Buy this book on-line MORTIMER, GAVIN: : THE LONGEST NIGHT 10 - 11 MAY 1941: Voices from the London BlitzLONDON.WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON 2005. ISBN 0297846388.
UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.[Complete number line 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2.] FINE/FINE.No owner inscrptn and no price-clip to dw/dj.Bright,crisp,clean, matt,contemporary monochrome photographic illustrated dw/dj panels (b/w front,red+black rear) with white+grey lettering to front and spine; with negligible shelf-wear or creasing to edges and corners - no nicks or tears present. Top+fore-edges bright and clean; contents bright,tight,clean,solid and sound - pristine - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners - though an accidental lower corner crease to pp69/70,otherwise appears unread - apart from my own collation.Bright,crisp,clean,sharp-cornered, publisher's original plain black cloth boards with bright,crisp,blocked fluorescent red gilt letters to spine/backstrip,and immaculate coloured London environs map illustrated endpapers.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,7-366pp [paginated] includes author's acknowledgements and introduction,30 chapters and an epilogue, 16pp contemporary b/w photographs in 1 block, between pp192/3,a list of Main Players,a glossary and an index; plus [unpaginated] half-title+title pages,a contents list/table and 2pp blanks at rear of the book.
After eight months of bombing,Londoners thought the worst was over.The nightly raids seemed to have stopped and although large parts of the city had been devastated,life was returning to normal. On the afternoon of Saturday 10 May 1941, 60,000 fans gathered at Wembley to watch Arsenal face Preston North End in the Cup Final. Vera Lynn drove in for a concert.Journalists gathered in the bar at the Savoy.But as the football match began and shoppers thronged the streets,the German air bases in France were equally busy.Hitler had ordered a final all-out attack: over 400 bombers loaded with incendaries prepared to hit London with a rain of fire.
Gavin Mortimer reveals what it was like to live in a city under attack.Everyday life somehow continued,but London was changed forever.His research has taken him all over the country and he has interviewed many survivors of this last great raid.Tom Finney,arguably the greatest English footballer ever,played for Preston that day.Bobbie Tanner,a 1930s society girl,became the only firewoman to be awarded the George Medal.Richard James was the radar operator in a nightfighter flown by Guy Gibson of 'Dambusters' fame.Johnny Freeborn,one of the last surviving Battle of Britain fighter aces,flew his Spitfire that night,hunting in the darkness for enemy bombers.Vera Lynn,singing at the London Palladium,kept a strip of silk from a parachute mine that came through the roof.The actor Ballard Berkeley,later famous for his role as the major in 'Fawlty Towers',was then a policeman in the West End,trying to prevent looting: he was buried in rubble by a bomb that killed his colleague.
British fighters taking off from West Malling could see London burning.Westminster Abbey was hit; the Houses of Parliament too; other landmarks damaged or destroyed included Waterloo Station,the Old Bailey,the British Museum,the Elephant & Castle,St James's Palace and Bow Church - the legacy of the Blitz remains with us today.In a matter of hours 1,346 Londoners were killed; 1,800 injured and 11,000 houses destroyed.Of the emergency services,thirty-six firemen were killed and 289 wounded.This is a story of destruction and determination,heroism and horror: London's longest night.
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