Video: 'LONDON FIRE BRIGADE DURING BATTLE OF BRITAIN MOVIE 28232A'

(Sunday, December 29, 1940, shortly after 6:00-10:30 p.m. BST; during the Second Great Fire of London, part of the Blitz, part of the Strategic bombing campaign of World War II) — London suffered its most devastating air raid when Germans dropped incendiary bombs tonight, setting off what came to be known as “The Second Great Fire of London.”

The Luftwaffe raid caused fires over an area greater than that of the Great Fire of London in 1666, leading one American correspondent to say in a cable to his office that “The Second Great Fire of London has begun.”

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Fires started by the raid included an incendiary bomb that broke through the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, which was being guarded by a fire watch team at the behest of the Prime Minister Winston Churchill.