The German Blitz reaches London, England

No ground combat occurred on the British home islands during the Second World War however, this does not take away from the tremendous damage wrought by Germany's aerial assault on Britain's cities. The German effort to bomb Britain into submission peaked from the summer of 1940 until the summer of 1941 as the Luftwaffe killed 42,000 British civilians between June 1940 and June 1941 while injuring another 45,000 more; all for next to no strategic impact on the British war economy.

Overall, Britain suffered 60,595 civilian dead during the War, mostly from German bombing; London was in ruins, having lost three and a half million homes to German bombing during the War, moreover the War had so devastated the British economy that food rationing, instituted after the War, did not end until 1954.

Courtesy US National Archives, ARC identifier no. 195564