Some 72 years ago, the Nazis pounded London with bombers, in preparation for a land invasion that never occurred.
That aerial assault was called The Blitz, which lasted nearly a year, from July 1940 until June 1941. By that point the Royal Air Force had regained air superiority and was able to banish the German bombers from British skies.
I just ran across this link to Bomb Sight, which is a project to provide data on the approximately 50,000 bombs that fell on London during the period of The Blitz. An interactive map provides clickable, graphic data on just where the bombs landed, and also links to eyewitness accounts.
50,000 bombs. It boggles the mind. And when I clicked on the interactive map, zooming out, the city of London was a virtually continuous mass of overlapping, individually indistinguishable red dots. Drilling down to more magnification then shows the individual impact locations.
50,000 bombs. It's a sobering factual presentation of mechanized death, 1940s style. It's hard to believe that "civilized" nations resorted to such warfare to try to gain their desired objectives.
Previously I have blogged about the other side of the coin in a post I called "The Bombers Won't Come", where Allied bombers pounded German cities, including Frankfurt, where my mother and her family were bombed out, but survived.
Oh, and the link to Ultarunning? Just this: again I am reminded of just how lucky we are to have this sport that can uplift our psyches, promote the health of our bodies, and simply provide an antidote to the wretched craziness that pervades our world.
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