The Longest Night: 10-11 May 1941, Voices from the London Blitz
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Interview: Gavin Mortimer
Posted: Wed May 10 2006 4am
By 4.30am, the storm had swept over Stepney leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Dr Kenneth Sinclair-Loutit had been sent to Stepney a couple of hours after his attempt to save a coffee warehouse in the City. He and his Heavy Rescue team were now trying to extricate survivors from a collapsed block of flats. He was doing what he hated most, carrying out a rescue while a raid was in progress. ‘I can’t remember where exactly in Stepney the flats were,’ he said. ‘On May 10, the borough was hit so badly it was just a jungle of smoke and flames. I led my rescue team into the wreckage and the first few yards of tunnelling were always the worst; if the building was going to cave in on top of you, it would most likely be at the start. Each bomb that dropped, he said, was ‘a form of Russian roulette in which the trigger is pulled by someone else.’AdvertisementSinclair-Loutit found an elderly couple, alive but in a state of severe shock. He extricated them using the ‘wheelbarrow technique’, the most favoured method of bringing out people from a low tunnel in which the rescuer straddled the victim who was on their back. The trapped person’s hands were tied together and their arms slipped over the neck of the rescuer. He then propelled them both along the tunnel using his hands. ‘On this occasion the old couple were very brave,’ says Sinclair-Loutit. ‘I remember the man joking to me as I put his arms round my neck. “Don’t you try any funny business,” he said to me.’
Only once did Sinclair-Loutit remember seeing one of his team show any irritation. After bringing out several dead from a building one of them walked over to a WVS canteen van. The ladies serving could offer him only sardine sandwiches. ‘Have you got anything else, love?’ he snapped. ‘No, sorry, sardine only. What’s wrong with sardines?’ The man looked up at the smartly dressed woman smiling behind the counter. ‘Nothing, just that sardines smell like dead people.’
5am
At Waterloo Station, the asphalt on the platform was soft and spongy from the heat of the fire in the 23 acres of vault underneath. Mac Young and his fire crew from Paddington had spent much of the night fighting the fires in the vaults assisted by ten pumps from outside London. ‘These crews turned up and they all had their epaulettes on and looked very smart indeed,’ recalls Mac. ‘They also had these lovely turntable ladders on their pumps which could be elevated and extended.’ Mac stood by his pump, watching, a cigarette wedged between his index and middle fingers, as one of the provincial firemen climbed towards a platform at the top of the first section of the 100-foot ladder. ‘He got on to this platform where there was a fixed hose and clipped himself on,’ remembers Mac, ‘and signalled to the operator to elevate him up. But in the excitement of the moment, he forgot to keep his toes clear of the edge of the platform and, as soon as the platform started rising, his feet got caught in the first rung of the ladder, breaking all his toes.’ Despite the accident the fireman remained on the platform as he rose up towards the fire. ‘He was a brave chap, this fireman,’ recalls Mac, ‘but within a few minutes he’d passed out through
a combination of heat and pain from his broken toes.’
The aftermath
On Monday afternoon, Arthur Greenwood, Minister without Portfolio, took a select group of journalists on a tour of Parliament. His job was to start to plan the rebuilding of London after the war. ‘This too,’ he indicated with a sweep of his hand, ‘will now come within my province and I must think about its reconstruction.’ They entered the Commons Chamber from the door behind the Speaker’s Chair. The ashes from the chair blackened their shoes as their footsteps scrunched across the wreckage.The parliamentary correspondent from the Daily Telegraph scaled the wreckage of the Chamber and dropped down into the ‘No’ Division lobby. ‘Four chairs stood forlornly around a blackened table. Their leather had melted but on the backs of them a gilt portcullis still showed. Among it all stood a heavy silver inkstand and paper rack stuffed with half-burned notepaper stamped with the House of Commons mark.’
On the bright side, Greenwood told the shaken journalists, the mace had been saved, as had the Prime Minister’s private room and his library. Percy Carter, parliamentary correspondent for the Daily Mail, struck a similarly upbeat note in his copy. ‘To those of us who have worked at Westminster for so long, it is sad to think upon the fairness which has been wantonly destroyed by peevish people. But let us not waste time on sentiment. On with the war. All wounds will be healed in the new world we build.’
Extracts taken from ‘The Longest Night: 10-11 May 1941, Voices from the London Blitz’ by Gavin Mortimer (Phoenix, £8.99).- Add your comment to this feature
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21 comments
does any body know if the stones certified by sir baddeley of the house of parliament in 1941 are of any value ESP. NO. 17606 my dad left them to me from his estate thanks.
Hi John. Can you scan it and email me a copy? That would be wonderful! Would live to see where my great grandfather lost one of his wife's and some children.
Jeanmhunt79@ hotmail.com
I have a picture of the houses bombed in may 1941 Westmoor road Enfield
Does anyone know the history of the parliament stone that was turned into different collectibles that was done to raise money after world war 2? I would love to write a book about this since many objects were produced and many had different symbols i.e. Churchill, parliament bulding etc. Thanks.
81Hollington Road - Jean
I was born in 44 Hollington Road in January 1952. The bomb site was there until 1963/4. I remember playing soldiers amongst the rubble and finding a pair of ladies glasses. They were the round rim, tortoise shell frame popular in those times. I often wondered what happened to the owner. I had no way of knowing who the lady was, but it is a childhood memory that has stayed with me to this day.
hi there my name is fabricio
I havea piece of stone with winston churchill big coin dating 1941 and at the back of it is writing by hand ( I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS STONE WAS PART OF THE STRUCTURE OF THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT DAMAGED BY ENEMY AIR RAIDS ON 10TH MAY 1941
( SIGNED ) VINCENT BADDELEY ON BEHALF OF THE READ + AND ST JONHN FUND
AND SOME SORT OF STAMP AT THE BOTTON 13 may 1941
I do not know about this things so I was wondering if there is any value?
Many thanks
Fab
Hi,
After a lot of research I found that my great grandfather lost his "wife" and 2 sons in this bombing blitz at 81 Hollington Road, East Ham. Her name was Florence Mary Whittaker (MacLeod or Blackamore) aged 35. Her sons were William and Ian McLeod. I have no record of my great grandfather after this date. He identifed the bodies then disappears.
If the author is still alive or if anyone has come across more information on this blitz I would love to hear it,
Jean
Just found this site when I was googling the date. My uncle Ian Hankey was home on leave, staying in my grandparents' flat at 60 Pont Street when the church across the street, St. Columba was hit. He attempted with other neighbors to put out the fire with sand and buckets of water, but the church was gutted. He himself was killed late August, 1942 in the battle of Alam Halfa, just before El Alamein at the age of 20.
My father lived at 18 Cunard St and was in the house when the landmine hit. Sadly it killed his father Thomas Bowling, his mother Maud Bowling, his sister Jessica and his brother Thomas. My father was buried in the blast and was dug out many hours later. His other brother Edward had been evacuated to Somerset so was fortunately spared the experience.
The are buried at:
Camberwell Cemetery,
Brenchley Gardens
Camberwell
Greater London England
Postal Code: SE23 3RD
My grandmother was killed in these raids. She was Anna Heinz and was at the corner of Harrington and Ragland Sts NW1 where there was a direct hit. She had just come off duty as an ARP (I think) and this was a pub. Apparently she carried her jewels in her gas mask bag and by the time she was dug out someone had emptied the bag of the jewellery. I live in Sydney Australia and my mother,who spent the last 10 years of her life here,always said that it was the smell from digging her out that remained with her. Does anyone have any connection to this area of London? Our home address,where I was born, was 2 Harrington St. Thank you.
I found this site quite by chance by googling the date. I had a great aunt and uncle die that night in Brockley, S.E. London. My daughter has the only thing to survive the hit a tea service.
Thanks for the information Dave,
I think I also had family living in Cunard street and that could explain why contact was lost with them .Have you seen the book 'The London County Council Bomb Damage Maps 1939-1945' I know it is out of print but would like to see a copy .
I believe that they lived at 13 Cunard street whilst other family at 1 ( Herbert Cyril Dance ) and inlaws ( Hook ) at number 11
Have you seen the book 'The London County Council Bomb Damage Maps 1939-1945' I know it is out of print but would like to see a copy .
Do you know how I can find out who would have been living at the addresses in particular on 17thJune 1929 at 13 Cunard Street. I unerstand that RW Whites lemonade factory owned a number of the houses .Any idea which they were?
Sorry for so many questions but trying to close a big gap here
Thanks
Colin
cunnard street was where my father lost his family it was hit by a landmine and was the site of a communial air raid shelter it was opposite the r whites factory i believe it was never restored it was a typical victorian frontage street railings etc there is a publication about wells street park which features old photos and shows the layout .I saw what was left in the early eighties but believe its been re developed it features in the a.r.p. logs of the record of the raid and the list of casualties
Can anyone please tell me what happened to Cunard Street..It no longer seems to exist on maps
No. I am interested in people. But stories like this could have been written on countless other events during ww2.
When you finaly decide to write about this particular day, I was hoping for more oversight and information on a broader perspective relevant to this particular date. It's completely alright to write about individual cases, but it becomes rather trivial and monotone when the entire article is nothing but row after row after row of examples without going beyond that. What is the pont of just writing up a series of events, without putting them into a bigger historical context at all?
This is however, a choice for the writer I guess, but I have seen so many other articles like this, and they all tend to be about the same kind of stuff happening, which would be expectable during a war. I am not a politician. I am a young history student, keen on learning more about specific dates that the history books often fail to explain in detail. This article doesn't leave me much wiser, sorry. It seems to aim for a more mainstream audience I guess, and that's completely alright, It's just not what I personally wanted.
PS: If my spelling is odd, it must because I am Norwegian! :P
Sorry about that...