The docks were the first target in the London Blitz.

Late in the afternoon of Saturday 7 September 1940, the Luftwaffe launched a massive daylight raid on London. Learn how the Port survived and aided the war effort from Dunkirk to D-Day.

Football rattles were used to warn of German gas attacks during the Blitz. Air raid wardens were given these rattles, but fortunately poison gas was never used during the Second World War.

Almost three million children and mothers were evacuated from London at the start of the war. Some children from the East End slums had never left the city before.

To help with the D-Day landings, special floating concrete harbours were built in the East India Docks. They were given the codename ‘Mulberry’ harbours.