The Luftwaffe employed two main types of fire-bomb, the oil-bomb and the thermite incendiary. The oil-bomb was about the size and shape of an ordinary cylindrical dustbin. Its thin metal casing was packed with oil and other inflammable material. The bomb burst and ignited on impact, flinging out flaming oil and splinters for many yards around. Much smaller was the thermite incendiary. About eighteen inches long and only a kilo or more in weight, these light bombs could be carried in their thousands on one airplane. With the force of their fall they could penetrate a normal tiled roof and burn furiously, their magnesium alloy container fusing on impact. Sometimes they were showered separately; sometimes they were dropped in batches held together by a containing frame which exploded near to the ground, thereby dispersing the incendiary units over a small area; sometimes they were supplemented with a small explosive charge to discourage quick attention from fire-fighters. Throughout the Luftwaffe attacks civilians, police and air-raid wardens had dealt splendidly with these small bombs whenever they had fallen in sight.
These were the bombs that scarred London during the first intense month of raids. After 5th October the pace slackened. But the attack was by no means over and sporadically there occurred heavy nights in certain localities. It was after a heavy raid on the night of 8th December that a period of peace at last began. The following night no fires were reported in the London area; and from then until after Christmas the Fire Service was given its rest.
For three months London had been fired from the skies. In that time the Fire Service- the old hands of the regular Brigade, the raw auxiliaries and the war organisation that planned their movements-had proved itself equal to the task. It is needless to repeat tales of individual heroism; the whole story of those months is a tale of courage and endurance. Every man, boy and woman in the service played his or her part. The men fought their fires unflinchingly. Young despatch riders rode their motor-cycles through the dark, crater-torn streets, providing an invaluable liaison service between officers at fires and their control centres. Women drivers and canteen workers smiled their way through the worst areas. Women control-room telephonists stuck to their posts after their stations had been largely demolished by direct hits or set on fire by incendiary bombs.
Too often we think of fires in terms of a rescue from the top storey of a tall house. But that is only one facet of fire-fighting. Firemen are faced with many different odds-equally formidable. It is when gasworks blaze, when petrol stations are aflame, that the fireman must fight some of his fiercest battles. When great timber-yards burn on a tremendous scale with the intense appetite of dry wood; when there is fire at a chemical works and the blistered chemicals throw off gases that may be poisonous; when a giant gas container is in danger of explosion; when the murderous flashback of vapour at a petrol station fire may engulf the fireman and his hose in one treacherous second; these are some of the great risks in the hard game of fire-fighting-and they became even greater under bombardment.
