Since our copies of The Earth from the Air and Exquisite Mayhem are now well thumbed and falling to pieces it's time for Londonist to find a new book for its coffee table. And what could be a better subject than the Blitz? Nothing - as long as you don't concentrate on the estimated 42,000 dead and 50,000 injured and focus instead on the 130,000 so houses that were blown to kingdom come.
Official maps illustrating the scale of bomb damage to London in World War II are being published for the first time. Damage caused by bombing raids and V1 and V2 missile attacks are illustrated in 110 maps, published in a book to mark the 60 years since the war ended.
The extent of bombing was shown through a series of hand coloured damage levels similar to the ones used by the American Homeland Security Advisory system (but with the London maps showing actual devastation instead of being a device to panic people into making the wrong vote).
Following this example Londonist will be using our own Crayola crayons to keep track of the damage improvements that befall London over the next seven years now the city has to make room for lots of people who are good at throwing things and running fast.
