© Firemen Remembered

HISTORY

PREPARATIONS
Following the 1937 Air Raid Precautions Act, requiring that each local authority throughout Britain should set up an organisation for ARP, the Fire Brigades Act was passed in 1938 to ensure that all local authorities could provide adequate cover to meet expected incendiary raids in the event of war. At that time there existed over 1,600 individual brigades across the whole of Great Britain and their size, equipment and efficiency was almost as varied as their number.

THE AUXILIARY FIRE SERVICE
In 1938 also, the Auxiliary Fire Service was established and recruitment began. Though largely financed by the government, each brigade was required to form its own AFS. Hitherto there had been no tradition in the fire service of a reserve or auxiliary force comparable to the Territorial Army or Special Constabulary. The ratio of auxiliaries in London, however, expanded to 10:1 in a relatively short time. Those who joined came from all walks of life and included, for the first time, women.

MOBILISATION
Until mobilisation, all personnel were employed on a part-time basis and required to complete 60 hours training which for most was fitted-in during the evenings and at weekends. On the outbreak of war, each of the 60 pre-war regular fire stations in London, except one, had around five sub-stations established as satellites located in a variety of different types of buildings, although schools were the most common having suitable facilities and being operated by the London County Council which also administered the London Fire Brigade.

A typical sub-station would consist of three trailer-pumps plus towing-vehicles, often taxi-cabs, plus one or two heavy self-propelled pumps, each sub-station having a complement of around 50 over two shifts or “watches”, commanded by a regular officer. On mobilisation (September 1st 1939) London AFS personnel immediately staffed, on a permanent basis, some 300 sub-stations equipped with 2,000 pumps, and this scheme was replicated across the suburban fire brigades in the remainder of Greater London, which was designated No.5 Civil Defence Region.

THE PHONEY WAR
The period between the outbreak of war and the London Blitz, known as the ‘Phoney War’ was a difficult time for members of the Fire Service, and especially for the Auxiliary Fire Service, as they waited. There were problems between auxiliaries and regulars. Many regular firemen feared that these new recruits might begin to question the old practices, as they did. The Fire Brigade until that time had been seen as very much a man’s world and the arrival of women on fire stations was viewed at best with amusement, at worst with horror by regulars. There were also problems with the general public. By the time of Dunkirk civilian morale on the Home Front was low and firemen, seemingly doing nothing much, were picked on in the
street, shouted and jeered at, accused of cowardice and ‘war dodging’ and even physically attacked. During this time many left to join the armed forces. By the start of the Blitz in 1940 AFS whole-time strength in London stood at around 20,000 plus 5,000 part-time members, both categories including women.

BLITZ
For eight months, from 7th September 1940 to May 11th 1941 London suffered almost continual nightly bombing, through the Autumn, Winter and Spring, some of the coldest and bleakest nights of the year. Just before Christmas there was a break in the raids until the night of 29th December 1940 when the target was the City of London. This night is the most often quoted and most iconic of the London Blitz when the target area, surrounding St. Paul’s Cathedral, saw the destruction of many of the narrow streets, courts and alleyways of the old city, but the Cathedral did not burn. The heaviest and final raid came on the night of 10th/11th May 1941. Lessons learned during this time led to the formation of the National Fire Service in
August 1941, which created a national standard in practice and equipment.

THE NATIONAL FIRE SERVICE
Firefighting under Blitz conditions made heavy demands on the resources and organisation of the fire brigades involved and, despite the commendable and often courageous efforts of regulars and auxiliaries, the structural limitations of the service were revealed. Apart from the large London Fire Brigade most British fire brigades were small-suburban Greater London alone having 66 separate brigades-with equipment, procedures and ranks differing between them, making inter-brigade co-operation often problematic; it therefore became evident that radical organisational change was urgently needed if the expected further fire attacks were to be successfully met.


In Spring 1941 the government decided to reorganise the fire service as a national organisation, which came into effect on 18 August 1941 under the title of National Fire Service, when all 1,668 local authority fire brigades and their regular and auxiliary firemen and firewomen were combined into one unified service The principal operational unit of the NFS was the Fire Force, effectively a large self-contained fire brigade, of which there were five, later four, in London. At its peak in 1943 the NFS in London comprised some 50,000 personnel. Although created as a Blitz firefighting organisation, it was never fully tested as such but dealt successfully with the sporadic bombing raids and fighter-bomber attacks of 1942/43, the subsequent “Little Blitz” in early 1944 and then the V-Weapon assault on London during 1944/45. The NFS was generally regarded as a success and formed the basis of the post-war development of Britain’s fire service
when it reverted to local authority control on the disbandment of the NFS in March 1948.


Although the Second World War in Britain lasted for almost five years it is the eight months of continual and heavy bombing during the London Blitz that was for London firemen both their worst and their finest hour. It is the period from which most of the familiar images of firemen fighting wartime fires are taken and it was the period during which most lives were lost. It is estimated that when the bombing began four-fifths of auxiliaries had never before attended a real fire.