Walking the London Blitz with Mat McLachlan

[Music] this is the City of London it's one of the busiest financial districts in the world and every day thousands of people scurry along these streets on their way to their places of work but this area has a very dark history because this is the scene of the Blitz the World War two German bombing campaign that turned many of these buildings to rubble they've been rebuilt of course and today the City of London fits in with any modern metropolis but I want to know are there still signs of the Blitz can you still see parts of this history we'll come with me as we go walking the Blitz morning Steve hello Matt nice to meet you thanks for taking the time to do this I'm really excited about this I haven't really done this walk around this part of London I'm looking forward to finding this hidden history from the Blitz well it's all around us here especially in this part of London in the square mile wartime history is never that far away from you and here we are in the shadow of some polls Cathedral which is arguably the location of the most iconic photograph of the Second World War it was taken by a photographer from the Daily Mail newspaper a guy called Herbert Mason and he was told go up on the roof of your office take a photograph of some polls because at that time they thought the cathedral was finished they thought it was going to be burning to the ground whilst he was taking those photographs the smoke from the fires cleared momentarily and he was able to take that photograph of the Cathedral seemingly unscathed by the bombing but of course there were occasions when the Cathedral was hit there were occasions when it was in severe danger of being destroyed and I thought while we were here today I could show you one or two of the sort of the pieces of evidence that remain from that time well this is this is the most iconic image of the Blitz this is the most iconic building from the Blitz why don't we go over and have a closer look at it yeah let's do that so Steve how important was this building to the people of London during the Blitz it was very much a symbol of continuity it was something that had always been here this Cathedral obviously was built following the great fire in 1666 but there'd been a Cathedral on the site long before that as well I guess the best way of looking at it if you can imagine the reaction that we've just seen in France with not Redang being destroyed I think this would have had the same reaction at the time with the British people whether you were particularly religious or not it was something that was always there st. Paul's is just a symbol of London that it's always existed hopefully it will always still be here and I think you know people viewed it that way in the war it was a sign of times gone by and hopefully a sign for them of peaceful times to come in the future it's one of the things that strikes me about this whole period when you've got a civilian population enemy bombers flying over every day and destroying large parts of the city it's not just the damage to the the physical aspect or the damage to the city the damage to the building it's also about morale isn't it absolute when I see that photo of the smoke clearing instant Paul's still standing there defiantly yeah I mean that really sums up the whole brief spirit at this time absolutely people would have been obviously delighted to see the next morning well some polls is still there you know we we've got some hope for the future there were so many other buildings being destroyed and obviously lives being lost as well to see this place still standing must have meant an awful lot to people it must have given them a certain amount of hope for well you know we can get through this and life will go on after the war but as you said the building actually didn't come out unscathed there not at all now there's some damage could we see that there was some damage there's some damage on the other side round in the churchyard which we can have a look at yeah so this area in 1941 there was a parachute mine that got entangled on the wooden cross outside here cross was about where this statue is now loci and it was a game defused it was a roll Royal Navy job to look after parachute mines and that was defused without incident that would have caused a huge amount of damage if that thing had exploded but here we've got some shrapnel damage that you can see in the cathedral walls right at the top there imagine what it would have been like well not to speak standing right here it would have been in trouble but I mean look at these edges out out of the mace house yeah there's some big big marks there this is what I was thinking about we first started talking about this is this is hidden history you look at this building you know beautiful pristine still here for centuries you get up close you start to see this damage you start to see the signs of the war that's what's so exciting to get out here and yeah and seek out these elements of the year it's hiding in plain sight as you say and surprisingly enough there are quite a few locations in various parts of London where you can see damage like this to a greater or lesser extent and it's still there and it just brings it home to you that London was a dangerous place to be if you were unlucky enough to be outside in the open I know most people were undercover but the the firefighters the air raid wardens the emergency services in general all had to contend with that sort of stuff flying around I mentioned earlier that there's a real then and now linked with history that I can show you pretty much on the money here got a photograph right on the spot oh wow and that hole in the ground it's actually an unexploded bomb so that's that is right where we're standing right now absolutely let me get this straight so a bombing raid occurred a bomb landed yeah right where we're standing but I assume given there's no damage to the building it didn't detonate yeah you had an unexploded bomb it was a thousand kilo which was about the biggest thing that the Germans were using at that stage of the Blitz and as you say it didn't explode what I just have to focus on that one and Annie an extraordinary piece of luck this is where 10 meters yeah it's 5 meters from the edge of Sint Paul's Cathedral yeah a thousand kilo bomb at this spot if part of the Cathedral wouldn't even be standing if it's not off if it had gone off it would have taken at least the front of the Cathedral off if not if not more so it went about 6 meters below the ground as well so it wasn't sort of just on the surface it had to be dealt with by a bomb disposal team from the Royal Engineers I had a for strong team and on the third attempt they managed to winch this thing to the surface they took it on a truck to a place called Hackney Marshes which is a big open space of land to the east of London and when they definite Edyta left a crater about a hundred feet deep so as you point out it would have done a lot of damage extraordinary what a magnificent Memorial Steve to the obviously the firefighters who did so much mm-hmm to save London during the during the Blitz tell me I'm really intrigued by these people who were these firefighters where did they come from how did they end up doing this crucial work during the Blitz well the cool she had the the peacetime fire service the London Fire Brigade it's quite a small organization by the time of the Second World War of course they had to expand the fire service greatly and he had an auxiliary fire service that was set up mainly of normal recruits people would just join up they were all volunteers if you join the fire service you were paid the princely sum of three pounds a week so you certainly didn't join up for the money not a lot when you're putting your life on the line not a lot at all but what you did get they established a rule that if you join the fire service you became exempt from the call-up so you didn't get called into the Armed Forces and as a result of that you had quite a few people that joined who were conscientious objectors you had lots of local people that joined people that just joined because they wanted to defend their local neighborhood sometimes they were too old to be called up anyway but they just wanted to do their bit to defend their own locality and you also had quite a few women who joined the fire service it was the first time that the fire service really became opened up to two female recruits they weren't involved in actual firefighting duties as such so they were messengers they were drivers they would select nice but as you have saved from some of the names on the memorial there were enough women that got killed as well was obviously dangerous work oh yeah and these names here these hundreds of names across the memorial yes I assume these were people who were killed during their firefighting duties absolutely yeah they would all been people that were killed whilst on duty and it was originally just London firefighters names that were on there 327 London firefighters this memorial really brings it home to you just when you see the name after name after name all of these guys were killed fighting fires and fighting incidents during the Blitz not only on London but of course other cities Coventry Liverpool Plymouth they were all bombed at some point during the war and these fire fighters names come from across the whole of the UK now we're standing in what looks like a beautiful typical English country garden and the first thing I'd say about is how peaceful it is but the hens day if we look around we're in a destroyed building this is the opposite of peaceful violence create oil and create this space tell where are we standing now what's what's the story of what I appear is what I assume is a ruin Church yeah it's it is a ruin Church it's the Church of Christ Church Greyfriars destroyed on the night of the 29th of December 1940 again that same date comes to the fore it was a wrench from 1687 and in common with many of the city churches that were bombed out I guess it coincided with the general fall in church numbers attending after the war the the rubble was cleared and it was decided to convert it into this beautiful Haven of peaceful country garden it's a wonderful thing because I mean look at the scale this was a big church I mean this this is a huge impressive building and just the destruction that was wrought on it during their bombing and I love the the foresight that it took to say well it's not rebuild it they could they probably wouldn't be able to rebuild it in a similar style anyway no instead of bulldozing the rest of it and getting rid of it let's leave it here as a monument to what went on during the war but make it this wonderful space where people can still come and enjoy yeah I think the temptation must have been there because the land even in 1945 would have been worth a fortune and the temptation must have been there bulldoze it sell the land build an office block but now if they decided to convert it into a this beautiful Haven this quiet Haven and at the same time still very clear to all to see why the garden is here you've got the wreckage of the church still very much in evidence you don't need a big mall you don't need a big sign saying this is what it is because you've only got to look around you and you can work it out for yourself this is a slight departure from the Blitz history but it is so intriguing I just wanted to stop and look at it Steve what we're looking at plaques here that tell the story of people who died trying to save other people and it's just extraordinary seen anything like it it's one of the sort of hidden treasures if you like of London it's it's very much of its time it was it was instigated by a guy called mr. watts George Frederick watts and I think he was a Victorian artist and he decided to put this memorial up as you say to people that had sacrificed their own lives it's actually called his memorial to heroic self-sacrifice most of it as you can see is all from event during Victorian times I'm seeing a lot of drownings house fires factory incidents runaway horses train several it's all pretty desperate stuff but of course we're here to talk about wartime London and there is one wartime incident mentioned which is this guy a police constable Alfred Smith and he was actually killed in an air raid saving the lives as it's this there of women and girls they were actually working in a munitions factory and not so far from here and it was during a German air raid had gotta raid we were talking just now about the curiosity value London has just really weren't used to being attacked from the air and people would just go out and stand up and look oh well we're being bombed and this is exactly what was going to happen here there was a commotion going on over near right and these girls were about to run out from their Factory to see what all the noise was not really recognizing the danger that they'd be putting themselves in the policeman was out in the road already he knew full well what was going on and apparently he was just shouting at these girls to stay in their factory stay inside stay undercover and of course the poor guy was killed in saving their lives so he warrants a place on the the memorial for that reason Steve we're really in an area here where history is colliding I just saw a plaque over on the wall recording at William Shakespeare live there back in the day and you're saying this is bomb damage but there's other historic artifacts intertwined with the destroyed built just make some sense of it for me because I can't even quite understand we're looking at I'll do my best you've got one part of the original London wall so that's this this is solid mass here solid mass there you've then got Victorian buildings warehouses a city livery whole industrial stuff the Victorians didn't care about these sort of things they just plowed right over the top of it as you can see there through the Foundation's and of course this whole area was one of the most heavily bombed parts of the city of London again that same day the 29th of December 1940 this area was pretty much obliterated when the time came to remove the rubble they uncovered the remains of the Roman city of London wall so some of this stuff that you can see here is the Roman wall part of a Roman fort that's also stood on this site yeah that's the Roman wall as you say you've got really three generations of London history all visible to the eye at the same time and I love the foresight here as well because they could have just knocked that down they could have thanked even if they discovered the Roman ruins and said well let's preserve those we don't care about bricks and rubble and especially 1945 it wouldn't emit much to them they were doing damage everywhere it's almost like they knew wasn't it they knew that people like you and I would come here 75 years down the track and want to see this stuff want to be able to touch and feel this history yeah I think that's right I think there's an element of luck involved with that I think there is an element of foresight as well but as you say don't forget just across the road there you've got the Barbican development which was built again on completely bombed out areas of London that is now a massive Salaria it would have been just as easy for them to continue with that over here but fortunately as she say there was that foresight they decided to keep London's history very much visible and the fact that we've got those three distinct eras that are still very much visible I think it's great and the fact that we can still see this we're very very lucky oh it's wonderful absolutely what a great sight so I can see another empty block when the garden in there so I'm assuming that what we have is another bombed out Church that's been turned into a garden well yes and no it is a bombed out church and it has been turned into a garden but this one isn't perhaps quite what it seems because at the end of the war there was actually a lot more of this church still existing than there is now this is a very bizarre case if we have a look at the plaque here we can see that this church was actually demolished or shall we say a controlled demolition shipped stone by stone across to the United States in 1966 how did that state of affairs come about yeah it's an odd one isn't it um this has actually been reassembled at Westminster College in a place called Fulton Missouri in the USA and Westminster College was the place that Winston Churchill gave his sinews of peace speech in which he first talked about an Iron Curtain that have been drawn across Europe the connection between Fulton Missouri is that harry s truman the president that was his hometown churchill was no longer prime minister by 1946 as you know but the two men had remained friends and he invited Churchill to his hometown to his home university to give this speech and of course in 1966 when this church was dismantled and shipped across to the States it was literally just a year after Churchill had died and I'm guessing that it was decided that it would be a suitable tribute to take a a bombed-out city church and reassemble it as a again a symbol of that defiance that Churchill sort of consistently demonstrated throughout the wartime years but as you say is a very odd story that we've got a city garden not as a result directly of the Luftwaffe but as a result of it being shipped off to the States this is a little oasis of tranquility in the middle of all this and what I love about it is it was created by violence it was created by destruction that's why it's here if the Blitz had not occurred this would probably would still be a church there'd be other buildings around and we wouldn't have this beautiful tool Oasis and grow right in the middle of the city so out of the flames and out of the destruction we get these little corners of peace and glory absolutely and as you say it would have still been a church maybe maybe they wouldn't have had the same morals to keep it as a garden it might have been demolished and turned into yet another office block you never know do you but yeah I think it's great that it's still here and we can still see the the footprint of what was here before just coming up out of the tube Steve reminds me that these were impromptu air-raid shelters weren't they when the bombs were raining down people needed somewhere to go for safety in the tube stations were natural spot very much so yeah an interesting story the tube stations because at the start of the war the government weren't actually in favor of people being allowed to use tube stations they felt it would encourage a troglodyte mentality to use the official phrase base that you thought people would go down into the tubes and never come out again the British people got round there in a very pragmatic very simple way they just went down to the tubes bought the ticket to the next station and there's nothing in the regulations to say if you buy a ticket that you actually have to get on the train so they stayed on the platform and the government very quickly realized that there is a battle they weren't going to win so they relented they allowed people to use the tube stations but they weren't always safe were they because just down the road part of Bank station is the scene of that famous disaster yeah when a bomb fell in that area tell us about that well by and large as you say they were quite safe places but just occasionally something would go wrong and on the night of the 11th of January 1941 a high-explosive bomb actually fell in the road in the center of the roundabout area there beneath which is the booking Hall the ticket office and 56 people that were using the station were killed many of them were in the booking hall waiting to use the toilet because that's where the only toilet on the station was was in the booking hall so a lot of the people that were killed were directly beneath the bomb the roadway collapsed the blast went down the escalators so the whole of the escalator system into the station collapsed which made the rescue situation much more difficult but the idea that bombs could fall anywhere are very well illustrate it because even just looking up here as we've been talking I've noticed these buildings here I mean this isn't part of any historical - or anything no no the buildings are covered in shrapnel marks so no presumably bombs that exploded here during blitz yeah absolutely I mean this is this building is the mansion house this is the Lord Mayor of London's official residence and you can see here that yeah it's peppered with with Shabnam with splinter marks I don't look particularly big marks but if you were walking along if you're unlucky enough to be caught out in the open you know as well as I do what shrapnel can do to the human body if you were walking along here that would have been it you would not have survived that it was horrible stuff so yeah a dangerous time to be around in London and it could have struck you at any time whether it be a bomb hit shrapnel hit or even just having an accident in the blackout there were people that were getting injured in the blackout just through not being able to see where they were going people getting run over in row traffic accidents and things like that it was a dangerous place to be Steve it's been a wonderful day we've seen memorials we've seen buildings scarred with bomb damage we've seen empty spaces where buildings once were just it's it's extraordinary that the history is there to see what's the importance of the Blitz to you as a Londoner on the very proud London I was born in this city lived here pretty much on and off all my life I just think it's important to get that history its history in plain sight it's just as much a part of our past as anything that happened in Roman days anything that happened at the time of the Great Fire of London was a guide I feel it's my job to make people aware of it and hopefully this thing will never happen again so not only to London but to any other city you know it's it's vital that we get that message out there and and remind people of the horrors of of war especially of civilian war you know a bombing of cities it's it's not a good thing and obviously it's something that we want to highlight and draw attention to [Music] you

Channel: Mat McLachlan History

Views: 80,913

Keywords: blitz, london, ww2, war, history, military

Id: PaPZmoU5Wzk

Length: 24min 14sec (1454 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 11 2019