Bombardier - Lo!

They came just after dark

Shortly after the sirens wailed I

could hear the planes grinding overhead

In my room, with its black curtains drawn across the windows

You could feel the shake from the guns

The motors seemed to grind rather than roar

And to have an angry pulsation

Like a bee buzzing in blind fury

As we stepped out onto the balcony a

vast inner excitement came over all of us

An excitement that had neither fear nor

horror in it, because it was too full of awe

The whole horizon of a city lined with great fires — scores of them

Perhaps hundreds

There was something inspiring just in the awful savagery of it

Into the dark shadowed spaces below us while we watched

Whole batches of incendiary bombs fell

Then quickly simmered down to pinpoints

of dazzling white, burning ferociously.

All around below were the shadows

The dark shadows of buildings and bridges

that formed the base of this dreadful masterpiece.

These things all went together to make the most hateful

Most beautiful single scene I have ever known

(correspondence of the London blitz by Ernie Pyle)