“St Paul's Survives” Herbert Mason's photograph of Saint Paul's cathedral shrouded in smoke during the Blitz in the night of 29-30 December 1940. The cathedral became a symbol of British resilience almost instantly. Picture: IWM.

Part One: Britain in WW2

 

➣ Online book: The account of RAF Anglo-Australian pilot Richard Hillary, The Last Enemy, published in 1942. Hillary fought the Battle of Britain and became a fighter ace. In September 1940 he was shot down over the Channel and badly burnt. After a long recovery, during which he witnessed the Blitz, he asked to be sent back to flying status and died when his plane crashed on take off.

 

3 | The Blitz and the home front

 

TG2 on 19 October 2022, TG4/5 on 21 October.

 

 

➣ Watch: London can take it!, a movie produced by the British Minister of Information in 1940. This film was mostly intended for American audiences with the purpose of bringing the United States into the war (short movie watched in class on October 19 or 21).

➣ Read: The English historian David Reynolds makes that account of the part played by London can take it! in his book From Munich to Pearl Harbor: Roosevelt's America and the origins of the Second World War (2001):

For Americans the Blitz was supremely a radio war. The major U.S. networks sent some of their best correspondents to London. The most celebrated was Edward R. Murrow of CBS, whose live broadcasts of air raids brought the sounds of modern war into American living rooms. Murrow’s matter-of-fact, gravelly voice told its story against the wail of air-raid sirens, the crump-crump of exploding bombs, and the clatter of antiaircraft guns. "You burned the city of London in our homes, and we felt the flames,” wrote the poet Archibald MacLeish in tribute. The British Ministry of Information (MOI) gave Murrow and colleagues such as Eric Sevareid full cooperation, waiving their normally strict censorship requirements because of the evident effect in the United States. The MOI’s documentary film about the Blitz, entitled London Can Take It, was also aimed at U.S. audiences. The MOI deliberately recruited an American commentator, the journalist Quentin Reynolds, who began his account of a night raid on the capital with the words: "These are not Hollywood sound effects. This is the music they play every night in London.” The MOI kept its name off the credits and used Warner Brothers to distribute the film around the United States. Opening in early November 1940, by the next spring London Can Take It had been screened at twelve thousand cinemas to an estimated sixty million Americans.

➣ Watch: In which we serve a 1942 British war film, the story of a Royal navy destroyer sunk in the Mediterranean, while the families of the sailors are being bombed in London. The film, which praises the heroism of the seamen and the resilience of the civilians, was intended to uphold the morale of the population within the framework of war propaganda. Directed by Noël Coward and David Lean, this patriotic film didn't lack artistic qualities.

 

TG2 on 12 October, TG4/5 on 14 October.

 

➣ To what extent was the victory of 1945 the people's victory ?

 

❑ Read carefully the fact file on the home front with essential keywords. Look at the partially annotated version (TG2) and TG4/5.

 

Notes on subject Nr 4:

 

Statement by Hermann Göring on 7 September 1940:
 
“This moment is a historic one. As a result of the provocative British attacks on Berlin on recent nights the Führer has decided to order a mighty blow to be struck in revenge against the British capital of the British Empire. I personally have assumed the leadership of this attack and today I have heard above me the roaring of the victorious German squadrons.

  1. The living conditions:
     

     
    • many houses were destroyed. Civilians were killed. Many children had been evacuated to the countryside, but obviously not all of them.

     

     
    • during the raids, people would use the shelters. They provided safety for all. It was democratic: all citizens were admitted. It was not comfortable, but being crammed there forced a feeling of community: people would sing, speak, play cards, sleep or eat together, facing the same danger. It was a patriotic experience.

    Air Vice Marshal Keith Park relieved at the news that the Germans were no longer attacking the airfields:
     
    “It was burning all down the river. It was a horrid sight. But I looked down and said ‘Thank God for that’, because I knew that the Nazis had switched their attack from the fighter stations thinking that they were knocked out. They weren’t, but they were pretty groggy”.

  2. From resilience to victory:
    • Göring was confident that the Germans would win. See “the victorious German squadrons”. Yet, the Blitz did not entail a German victory.
    • But (happily enough) they didn’t. Keith Park, however, insists that Britain was hit severely: huge fires were spreading, the RAF was “groggy”, not defeated, but weakened by the attacks.
    • The Blitz gave some respite to the RAF. Churchill said “London can take it”, meaning that the Blitz would not harm the British war effort. Keith Park shared the Prime Minister's views: the bombing of London was much less dangerous for the safety of Britain than the attacks on the airfields.
    • Nor would the Blitz break the morale of the people. On the contrary, it strengthened their determination to win the war.

       

      ➣ Read at the Imperial War Museum: Could the Blitz have worked ?, and Ten incredible stories of bravery during the Blitz.