09/07/2026
On 7 September 1940, around 350 German bombers—escorted by some 600 fighters—attacked London’s docks and the East End. By the end of the raids, 430 people had been killed and roughly 1,600 injured.
It was the beginning of the Blitz: 57 consecutive nights of bombing that transformed the capital and the lives of its inhabitants. This photograph was taken that same day. It shows two Dornier Do 17 bombers above West Ham, with fires burning near the Beckton gas works below.
Which surviving Blitz location in London do you believe tells this story most powerfully?