Blitz remembered at St Paul’s 70 years on

The Luftwaffe hit London and other cities and industrial areas, destroying the centre of Coventry two months later.

The service held in St Paul’s Cathedral in London today commemorated all those who contributed during the bombardment, known as the blitz, and the wider Battle of Britain – former pilots, military personnel, firefighters, nurses and ambulance workers.

The Duke of Kent and the Lord Mayor of London Nick Anstee were among the dignitaries at the memorial at St Paul’s, which survived the bombing and became a symbol of British defiance.

Mr Anstee, whose father was a wing commander, said it was a “great pleasure” to honour and thank all those who took part in the Battle of Britain on behalf of the City of London Corporation.

'It just became a way of life'

When we called at Irene Stunt's house this afternoon, I simply assumed the sharp, sprightly mid-seventies lady answering the door was a younger neighbour seeing us in, writes Chief Correspondent Alex Thomson. 

Wrong, wrong and wrong again for Mrs Stunt is an astonishing 90-year-old who calls up recollections of the blitz in east London like it was last week. And with some alacrity too. 

"The thing is, it just all became rather a way of life," she giggled, adding: "I mean, you never think it's going to happen to you - do you?"

"Er, well, um, I suppose not, no," I mumble vaguely in response.

But Mrs Stunt's on a roll now, carefully explaining that after a week or two you didn't really bother too much with shelters. Just as well in her case because there was no real shelter in the first pace - just the kitchen table. And to that table she would go night after night after night from 7 Sept 1940.

For Irene the postscript was not without tragedy. Having come through the blitz unscathed, four years on in 1944 she was in her house in Dulwich, London, when it took a direct hit.

She somehow got out quickly. But one-year-old Angela, her daughter, was lying dead in her arms, her young lungs unable to sustain the force of a blast bomb. In a weird bureaucratic postscript, it turned out the escape had been almost too quick. She was forced to submit young Angela's tiny body to a postmortem.

"I mean," she tells me, "did they really think I'd killed my own baby?"

Even in a time of war the bureaucratic jobsworth was alive and well.

Members of the public lined the streets to watch the royal salute and parade outside the cathedral after the service. Current servicemen and women joined veterans in the parade, and Dakota, Spitfire and Lancaster aircraft flew overhead. One Spitfire aircraft was on show at the bottom of the main steps up to the cathedral.

Great Britain eventually defeated the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain on 15 September, now marked as Battle of Britain Day. The defeat was seen as a turning point in the war against the Nazis.

More than 500 pilots from Great Britain and the nations fighting alongside the RAF died in the airborne conflict.

The president of the RAF Association, Air Marshal Philip Sturley, said this is likely to be the last major anniversary that many veterans will be able to attend, so it was important it was marked.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: “We must never forget the bravery of the men and women who lived through the terrifying and unremitting bombardment which sought to destroy our great cities during the blitz.”