‘Blitz spirit’ was celebrated in a few movies – such as 1940’s London Can Take It!, in which an American correspondent reports on the courage and resilience of Londoners, and 1943’s Fires Were Started, a brilliant drama-documentary tribute by Humphrey Jennings to the heroism of the firefighters.
