Gordon Cummins was a seemingly ordinary RAF airman. But amid the darkness of blackout-era London he became one of the city’s ...

(Getty Images) Firemen who fought the Second Great Fire of London ... created crime on the home front. Michael Portillo and leading historians discuss the causes and effects of the Blitz.

lie under Holborn in central London. They were dug by hand starting in late 1940, when German planes were bombing the city almost every day and night in what was known as the Blitz. During the ...