Part I

The Second World War is one of the greatest and most significant and one of the most important events of the 20th century. It shaped and changed everything that happened after it, from the Cold War to a divided Germany to the United States becoming the next superpower over the United Kingdom. But when we study the Second World War, be it in the classroom at school, in university or in documentries on TV, there’s one major trait which I think you’ll all notice at once…

It’s all about the battles. About Market Garden, Barbarossa, Chastise, Dynamo, Overlord, about the bombing of Dresden, the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Berlin…it’s all about the big, history-making events of the War. I think anyone who’s studied the Second World War would know what happened on these dates: 1st of September, ’39, 7th of December, ’41, 6th of June, ’44, 8th of May, ’45, and so on…they’re all famous and important dates, and rightly so. But in times of war, it’s not just the battles, the air-raids, the shootouts and the charging tanks, it’s not about the brave dogfights or the bombing or soldiers being blasted to pieces or charging to victory…it’s also about the ordinary people living on the Home Front, whose lives changed forever with the outbreak of the Second World War. It was about mothers who had to scrape and scrounge and scrabble for every single scrap of food to cook a meal, it was about fathers and grandfathers who remembered the Great War of 1914, barely a generation before, it was about how the war affected the lives of ordinary people, not just the commanders standing over a table with long sticks and toy tanks. So what was it like during the War on the Home Front?

What is the ‘Home Front’?

The Home Front is the civilian side of warfare. Away from the battlefields with the cannons and guns and bullets, the homefront was where ordinary people fought in their own way, to help their boys who were fighting miles away on distant battlefields and it was where great sacrifices were made by ordinary mothers, fathers, wives and relations, to keep their soldiers alive and safe, even though they might be on the other side of the world. The Home Front was important for supplies, information, moral support and intelligence-gathering. The Home Front showed that war touched everyone, not just the soldiers fighting in the field. The Home Front is what this article is about…

The World at War

On the Third of September, 1939, Great Britain, France and Australia (as a part of the British Empire), declared war on Nazi Germany, after its flat refusal to withdraw its troops from Poland, which it had invaded just two days before, on the First of September. The Second World War had started and with the famous words:

“…I have to tell you now…that consequently, this country is at war…with Germany”

– Neville Chamberlin; British Prime Minister; September 3rd, 1939.

The moment war was declared, people began to fear the worst. They feared…invasions…bombings…gas-attacks…night time air-raids…What were they to do? Within weeks, months or even as quickly as days after the attack, things began to change. In England, children of school-age were evacuated from major cities, mainly London, but also other large cities which might be targets for enemy bombers. They were packed into trains and sent north, out of the range of enemy bomber-planes, and put into the care of foster-families or put into boarding-houses set up inside grand, country houses run by the wealthy. Children who were lucky enough, got to stay with relatives already living in the country. Otherwise, to these children, it meant spending weeks and months away from home, away from their parents, staying with strangers with whom they’d had no prior contact or knowledge of.

Mass Evacuations

The evacuations happened months in advance. As early as June, people, fearing war, had already fled north. The official, government evacuations started on the 31st of AUgust, 1939, and they were called “Operation Pied Piper”. Under this operation, children of school age, mothers with young chidlren or newborn babies, or other persons who were in heightened danger, such as the elderly, were packed into trains. It was a massive undertaking; Upwards of three and a half MILLION Britons were evacuated from southern England. Some went north, some braved an Atlantic crossing and sailed to Canada, the United States, or even halfway around the world to Australia, to escape the impending doom. It was suggested, at one point, that the British Royal Family should evacuate, either to the country, and then later, to Canada, for their own safety. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, horrified at the thought of what the Royal Family abandoning its people to its fate, might do to civilian morale, famously declared that:

“The children won’t leave without me, I won’t leave without the king, and the king will never leave!”

– Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

Operation Pied Piper in action. These are just a few of the 827,000 children who were evacuated from London from 1939-1940. The cards attached to their clothes would allow their carers or relatives to identify the children when they arrived at their destinations.

Many children were understandably terrified of leaving their mothers and fathers and spending months away in some strange place they’d never been to. However, if they’d know what was coming up next, I think they would have left for the country a lot more willingly.

Preparing for War

All over the British Isles, people were preparing for war. They bought miles and miles of sticky-tape to tape neat, diagonal crosses onto the windows of their houses and shops. The tape was to hold the window-glass together so that it wouldn’t shatter and become lethal pieces of flying shrapnel in a bomb-blast. Similarly, people filled sandbags (although usually filled with soil) and stacked them up outside important buildings, around air-raid shelters and Underground railway stations. The sandbags protected buildings against flying shrapnel and absorbed the shock of exploding bombs when they hit the streets. People started digging Anderson shelters in their back yards. An ‘Anderson’ shelter was a partially-buried air-raid shelter, made of corrogated steel, usually placed a few feet into the ground, or in some cases, right under the ground!

Two families of neighbours preparing their ‘Anderson’ shelters. The soil which they shovelled on top was to protect against bomb-blasts.

Anderson shelters were very cramped and small, only six and a half feet long, six feet high and four and a half feet wide! They were designed to hold up to six people, generally the size of a nuclear family at the time: Mother, father and their children. Anderson shelters were not designed to be protection against a direct hit, they were meant to be protection against falling debris and flying shrapnel. When buildings collapsed or caught fire, the window-glass, support-beams or the bricks in the walls, could become dangerous missiles when they were blown away from the point of explosion.

Public Air-Raid Shelters

One of the most enduring images of the Home Front of WWII, was the organsation of public air-raid shelters in London, which centered around London’s famous “Underground”, its subway-system, which had existed since Victorian times.

At first, government officials were against Londoners using the Underground stations as air-raid shelters. The official reasons they gave were that there was a lack of running water, proper sanitary facilities, food and that it would become incredibly cramped down there in the tunnels. They were actually worried that Londoners would ‘chicken out’ and that, once given the Underground stations as bomb-shelters, they would move in permanently and never want to leave. This fear proved to be unfoundd, and in 1940, several of London’s lesser-used Underground stations were converted to bomb-shelters. Bunk-beds, canteens, toilets and chairs were put in for peoples’ comfort. Food was delivered on subway trains towing specially-modified carriages, which rolled into each station at dinnertime, to serve soup, bread, coffee and other necessities. Of course, this rolling restaurant-service wasn’t available to all stations, so actual canteens and kiosks were set up downstairs as well, so that people in the shelters could get a bite to eat.

Londoners sheltering from an air-raid in the Bounds Green Underground station. The men wearing steel helmets are blackout wardens.

Londoners were not always safe in the Underground, even if it was safer than being outside. When an air-raid began, they would charge into the nearest Underground air-raid shelter, wait out the bombing, come out again and go on with their lives. But sometimes, they never made it out. On the 13th of October, 1940, Bounds Green Underground station was destroyed by a bomb! It struck houses slightly to the north of the station and the force of the blast caved in the roof. Part of the station’s tunnel-system collapsed, killing sixteen people immediately, seventeen people in hospital the next day and injuring about twenty others, who later recovered.

Although this incident proved to Londoners that the Underground was not an infallable system of protection, it was the only one that most of them had, and for the most part, the Underground saved many lives.

The Blitz and the Blackout

All over the world, not just in England, but in Asia, Europe, out on ships at sea, in Australia, even in the United States, people observed the ‘blackout’. The blackout was the mandatory electrical blackout which governments enforced on their populations, for their own safety. After sundown, every single person, every home, every business, had to either turn off its lights, or it had to cover its windows with heavy, jet-black blackout curtains. In the streets, public streetlamps were turned off. Cars had their headlamps covered, allowing only a tiny slit of light to shine onto the road, windows were shuttered and billboard lights were turned off.

The purpose of the blackout, which happened every single night for the duration of the war, was to disorientate enemy fighter and bomber aircraft. In late 1940, the Blitz began. The Blitz was the intense, night-by-night bombing of London (and other cities, such as Coventry), by German Luftwaffe bomber-planes. It was supposed to pound the British into submission, all it did was wreck London, kill people and waste valuable German war-materials. By blacking out their houses and streets, Londoners hoped to confuse German planes. Without radar, the enemy planes were not able to detect where key targets were, without lights below, to guide them. To combat this, bombers dropped incendiary bombs first, which set buildings on fire, and giving the bombers a sight-reference. With this established, they then moved to more damaging high-explosive bombs, which exploded, either on impact, or after their fuses had burned out.

Despite the nightly bombardment, which ran from 7th September, 1940, until 10th May, 1941, several of London’s most famous buildings such as St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London, St. Stephen’s Tower, home of Big Ben (which kept time down to the second, despite being bombed every other night of the week) and Tower Bridge, all survived. Buckingham Palace also escaped relatively unscathed, despite being bombed no less than seven times during the Blitz. It was a deliberate target by the German Luftwaffe. One bomb fell into the palace courtyard and detonated on impact. The force of the explosion blew out all the inside windows of the palace, but still, the King and Queen refused to leave London, except on very special occasions. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother famously said, after the palace had been bombed:

“I’m glad we’ve been bombed. Now I feel as though I can look the East End in the face!”

– Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

London’s East End, then, as now, was the industrial, working-class heart of the English capital. Located here were factories, docks and warehouses. It was bombed mercilessly by the Luftwaffe, and the Queen’s comments must’ve made people feel glad that their majesties had chosen to stay in London, to be with their subjects at such an incredibly dangerous time in their nation’s history.

The front page of the Daily Mirror, dated Saturday, September 14th, 1940. Five bombs were reported dropped on the palace on that day, and yet King George VI and Queen Elizabeth escaped unscathed.

It was the job of blackout wardens, during the Blitz, to make rounds of their neighbourhoods, to ensure everyones’ safety. All lights had to be turned off or covered over. In the event of air-raids, wardens would direct civilians to air-raid shelters and help to provide first-aid in the event of injuries. The next day, teams of men who were part of special, civilian work-brigades, would help the severely overworked firemen to put out fires, shift rubble, clear away dead bodies, or rescue people trapped under their bombed houses.

The Air Raid Siren

The air-raid siren is one of the most famous sounds of the Second World War. Its haunting, undulating, wavering, screaming, shrieking wail of danger and distress could be heard for blocks in every direction. When aircraft-spotters on the south coast of England or in towns near to London spotted German bombers coming over from France, they sent messages to London, where the air-raid sirens would be turned on, to warn everyone of the impending danger.

The most famous air-raid siren signal was the one called ‘red danger’, characterised by regular, high-low tonal changes in the siren’s distinctive, wailing sound. This indicated that the air-raid was imminent and that civilians should make for cover as soon as possible. After the air-raid, the sirens sounded ‘all clear’, a single, long, high-pitched tone.

The siren remained a fixture throughout the War and even today, it is still used to warn of danger, although these days it’s used to warn of cyclones, bushfires or massive storms.

“There’s a War on, You Know!”

Finding food, clothing, water and other essential supplies was a constant, daily struggle during the War. On the Home Front, housewives in the UK, but also in other countries such as America, Canada, Australia and various British colonies in Asia, all had to be incredibly resourceful when it came to making ends meet when there was barely anything to eat. Rationing became a way of life for everyone, rich or poor. When someone complained about the rationing, the common reply was: “There’s a war on, you know!”, or “Don’t you know there’s a war on?” All kinds of things were rationed during WWII, here’s a list of just a few things which were rationed:

Milk,
Eggs,
Butter,
Bread,
Meat,
Poultry,
Flour,
Chocolate,
Sugar,
Cloth,
Gasoline/petrol,
Cigarettes,
Coal,

If mothers, wives, girlfriends, fathers and younger brothers ever heard of their soldier boys complaining about their lack of food, I don’t think those boys would’ve been complaining for much longer once their folks back home were done with them! At the height of rationing in England, around 1942, this was an ENTIRE WEEK’S rations in food for one adult:

It’s not much, is it? Four small pieces of meat, one egg, a little bit of butter, a bit of flour, sugar, and precious little else. Housewives had to stretch their cooking-skills to the max, if they intended to feed their families. The government even issued special ‘ration-recipes’, giving suggestions to wives on how to use their rations effectively, to cook delicious meals. Foods such as meatloaf, popular during the Depression, came back ‘into style’, as it were. The popular dessert, Apple Crumble, was invented by British housewives during the War. Without sufficient ingredients (YOU try making a pie out what you see in that photograph!), women would just chop up apples, throw on cinnamon, flour, oats and raisins, and bake the mixture in an oven.

Other things that were rationed included cigarettes, makeup, plastics and certain metals, such as steel. During the War, more fountain pens were made with gold nibs than steel, because steel was needed in the war-effort. Pen-companies even advertised that people should take better care of their pens, because pen-repair materials, such as metal (for nibs), plastic (for pen-barrels and caps), and rubber (for the ink-sacs), were all now valuable wartime resources.

This was the official list of food-rations for one week allowed to adults living in England, during WWII:

BACON and HAM ……… 4ozs ( 100g )
MEAT …………………… to the value of 1s.2d ( 6p today ). Sausages were not rationed but difficult to obtain : offal was originally unrationed but sometimes formed part of the meat ration.
BUTTER ………………… 2ozs ( 50g )
CHEESE ………………… 2ozs ( 50g ) sometimes it rose to 4ozs ( 100g ) and even up to 8ozs ( 225g )
MARGARINE ……………… 4ozs ( 100g )
COOKING FAT …………… 4ozs ( 100g ) often dropping to 2ozs ( 50g )
MILK …………………… 3 pints ( 1800ml ) sometimes dropping to 2 pints ( 1200ml ). Household ( skimmed, dried ) milk was available. This was I packet each 4 weeks.
SUGAR …………………… 8ozs ( 225g )
PRESERVES ……………… 1lb ( 450g ) every 2 months
TEA ……………………… 2ozs ( 50g )
EGGS …………………… 1 shell egg a week if available but at times dropping to 1 every two weeks. Dried eggs —– 1 packet each 4 weeks.
SWEETS …………………… 12 ozs ( 350g ) each 4 weeks.

Of note…

Fish and chips, the ‘national food’ of Great Britain, was never rationed, during the war! Restaurants were expected to be thrifty with the food offered to them, and could not charge over 5/- (that’s five shillings) for each meal, no matter WHAT it contained. People had to make do, eating things which they wouldn’t normally eat. For example…how about powdered scrambled eggs for breakfast? It’s a real egg…dried out…into a powder. You added water, beat it up…put it into the frying pan…cooked it…and ate it! Or how about banana custard? No real bananas, it was smashed up parsnips with banana flavouring mixed in!

When the United States entered WWII in 1941, there was even more rationing. Perhaps not quite to the same extent as the British, but there was rationing, nonetheless, of basic foodstuffs, clothing, cigarettes and gasoline (petrol). Starting in 1942, all motor-vehicle owners in the USA, had to have one of various lettered cards on their windshields, indicating how much gasolnie they were allowed to buy.

An A card was given to drivers whose car was nonessential to their work, meaning that they didn’t have to use their car all the time. People with ‘A cards’ on their windshields could buy 4gal (about 16L) of gasoline a week. A WEEK. And absolutely NO MORE. You can be people didn’t do much driving during the War!

A B card was given to drivers who needed their cars for work and whose work was essential to the war-effort. They were given 8gal. a week, or about 24L.

Other cards included C, T, R and X gasoline ration-cards. C cards were given to people who required their cars for regular work, and who performed important duties. People such as medical doctors, railroad workers and postal-employees, were allowed to carry ‘C cards’. ‘T cards’ were given to drivers who drove long-haul trucks which carried important war-supplies around the nation. ‘R cards’ were used by rural folks, such as farmers, who needed gasoline for their tractors and delivery trucks. You couldn’t feed the nation if you didn’t have gas to drive your tractor to plough your fields! The ‘X cards’, the rarest of the lot, were used in extra-special circumstances, and were given to vehicles used by VIPs and members of the American government.

Victory Gardens

To supplement their tiny food allowances, civilians were encouraged to “dig for victory”, by making what were called ‘victory gardens’. A victory garden was a vegetable patch, essentially. Here, the housewife and her husband had to grow their veggies: Lettuces, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots and if they were lucky…a few fruits, such as apples and pears. A lot of England’s fruit was imported from other countries at this time; as it was too dangerous to ship food across the ocean with U-boats on the lookout, England was cut off from its regular supplies of food and had to make do with what it had.

This cartoon from ‘The Bulletin’, an Australian magazine, was published in 1942, and shows how much the war and rationing affected everyone. The original caption, if you can’t read it, says: “Money my foot, she’s marrying him for his tea-ration!”