On 13 September 1940 the war reached the British monarch’s residence itself. Buckingham Palace was bombed during the German air raids on London known as the Blitz. 2026 marks 86 years since the attack. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the future Queen Mother, were inside the building. Both escaped unharmed.

Six bombs, in a matter of seconds

According to the account preserved in King George VI’s diaries and published by the Royal Household, six bombs were dropped on the palace area: two in the forecourt, two in the inner quadrangle, one in the chapel and another in the garden. The King recorded that he and the Queen saw bombs falling close to them and ran into the corridor; it happened in seconds. The Queen described the attack in a letter to Queen Mary: they heard the German aircraft, the steep dive and the explosion of a bomb in the palace courtyard, then made for the shelter. Royal Collection Trust notes that the palace was bombed nine times during the war. The raid of 13 September 1940 was therefore not the only one.

The palace was not abandoned

During the war there were suggestions that the Queen and her two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, should be sent out of Britain, to North America or Canada. The official biography of the Queen Mother records her reply: the children would not go without her, she would not leave the King, and the King would never leave. The royal family remained in Britain for the rest of the conflict.

Why the moment became symbolic

The Blitz was the intensive German bombing campaign against Britain, especially London, which began in September 1940. The raids killed thousands of people, destroyed homes, started fires, damaged infrastructure and forced evacuations. The fact that the royal residence itself had been hit was used to show that the royal family shared the danger faced by people in the capital. George VI and Queen Elizabeth later visited many areas damaged by bombing. Eighty-six years on, the Royal Archives account remains a record of a morning when the war passed, literally, through the palace courtyard.

Photo: David Iliff / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Buckingham Palace, April 2009. This is not a photograph of the 13 September 1940 damage; archival images of the raid could not be reused here because of rights. Original file. Cropped to 16:9.

Sources consulted: The 80th anniversary of bombing of Buckingham Palace during the Blitz (The Royal Family); Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother (The Royal Family); Letter from Queen Elizabeth to Queen Mary, 13 September 1940 (Royal Collection Trust).