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THREAD/Greetings everyone and welcome to a bit of a bonus wartime London thread - bonus in so far as I'd forgotten that I had this one (sort of) prepared and ready to go. This week, we'll take a look at the wartime fire services, with a focus on the City of London especially.
As we saw last week, the Civil Defence organisation of the UK saw the country divided into twelve regions, with London being designated a region in its own right. Civil Defence was organised very much on a municipal basis and so London was further sub-divided into groups of..
between five and eleven boroughs and placed under the control of one of them, the City of London being part of Group 3. Most of the recruitment for the individual disciplines within the Civil Defence was the responsibility of individual boroughs but for certain functions, such as
the Fire, Rescue and Ambulance services, recruitment rested with the London County Council (LCC), although they were placed under the control of the relevant local authority being served by them. Before the war, it was recognised that a massive expansion of the Fire Brigades...
would be needed and so in 1938, the Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) was formed. The AFS was designed as a mobile reserve, able to travel from area to area, city to city to reinforce other local brigades but this would lead to practical problems once the Blitz began, as we shall see
later. Because of the local nature of recruitment, each AFS tended to reflect the demographic of the area that they were serving - for example in some areas of north and east London, there was sometimes approaching a 90% Jewish take-up of recruits and the overwhelming emotion was
that local people wanted to play their part in defending their local communities. AFS recruits were given exemption from the call-up to the armed forces and this resulted in a significant number of Conscientious Objectors joining the AFS, as well as those who were in Reserved..
Occupations as well as those who were perhaps a little too old to join up but who still wanted to do their bit. The AFS also opened up the way for women to join the fire service, although they were not officially permitted to fight fires, being employed as telephonists, drivers..
and in other administrative roles. Recruits were paid £3/5 shillings a week (£2 for the women), which actually compared favourably with that of a British Private Soldier at this time. Perhaps because of this, during the "Phoney War" period, like the ARP Wardens, recruits to the
AFS sometimes got a hard time from the media "£3-a-week Army dodgers" or "£3-a-week to play darts" were some of the insults hurled their way. Before the war, the City of London was served mainly by six Fire Stations, four actually within the Square Mile and two just outside
but to accommodate the expansion needed for the AFS, a whole new network of Fire Stations was mobilised in 1939 on the declaration of war. These were often in schools, the usual occupants of which had been evacuated on the outbreak of war. Schools were ideal premises, as they had
catering facilities already in situ, large rooms for use as mess halls and watch rooms, plus classrooms that could be adapted as offices and dormitories. The appliances could also be parked up in the playgrounds. In the early years of the war, there was a shortage of suitable
vehicles and so to begin with, a large number of requisitioned London Taxis were used, with a trailer pump on tow and a ladder carried on a roof rack. Quite often, the cab drivers decided to go to war with their cabs and their knowledge of London's short cuts would often prove...
invaluable in reaching fires quickly. Of course, it wasn't long before purpose built appliances came on stream to join the pre-war engines. Training was given by regular officers of the LFB and other local fire brigades but they viewed the new recruits with a mixture of distrust
and sometimes outright disdain for the women recruits. Sexism was a problem to begin with, as was a certain amount of anti-Semitic behaviour towards the Jewish recruits, as sadly some of the LFB regulars had sympathies towards Mosley and his Blackshirts. Fortunately, these people
were quickly removed from positions of responsibility. When the Blitz on London began on 7 September 1940, AFS units from outside the capital came to assist the London Brigades but very quickly a problem in the municipal nature of the AFS began to become apparent. Commanders of..
these "provincial" units were often loathe to cede command to local commanders plus there were problems with a lack of common training. Orders were sometimes misunderstood, drill and training had differed from region to region and worst of all, some equipment was not compatible..
with that used in London. Despite these difficulties, the firemen and women performed heroically and were christened by Churchill as "The Heroes with Grimy Faces" - the "£3-a-week Army Dodgers" label was quickly buried. This all came at a cost though and over the course of the..
war, some 327 London firefighters were to lose their lives, many of whom are now remembered by plaques installed by the charity Firemen Remembered at various locations across London and which continue to grow in number. Despite their enormous bravery, curiously just one London
fireman was awarded the George Cross. This was Harry Errington, one of the many Jewish members of the AFS, who got his award for rescuing two of his colleagues from the ruins of his fire station in Rathbone Place, which had taken a direct hit on 17 September 1940. Harry suffered
severe burns to his hands as a result of his rescue. This was career threatening, for in civilian life Harry was a master tailor but happily he was to make a full recovery and lived a long and happy life thereafter. The lessons learned during the Blitz were taken on board and it
was recognised that the issues of command, drill and equipment needed to be addressed and so on 18 August 1941, there was a fundamental reorganisation of the fire services, with them being nationalised to form the National Fire Service (NFS) a unified fire service based closely
on the London model under the overall control of Sir Aylmer Firebrace, formerly Chief Officer of the London Fire Brigade. LFB methods of training, drill and compatible equipment were quickly established across the country and the new force re-grouped for the expected second..
wave of Luftwaffe attacks following the unexpected lull in spring 1941. By the time of the V-weapons attacks in 1944-45, the new force was superbly well organised and trained and in many ways, became the template for our modern fire services of today.
Today, the Firefighters Memorial opposite St Pauls Cathedral commemorates all firefighters across the UK, who have lost their lives in war and peacetime./END
