The “Second Great Fire of London” remains as a name used to refer to one of the most destructive enemy air raids of the London Blitz. It occurred over the night of 29/30 December 1940. Between 6 pm on the evening of the 29th and the early hours of the following morning, more than 24,000 high explosive bombs and 100,000 incendiary bombs were dropped. The raid and the subsequent fire storm destroyed many City of London Livery Halls and City churches. It also gutted the medieval Great Hall of the City’s Guildhall.

It was the largest continuous area of Blitz destruction anywhere in Britain. It stretched south from Islington to the very edge of St Paul’s Churchyard. The total area destroyed was greater than that of the Great Fire of London of 1666. German planning had the raid coincide with a particularly low tide on the River Thames, making water difficult to obtain for firefighting. With over 1500 fires started, many joined up to form three major conflagrations which in turn caused a firestorm that spread the flames further, towards St Paul’s Cathedral itself.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill had urged that the Cathedral must be saved at all costs. It was saved only by the dedication of the London’s firemen, who kept the fire that raging in St Paul’s Churchyard away from the Cathedral, and of the volunteer firewatchers of the St Paul’s watch who had fought to put out the incendiaries or firebombs on the Cathedral’s roof. Some 200 members of the St Paul’s Watch were largely recruited from the Royal Institute of British Architects. They knew the vulnerabilities of the structure and where to target firefighting efforts.

More than 160 ordinary Londoners died during that night, with many more dying of their injuries in the days that followed. 14 London firemen died fighting those fires and 250 were injured, many critically.

The buildings completely destroyed in the fire storm included 19 churches, 31 guild halls and all of Paternoster Row. Paternoster Row was the centre of the London publishing trade and an estimated 5 million books were lost in the fire.

In Whitecross Street the fire spread with such speed and ferocity that firemen had to abandon their appliances. The fifteen crews managed to escape through the underground railway tunnels. Two thousand pumping appliances were mobilised by the London Region fire brigade control, over three hundred came from other regions to reinforce the London Region. Nine of London’s fire-floats were brought into use.

The London Fire Brigade, augmented by the Auxiliary Fire Service, worked throughout the night of the 29th / 30th December to prevent the voluminous fires from spreading and to gradually bring the conflagrations under control. The Fire Services worked at considerable danger from falling bombs, collapsing buildings and the risk of being cut off by rapidly spreading fires.

Through the night the availability of water was a problem. Bombing destroyed water mains and the many fire engines drawing water from the available water mains considerably reduced the water pressure. Hundreds of land based pumps were used and to help with the provision of supplies of water, the London Fire Brigade’s fleet of fire-floats were used to pump water from the Thames ashore.

The Massey Shaw was one of several fire-floats, constructed London Fire Brigade by J. Samuel White & Co on the Isle of Wight in 1935, which battled the blazes. Such was the fire-floats importance, with the war looming, the London County Council had placed an order for twenty fire-floats in 1939. They all saw action along the length of the Thames, including one being sunk by a bomb at Thames Haven.

The Massey Shaw, named after Sir Eyre Massey Shaw, the first chief fire officer of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (from 1861 to 1891), was designed with a shallow draught to allow access along the Thames, under bridges and into the creeks feeding into the river at nearly all states of tide. Fire-floats were an essential tool in the ability of the UK fire services to fight fires on and along the river, docks and major ports. In 1935 the banks of the Thames were still occupied by large numbers of warehouses storing vast amounts of combustible materials and often access from the river was the only means of fighting fires in these warehouses, and the river also provided a readily available source of water. Shipping lined the Pool of London and filled London’s docks, ships carrying all types of cargo.

The Massey Shaw was equipped with two, 8-cylinder diesel engines which would either drive the boat, or could be switched over to power two Merryweather centrifugal pumps each capable of pumping 1,500 gallons of water per minute through to the deck firefighting equipment. On deck was a large 3-inch Monitor (a steerable, high pressure water jet) along with banks of water outlets on either side of the deck which could be used to set up additional high pressure water jets, or to pump water from the river to land.

It was the ability to pump water from the Thames through hoses to land which was of such importance on the night of the 29th December 1940. Not only was there limited water available from water mains, but it was also a low tide so access to water from the banks of the river was difficult. Having a fire-float which could moor in water and pump to shore was essential in fighting fires on the night and protecting St. Paul’s Cathedral.

September 1940 –May 1941.

London and the River Thames waterfront were the prime targets for the intensive enemy bombing campaign in the early part of World War II, which became known simply as the ‘Blitz’. Hitler had two objectives; to disrupt trade through the country’s largest port and breaking Britain’s spirit. But the Germans were to be proved to be wrong on both points. The German plan, overseen by Reich Air Marshall Goering, had been to reduce London, and other large populated cities, to rubble and ashes, shattering the infrastructures of everyday life. His aim to paralyse administration and industry and to leave the population exhausted, terror-struck and cowering in their shelters. From this onslaught, it was hoped, Britain would sue for peace. Goering’s strategic bombing dissolved the clear distinction between the battlefield and homeland. His tactics turned a distant city into an embattled ‘home front’.

The docks, warehouses, and munitions plants of London were obvious targets; but so were the utilities and transport networks that served them, together with the millions whose labour was the city’s lifeblood.  This was industrialised war;a ‘total war of materiel and attrition’. The people of London became targets. As such, they faced a choice: they could be mere victims, waiting in the damp and muck of a crowded shelter for the bomb that destroyed them – or they could become combatants in their own right and fight back by simply not giving in to the bombing. Londoner’s chose the latter.

Throughout the summer of 1940 the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) had targeted the Royal Air Force(RAF), both in the skies over southern England and its bases in the Home Counties, especially across the South-east. The Germans needed air superiority before they could mount their planned invasion of England. This was the Battle of Britain, and despite heavy losses of men and aircraft, the RAF gradually gained the upper hand, forcing the Germans to change their tactics. The Germans did.

In September 1940 London’s burning docklands provided a beacon for the German navigators following the Thames upriver. For those on the ground and fighting the dock and warehousefires, the contents, added to hazards the firefighters faced nightly. There were pepper fires, loading the surrounding air heavily with stinging particles,so that when firemen took a deep breath, it felt like burning fire itself. There were rum fires, with torrents of blazing liquid pouring from the warehouse doors, and barrels exploding like bombs themselves. There was a paint fire, another cascade of white-hot flame… A rubber fire gave forth black clouds of smoke so asphyxiating that it could only be fought from a distance.

ARP wardens were on active duty during the bombing, enforcing the blackout, guiding people to shelters, watching for incendiaries, attending and reporting ‘incidents’. Under such fire, and doing this essential work, they were as much combatants as the regular soldiers, manning AA guns, searchlights, and barrage balloons around London. (The ARP suffered 3,808 casualties during the war, 1,355 of them were killed.)

On that first night of the Blitz (7^th September) only one in five of London’s firefighters had had any previous experience. The dangers they faced were numerous and unpredictable. During the war, more than eight hundred firefighters would be killed and more than seven thousand, seriously injured. Many of them blinded by heat or sparks. At the end of the ten-week onslaught of  intensive Blitz on London fire, crews were all utterly exhausted by lack of sleep, excessive hours, irregular meals, extremes of temperature, and the constant physical and mental strain.

On the river, beside the Massey Shaw and London’s otherfire-fighting craft, London’s air defence precautions included the River Emergency Service. More than a dozen pre-war pleasure steamers were converted to first aid and ambulance boats. They were moored at various points along the river including Silvertown Wharf, Wapping and Cherry Garden Pier, alongside the Beta III. To give a taste of what the fire-float crews, and others, endured onthe Thames that first night it is perhaps best illustrated by a personal account given by Sir Alan Herbert, who was in command of the Thames Auxiliary Patrol’s vessel Water Gypsy, which was heading downriver:

“Half a mile or more of the Surrey shore was burning. The wind was westerly and the accumulated smoke and sparks of all the fires swept in a highwall across the river.” He pressed on into the clouds of smoke: “The scene was like a lake in Hell. Burning barges were drifting everywhere. We could hear the hiss and roar of the conflagrations, a formidable noise but we could not see it so dense was the smoke. Nor could we see the eastern shore.”

As dawn broke on the 8^thSeptember the scale of the destruction was revealed. Four hundred and fifty Londoners had been killed and one thousand five hundred badly injured. Three main railway stations were out of action and one thousand fires were still burning, all the way up the river from Deptford to Putney. They included two hundred acres of timber ponds and stores in the Surrey Commercial Docks, destroying one third of London’s stocks of timber–stock which was badly needed for building repairs in the coming months.

The Blitz on London had started. The German bombers struck for fifty-seven consecutive nights and sometimes by day as well. The riverside communities from Woolwich to Lambeth bearing the brunt of the onslaught. Some streets had sturdy, well-constructed public air raid shelters; in others people had to rely on quickly-built Anderson shelters made from a couple of sheets of corrugated iron with earth piled on top. The shelters were for the civilians, there was no such safe haven for the emergency services, but especially the firemen, working on the streets and along the river.

Meanwhile it was not exactly business as usual for the docks and wharves as traffic was reduced to half its pre-war levels. But more freight was carried by tugs and lighters (barges)since, unlike the roads, the river was never blocked by bomb damage. For Londoners, and particularly the East Enders, it was the winter from hell. From that September their homes, and their city, had been pounded almost nightly by the Germanbombers. In riverside communities from Woolwich and Silvertown in the east, and Lambeth and beyond in the west, everyone knew the bomb-damaged streets, the families whose homes had been destroyed or who had lost a loved one in the Blitz.

The night-time raids that followed were equally terrible and deadly. Night after night the bombers returned. The Strand, the West End and Piccadilly were attacked. St Thomas’s Hospital, St Paul’s Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, Lambeth Palace and the House of Commons were all hit. Between September and November 1940 almost 30,000 bombs were dropped on London.In the first 30 days, almost 6,000 people were killed and twice as many badly injured including London’s firefighters.

There were many acts of‘Blitz’ outstanding gallantry. One fireman was awarded the George Cross, theNation’s highest civilian gallantry award. Others received the George Medal,tragically some medals and commendations were awarded posthumously.

In late1940 Acting Sub Officer Richard Henry ASHTON’s actions saw him awarded the Medalof the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (BEM) for Meritorious Service. (Published in the London Gazette Supplement No 35058, 31stJanuary 1941, pp. 611.) About fifty people were cut off by a serious fire and were in danger of being driven into the river by the flames. With great difficulty and while bombing was continuing Sub-Officer Ashton, who was in charge of a fire-float, rescued the stranded people by towing them in a barge, skilfully avoiding other burning barges and disembarked them in safety.

Awarded the Medal of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (BEM) for Meritorious Service was AuxiliaryMessenger Samuel STILLWELL. At a large Docks fire this boy (16) was discovered holding a hose until relieved by firemen. He continued afterwards to deliver messages-and bring drinking-water to officers and men who were unable to leave their positions. Altogether Stillwell was at the fire in the Docks on the first day and night for over 14 hours and on five succeeding nights carried out duties at fires in the same area with great courage. He was quite indifferent to the danger he was in and, although ordered to shelter, he turned up again and again later in the night and the next morning carrying drinking water to the men on the hoses.

Just after Christmas, and at 6.30 p.m,on the 29^th December, a massive night attack began in earnest. Baskets and baskets of enemy incendiaries clattered down on the roofs andstreets of the City of London. All around St Paul’s Cathedral fires sprang up and quickly spread. Some fire bombs fell on the cathedral’s roof but all were cast off or extinguished.

The water supply in London failed, important mains being shattered by high-explosive bombs. Only by dragging heavy canvas hose across the mud from the fire-floats working in the Thames could water be brought to the bank. In the river bed firemen toiled, coaxing slimy hose-pipes into a battery of lines for their vital water supply. It was most one of the most notorious raids of the Blitz to date. The enemies focus was the City of London. An area from Aldersgate to Cannon Street and Cheapside to Moorgate went up in flames.

Nineteen churches, including sixteenbuilt by Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London, were destroyed.Miraculously, however, St Paul’s survived. Of the thirty-four Guild Halls, thirty-one were decimated. When Paternoster Row, centre of London’s publishingindustry, was destroyed, around five-million books were lost. Two fire officers and fourteen firemen were killed that night. Across London two hundredand fifty officers and firemen were injured fighting the one thousand-fivehundred fires that blazed into the early hours of the following day.

The last major attack on London was on 10/11 May 1941, on which the Luftwaffeflew 571 sorties and dropped 800 tonnes of bombs. This caused more than 2,000fires. 1,436 people were killed and 1,792 seriously injured, which affectedmorale badly. Another raid was carried out on 11/12 May 1941. Westminster Abbeyand the Law Courts were damaged, while the Chamber of the House of Commons wasdestroyed. One-third of London’s streets were impassable. All but one railwaystation line was blocked for several weeks. This raid was significant as 63German fighters were sent with the bombers indicating the growing effectivenessof RAF night fighter defences. 

By May 1941 43,000 people had been killed across Britain and almost one and an half million had been made homeless. Not only was London attacked but so were many other Britishcities. Coventry and Plymouth were particularly badly bombed. Few, if any ofBritain’s cities escaped enemy bombing. Manchester, Glasgow and Liverpool allsuffered major damage, the loss of life and its populations serious injury.

In the closing weeks of the Blitz the bravery of London’s firefighters was never far from the bombing. Fire stations from the outskirts of greater London headed into the fray, many attending the riversidedocks and warehouse fires. The Blitz on Britain was called off in May 1941. Hitler had a far more prized target. In the following month, Operation Barbarossa was launched, the attack on Russia. The huge military force needed for this attack included many bombers and two-thirds of the German military was to be tied upon the Eastern Front for the duration of the war. Meanwhile it was not exactly business as usual for London’s docks and wharves as traffic was reduced to half its pre-war levels. But more freight was carried by tugs and lighters (barges)since the river was always clear of any bomb debris which blocked the capitals roads. London started to re-build whilst awaiting the next onslaught. It came in the form of the V1 and V2 attacks towards the end of World War II when London again was under attack.

The likelihood of a Second World War was being planned for in early 1933 by theBritish government although it did not widely publicise that fact. The then coalition Government, under the premiership of Ramsey MacDonald, were considering what arrangements would be necessary to cope with concerted enemy aerial attacks on its strategic population centres. London was of particular concern to the Government. However, this was just but one of many major problems facing the MacDonald coalition government at the time. Not least of their worries were the vast economic troubles the UK faced in the wake of the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the subsequent widespread depression that came in its wake.

It was the Home Office who had responsibility for the UK’s fire service. They held a series of seminars and conducted secret planning meetings to deliver a strategy in the event of war and the subsequent fire attacks on the British mainland from the air. London was deemed particularly vulnerable from any enemy bombing action; not least because it was the nation’sseat of government and the City of London was crucial to the country’s financial and business interests.

Both the London County Council and the Chief Officer of the London Fire Brigade, Major Morris, and his deputy Aylmer Firebrace played a significant part in the planning meetings. The reason was simple,London was the hub of the UK’s trade and industrial money making. The London ofthe 1930’s took on a vastly different look to the London of today. The River Thames provided easy access for shipping to the vast network of extensive docksand associated warehouses. The dockland warehouses, from Southwark on the southbank and Blackfriars on the north bank ran eastward, down the Thames, to the Essex and Kent boarders.

It was recognised at an early stage that it would require a massive expansion of London’s, and the surround counties, fire brigades to deal with fires involving London’s central maze of narrow streets,warehouses filled with combustible products (such as oils and grains) and dockyards with its acres of stacked imported timber. Any failure to respond to such a challenge could leave London little more than a smoking ruin. With the foresight of the then London Chief Officer Morris and Commander Firebrace RN  the creation of an auxiliary fire service was approved and the provision of centrally funded emergency firefighting equipment agreed.

The rise of Nazi Germany, and its expansion into surrounding countries, brought about the inevitable conflict. A conflict that saw Great Britain declare war on Germany in 1939. However, before that day the new Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) was created and, from March 1938, their numbers grew. The AFS project involved in attracting the proposed twenty-eight thousand volunteers. Volunteers who would supplement the regular London Fire Brigade. It was a massive logistical exercise.

 

There followed a concerted London wide recruitment drive. Sixty London fire brigade vehicles toured the Capital’s streets promoting the campaign. Recruitment posters were seen everywhere. Even planes flew over London trailing AFS recruitment banners. The River Thames was used to advertise this new fire force too with the Brigade’s high speed fire-float, James Braidwood, flying banners seeking recruits to supplement the London fire brigade’s expanded river service.

The area we now call Greater London had, prior to the outbreak of WWII, some 66 different fire brigades. This number included the London Fire Brigade, the largest, which covered the whole of the former London County Council administrative area. Some of these other brigades were one fire engine outfits that only protected a small borough area. Others had four or five stations such as the former West Ham and Croydon fire brigades.

Buildings and vehicles were seconded into service to house and equip this basically trained corps of AFS firemen, and women, that had now greatly expanded London’s fire service. Meanwhile garages, filling stations and schools, empty since the mass evacuation of children, were taken over and adapted as fire stations.

London had gathered two thousand emergency fire appliances, initially in the form of trailer pumps pulled by London taxis’ hired for the purpose of being make-shift fire engines. In addition to the regular fireman’s fire engines the Home Office would later issue ‘heavy units’, a fire engine looking like a small lorry, either fitted with or carrying a pumpcapable of supplying eight hundred gallons per minute. The taxis were large enough to carry a crew and the hose was stored in the luggage compartment. The accommodation the ‘new’ firemen were allocated was frequently poor at best so the new volunteer AFS firemen spent many hours making good their bases and building their own wooden beds. In addition to this they erected brick walls over windows and sand-bagged entrances to protect themselves from blast damage.

On the day Poland was invaded in September 1939, prompting the British declaration of war, more practical plans were initiated. Preparations were intensified and London took on a surreal look. Major building’s entrances were sand-bagged, a lattice of sticky tape covered windows. Black-outs rules were vigariously enforced, driving at night became even more hazardous and the programme to evacuate young children out of the capital was put into being.

Meanwhile anti-aircraft gun emplacements were set up in London parks and ‘barrage’ balloons were suspended high over London. Trains,running under the Thames, were to be halted during air-raids when the water-tight doors were closed. (This allowed normal services at other times.)

In 1938 twenty auxiliary fire-floats had been ordered and in 1939 ten more were put into service. These craft supplemented the Brigade’s existing four fire-floats; Beta III, Gamma III, the Massey Shaw and the James Braidwood. The Delta II fire-float, which had been decommissioned, was brought back into operational service. With its greatly increased number of river fire stations London had it largest river based firefighting force in its long history. The additional boats, some of which were open, whilst others were fitted with a small rear crew cabin, all carried two large capacity portable pumps, each with an 800 gallons per minute output, and mounted at the front of each fire-float was a monitor_.  Additionally the Brigade had four Thames barges. Each barge carried four one thousand gallon per minute Dennis fire pumps and had twin holes cut in the stern. Suction hose from the pumps was fed through the holes and placed into the river. The barges could move in all directions, manoeuvred by jets of water from two of thepumps. The other two pumps on the craft were used to concentrate on dock and ship fires.

The basic training was provided by regular firemen from the London Fire Brigade. Detached from normal firefighting duties they put the new recruits through sixty hours of practical and theoretical lessons. Whilst some women chose to undertake dispatch rider (motorcycle) duties, others opted for motor driving and many were trained in ‘watchroom’ duties and the necessary procedures for mobilising fire engines and pumping units. Everyone under went basic firefighter training. They were, of course, civilians. They had volunteered from every trade and profession, from every walk of life. Office workers, labourers, lawyers, tailors, cooks and cleaners had taken up the call to join the Auxiliary Fire Service. AFS recruits were divided into different categories. This was based on their physical capabilities, their age, gender and skills. Men considered Class B performed general firefighting duties. B1s worked only on ground level either pump operating or driving. Others recruited from trades on the Thames were classed for River Service work and whilst women would be in the thick of it none performed front line firefighting duties.

The Air-Raid Precautions Act had been passed into law in 1937. Britain was divided into twelve Civil Defence Regions, of which Greater London (and an inner ring of commuter towns close to it) formed one region. Almost a million people were enrolled into the Civil Defence. The vast majority working as volunteers, such as Air Raid Precaution wardens (ARP), ambulance drivers, staffing decontamination units and communication centres. Others were employed in heavy rescue and demolition teams. (At the height of the Blitz one in six ARP wardens was a woman, and50,000 women worked full-time for Civil Defence.)

Commander Aylmer Firebrace became London’s Chief Officer in 1938. He wrote an open letter to all those Londoners considering enrolment as auxiliary fireman or woman, including the Riverservice, that same year. This was his message;

“Enthusiasm! Courage! Endurance! They are not enough.

To these admirable qualities must be added knowledge and experience, if an efficient firefighter is to be made. Technical knowledge is fundamental if we are to be in a position to conduct a successful fire defence of London, knowledge which will enable us to make the best use of our material. Knowledge of our organisation which will ensure that our appliances and personnel are mobilisedjust where they are wanted in the shortest possible time.

There is science and an art of firefighting. Most of the science can be learnt at a fire station, but the art can only be learnt at fires. As a seaman is made by going to sea, so a fireman can be made only by attending fires, year after year, asmany of them as possible.

The Auxiliary Fire Service is no ‘paper’ force. Its members have enrolled in what must surely be one of the most practical and exciting of ARP jobs, a vitally important branch of the home defence.”

                                              Commander A. Firebrace

The government had prepared plans for the evacuation of thousands of children from the threatened area early in 1939.  When the evacuation really began in August the plans quickly dissolved into chaos. Many children from the East End were evacuated by boat or train to East Anglia or Kent. On arrival they found the local authorities completely unprepared to accommodate or feed such large numbers. Often, accommodation in the country areas could only be found in the homes of the more affluent – an extremely different environment from the poorer parts of the East End. The result was often a terrible culture clash. Children were sometimes treated extremely badly or abused and they were often miserable. The situation became worse when it was realised that these ‘safe’ areas might also be subject to air raids. Many children were subsequently moved yet again, as far afield as South Wales or the Lake District.

Despite all these frantic preparations for war London was barely affected. For almost eight months nothing really happened in the way of the anticipated enemy aerial attacks on the UK mainland. The ‘Phoney War’, as it was called, hung heavily over London’s population daily life. It came to an end with the German attack on France and the Low Countries in May 1940. The evacuation of the British and allied forces from the beaches of Dunkirk in late May meant the enemy was finally at the door, but still the massive mainland civilian civil defence forces, including the mammoth fire brigade numbers, had not been tested or brought out in force. Those especially in the AFS, and some regular firemen, bore the brunt of the public’s frustration (and anger) at the Phoney War. Many were seen as ‘war-dodgers’ and even the national press pointed barbed comments their way. However, the tide would turn and soon.

In that May German armies over-ran France and a largely British army, the British Expeditionary Force,was defeated and became trapped on the north coast of France at Dunkirk. Responding to a call from the Government an armada of vessels, including manyfrom London and even the Brigade’s Massey Shaw fire-float set off to rescue the besieged troops.

The end of the Phoney War marked an intensification of preparations for the defence of the Port ofLondon. The River service was on high alert. Anti-aircraft guns had been installed around London docks and barrage balloons were located to protect vulnerable areas like lock gates. Many of the port workers volunteered to serve additionally in the Auxiliary Fire Service, especially on the River Service, or alternately in the Port of London’s own section of the Home Guard.

Then on 7^thSeptember 1940 the raids on London started in ernest. On “Black Saturday” a force of 348 bombers, with an even larger fighter escort, arrived over East London and headed up the River Thames. Their targets were industry and infrastructure: Woolwich Arsenal, Beckton gas works and the Royal Docks, then wharves and warehouses all the way from Silvertown to Wapping. Three hours later a second wave arrived. They were guided to their targets by the bright orange glow from hundreds of burning buildings. 1000’s of London’s untested AFS crews were mobilised. The Massey Shaw,together with all her sister fire-floats worked throughout that first horrendous night. But this was just the start. On the north of the riverware houses full of sugar, rum, paint and spirits caught fire. Blazing rivers of molten liquid poured out onto the quaysides and onto the water.  Preventing a ‘firestorm’ depended on the thousands of pump crews, on land and the river, fighting fires while the bombs continued to fall around them. The ‘Blitz’ on London had started. It would continue for 57consecutive nights.