First Blitz

by NeilHanson (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2009

  $3.26

  A world away from the killing fields of France was a battle that could have changed the face of history. Over the course of 1917, German bombers threatened to engulf London in firestorms - a portent of the London Blitz and the Battle of Britain over twenty years later. They were determined to bring London to its knees. The First Blitz took place over eight nights in 1917, but it was the second wave of attacks in the summer of 1918, following the development of the 'Elektron' incendiary bomb, that came within an ace of obliterating London.The margin between the survival of the world's greatest capital city and its total destruction came down to less than one hour. The events and decisions taken in the course of those fateful days were as important as anything that happened on the Western Front. With breathtaking insight, compelling drama and supreme narrative clarity, Neil Hanson tells the story of the air war that could have altered the course of the conflict, and with it the history of the twentieth century itself...

• Used

  Hardcover
  2008

  $3.26

  'Fighting was raging on the other side of the Channel, but in London, in the warmth of a drowsy late-September afternoon, the war seemed a long way away. The roads were strangely quiet and deserted, for petrol restrictions had reduced motor traffic almost to zero. London seemed breathless, in the tense expectancy of disaster. The alarm was given soon after nightfall. At Biggin Hill and a score of other airfields, pilots scrambled from their quarters and sprinted for their aircraft. Within seconds the air was full of the noise of engines, as the squadrons taxied out and took off into the ever-darkening sky'. The First Blitz is told in two parts, each detailing the events of a single week. The first part tells the story of the first London Blitz - six raids by German bombers in eight nights in 1917. Part two focuses on the events of August 1918 and the countdown to the incendiary raids that would have destroyed much of London and Paris had they not been called off at the very last minute.