Firefighters of London 3

[Joe Nicholson]

THE FIRE FIGHTERS OF LONDON
in action


III THE FIGHT IS ON


From 7th September onwards, the Luftwaffe raided London day and
night. R.A.F. fighter interception prevented many of the daylight
raiders from reaching Central London. But at night the bombers
swarmed through under cover of darkness. A gigantic barrage of
anti-aircraft gunfire curtained the skies and hampered the
Luftwaffe's movement. Yet they came on--and each night they dropped
their burden of fire-raising bombs. At first the attack was
confinced to the docks and working class districts of the East End.
Then, as the nights passed, the attack gradually moved west, over
the centre of London's West End and further--until the whole town
and its outlying suburbs came within the target area. The Luftwaffe
was bent on battering down the morale of all London.
At times it seemed, too, that the Lutfwaffe attempted to encompass
London with fire. Although no night passed without the glow of
flames, there were some occasions when the whole of London was
deliberately ringed with incendiearies. There seemed to be a plan
to burn London out. Possibly it was an attempt to disperse our fire-
fighting forces. But, whatever the object, it was not achieved.
Usually, all fires were under control by dawn or before. The amount
of fire bombs varied from night to night and the numbers of fires
oscillated erratically. Many "fires" were merely small outbreaks
confined to the room or roof in which they started but several
times great conflagrations, or spreading groups of large fires,
illuminated the night skies. In every case these were checked.
The tempo of bombing did not decrease until 5th October. From
then onwards raids continued nightly, but with less ferocity, until
8th December, after which the attack on London was withdrawn and the
fire services had their first real respite after three months of
effort.
(Illustrations)

FIREMAN'S GEAR. Oil painting by auxillary fireman Paul Dessau.
This is really a remarkable painting of still life, and the subject
is treated in very great sympathy.
It is his own gear. There is his mattress, rolled up; there is
the dirt of many a fire fight on his rubber boots, and it is well
worth noting the skill with which he has shown the testure of his
anti-gasequipment which is lying on the matress. The suitcase would
be used by him when he goes home on his 24 hours' leave.


CONVOY EN ROUTE. Water color by auxillary fireman Rudolf Hay-
brook. They were all going along together in strong moonlight--a
very clear night and the bombs started dropping. Very happily, none
of the pumps nor crews were hit.


But let us return to September. During that first hair-raising,
fire-raising, temper-raising month, London's fire-fighters fought a
phenomenal battle. Raids lasted from dusk to dawn, an eight-hour
stretch in September which gradually extended to twelve hours as
the winter nights lengthened. But fire-fighting seldom stopped with
the dawn and it was quite usual for the men to work from ten to
fifteen hours at a stretch. A fireman who is really "in amongst
it" gets drenced through to his shirt in the first five minutes; so
that those long hours of hard work were spent in clothes heavy with
water. The nights grew colder and the hardships of exposure
consequently more wearying. And throughout, fires were fought in
the open when bombs were falling. Fired districts were an especial
target for the bombers. They provided the only certain light on
the dark map of a blacked-out city. Night after night heavy
explosives screamed down on the unfaltering fire-fighters. Soon the
size of these bombs increased and a very heavy type of bomb came
roaring through the fire glow; firemen were exposed to direct hits
from these bombs; another indirect peril was the crumbling of a wall
already weakened by fire. Adding to these dangers was the constant
risk of being hit by anti-aircraft shell-splinters that peppered the
streets with their peculiar glassy tinkle.
The Luftwaffe employs two main types of fire bomb--the oil bomb
and the thermite incendiary. The oil bomb is about the size and
shape of an ordinary cylindrical dustbin. Its thin metal casing is
packed with oil and other inflammable material. The bomb bursts and
ignites on impact, flinging out flaming oil and splinters for many
yards around. Much smaller is the thermite incendiary. About
eighteen inches long and only a kilo or more in weight, these light
bombs can be carried by thousands in one airplane. With the force of
their fall they can penetrate a normal tiled roof and burn
furiously, their magnesium alloy container fusing on impact.
Sometimes they are showered separately; sometimes they are dropped
in batches held together by a containing frame which explodes near
to the ground, thereby dispersing the incendiary units over a small
area; sometimes they are supplemented with a small explosive charge
to discourage quick attention from fire-fighters. Throughout the
Luftwaffe attacks, civilians, police and air raid wardens have dealt
splendidly with these small bombs whenever they have fallen in sight.
These are the bombs that scarred London during the first intense
month of raids. After 5th October the pace slackened. But the
attack was by no means over and sporadically there occurred heavy
nights in certain localities. It was after a heavy raid on the
night of 8th December, that a period of peace at last began. The
following night no fires were reported in the London area; and from
then until after Christmas the Fire Service was given its rest.
For three months London had been fired from the skies. In that
time the Fire Service--the old hands of the regular Brigade, the
raw auxillaries, and the war organization that planned their move-
ments--had proved itself equal to the task. It is needless to
repeat tales of individual heroism; the whole story of those months
is a tale of courage and endurance. Every man, boy and woman in the
service played his or her part. The men fought their fires
unflinchingly. Young dispatch riders rode their motor-cycles
through the dark, crater-torn streets, providing an invaluable
liason service between officers at fires and their control centres.
Women drivers and canteen workers smiled their way through the worst
areas. Women control-room telephonists stuck to their posts after
their station had been largely demolished by direct hits or set on
fire by incendiary bombs.
Too often we think of fires in terms of a rescue from the top
story of a tall house. But that is only one facet of fire-fighting.
Firemen are faced with many different odds--equally formidable. It
is when gasworks blaze, when petrol stations are aflame, that the
fireman must fight some of this fiercest battles. When great
timberyards burn on a tremendous scale with the intense appetite of
dry wood--the same appetite you may notice in miniture when you
light the chopped sticks in your fire-grate at home; When there is
fire at a chemical works and the blistered chemicals throws off
gases that may be poisonous; when a giant gas container is in
danger of explosion; when the murderous flashback of vapour at a
petrol station may engulf the fireman and his hose in one
treacherous second; these are some of the great risks in the hard
game of fire-fighting--and they become even greater under
bombardment.

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