Having been taken in the early hours of Monday morning, the photograph was cleared for publication by the censors to appear in the "Daily Mail" of Tuesday 31 December 1940. It became the main feature on the front page, with a caption reading "War's Greatest Picture". The image was cropped to omit many of the damaged buildings. The "Mail" also took the unusual step of publishing the photographer's account of how he took the picture:  However, Mason's account should not necessarily be taken at face value. A detailed study by Brian Stater has shown that the final image was heavily retouched in the studio: "more of the picture has been changed than not".