The London Blitz in colour

On the anniversary of the launch of Winston Churchill’s ‘V for Victory’ campaign on 19 July 1941, we are featuring these Time Life Pictures/Getty Image photographs which show the full horror of the destruction inflicted by Nazi bombings across London.

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Workers wielding pick-axes and shovels are tasked with clearing away the remains of bombed building that would have once stood next to this Central London church.
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On the night of 14 October 1940, a bomb penetrated the road and exploded in Balham Underground station, killing 68 people. A No 88 bus travelling in black-out conditions then fell into the crater. In this extraordinary picture, the double-decker bus is still visible amid crumbling tarmac and bent girders left in an enormous crater.
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The spire of the Central Criminal Court – better known as the Old Bailey – rises defiantly while all around it buildings have become jagged shells in a landscape scarred by the relentless German bombings.
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Workers remove rubble from a building decimated in a heavy German air raid during the Blitz. Wallpaper inside the shattered bedrooms can be seen in the gap left in the row of houses.
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Despite the terrifying raids by the Luftwaffe, they attacks failed to breaks the spirit of the British people. People pressed on with their lives and in one of these extraordinary images a man can be seen in a park calmly reading a book while a barrage balloon hovers close by and a second, right, soars above.
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The random nature of the bombing is clearly demonstrated here as a church, right, remains untouched while a vast swathe of buildings close by were reduced to rubble.

 

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The Houses of Parliament with part of them covered in scaffolding are seen across the River Thames on a sunny day in 1941.

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