kingdom

Spaarnestad Photo/SFA006000376 Second world war, battle for United Kingdom. Londoners off to their work after large bombing raid of 29 December 1941. The streets still full with fire hoses. United Kingdom, London, 29 December 1941. Hi, I'm an admin for a group called London at war, and we'd love to have this added to the group!

This was the day of the big City raid, when the iconic pic of St Paul's rising above the flames was taken. So it is most likely in The City somewhere, but I can't quite place that tube station, things've changed a lot down there. [ EDIT: Ah. The raid I'm referring to was 29 Dec 1940. So I'm not sure this photo isn't misdated, for the reason that heavy raids on London ceased after May 1941, though there still were lighter attacks. I can't find any reference to a heavy raid on this date. 'The last major attack on London was on 10 May [1941]: 515 bombers destroyed or damaged many important buildings, including the British Museum, the Houses of Parliament and St. James's Palace. The raid caused more casualties than any other: 1,364 killed and 1,616 seriously injured.[7] Six days later 111 bombers attacked Birmingham; this was the last major air raid on a British city for about a year and a half.' en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz ]

Its Holborn isnt it Fin??

I don't think so, Lud. It might be Moorgate.

Ah right I was going with the entrance to the tube which looked like the Holborn entrance. Its just a bit blurred or we could read the underground sign.

What a fabulous old picture. Thank you for sharing and making this picture available to all who are interested in things nautical.

It's a pleasure. I'm glad you're enjoying the photographs

Thanks for sharing these - they are great to see. I note a big difference in the geometry of the inboard and outboard props - is that because the shafts ran at different speeds?

Mauretania's trials of 1907 recorded shaft revolutions of between 123 per minute at 18.32 knots and 192 per minute at 26.17 knots with no indication that the speeds varied from shaft to shaft. However even at the trials stage Cunard and Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson found that they were having vibration problems with Mauretania's 3 bladed propellers. These were later replaced with 4 bladed propellers. As far as I understand it all four propellers where changed and I suspect that this photograph was taken part way through the process. You can see that the two outboard propellers have 4 blades and the two inboard ones have three. If you look at the starboard inboard propeller you can see that it appears to have been nibbled! I would suggest that replacement with a 4 bladed type is imminent. However most of our reference material is concerned with the building of the ship at Wallsend so if anybody out there can suggest a different explanation I would be delighted to see it added.

I should mention that the response above came from our Keeper of Maritime History

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Princess_Royal_(1911)

Princess Louise, Princess Royal, later Duchess of Fife - 1867-1931, 3rd child of Edward VII (son Queen Victoria) and Queen Alexandra. At launch of Princess Royal, a Lion Class Battlecruiser.