+44 7946 106939 info@blacktaxitours.co.uk

Courtesy of Wikipedia. The Royal Air Force 1939 to 1945 by Denis Richards. This image taken from http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar//UN/UK/UK-RAF-I/img/UK-RAF-I-10.jpg

One thing we British are pretty good at is remembering the sacrifice made during the world wars of WW1 and WW2.

One such memory can be found on the walls of St Clement Danes Church on the Strand, which received a direct hit from a German bomb during World War Two.

It was the night of 10th May 1941, the worst air raid of the blitz, 505 German bombers flew over London releasing their deadly cargo. The bombing lasted for seven hours and during the onslaught, an incendiary device pierced the roof of St Clement Danes and exploded, setting the church ablaze.

The fire gutted the interior but left the outer walls still standing. After the war an appeal for funds was made to restore the church, and with the help of the RAF who were looking for a Central London church to adopt, over £125,000 was raised by the British public. The reconsecration ceremony took place in October 1958 and was attended by the Queen.

In a poignant reminder of the destruction caused by the raid of May 41, when a total of 1436 Londoners were killed, the outside walls were left unrepaired and still bear the scars of that terrible night.

Courtesy of Wikipedia. This image was taken from the Geograph project collection. See this photograph’s page on the Geograph website for the photographer’s contact details. The copyright on this image is owned by Stephen Richards and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.