BLITZKRIEG!

This is the story of "fire from the sky" and the indomitable spirit of Woolworth colleagues and customers in the face of great hardship and peril. It was a story that saw one in eight British stores closed temporarily and one in twenty utterly destroyed. But the store chain's young German sister-company suffered far worse, losing 66 of its 82 stores to allied bombardment by 1945.

The uneasy calm of the phoney war was broken after the fall of France and the Low Countries, as Hitler turned his attention to a possible invasion of Britain. The German High Command hoped that the collapse in Contental Europe and the allied evacuation from Dunquerque would persuaded the British Government to negotiate a peace settlement, but misread public opinion. Instead the Luftwaffe was instructed to establish air superiority, eliminating the threat that the RAF posed to any invasion of the British Isles. In the late summer bombardment was concentrated on London's East End, before a change of tactics brought attacks on other major cities and seaports. As the country's largest retailer, with large, flat-roofed stores in every major city and town, it was inevitable that some Woolworth stores would be hit.

Some branches, like High Holborn, WC1 (left), which stood near St Paul's Cathedral and opposite London's famous Old Houses and the Staple Inn, got away with superficial damage. The Luftwaffe had targeted Paternoster Square in the City's financial district. Damage like this was quickly cleared to allow trading to continue. The American media made extensive use of this picture of Holborn to illustrate the impacts of "the European War". The image was captioned "a London Woolworth store in the Blitz" to avoid giving specific information to the enemy.

Some people mistook the quaint appearance as leaded lights on the windows. In fact the plate glass had been taped across to prevent injuries if it broke into large pieces. The damage shown was caused when vibration dislodged the small parapet wall above the entrance at roof level. The tapes did their job, preventing injuries when the window to the left of the doors was shattered.

A mile or so down the road, Woolworth store '313' in Newington Butts, Elephant and Castle, wasn't so lucky. Sustained bombing on the night of 10 May 1941 set the whole area ablaze. Firefighters fought valiantly to prevent the inferno from destroying all in its path, but were unable to save Woolworths. By morning only its flank wall and a few steel girders were still standing.

All of the staff were re-assigned to other stores nearby. Half moved to '354' Lower Marsh, SE1 ("The Cut" under Waterloo Station), the rest to '82' Walworth Road, SE17, each within half a mile. At headquarters an executive updated the Elephant and Castle's entry in the master list of stores with the simple inscription "EA 10/5/41". This showed that it had been completely destroyed by enemy action. The branch did not re-open until 1965.

In the early months of the war the enemy attacked mainly by night, when most of the stores and neighbouring streets were quiet. Most damage resulted from the fires started by incendiary bombs rather than directly from an explosion.

As losses increased, particularly in the East End of London with its busy docks and factories, company bosses looked for ways to reduce the losses and damage to property, and for ways to get back up and running quickly after any incident. They called for volunteers to work as fire watchers. This involved spending the night in-store so that there was someone on hand if an incendiary bomb was dropped, both to attempt to extinguish the fire and to speed access for the Fire Brigade and ARP. Each volunteer received training and was paid danger money. The heroes went on to save countless stores. They had just the store cat to keep them company. Many branches affectionately called their Ginger Tom "Mr Woolworth"!

The sons of two Woolworth Managers recall how, at the end of hard day's work in-store, their fathers would travel across town to do fire-watching in another, higher risk branch. Clifford Quartermaine (left) managed Sparkhill, Birmingham and later Rugby, Warwickshire, before travelling to Bull Ring (Spiceal Street) to spend the night firewatching at the Birmingham superstore. Reg Gallanders (right), one of the great benefactors of our Museum, used to swap his Manager's suit for the tunic of a Special Constable.

As the weeks went by, in preparation for the planned invasion of England, the Luftwaffe launched more daring raids.  Not only London but the South Coast ports and major industrial and manufacturing cities around the country were bombed. It is said the Luftwaffe command chose their targets from a 1930s travelogue guide book - meaning if the author hadn't liked the town it didn't get bombed! Among others, the Woolworth stores in Plymouth, Portsmouth, Above Bar Southampton, Southsea and Dover were destroyed in the South. Further North the branches in Hull's Whitefriargate, Norwich, Coventry and Sheffield faced a similar fate.

Coventry

Lowestoft

Sheffield

Plymouth

Norwich

The pictures bear witness to the destruction in the blitzed cities. When the buildings were replaced after the war much of the old character of the streets was lost. But many stores survived intact. Remarkably the huge flagship store in Liverpool remained unscathed while other buildings closer to the Pier Head, including the District Office, were razed to the ground. The Piccadilly, Manchester store at the junction of Oldham Street also escaped the severe bombardment of that City. Survival was a lottery. In Croydon the large Edwardian store in North End survived intact, while the smaller branch half a mile away in Church Street was hit five times during the War.

In the final reckoning 26 out of 767 Woolworth stores were destroyed during the long conflict, but a further 326 were patched up by their staff and quickly re-opened after suffering damage. The worse the attack, the more determined the workers became to ensure that the enemy did not prevail. You can find out more about their bravery and bulldog spirit in another feature in this gallery of the Original Virtual Museum.