Blitz : the story of December 29, 1940

by Margaret Gaskin, 430 pages



While I was reading and listening to Connie Willis's time travel duo set in WWII London, I came across Margaret Gaskin's book about the worst day of the Blitz, December 29, 1940. In a technique reminiscent of Walter Lord's work on the Titanic (A Night to Remember), Gaskin focuses on a group of survivors of the bombardment. On that particular night, it seemed as if the Luftwaffe would succeed in utterly destroying the City of London. The bombers dropped countless bundles of incendiary bombs on the rooftops of the ancient City's buildings. Many of those venerable buildings had survived the Great Fire of London in 1666.

It's an amazing story of grit and true courage. What is so striking is that Londoners really did "take it" and carry on as best they could, sheltering in Tube stations, warehouses, church crypts. Sometimes they were burned out of one shelter and had to move to the next. Fleet Street was hit especially hard, with all the warehouses of paper so close. But above all the smoke and flames, the dome of St. Paul's rose in sooty splendor. That black and white photo became a symbol of Londoners' resolve and defiance under the most daunting attacks.

If you are interested in WWII or British history, Blitz is a stirring history of one of London's darkest nights.

Blackout

by Connie Willis, 491 pgs

It had been a long time since I'd read any of Connie Willis's time travel novels. I read her rather dark Doomsday Book, the whimsical To Say Nothing of the Dog, and her funny contemp, Bellwether. I'd enjoyed all of them, but she had dropped off my radar in recent years.

I came across a new novel of hers, All Clear, when I was shelving new titles. The blurb said it was a sequel to Blackout, another time travel set during World War II. I found the audiobook for Blackout on the shelf and dove in.

The beginning might be a bit confusing if you haven't read her earlier time travel novels. Let's just say in the 21st century it becomes rather commonplace for historians to time travel to a particular time and place to do research. The 3 main characters, Meriope, Polly and Mike are all sent back to England in 1940. Dunkirk, the air war known as The Battle of Britain, and the London Blitz all occurred in that critical year. Each historian arrives well-prepared for their "drops": they have important information implanted in their brains and are dressed in appropriate clothing for the time. The detailed information is to prevent them from being caught up in the truly dangerous events of that year.

Yet, somehow, it all goes awry. Each of the main characters encounters small shifts in the supposedly fixed time stream, even though historians can't change the future. Or can they? Will the simple act of saving one soldier's life somehow change the outcome of the entire war?

Connie Willis skillfully interweaves the stories of the 3 main characters and brings them to a real cliffhanger of an ending. Her writing is rich with period detail, and even though it involves time travel, her novel seems realistic. You can feel the crump of bombs, hear the fear-raising drone of the Luftwaffe, smell the soot of a great city being firebombed into ash and dust. Despite having read up on World War II history, and having seen the newsreels of the period, I hadn't really understood how isolated the British were, and how incredibly brave. This indeed was their finest hour.