Nazi Germany’s air force bombed Britain almost nightly for eight months in 1940 and ’41 in what was dubbed the Blitz. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed and large parts of London were destroyed. The raids peaked on May 10, 1941, waning thereafter as Germany began to focus on invading the Soviet Union.

When I was in elementary school, we were taught that the Great Fire of London took place in 1666. But for me, it took place on May 10, 1941, when the German Luftwaffe tried to destroy my hometown. They didn’t succeed, but what a mess that night was.

My mother and I had been going to an air raid shelter every night for months. My father was away building barracks for the British army in some remote corner of southwest England. I had been evacuated to the countryside with my school at the beginning of the war but had escaped back to London before the Blitz began.

At first, Mummy and I sought nightly cover in the crypt of All Saints Church. If we heard a bomb whistling down as we made our way there, we dashed into one of the brick shelters which always smelled of urine and cats.

When the church was hit by incendiary bombs, we moved on to the basement of Truman’s Brewery. The men loved the smell and joked that they hoped it would be hit so the beer would flow like water. Then a time bomb blew a hole in the brewery and we had to move to the Fruit Exchange in Spitalfields, with its awful smell of rotten fruit and vegetables.

Another time bomb forced us to Liverpool Street tube station. But the platform was already full, so we rode the tube from station to station until, at St. Paul’s, there was space for us. That is where we spent our nights for nearly two years, our ears getting used to the sound of trains passing by until midnight.

That evening in May, I didn’t want to go to the tube. I was sick to death of running every night. I was upstairs in the front room, looking at the top layer of my parents’ wedding cake sitting under a glass on top of the piano. Mummy had kept it all these years. It sat on three little pillars made of hard icing sugar. On top were two figures — a bride and a groom. I wondered what Mummy had been like as a bride and Daddy as a groom. All I wanted was to stay with that bride and groom and not deal with the hustle and bustle of sirens and bombs.

“I’m not going to the tube tonight,” I protested. “I’m staying here. Uncle Yudi and cousin Theresa always say, ‘If your number isn’t on a bomb it’s not going to hit you.’ So I’m not going tonight.”

But Mummy was adamant, so despite my tears she dragged me along the many streets to Liverpool station just as dusk was closing in.

Suddenly we heard it — the wailing of the terrible siren, the banging of the ack-ack guns, and the whizzing of bombs. Everyone was running for the station.

By the time we got to St. Paul’s, we knew it was going to be a bad night. Even on the platform, deep underground, we could hear loud banging above. Some of the men went to the top of the escalator to find out what was going on. They came down with grim reports. The milk bar across the road from the tube station had a direct hit and many people had been killed. I clung to Mummy, and she to me. We slept very little that night.

When dawn came we planned to go home as we had come. But there were no trains running and we had to walk home from St. Paul’s.

When we came to the top of the escalator, the sight was more than we could bear. The milk bar was a mass of rubble and twisted iron. Small fires were burning all around. The churchyard walls of St. Paul’s were smashed but the church dome was still intact. We walked down Cheapside and were stopped many times by Air Raid Protection men. Many buildings had been cordoned off because of fires. Through Leadenhall Street we walked to Aldgate Pump. More flames, more rubble.

When we came to our block there was devastation, and in the midst of it were Uncle Yudi and Theresa trying to sort out the mess. There had been a bomb behind our house and the blast had blown everything onto the street. Daddy’s jacket that was hanging on the door of the front room near the piano had been blasted through the window, still on its hanger, stuck to the outside wall of the house and riddled with holes. Sheets of piano music were in the road.

And then I saw the bride and groom, lying together beside the now-broken wedding cake. They were intact, still side by side on their pillars. I picked them up and cuddled them. My fantasy friends hadn’t died.

Later, the ARP took us to a rest centre at my old school. We couldn’t go back to our house. It was too dangerous and had to be boarded up.

By some miracle, Uncle Yudi and Theresa hadn’t stayed in our house that night. Theresa had gone to her father’s and Yudi had gone to a pub, or so he said. Perhaps they thought their number would be on a bomb if they had stayed home.

What would have happened if Mummy and I had stayed home? Then again, maybe — like my bride and groom — we would have been saved, too.

Adapted from Kitty Wintrob’s book I’m Not Going Back: Wartime Memoir of a Child Evacuee. Read more about Wintrob at http://wintrob.com/kittywintrob/ wintrob.com/kittywintrob/ END

May 10, 1941

11:02 p.m.

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Bombing begins

5:57 a.m.

Bombing ends

571

Sorties flown by German bombers

86,173

Incendiary bombs dropped

2,136

Fires reported by the London Fire Brigade

1,436

People killed, along with 1,800 serious injuries

285

Hectares of destruction — about double that of the Great Fire of London