Sunday, April 19, 2009

Living with “The Blitz”

As the nightly German attacks over London continued, the city’s Underground railway stations were used as air raid shelters (above). The authorities disapproved of the practice at first, but then did what they could to make them more comfortable, and life underground soon developed its own culture. These Londoners are sleeping on the escalators in one London tube station.

In a mimicry of death, shop dummies lie on the pavement (above) after a London department store was hit.

At the height of the Blitz, most of the 1,500,000 people serving in the various fire, civil defence, shelter and casualty organizations were part-time volunteers. Here a rescue party (below) — with the double R designation on its steel helmets — removes a Blitz victim from rubble.

No comments:

Post a Comment