Why Blitz?

[David Herbert]

In the UK it is still normal practice to refer to the bombing of our larger cities as 'The (name of the city concerned) Blitz'. This term was not used for bombing in general. Until today I had never considered why the British had adopted a German word for this but of course the new German method of rapid advance preceded by bombing - Blitzkrieg - was well known from Poland etc. so presumably the name stuck when they directed their attention to the UK. It is not impossible that it was adopted as a popular term for war related things in Australia. In the UK it has only ever been used to refer to the bombing.

My grandmother's house was the first to be bombed in their area of east London. Luckily it was a very small bomb and it only succeeded in killing two pet rabbits and starting a fire. The fire brigade got very excited that they had a real bomb related fire to put out and went round the house squirting water in all directions including into the piano which made my Grandfather very angry.

David