St Paul's Survives

[2] The raid during which the photograph was shot became known as the "Second Great Fire of London": more than 160 people died, over 500 were injured, and hundreds of buildings were destroyed.

Its survival was mainly due to the efforts of a special group of firewatchers who were urged by prime minister Winston Churchill to protect the cathedral.

Members of the volunteer St Paul's Watch would have had to climb through the rafters to have any chance of putting it out, but the bomb fell outwards from the roof onto the Stone Gallery, where it was quickly extinguished.

[7] Having been taken in the early hours of Monday morning, the photograph was cleared for publication by the censors to appear in the Daily Mail of Tuesday 31 December 1940.

The Mail also took the unusual step of publishing the photographer's account of how he took the picture:[8] I focused at intervals as the great dome loomed up through the smoke.

The Imperial War Museum holds a larger copy of the print,[b] showing the material that was cropped, but this itself is still heavily retouched.