Manchester's 'Christmas Blitz'

22nd December 1940: The Luftwaffe follow the devastation in Liverpool with two equally damaging raids sixty miles inland

One of the fires burning in the centre of Manchester soon became an enormous conflagration.

After two nights visiting Liverpool the Luftwaffe moved on to Manchester, for the nights of the 22nd and 23rd December. Many of the city’s firefighters were still in Liverpool, where they had been sent to help deal with the aftermath of the raids there.