Back to The Blitz: The startling images that merge the horror of WWII bombings with modern-day Britain
These eye-opening images bring the devastation of the Blitz into the modern world. As a nation reflects on the 70th anniversary of one of the most brutal examples of ‘total war’ these montages blend vintage black and white shots of the carnage of 1940 with colour images of the same locations today. One image shows a huge crater next to the Bank of England in London – perfectly merged with the same location as it looks today to bring home the dangers and privations that affected every Londoner – and indeed the inhabitants of most of Britain’s major towns and cities.
Well-dressed businessmen from seven decades ago are seen discussing the damage in the foreground, while modern city slickers pass by oblivious to the carnage that once took place where they now walk. Another striking fused photograph shows in black and white how workers repaired a huge hole in the pavement just yards from Buckingham Palace. Meanwhile the outer edges of the picture show tourists visiting the royal landmark more recently. A black and white shot of Newton Street in Birmingham, near near to the city’s Children’s Hospital reveals the snaking lines of firemen’s hoses in the aftermath of an aerial incendiary bombardment on the Second City framed by a contemporary colour image of the same scene. In Bristol, firemen in 1942 try to retrieve a car that has plunged into a crater in the centre of city road Park Street, creating an eerie juxtaposition as they are surrounded by current day shoppers going about their business, unaware of the devastation that once brought Britain’s cities almost to their knees.
Függelék
THE BLITZ: THE TERROR FROM THE SKIES
The Blitz began on September 7, 1940, on a glorious sunny afternoon. "All of a sudden, on the skyline coming up the Thames were black specks like swarms of flies, weaving their way through puffs of smoke," recalled Robert Baltrop, who witnessed the attack, in Juliet Gardiner’s book The Blitz: The British Under Attack. "I began to hear loud thumps, and those were bombs falling, and clouds of smoke were rising up — clouds of black smoke floating away until you couldn’t see anything but a huge bank of smoke, and still they were coming."
Before then people hadn’t really bothered carrying gas masks and air raid warnings were seen as a bit of an inconvenience. But that was all to change for the next harrowing eight months. The precursor to the raid had been when on August 24 of that year the Luftwaffe offloaded, believed to be in error, seven or eight bombs over London.
This, however, gave Winston Churchill the chance to order raids on Berlin and then came the German retaliation. The relentless aerial bombardment came to be known as ‘the Blitz’ after the German word ‘Blitzkrieg’, meaning lightning war. In addition to London’s streets, several other UK cities – targeted as hubs of the island’s industrial and military capabilities – were battered by Luftwaffe bombs including Glasgow, Liverpool, Exeter, Cardiff, Belfast and Southampton and many others.
In London the City and the East End bore the brunt of the bombing with the course of the Thames being used to guide German bombers. Londoners came to expect heavy raids during full-moon periods and these became known as ‘bombers’moons’.
Hitler intended to demoralise the country before launching an invasion using his naval and ground forces. The Blitz claimed the lives of 30,000 Londoners and ended on May 16, 1941.
Daily Mail
Vocabulary
eye-opening – szemnyitógató (élmény)
devastation – pusztítás, rombolás
anniversary – évforduló
carnage – mészárlás
privation – nyomor
foreground – előtér
slicker – "dörzsölt" fickó
oblivious – könnyen felejtő
aftermatch – következmény
incendiary – gyújtó
bombardment – bombázás
eerie – titokzatos, hátborzongató
juxtaposition – melléhelyezés
