The London Blitz Murders

FEBRUARY 13, 1942

F our murders in five days.

All had been committed within two miles of Piccadilly Circus; but nighttime revelers did not abandon the West End.

The United States military responded to the Ripper threat by expanding the number of their own police on the streets-snowdrops, the MPs were called, thanks to their distinctive white helmets, floating visibly above crowds in darkened Piccadilly.

The tabloids were irresponsibly fueling the notion that the Ripper was an American soldier, and all over town mothers were telling their young daughters to beware of American soldiers, all of whom were rapists. In the meantime, the flowers of the night continued to bloom around the Americans and their superior pay. Some were neither streetwalkers nor call girls, rather factory workers and even precocious school girls, looking to milk an escort for all he could give and then slip away into the night.

Not that all of the Americans were as naive as commonly thought: they dismissed British films as stodgy and boring; hated the beer; weren’t impressed by the dance halls; and missed being able to drive, even if on the wrong side of the street.

They did, however, like the women-deemed them hospitable, and not as sophisticated as they’d been warned.

There were those-Americans and Londoners alike-who considered the city in the blackout, particularly in winter, a thing of beauty, with a fresh tang in the air. Whatever the season, the Americans found London fragrant-a city with no central heating, burning cannel coal, that oily form of shale leaving its distinctive pungent odor behind. Even to locals, the city did smell surprisingly good-petrol fumes were largely gone, with so few vehicles on the streets. (Horse-drawn wagons had increased, with their own attendant fragrance.)

London in the moonlight could reveal the architectural wonders of classically constructed buildings; lovers-whether an engaged couple or a temporary alliance-might walk hand in hand along the moonlight-shimmering Thames or down a cozy side street to enjoy the blackout’s romantic calm… or was it a lull? A moon could light a bomber’s way, after all….

The Blackout Ripper-the press continued to hammer that designation home-did not love the moonlight; he was shielded by darkness, killing in silence, targeting women of the street, though a respectable lady out alone, like Margaret Hamilton, might be mistaken for his chosen prey.

If the good-time factory and school girls momentarily outnumbered the street-hardened prostitutes on the West End, it was because the latter understood they were the preferred victims, and were too scared to venture out, knowing that the streets they usually haunted were haunted by another predator who utterly out-classed them. He would strike again, the new Ripper, that seemed certain-the lust of killing had him in its malicious grip.

Jack the Ripper murdered his eight or more victims over a period of well over a year.

But even Jack the Ripper had never murdered four women in five days.