Blitz : the story of December 29, 1940
Margaret Gaskin (Author)
Churchill called it his nation's greatest trial and its finest hour. Europe had fallen to Hitler and Britain stood alone. Determined to bomb the English into submission, the German Luftwaffe attacked London nearly every night, targeting the "Square Mile," the heart of the city and the site of some of its greatest landmarks. In this gripping historical narrative, Margaret Gaskin puts the reader into the middle of the Blitz, its horror and its heroism, by vividly reconstructing the night that Hitler tried to burn the city to the ground, the night that one of the war's most haunting photographs was taken, showing St. Paul's still standing amid burning ruins. Stunningly vivid and compelling, Blitz uses the voices of those on whom the bombshells fell, the ordinary and the famous, including Edward R. Murrow and FDR, to tell the story as it has never before been told. -- Publishers description
Print Book, English, 2006
First U.S. edition View all formats and editions
Harcourt, Orlando, Florida, 2006
History
xviii, 430 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
9780151014040, 0151014043
68624067
Introduction: Like the curtain of a theatre ..
Maps: City of London and County of London
PRELUDE
1 Very Well, Alone
2 Obdurate and cocky
3 Practically no talk of horrors at all
4 Old man of the tribe
5 A leaning towards acrobatics
6 Two opposing worlds
7 Things had been wonderful
8 You would not mind London at all now
9 The Typhoid Mary
FUGUE
10 Boots on the lawn, boots on the wide stone stair
11 Goodnight Children, Everywhere!
12 Early English louts
13 Great sound waves washing over the city
14 It is going to be a warm night
15 As light as day
16 Burnt off like weed patches from the air
17 Blackwall Tunnel only, mate
18 St Paul's must be saved at all costs
19 A ghostly pilgrimage
20 Like a sprig of holly on top of a Christmas pudding
21 Many fires about tonight, old boy
22 The most beautiful thing I have ever seen
CHORALE
23 Poor old London
24 Let's not look back too much
CODA
Envoi: This is what we¿ve been fighting for
APPENDIX A: The Arsenal of Democracy
APPENDIX B: What Remains Behind
Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Select Bibliography
Notes
Index
"First published in the United Kingdom by Faber and Faber Limited"--Title page verso
Maps on lining papers