The Blitz
- You may be looking for Blitzkrieg.
The Blitz, also known as the Blitzkrieg raids (PROSE: Imaginary Friends) referred to the bombing of most major British cities by the Germans during World War II. (PROSE: Ash, TV: The Empty Child) It lasted from 7 September 1940 to 21 May 1941. (PROSE: A History of Humankind)
History
Foreseeing
In 1903, after receiving a wealth of information from the future, Grigori Rasputin foresaw the Blitz. (AUDIO: The Wanderer)
Origin
Early bombing
Despite being forbidden under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Nazi Germany under the rule of Adolf Hitler embarked on a massive rearmaments programme. Britain allowed this to go ahead. Among the results was the rebuilt German air force, the Luftwaffe, (PROSE: Just War, Players) headed by Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
Upon the outbreak of war in 1939, Britain implemented the Black Out, the darkening of London's streets, in an attempt to defend against potentially devastating attacks from German bombers. (AUDIO: The Oncoming Storm) Ultimately, the restrictions on car headlamps and street lights at night resulted in more deaths from traffic-related accidents than from air raids. Black Out regulations were relaxed thereafter. (PROSE: Just War) The BBC television service at Alexandra Palace was also shut down to prevent the Luftwaffe from homing in on its signal. (AUDIO: I Was Churchill's Double)
On 22 November 1939, a German bomber dropped a magnetic mine over the Thames Estuary. The Admiralty retrieved the mine on the following day and studied it, leading to the development of countermeasures to its magnetism. (AUDIO: The Oncoming Storm)
Elsie Jarman, the wife of Commodore William Jarman, was killed during an early air raid. Her body was never found. In a similar occurrence, the brothers and sister of Michael Fossbrook were killed in another raid over Cornwall, where they had been sent by their brother to keep them safe. It was weeks before their bodies were identified. Fossbrook and his mother were the only members of the family left alive. (AUDIO: The Nemonite Invasion)
Battle of Britain
- Main article: Battle of Britain
During the Summer of 1940, (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) with a particular emphasis on August, the war moved into the skies after reaching an impasse on land and as sea. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour)
Still intent on invading Britain, the Luftwaffe launched preliminary attacks to destroy British airfields, radar installations, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) ports, (PROSE: The Time Travellers) and other military installations. The Royal Air Force retaliated, sparking the aerial confrontation which became the Battle of Britain. After both sides suffered heavy losses, (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) the RAF fended off the Luftwaffe attacks. (PROSE: /Carpenter/Butterfly/Baronet)
Beginnings
From 7 September 1940, the Luftwaffe changed tactics and began targeting major towns and cities throughout Britain during the night. This signalled the beginning of the Blitz. (PROSE: A History of Humankind) London was attacked by 348 German bombers escorted by 617 fighters, and 448 people were killed. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac)
There were similar attacks on London on each of the next 56 days or nights, with bombardments continuing until 10 May 1941. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac) With raids taking place almost every night, the attackers, when possible, were guided by the light of the Moon. (PROSE: The Time Travellers)
Effects
The Blitz claimed at least 20,000 lives and made 1.4 million people homeless. Air Raid Precautions was formed to coordinate protection and defence, and nearly one in six Londoners were involved in civil defence. (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac)
The First Doctor, (AUDIO: The Alchemists) the Ninth Doctor (TV: The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances) and Richard Lazarus all witnessed the Blitz. As a child, Lazarus would take shelter in a nearby cathedral while the Germans bombed. (TV: The Lazarus Experiment)
Ian Chesterton grew up in London during the Blitz. (AUDIO: The Time Museum)
An Auton duplicate of Rory Williams rescued the Pandorica from a fire started by the bombs. (TV: The Big Bang)
At 8:47 p.m. on 12 October 1940, the New Regency Theatre, owned and operated by the late Henry Gordon Jago in the 1890s, was destroyed, as was the hotel next to it. (AUDIO: Swan Song)
On 20 January 1941, the Kiss the Boys Goodbye Dance at the Ritz in Cardiff was briefly interrupted by nearby bombings, forcing the attendants to take shelter. The next day, Captain Jack Harkness was killed in aerial combat while protecting Cardiff from a bombing raid. (TV: Captain Jack Harkness)
Ken Temple's entire family was killed in the Blitz while he was serving in the Royal Navy. (AUDIO: The Pelage Project)
After the Doctor's TARDIS had been stuck by a temporal weapon, the Eleventh Doctor and Rory Williams found themselves in the Blitz, rescuing Ian Fleming in an adventure that resulted in Rory becoming the inspiration for James Bond. (COMIC: The Doctor and the Nurse)
Temple Church (AUDIO: The Doomsday Chronometer) and St Anton's Point were damaged in the Blitz. The mental asylum St Anthony's Hospital was one of the many buildings which was destroyed. (AUDIO: The Concrete Cage)
In the 1960s, certain areas of London were still being rebuilt as a result of the property damage caused by the Blitz. (AUDIO: The Perpetual Bond, Hunters of Earth) One such area was Bermondsey. (AUDIO: Threshold)
During the Blitz, St. Joseph's Church in Holborn was a hit by a V2 rocket. Although it was completely ruined, it was not destroyed. It was still standing in 1965. (AUDIO: The Fifth Citadel)
During the Hyperion invasion of Britain in summer 2015, the populace of London were forced to retreat en masse into the London Underground, a sight which made Clara Oswald recall the Blitz. She noted to the Twelfth Doctor that her grandmother had told her that she had to hid in tunnels as German planes flew overhead. (COMIC: The Hyperion Empire)
Alien activity
In November 1940, the Cybermen landed during the Blitz and used it as a cover for their activities. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)
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The Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond received a phone call from Winston Churchill asking the Doctor to come to London in 1941. (TV: The Beast Below) On their arrival a month later, they found the Daleks pretending to be mechanical soldiers known as "Ironsides" for the British. During the London Blitz, the Daleks sent an electrical wave that turned on all electronic devices, making London light up. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
The Empty Child plague began during the Blitz. When street children ran into empty houses while the owners had run into shelters, the Empty Child would knock on the doors and ring telephones. When Rose Tyler went to help the child on 20 January 1941, she was caught on a Barrage Balloon rope and was hoisted over London. (TV: The Empty Child)
Time travel
The 51st century Time Agent "Captain Jack Harkness" arrived in London in January 1941. He took the name of a deceased American volunteer in the Royal Air Force, as part of a con. (TV: Captain Jack Harkness)
At some point during the 1940s, the Thirteenth Doctor visited the Blitz to steal some barrage balloons for Yasmin Khan's birthday party. (PROSE: Dr. Thirteenth) The First Doctor and Susan Foreman arrived in the Blitz during their earlier travels. They compared this incident to a similar one in which they witnessed a Zeppelin raid during World War I. (AUDIO: The Alchemists) When the Daleks exploited a time fissure to try to become the masters of time, one of the sights the Eighth Doctor saw through a mirror, being used to look into past London time zones the Daleks planned to invade, was the Blitz. (AUDIO: The Time of the Daleks)
As a result of time breaks caused by Elliot Payne's experiments, a British spitfire and a German Messerschmidt were transported roughly fifty years back in time and appeared in the sky over 1890s London, where they continued their fight. This was witnessed by Jago, a native of that era, and Leela. One of the planes was severely damaged and its pilot parachuted out of the plane. Jago, having never seen either a "flying machine" or a parachute, suggested to Leela that he should hire the pilot to perform his "act" at the New Regency Theatre. (AUDIO: Chronoclasm)
End and continued bombing
Official Earth history books named 21 May 1941 as the last day of the Blitz, (PROSE: A History of Humankind) although the Seventh Doctor gave Ace a rougher estimate of July. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) Bombs were still hitting London by the autumn, (AUDIO: Hounded) while the Germans themselves officially suspended nighttime bombing operations that December, in response to setbacks faced in Russia and the entry of the United States into the war. (PROSE: Just War)
British cities still suffered future bombing attacks under the Luftwaffe. One London street was firebombed in 1943. The First Doctor spoke of this to Steven Taylor as if it was part of the Blitz. (PROSE: Ash) However, the Seventh Doctor claimed that, following the end of the Blitz, London survived mostly unscathed until the V1 and V2 attacks in 1944. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) These weapons blew up large chunks of London (TV: The Time Monster) up to as late as February 1945 (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious) before the Allied forces fighting across mainland Europe overran the launch sites. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
While the bombing was intended to have a demoralising affect on the British people, it instead united the population under a single purpose, hardening their spirits and resolve to win the war. Over 40,000 people were killed by the Blitz by the time it was lifted. (PROSE: A History of Humankind)
Allied retaliation
The RAF retalliated with their own air raids over Germany. Targeting the industrial centres of the Ruhr and the Rhine, (PROSE: Just War) the attacks led to millions of German civilian deaths (PROSE: The Turing Test) due to the inaccurate nature of high-altitude bombing. (PROSE: A History of Humankind)
While instances like the Granville raid showed what the RAF was capable of, (PROSE: Just War) the bombing of Axis targets increased in intensity once the US Air Force also joined the operations. (PROSE: A History of Humankind) By June 1944, having invaded Italy, the Allies began bombing Italian cities despite no longer considering the Italians to be enemies. Joseph Heller, as a US bomber captain, grew increasingly weary of this after months of bombing missions. He was eventually court martialed for a fatigue-induced landing error. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
Following the Normandy landings, Allied air raids on Germany intensified. Most bridges across the Rhine were brought down and many railway lines were damaged beyond use, throwing German transport into chaos. (PROSE: The Turing Test) Committed Nazis such as Major Poetschke of the 1st SS Panzer Division believed that these attacks were excessive attempts to annihilate the German nation, while viewing the Blitz as justified. (PROSE: Autumn Mist) The Allies' controversial bombing campaigns culminated in the destruction by incendiary bombing of the ancient city of Dresden. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
On witnessing the Granville raid, Chris Cwej had been shocked by the realisation that the Allies were capable of the kind of destruction that the Nazis were so vilified for. The Seventh Doctor could only explain that such was the reality of war and history, while small comfort had to be found in the fact that the Nazis would ultimately lose the war. (PROSE: Just War)
Alternative timelines
In an alternative timeline in which Hitler did not lose the power of the Timewyrm, the Nazis' attempt to subdue the United Kingdom through the Blitz and Germany had conquered the country and the rest of Europe by 1941. After visiting the occupied London in May 1951 in this timeline, the Seventh Doctor and Ace prevented this from coming to pass. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
In one timeline where Nancy Grover became Goddess of the World after 1934 with the cooperation of Brokk, the war never happened. Instead, humanity united in a fierce fight against an the Semquess in 1941. This timeline threatened to overwrite the original timeline before the Third Doctor and UNIT prevented it. In Plymouth, the old church of St Barnabas which was destroyed during the Blitz began to reappear in place of the new one as a symptom of this overlap. (PROSE: The Eye of the Giant)
Parallel universes
Across many version of Germania in the Known Worlds, the Luftwaffe began bombing Britain in daylight almost immediately after German victory in the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940. In one such universe, Big Ben was destroyed. The air raids were followed up by the launch of Operation Sealion, with Wehrmacht and Schutzstaffel troops parachuting into London. In the universes where Nazi Germany was significantly advanced, select British cities were obliterated by nuclear weaponry before the nation surrendered. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)
Legacy
The Twelfth Doctor would later equate the Blitz with the Siege of Trenzalore, Gulag Apocalptik, and in particular the Hyperion's invasion of Earth in 2015. During both the Blitz and the Hyperion invasion, many residents of London slept in the London Underground for their own safety. (COMIC: The Hyperion Empire)
Behind the scenes
The London Blitz appears in the online game Doctor In A Dash as the setting of Level 4 where, as with all levels, the Doctor's TARDIS (the player) races against a Dalek flying saucer, a Judoon rocket, and a Slitheen craft to find a Space-Time Manipulator. Barrage balloons act as obstacles to the ships.
One possible "game over" for the video game Don't Blink has the player being sent back in time by a Weeping Angel to the year 1940 to die in the Blitz.
Footnotes
- ↑ This was the exact dating given by one British history book, (PROSE: A History of Humankind) although July (PROSE: Illegal Alien) and December (PROSE: Just War) were other suggested end dates. British cities continued to be bombed throughout the war. (PROSE: Ash, AUDIO: Churchill Victorious)
