Today marks the 70th anniversary of the Blitz. A special service is being held at St Paul’s Cathedral and a Spitfire, a Lancaster and a Dakota will fly over the City of London around noon as a march past of veterans takes place. As usual, the best starting place for those interested in the latest historiography on the Blitz is History Today: in the current edition, Richard Overy looks at the largely neglected role civilians played during the Battle of Britain and beyond. Our reviews editor Juliet Gardiner’s latest tome, The Blitz: The British Under Attack is published by HarperPress next week. History Today contributor Francis Beckett questions the effectiveness of preparations in the Guardian.

Other contributions are rounded up here.

In Managing 'Civilian Deaths Due to War Operations', Julie Rugg reports on research done into official attitudes to burial during the Blitz.

In Fires Were Started Jeffrey Richards rekindles Humphrey Jennings' stirring wartime portrayal of firefighters who became heroes of the Blitz.

In Glimpses of the Blitz (June, 1993) we published, for the first time, a selection from Raymond Postgate's wartime correspondence with the American publisher Alfred Knopf as an eyewitness in London during the Blitz.