On a hot, calm Saturday, London moved through an almost holiday mood. People filled parks, shops, and theaters, and recent false alarms had helped restore a sense of safety. Churchill was at Chequers, Beaverbrook had gone to his country house, John Colville was on holiday, and Mary Churchill remained in the countryside. In Berlin, Joseph Goebbels prepared to present the coming attack on London as justified retaliation for British raids, while also hearing and approving reports on the planned removal of Jews from Germany and Austria.

At 4:43 p.m., the Luftwaffe began its assault. The first wave included hundreds of bombers and fighters, with pathfinder aircraft marking targets. Radar detected the great formation, but because British commanders assumed German bombers were again heading for RAF airfields, fighter squadrons and anti-aircraft guns were positioned to defend those sites instead of London. As a result, civilians such as Virginia Cowles, Colin Perry, and Jack Graham Wright saw an immense stream of German aircraft reach the capital with little initial resistance.

Bombs fell across southeast London, including Plumstead, where Wright and his family took shelter under a stairway as their house shook violently. Larson emphasizes the physical aftermath as much as the blasts themselves: exploding buildings filled streets, survivors, and the wounded with thick dust from shattered brick, plaster, and earth, making rescue and medical care far harder. Once the RAF understood that London itself was the target, fighters converged, but the scale of the raid had already transformed the city.

That evening and night, a second large wave approached from France. British leaders issued the Cromwell alert because they feared the raids might precede invasion, and some local commanders even ordered church bells rung. Bombing continued through the night while fires lit the sky, anti-aircraft fire remained delayed and uneven, and RAF fighters could do little after dark. Civilians registered new wartime sensations: the shriek of falling bombs, the smell of cordite and gas, the sight of burning districts, and the shock of suddenly living among rubble and death.

By Sunday morning, clear skies hung over a damaged capital and a black wall of smoke over the East End. More than four hundred people had been killed and about sixteen hundred seriously injured, while many Londoners encountered dead bodies for the first time. German commanders judged the raid a success despite losses on both sides, seeing the cost as acceptable. Churchill rushed back from Chequers, determined to tour the damaged areas and be seen doing so, while Beaverbrook also returned and later tried to erase the fact that he had spent the attack away from London.