Acts
4: 29-31 And now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to
speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and
signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.
From
a Ghost of Christmas Past; On the Fifth Day of Christmas, 1940, London:
Rule
of Law » Hitler’s Firestorm and the Christmastime Salvation of St. Paul’s by J.
Christian Adams PJ Media http://bit.ly/KfRlGr
Just
four days after Christmas 1940, Hitler turned London into earthly hell.
December 29 was London’s longest night, the night Hitler tried to burn London
down and incinerate the majestic St. Paul’s Cathedral.
At
sunrise the dome of St. Paul’s stood, though surrounded by a smoldering
warscape of total destruction. The salvation of St. Paul’s Cathedral from the
inferno uplifted British spirits and is a Christmas story worth retelling
seventy-three years later.
By
December 1940, nearly all the democracies of Europe had fallen to the Nazi
menace. Germany itself started the process in 1933 when an enlightened
democracy suffered the sudden concentration of power into an ideologically
driven central state. Mania followed.
Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, France, Denmark, Belgium,
Luxembourg, and the Netherlands all fell to Hitler.
By
Christmastime 1940, Britain stood alone against the evil which had consumed
Europe.
Hitler
aimed to break England’s will. He wanted England to be content with Nazi
control of continental Europe.
On
December 29, 1940, fire was his weapon of choice.
The
Luftwaffe’s air war over England had raged for months. Londoners had grown
accustomed to the wail of air raid sirens and nights sleeping underground in
tube stations. The Blitz first focused on military targets, then strategic
targets, and then conventional bombings which affected civilian areas.
But
on the night of December 29, Hitler attempted to terrorize and eradicate the
civilian population of London with a gruesome deliberateness he would also
employ against continental Jews.
London
was under blackout orders, so Hitler’s first wave of bombers enjoyed the use of
two radio beacons beamed from France. When the beams intersected, the bombers
were over their targets – the civilian, publishing, and garment industry
neighborhoods of East London.
Instead
of explosions, Londoners heard the dull thuds of objects hitting rooftops.
No
explosions, just thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
These
were incendiaries hitting rooftops then igniting. Over the next few hours,
waves of German bombers dropped over 10,000 incendiaries and created a
firestorm that destroyed London all around St. Paul’s. Waves of bombers
followed through the night, dropping conventional bombs and blasting the
firemen battling the firestorm the incendiaries started.
London
firefighters, including Leonard Rosoman , battled the fires all around St.
Paul’s. Rosoman would later paint images of firefighters he knew dying that
night, some of which now hang in the Imperial War Museum. [Photos, etc. at
linked article.]
But
it was futile. The devious Nazis had timed the attack to coincide with low tide
on the Thames, limiting the supply of available water. The fire created wind,
and the wind created a firestorm.
Realizing
that nothing could extinguish the firestorm, Prime Minister Winston
Churchill gave the order: “Save St. Paul’s!”
Churchill
knew that the Christopher Wren-designed dome of St. Paul’s was a national and
religious symbol of pride. Buried in its crypt were English heroes such as John
of Gaunt, Admiral Horatio Nelson and Arthur Wellesley, the man who defeated
Napoleon and ushered in Catholic emancipation in England.
After
Churchill’s order, all firefighting resources were devoted to saving the
towering dome of St. Paul’s. Walter Matthews, the dean of St. Paul’s, led
bucket brigades on the roof, dousing the hot blowing embers threatening the
cathedral.
Film
footage from St. Paul's Cathedral roof, December 29, 1940. Film footage from
St. Paul’s Cathedral roof, December 29.
Inside
the dome, a volunteer scampered over beams to dislodge an incendiary bomb that
had landed on the lead-lined dome, burned through it, and threatened to set the
wooden internal structure ablaze. Miraculously, it extinguished before igniting
the ancient beams. The battle between
Hitler’s firestorm and the church raged all night.
At
sunrise, a square mile around St. Paul’s was incinerated. But St. Paul’s stood,
surrounded by carnage.
Hitler
had failed to destroy St. Paul’s, or the will of the British to fight him and
liberate an enslaved continent.
For
those celebrating Christmas, the triumphant salvation of St. Paul’s in 1940
fits easily within the Christmas season.
Christmas
is about undefeatable good coming to the world in the form of a child.
Christmas is about a gift given to man, the ability of man to triumph over
evil, to renew the face of the Earth. Love and human dignity would triumph over
murder and chaos.
View
from St. Paul's, December 30, 1940 View
from St. Paul’s, December 30, 1940
St.
Paul’s, and eventually all of England, would not be consumed by Hitler’s fires.
The flames stopped short of destroying St. Paul’s seventy years ago, this very
night, and gave England a Christmastime triumph of good over evil. [/] Merry
Christmas.
And
now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word
with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and
wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus. – Acts 4: 29-31.
I2C
131230a Act 4v29to31 A Christmas past / I2C / 1312 / Acts 4:29-31 A Christmas
past
