Germany bombs British towns and cities
Daylight raids begin
The first daylight raids began in Britain at the beginning of July 1940. On the first of the month 15 people were killed in Wick in Caithness when German bombers attacked the town’s aerodrome. On 9 July, 27 people were killed in Norwich during attacks on factories and iron works. There were more attacks throughout July including raids on Newport, and, as the month wore on, many towns on the South Coast were badly hit as the Luftwaffe targeted the Channel ports and their defences as part of Operation Sealion.
Southampton was badly bombed from June onwards and the International Cold Storage Depot in the city burned for over a week. Coventry was bombed in both July and August with the loss of several dozen lives. Liverpool, Wrexham, Bradford and Birmingham were attacked as well as intermittent raids on London.
Central London is accidentally bombed
The situation changed on 24 August when the Luftwaffe – accidentally, it’s now believed – dropped bombs on central London instead of the docks. Nine people were killed. Until this point, it is largely thought that civilian deaths had been collateral damage during the bombing of strategic industrial targets and from bombs scattered off-target to make a hasty getaway.
By the end of August, however, over 1,000 civilians had been killed by bombings and Churchill had already begun to think about an 'absolutely devastating exterminating attack by very heavy bombers from this country upon the Nazi homeland'. After the evacuation of troops from Dunkirk, bombing was the only way to open up a new offensive front.
So, on 24 August, Churchill and the War Cabinet decided to order an immediate strike by Bomber Command on Berlin. The following night more than 70 planes flew out to attack the heart of Nazi Germany.
Battle Over Britain - Francis K Mason: 24th August
..... From 2200 hours more than one hundred bombers were tracked over Kent, Sussex and Surrey and these made there way almost unopposed to the capital. These raids, however, were ill-defined and were not launched against any specific targets (apart from the oil storage farm at Thameshaven, which escaped damage) and fires sprang up all over the great sprawling city.........