“Have walked holes in my feet”
Ch. 83: My Mother and Audie Murphy
Flo arrived in London in June, 1945 for a seven-day leave. In a postcard to her family Flo wrote:
“London is huge and interesting. Not as badly bombed as I had thought. Weather much like Seattle. Have walked holes in my feet. Everything terribly expensive.”
She ran into a friend from Seattle, Jim Quitslund, who was staying across the street from her billet.
With Jim Quitslund, the Army friend from Seattle, billeted across the street in London.
The Blitz focused on London
Starting on September 7, 1940, London faced 57 straight nights of bombing by Nazi Germany, part of a concentrated eight-month campaign known as the Blitz.
Flo wrote that the bombing damage was not as bad as she had thought, but she may not have made it to the East End, which sustained the most bombing. The Luftwaffe raids were aimed at disrupting the British economy by targeting docks, warehouses, and industrial areas. The damage was devastating, characterized by massive fires, widespread destruction of working-class housing, and high civilian casualties there.
An estimated 18,688 civilians in London were killed during the war, 1.5 million were made homeless. 3.5 million homes and 9 million square feet of office space were destroyed or damaged.
tradeswomn musings 