GREAT BRITAIN (1940-1942)
The suffering of the people of London as described by the diary entries of the Czech historian and diplomat Jan Opočenský:
"17 November 1940. Sunday. In the morning, we were still asleep as usual in the cellar, when we were awakened by a terrible bang. The house shook and the windows rattled, we could hear falling glass. We thought that a bomb had fallen on our street, fortunately it fell further away into the park, it was a land mine, as they say here. It uprooted a large, old tree, damaged several others and scattered branches all over the hillside. We found them stuck in the ground a few dozen paces. The bomb crater was large, large chunks of clay soil were scattered like boulders. The soldiers' houses — damaged outer walls and broken roofs. We continued along the park, at the end of it there was a bomb with a timer. We had only gone a few steps when a bang rang out and a column of smoke and dust rose. The bomb exploded.
…
The night of the 16th to the 17th of April 1941. The air raid began about ten o'clock at night. Viktor and I were outside the house and we could see the anti-aircraft lightning in the direction of Biggin Hill. We were in the cellar from then on. Every now and then we would go out, but the lighting kept increasing until they were on three sides. The air raids were also more frequent, and we could hear the noise from the distant bombing. At half past ten we went out, Bartík, Feierabend and I, and saw that the Germans were starting to drop incendiary bombs. We saw at once that there were about three of them lying in the garden. We started to put them out. It was only when we put them out that I saw, in particular, when Mrs Moeller started to shout, that there was a fire in the room too. There was a fire in my room, an incendiary bomb had gone through the ceiling and rolled down onto my bed. The foot of my bed, the mattress, the duvet and my blankets were all burnt up. Lada threw a bucket of water on the flames and I added another, until we put the fire out. After dealing with the first raid, we went to bed. The bomb attacks were still going on, but they were not in our vicinity, and the aeroplanes were still buzzing overhead. When it was something like half past or a quarter to two in the morning we were awakened again by the crackle of the incendiary bombs. There were three in the front and back garden. A shed was burning in the yard opposite us, and the incendiary bombs in that garden exploded like fireworks. We managed to defeat the bombs again and tried to lay down again. At four o'clock in the morning, Bartík woke us up saying that the neighbouring house of Colonel Liška was on fire. Our garage had also caught on fire. We put out the fires again, including the one on the roof of the Colonel's house by the time the firemen arrived. We only slept for about four hours that night."