Why do we remember ‘The Blitz’

1. Why do we remember ‘The Blitz’

2. Listen to the audio clip. • Try and pick out as many different sounds as possible. • What do you think might have been going through the minds of the people who were caught in air raids?

3. When? ‘The Blitz’ began on 7 September 1940. At its height autumn 1940 – May 1941

4. Main target: London Bombed every night from 7 September 1940 – 2 November 1940 Docks and factories of the East End particularly hit. 12,500 people killed December 1940.

5. Other targets Bristol Southampton Plymouth

6. Other targets Portsmouth naval base 10 Jan 1940 930 civilians killed 3,000 injured

7. Other targets Coventry November 1940 Series of raids using incendiary bombs

8. People were so scared they fled the city at night, staying with relatives or sleeping in fields.

9. The death toll has never been totally confirmed. There were so many people killed that mass burials had to be held for the dead.

10. Other targets Manchester December 1940 Liverpool May 1941 – A raid of over 500 bombers

11. Other targets Belfast was hit hard in April and May 1941. Glasgow and the Clyde ship yards were hit hard in the spring of 1941

12. Why? • To destroy civilian morale • Force the British into submission • Undermine armaments production

13. Did it work?

14. Your task is going to be to investigate ‘The Blitz’. What impact did it have upon Britain?

15. You will be given a selection of sources on your table. Read through them and use them to complete your semantic map.

16. How people lived Destruction and death What impact did ‘The Blitz’ have? Work What people felt Family life

17. Homework In your report, you should include: It is June 1941. You are a German spy on a undercover operation in Britain. You are to investigate and decide what impact German bombing is having on the people living in British cities. You must analyse images and interview people. You are to write a report on the evidence you collect. This report will help Hitler decide whether to continue or abandon this tactic. You might want to begin your report in this way (you do not have to if you do not wish to): Report on the impact of the Blitz on British cities. Date: June 1941 After spying on the British citizens during the Blitz, it is my opinion that the impact of bombing towns and cities has had [a great effect / some effect/ little effect ] For example … Remember to PEE! For example: In certain areas the affect of the bombing had very little affect. One source says:‘we can take it. The Blitz didn’t affect us.’ This leads me to believe that...

29. “The streets were lit up like day. Houses were burning, shops were burning, it was a proper inferno. Heat was something terrible. The soles of your shoes were being burnt because of the heat of the pavement. In one period I never took my clothes off for six weeks. .... We used anything we could find. I remember bringing out one fellow ....He looked up at me and said: "Have you got a cigarette, mate? I lit it up for him and put it in his lips. He took a couple of puffs and said: "Will you tell me landlady I shall not be home to tea." And with that he closed his eyes and was gone.” Source 1 Harry Meacham, Air Raid Warden, 1941.

30. In the first place, most people had to spend five minutes or more every evening blacking out their homes. (This was to try and make sure that German pilots found it harder to navigate from the air) If a person left a chink visible from the streets, an impertinent air raid warden or policeman would be knocking at their door. In September 1940 the total of people killed in road accidents increased by nearly one hundred per cent. This excludes others who walked into canals, fell down steps, plunged through glass roofs and toppled from railway platforms. A Gallup Poll published in January 1940 showed that by that stage about one person in five could claim to have sustained some injury as a result of the blackout - not serious, in most cases, but it was painful enough to walk into trees in the dark, fall over a kerb, crash into a pile of sandbags, or merely cannonade off a fat pedestrian. Source 2 Angus Calder

31. “I remember that our street had been badly hit. Many families had lost their homes and some had lost family members. We even received a visit from Mr Churchill. “We can take it!” he kept saying to all the people who stood around watching. Mrs Jones, from number 32, seemed rather annoyed by that. “It’s US who has to take it Mr Churchill, not YOU! You are so very far away – you are SAFE! Do not tell us what we can and cannot take!” she said. Source 3 ? A victim of the Blitz, 1940

32. It has started! If they keep this up for another week, the war will be over. The East End won’t be able to stand much more of this sort of thing. What’s more, the Fire Brigade won’t be able to stand much more of it either. This is the first leave I’ve had since Thursday… Down came the bombs. You could hear the HEs going over the top with a low whistling sound. After a moment or two they started in with the incendiaries and dropped a Molotov over the docks. There was fire in every direction. The City was turned into an enormous, loosely-stacked furnace, belching black smoke. Source 4 An Air Raid Warden, January 1941.

33. “In the West End, we could 'take' the raids we got; whether we could have survived many more like the last two raids in the spring of 1941, when many of London's gas and water mains were destroyed, I don't know. We might not have been able to carry on, but bombs do not induce surrender. The Government had miscalculated the effect of raids; the 300,000 cardboard coffins which were ready when the bombing began were never used and the hospitals, which were cleared for patients who were expected to be driven mad by raids, remained empty. On the contrary, bombs tended to cure mental health issues. Many people who were worried about the prospect of war were cured by its reality. They had too much to do to have time to be frightened.” A west-end London resident. Source 5

34. “Hitler expects to terrorise and cow the people of this mighty city… Little does he know the spirit of the British nation, or the tough fibre of the Londoners. “ Winston Churchill, September 1940 Source 6

35. “All reports from London are agreed that the population is seized by fear.   The Londoners have completely lost their self-control” Nazi-controlled French Radio, October 1940 Source 7

36. “I just went down to the Post and when I came back my street was as flat as this ‘ere wharfside – there was just my house like – well, part of my house. My missus was just making me a cup of tea for when I came home. She were in the passage between the kitchen and the wash- house, where it blowedher...........The only thing I could recognize ‘er by was one of ‘er boots… I’d ‘ave lost fifteen homes if I could ‘ave kept my missus. “ A Hull Air Raid Warden, June 1940 Source 8

37. We have learned with horror and disgust that while London was suffering all the nightmares of aerial bombardment a few nights ago, there was a contrast between the situation of the rich and the poor which we hardly know how to describe. There were two Londons that night. Down by the docks and in the poor districts and the suburbs, people lay dead, or dying in agony from their wounds; but, while their counterparts were suffering only a little distance away, the plutocrats and the favoured lords of creation were making the raid an excuse for their drunken parties in the saloons of Piccadilly and in the Cafe de Paris. Spending on champagne in one night what they would consider enough for a soldier's wife for a month these monied fools shouted and sang in the streets, crying, as the son of a profiteer baron put it, 'They won't bomb this part of the town! They want the docks! Fill up boys!' Source 9 A British journalist, February 1940 Extension source