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60 free The Blitz trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The Blitz was eight months of night bombing, from 7 September 1940 to May 1941, and it hit far more than London. This quiz walks through the whole campaign: the first raids on the docks, 56 nights out of 57 in the capital, the Second Great Fire of London on 29 December, the Moonlight Sonata raid on Coventry, and the assaults on Liverpool, Belfast, Clydebank, Hull, Plymouth and Swansea that are too often left out. The home-front questions cover how people actually got through it: Anderson shelters in the garden, Morrison shelters under the dining table, 177,000 people a night sleeping in the Underground, Chislehurst Caves, the blackout, gas masks, evacuation and the WVS. There is also room for the technology of the Battle of the Beams, the first airborne-radar kill, Ed Murrow's broadcasts, Myra Hess's lunchtime concerts and the famous photograph of St Paul's dome above the smoke. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the Blitz and the individual raids, shelters and people involved, so the dates, tonnages and casualty figures will stand up to a history teacher.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Blitz began on 7 September of which year?
1940
It ran for eight months, ending in mid-May 1941 as the Luftwaffe shifted east for the invasion of the Soviet Union.
Q 02The word 'Blitz' is a shortened form of Blitzkrieg; what does 'Blitz' mean in German?
Lightning
The British press borrowed the term used for Germany's fast surprise attacks.
Q 03From 7 September 1940, London was bombed on how many of the following 57 days and nights?
56
The Germans called the London offensive Operation Loge, after their codename for the city.
Q 04Which Luftwaffe chief joined Hitler in ordering the switch to bombing London on 6 September 1940?
Hermann Göring
Kesselring and Sperrle commanded the two air fleets that carried the raids out.
Q 05What codename did the Luftwaffe give its air offensive against London, launched on 7 September 1940?
Loge
Loge was the German codename for London itself; Seeschlange, or Sea Snake, was the parallel operation against ports.
Q 06The raid of 29 December 1940 caused a firestorm in the City that became known as what?
The Second Great Fire of London
Around 100,000 mostly incendiary bombs fell that night, and a low tide hampered efforts to draw water from the Thames.
Q 07On the night of the Second Great Fire, what hampered firefighters trying to draw water from the Thames?
Low tide
Prime Minister Churchill sent the message that St Paul's 'must be saved at all costs'.
Q 08Which Daily Mail photographer took the famous 'St Paul's Survives' picture?
Herbert Mason
He was fire-watching on the roof of Northcliffe House and waited hours for the smoke to clear.
Q 09Under what caption did the Daily Mail run the St Paul's photograph on its front page on 31 December 1940?
War's Greatest Picture
The censors cleared it for publication the day after it was taken.
Q 10What was the German codename for the devastating raid on Coventry of 14 November 1940?
Operation Moonlight Sonata
The raid's pathfinder marking, incendiaries and concentrated waves influenced every later strategic bombing raid of the war.
Q 11The Coventry raid was so devastating that it produced which new verb for flattening a city from the air?
To coventrate
An estimated 568 people were killed, though the exact figure was never confirmed.
Q 12Which architect designed the new Coventry Cathedral, insisting the bombed ruin be kept alongside it?
Basil Spence
He was later knighted for the work; the two buildings together form one church.
Q 13Group Captain F. W. Winterbotham's 1974 book claimed Churchill let Coventry burn to protect which secret?
Ultra
Other Ultra participants and historians reject the claim; the decrypts never mentioned Coventry by name.
Q 21In March 1943, 173 people were crushed to death entering the shelter at which East London Tube station?
Bethnal Green
It remains the largest single loss of civilian life in the UK during the war; the council had asked for a crush barrier in 1941.
Q 22Which bandleader was among at least 34 killed when a bomb hit London's Café de Paris on 8 March 1941?
Ken 'Snakehips' Johnson
The 50kg bomb came down a ventilation shaft into the basement ballroom, which had been marketed as the safest in London.
Q 23How many times was Buckingham Palace bombed during the Second World War?
9
The most publicised hit destroyed the palace chapel in 1940 while the King and Queen were inside.
Q 14Which government post did Sir John Anderson hold when he ordered development of the Anderson shelter?
Lord Privy Seal
He had special responsibility for air-raid precautions just before the war, and later became Home Secretary.
Q 15An Anderson shelter was designed to hold up to how many people?
6
Householders earning under £5 a week got one free; everyone else paid £7.
Q 16What were Anderson shelters made from?
Corrugated steel panels
Buried in the garden and covered with earth, they were often planted with vegetables and flowers.
Q 17The Morrison shelter, distributed from 1941, was designed for use where?
Inside the home
Officially the 'Table (Morrison) Indoor Shelter', it doubled as a dining table with a cage beneath.
Q 18Roughly how many people slept in the London Underground on 27 September 1940, its peak use as a shelter?
177,000
A November census found only about 4% of Londoners used the Tube and other big shelters; 60% stayed at home.
Q 19What did Underground officials do with station entrances during early Blitz raids, before the government relented?
Locked them
Londoners forced the issue by taking shelter without authority until the stations were opened in the second week.
Q 20On 11 January 1941 a bomb hit the booking hall of which Tube station, killing 56 and leaving a crater that traffic crossed on a Bailey bridge?
Bank
The blast travelled down the stairs and escalators to the crowded platforms below.
Q 24After the palace was bombed, Queen Elizabeth said she could now 'look' which part of London 'in the face'?
The East End
Newsreels of the King and Queen inspecting the damage were shown in cinemas across the country.
Q 25What was later built on the site of the Buckingham Palace chapel destroyed by a bomb?
An art gallery
The King's Gallery opened in 1962 to show works from the Royal Collection.
Q 26Which city's Easter Tuesday raid of 15 April 1941 killed at least 987 people?
Belfast
It had the UK's highest population density and its lowest proportion of public shelters.
Q 27Which leader of neutral Éire sent fire crews north to Belfast after the 1941 Easter Tuesday raid?
Éamon de Valera
Within two hours of the request, 71 firemen with 13 tenders were on their way.
Q 28After the March 1941 Clydebank raids, how many of the town's roughly 12,000 houses were undamaged?
8
The John Brown shipyard and the Singer sewing-machine factory were the main targets.
Q 29Which was the most heavily bombed area of Britain outside London?
Liverpool
Around 4,000 people were killed there, most during the seven-night May Blitz of 1941.
Q 30The SS Malakand, destroyed by fire in Huskisson Dock on Merseyside on 3 May 1941, was carrying what?
Munitions
Flames spread to the ship from bombed dock sheds and could not be contained.