evacuated hurriedly to the Elephant and Castle tube station. By the following day ninety four bodies had been recovered and more were to be found later. In the midst of all this, firemen were as usual, at work.
Just after midnight Superintendent Adams, in command of 'F' District, making his way from one of the first fires  reported, in Southwark Street, to another in New Kent Road, was driven down to the Elephant and Castle. There he found Freeman, Hardy and Willis's shoe shop and warehouse and SpurgeonsTabernacle already on fire and from there he witnessed a rain of incendiaries that caused all six roads meeting at that point to burst into flames simultaneously. He took charge immediately and sent a dispatch rider back to the control room at Lambeth Headquarters to tell them to 'Make Pumps Ten', knowing already that this would not be enough. His was the sixth potential conflagration reported in the past eighteen minutes.
Within five minutes the pumps arrived and now Adams had to decide how best to use them. His decision was to try to surround the area of fire and so he sent the first six pumps to the  furthest points on the outer perimeter a quarter of a mile away. Minutes later more pumps arrived and crews began opening the first hydrants at the Elephant and Castle. Every one of them was dry. Adams then ordered two water units and set one trailer pump into a 5,000 gallon dam by Spurgeon's Tabernacle, on the west side of the junction, but in five minutes it too was dry. Two more pumps he sent to Manor Place Baths, an emergency supply of 125,000 gallons, just off the Walworth Road. Three others he sent to the Surrey Music Hall.
By now vital water mains had gone from the perimeter of the fire, fractured by high explosive bombs. Station Officer Boulter and several firemen tried twenty hydrants before they found one half a mile away that worked. By 1.00am the total of broken water mains in the Elephant and Castle district was more than thirty in a mile radius. Added to this Manor Place Baths was very quickly reported dry and within an hour it was also on fire. Adams, in the meantime, had organised a relay from the Thames, but to complete this was taking time. Four lines of hose had been arranged from the three trailer pumps at the Surrey Music Hall and a scaffolding dam holding 5,000 gallons, into which water was just coming through, had been set up. By this time, Adams realised that his main hope was to create water relays from the Thames and Surrey Canal by Camberwell Road, a mile away. Adams now signalled to 'Make Pumps Fifty'.
At St George's Circus, The Royal Eye Hospital and the Salvation Army building, either side of the Surrey Music Hall, were on fire. In addition to the three pumps working from the water supply in the basement, several London Fire Brigade appliances were attempting to keep the situation under control. At 2.22am a land mine fell on Blackfriars Road causing devastation over a wide area. The engine of one pump was blasted through the wall of the Salvation Army hostel, while another landed on the first floor of a nearby butcher's shop. Seventeen firemen were dead (all three crews of the trailer pumps) and several others were injured and taken away suffering from 'shock'. Requests for a mortuary van were met with a sharp response from the mortuary attendant because of the fire  at the mortuary. All access to the water supply in the basement of the Surrey Music Hall was now blocked.
At the Elephant and Castle, Lieutenant Commander Fordham, in command of Southern Division, had arrived with Divisional Officer Blackstone and between them they tried to decide on what to do next. A fire barge was ordered to the Surrey Canal, a mile away, and told to start a relay. Other lines coming from Westminster and Waterloo bridges were both a mile and a half away from the fire and the Thames was at low tide. By this time the relay lines from London Bridge had just begun to pump water into the dam and these seemed the most immediate hope until, just as suddenly as it had begun, the water died away again. Station Officer Boulter arrived with the explanation that a burning building had collapsed, burying the lines in red hot brick. Several fires dealt with earlier had re-ignited and the heat and sparks were so intense that Blackstone ordered all control cars to move north, neared to the river. It seemed as if a firestorm was about to break out and Blackstone sent a message to control to 'Make Pumps 100'.
A conference was now called at Lambeth, with Commander Jackson, acting Chief of the London Fire Brigade. News was passed to him by Commander Firebrace at the Home Office, and there, together with members of his staff,  Firebrace met with Herbert Morrison, the Minister for Home Security. After some discussion, it was decided to use a new kind of emergency steel piping made up in 20ft lengths and able to withstand all forms of attack, including high explosives. This could be laid in 50 minutes and seemed the last hope.
The 'All Clear' was sounded at 5.24am on Sunday 11th May and with a continual supply of water coming, at last, from the river and from the Surrey Canal, the fire at the Elephant and Castle was gradually brought under control. Lack of water and a low tide on the river had meant that firemen all over London were helpless to deal