Text Summary
The history essay "the dangers of the blitz spirit" is written by Richard Overy for the magazine bbc history. The article's main focus is the londoners and their high death toll during what is known as the blitz, which was the aerial raids carried out on London during World War 2 by the German Air Force.
The blitz began September 1940 and lasted until May 1941, during this time 41,480 people were killed. A remarkable contrast was that the bombing carried out by the RAF(The Royal Air Force) on German targets only resulted in the deaths of 4950 people, between 1940 and 1941. The main reason for the difference in deathtolls was that the british bombing of residential areas, was so inaccurate that a high proportion of bombs fell on the countryside, not always harmless, but in districts that were sparsely populated. …show more content…
Partly due to geography, German bombers on the coast of north-west Europe were close to British targets, and most of the targets were at or near the coast and as such much easier to find and hit. Couple this with the fact that the main ports were easily identifiable dock areas where a high concentration of bombs was dropped, and that around these docks clustered poorly constructed working-class housing, which were crowded with families of the dockworkers and labourers. Even though the German air force had electronic navigation aids and high levels of training, the bombs inevitably hit the areas around the docks or