On the night of the 29th, between 7 and 10 p.m., about 150 German bombers showered the City with fire bombs. The German planes are said to have dropped tens of thousands of bombs. As the City is empty at night (its daytime population is 500,000, but only 20,000 at night), there were no people there to deal with the bombs. The flames spread to a great many buildings and streets before the fire-fighters arrived. It was a terrible and beautiful spectacle. In the east, half the sky was aglow as we watched from the embassy. The City burned all night and throughout the day today. Even now, the fires have not been completely extinguished.

Usually, a shower of fire bombs is followed by a shower of explosive bombs. This time, however, there were only fire bombs. The English are sure that this was a result of a change in the weather which did not allow the second wave of bombers, carrying the explosive bombs, to take off from their airfields. I don’t know if this is true, but it’s a fact that there were no explosive bombs yesterday.

But even without them, the destruction in the City is immense. True, the Bank of England and the Stock Exchange have remained intact (how symbolic!), but the famous Guildhall has been reduced to ashes, and nearly a dozen ancient churches (the works of Wren) of great historical and architectural value have been destroyed. Many offices, stores, small shops, etc. are wrecked. All Moorgate Street, where our trade mission was located before 1927, lies in ruins and has been closed. As for ‘military targets’, only the Central Telegraph, located in the City, has suffered badly, while the Waterloo Bridge has been lightly damaged. Few human casualties.

This time, not only anti-aircraft guns operated on the English side, but also night fighters.

This sounds right. All the recent air raids seem to confirm this explanation. It also explains why it is usually the centre of the city that is hit.