Walking Tours of London that cover the Blitz can be exciting and dramatic and several London walks take in the events of the 29th December 1940 as London blazed and Londoners battled to save their city from the flames.

Our previous London walks Blitz blog told of the bravery of the dire crews who battled against all hope to bring the flames under control. Today we continue to follow their progress.

Sudden promotions were now taking place: Sub-Officer Frank Lawrence at Lambeth Fire Brigade HQ was ordered to take two telephonists to Guildhall and take command there in what was the City of London Fire Control Centre.

By 7.00pm the General Post Office (postal headquarters) in King Edward Street was abandoned, all telegraph cables for international communications being severed (although these would be restored by 4.00pm the following afternoon).

Fires were now burning in several areas as continuous blazes; for example, in an area from Fleet Street north into Barbican (3/4 mile by 1/4 mile) and an area by the Tower radiating out from the Minories. Across the river, a mile-long stretch of riverside warehouses was ablaze from Waterloo to Tower Bridge. George Garwood on St Paul’s watched the Central Telephone Exchange burn to the ground ‘without a bucket of water to put on it’.

At Whitecross Street Fire Station fire-eroded buildings collapsed, blocking all exits. The firemen managed to get out but had to abandon twelve pumps which melted in the blaze.

About this time the steeple of St Lawrence-in-the-Jewry-next-Guildhall was struck by an IB. Guildhall Fire Watch phoned Cannon Street Fire Station but they were fully occupied, the church was locked and in any case Guildhall could not spare anyone to climb the steeple — they mournfully watched it burn on through the night.

It was at this time (7.00pm) that Commander Firebrace decided to take a tour of the fireground with his deputy Mr A P L Sullivan.

In his memoirs Firebrace tells us that London Bridge Railway Station was ‘well alight’ and that the situation in Queen Victoria Street was ‘ugly’. You can see this thoroughfare on our historic City of London walks.

Firebrace believed the German claim that they had dropped 100,000 IBs that night— he had every reason to: in fact the true figure was around 24,000.

Water was now in short supply — three of the 36 inch mains in the City and twelve other large mains were fractured. The demand on the remaining supplies reduced pressure to a trickle.

The tide was now out and Divisional Officer Cyril Demarne of West Ham Fire Brigade saw firefloat crews wading through the mud of the Thames to place hoses in the diminutive stream left by London Bridge. Demarne, a former merchant sailor, knew that New Fresh Wharf on the north bank by London Bridge had a dredged channel to enable ships to berth at all times of tide and this constituted a reserve pool of water. He ordered hoses lowered into the water from the bridge, but this supply could not last for long.

By 8.00pm there were 300 fire pumps operating in the City. Redcross Street Fire Station in the Barbican was receiving calls at the rate of one every thirteen seconds.

And still the bombs were falling. At Fire Brigade Northern Division HQ, Divisional Officer Francis Peel had worked out an impromptu method of gauging the intensity and concentra¬tion of the fires: he placed a pin on the map for every reported fire and built up a series of clusters that showed the areas most in need.

We will continue this exciting and thought provoking story of this night in the Blitz on our London walks Blitz Blog tomorrow.