London was more prepared for the outbreak of the second world war than the central government let on. After all, if you were seeking peace through diplomacy, it was unwise to tell the citizenry how far you feared the worst.

For London, the worst was aerial bombing on a scale not previously known. If not quite the greatest city in the world in 1939, London was certainly among the most expansive. Over 8 million people - about one fifth of the British population - lived there, concentrated in an area of some 750 square miles. It was an inviting target for anything that the Germans could drop on it, and the government knew it.

(Financial Times, May 6/7, 1995)

De acordo com o texto,