I’ve been fortunate enough to have some international travel opportunities through my work in the tourism industry. In recent years, I’ve had the chance to explore Berlin, Hamburg, and Vienna, walking on historic streets where the history I’ve long studied took place. 

In February 2024, my work travels took me to the ancient city of London and an early arrival gave me, and my younger brother Luke, the opportunity to walk about this sprawling world capital and see its sights. 

The British capital is full of world-class museums and cultural institutions, some of which we explored during our visit. Yet, my thoughts kept being drawn back to some of the darkest moments in the city’s history, moments when the city, the nation, and the free world faced existential peril. 

The History 

In 1940 and 1941, German bombers unleashed relentless waves of destruction that tore through the heart of this city in what became known as “The Blitz. Buildings that had stood for centuries were reduced to rubble and entire neighborhoods obliterated as the Luftwaffe returned night after night to the skies over British cities. 

From September 1940 through early 1941, more than 20,000 Londoners were killed and more than 1 million homes in the city were destroyed long with countless cultural, religious, and industrial buildings. Yet, German bombs didn’t break the spirit of Londoners or the people of the United Kingdom. 

The Blitz is permanently engraved on the city’s landscape and skyline, but also etched into the soul of London. 

Here’s a brief walk-through of the sites we visited – on your next visit to London I highly recommend exploring these sites and museums (and many others), tied to this dark moment in London’s history that shaped the history of the world in the 20th century. 

Big Ben 

Few spots in London are as iconic as “Big Ben,” the 19th century clocktower that powerfully chimes out over Parliament and the government buildings of Westminster. 

The clocktower was thought to have survived the Blitz more or less intact, though buildings nearby, including Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, were severely damaged or destroyed in one of the last air raids of the Blitz in May 1941. The House of Commons was entirely gutted by a direct bomb blast and an ensuing fire. 

However, as Big Ben underwent restoration in 2020, significant damage was found in the structure, likely caused by the bombs dropped on May 10-11, 1941. This led to a significant increase in the cost to restore the tower. 

Today, Big Ben, now known as the Elizabeth Tower, chimes out clearly over Parliament and the River Thames. We managed to stop by on a gorgeous day with clear, blue skies and it was a stunning sight. 

Women of World War II Monument

While we were in the government district around Whitehall, we made a stop to see the Women of World War 2 Monument.

Completed in 2005, this monument is dedicated to the 7 million women in the British Isles who served the nation through military service, providing medical care, working in war industries, and a myriad of other ways both large and small.

Standing across the street on Whitehall, you can see the monument in the middle of the street. During the Blitz, women played an active role in defending the city, serving at radar stations, communications hubs, telephones, and under the rain of bombs as air raid wardens and ambulance drivers.

The monument is a subtle, yet powerful reminder of the vital efforts British women put in to help survive the Blitz and win the Second World War.

Battle of Britain Memorial

After walking along the River Thames, we came to the Battle of Britain Memorial. This monument was dedicated on September 18, 2005 and is dedicated to the men and women who participated in the effort to save Britain and the Allied cause as the German Luftwaffe attempted to bomb the island into submission.

Starting shortly after French capitulation in July 1940, German planes began striking British war industries and Royal Air Force facilities in their effort to destroy air defenses and clear the way for an invasion of England. The heroic efforts of the RAF turned back the Nazi tide and as German losses mounted, Hitler turned his attention away from military targets and toward bombing British cities by night. The RAF won the Battle of Britain and the Nazis never again threatened the invasion of England – but the Blitz was underway.

The monument includes the names of airmen who fought valiantly in the skies over Britain in the summer of 1940, including the Americans who fought in the famed Eagle Squadrons before the United States entered the conflict in December 1941.

Statue of Air Marshal Hugh Dowding

On our second morning in London, we ventured out for an early morning walk toward St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Imperial War Museum. Along the way, we stopped by the statue of Air Marshal Hugh Dowding, the celebrated commander of the RAF’s Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain.

The statue is located in front of St. Clement Danes Church in Holborn. It was dedicated in 1988.

Air Marshal Dowding’s strategic brilliance and unwavering leadership were crucial in defending Britain during the Battle of Britain. His foresight in developing radar and fighter command systems ensured the Royal Air Force’s victory, saving his country from Nazi invasion in 1940. He was later removed from command and retired from the RAF.

St. Paul’s Cathedral

The towering St. Paul’s is one of the more iconic locations on the London skyline. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, St. Paul’s is a key historical site in London. Completed in 1710, it replaced the original cathedral destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666.

During the Blitz, St. Paul’s survived numerous bombing raids that scourged the surrounding neighborhood. While we didn’t pay the admittedly exorbitant fee to go inside, we walked around the perimeter of this massive structure. It truly is something to behold.

The structure was saved from significant fire damage by volunteer firewatchers who extinguished incendiaries used by the German bombers to set the city alight. The cathedral’s survival, especially during the intense bombing on December 29, 1940, became a wartime symbol of London’s endurance during the Blitz.

National Firefighters Memorial

On the southern side of St. Paul’s stands a powerful monument to those who braved the firestorms caused by the Luftwaffe’s air raids in 1940-41. The National Firefighters Memorial depicts the firemen of the London Fire Brigade battling the blazes.

On September 7, 1940, German bombers hit London in force for the first time. For the following 57 nights, the Luftwaffe returned again and again to the British capital. The thousands who served with the fire services in London fought more than 10,000 fires across the sprawling city in the first 22 nights of the Blitz.

Christ Church Greyfriars

Just a few blocks from St. Paul’s Cathedral, a standing ruin marks the location of a Christopher Wren designed church that did not survive the intense German bombing campaign of 1940.

The original Greyfriars was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Wren designed a new church for the site, which opened in 1687, and the prominent steeple being erected in 1706.

The church’s congregation had shrunk significantly by the time the Second World War broke out in 1939. On December 29, 1940, German bombers pummeled the neighborhood around the church on Newgate Street.

Greyfriars was significantly damaged by firebombs in what became known as the “Longest Night” of the Blitz. Numerous other Wren-designed churches also succumbed to the flames. In the wake of the bombing, it was decided to not rebuild the church, but instead stabilize (almost reconstruct) the damaged steeple and create a garden where the nave once existed.

I’ve now visited several sites of churches destroyed by bombing raids in World War II – this was my first in London. It’s a moving place to visit, as the remnants of this historic church standing as testaments to the destruction that once rained down on the cities of Europe in the 1940s.

Imperial War Museum

As the day carried on, we walked south over the River Thames (used by German bombers to navigate and locate their approximate target on moonlit nights, even as London was blacked out) to the Southwark neighborhood and the home to the Imperial War Museums.

Initially opened in 1920, the IWM today resides in a building complex its occupied since 1924. The building suffered bomb damage during the Blitz – a bomb struck a section of the building housing naval history exhibitions. The museum was closed during World War II – some of its collections from World War I were actually taken out of the collection and put back into the arsenal in the darkest days of 1940. It reopened in October 1945 for its first post-war exhibition.

We wanted to stop by the IWM for a number of reasons, including its vast galleries about the First World War and what turned out to be an absolutely incredible and heartrending Holocaust exhibition.

But for our purposes here, we also explored stories from the Blitz and the Battle of Britain that are preserved in the IWM. These include aircraft, like the Supermarine Spitfire that participated in the air defense of Britain in the desperate summer of 1940.

The collections in the museum are really incredible and it gives you a hard look at the realities of the conflict as faced by both the military personnel and the civilians who experienced the horrors of 1940-41 in Great Britain.

Standout exhibits included a riveting period painting of the contrails left behind by aircraft swirling over Great Britain in the great dogfights between the RAF and the Luftwaffe in 1940.

Another exhibition, particularly moving in this particular museum, was the superweapon the Germans turned to as the Second World War turned against them in 1944 – the powerful V2 rocket.

Ballistic missiles like these were sent rocketing toward London starting in September 1944, four years after the Blitz devastated British cities. In the barrage of rockets, against which there was no defense, resulted in the deaths of more than 2,700 people in London, with nearly 10,000 wounded. The Imperial War Museums had a close brush with a V2 rocket on January 4, 1945. A rocket slammed into Morton Place, an apartment block just a block away across Kennington Road – 43 people died in the ensuing impact and explosion.

After spending a much greater amount of time than we had anticipated, Luke and I headed out in search of a late lunch and a pint at a local pub. We landed on at The Three Stags, directly across Kennington Road from the site of the V2 impact in January 1945.

We enjoyed a pint and reflected on a busy two days in the British capital.

Check out the full list of sites and a handy map!

I realized while there that this is just scratching the surface of sites in London tied to the Battle of Britain and the Blitz and I eagerly look forward to returning to dig deeper into the city’s World War II history.

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