Has anybody read either of these books? Amazon.co.uk: The Myth of the Blitz: Books: Angus Calder Which People's War?: National ... - Google Book Search There is quite a debate about the reality and "myths" of how people reacted and dealt with the Blitz. The first book seems to debunk the image of the stoic Londoner. A review: ResoluteReader: Angus Calder - The Myth of the Blitz Another book that seems to touch on similar issues: Amazon.co.uk: The First Day of the Blitz: Books: P Stansky JewishJournal.com and a general article: BBC - History - The Blitz: Sorting the Myth from the Reality
The "Myth" of the Blitz ? Given sufficient time I fear the revisionists will have our future generations doubting if in fact WW2 ever took place at all ! During the two odd years that the BBC Peoples War was "open to postings" by members of the public I posted over one hundred stories, none of which concerned the Blitz. I did this as a matter of policy because I decided that my life in the services had enough substance of its own and that I should leave Blitz stories to the thousands of civilians who experienced bombing for over four years. This did not mean that I did not experience the Blitz at its worst and I still have vivid memories of living in the Stamford Hill area of London while the dock areas were being set on fire on a nightly basis. The area where I lived was hit again & again by night bombers who dropped their messengers of death completely indiscriminately. The Blitz took place unremittingly and there is plenty of documentary evidence to support this fact. Every morning Londoners, including myself until 1942, had to get into work in whatever way we could and our morale was high, whether present day writers can understand it or not. The reality of how people reacted in the Blitz a "myth" ? ........as Dickens would say "Humbug !":> ps I know my wife would agree with me: BBC - WW2 People's War - The night our house was sliced in half
I totally agree with Ron. My parents walked out of church on their wedding day to a hail of bombs (not an omen, they enjoyed many happy years together). I accept that the evidence on the BBC website is anecdotal but nevertheless it is no less an honest portrayal of how people saw things than these later interpretations of evidence. Every situation contains contradictory aspects and features. My Mum also talked of some very dark days, and small number of people who blatantly took advantage of others and even made their fortunes during these times, but that should not detract from the overwhelming majority who did "just carry on" and give whatever help and support they could to others. Perhaps we just find it increasingly hard to believe as we become a more selfish and uncaring society????
I really don't understand why revisionists would seek to undermine one of the war's enduring legacies - a stoic civilian population as brave as those directly fighting the enemy. It just doesn't make sense. Fair enough, it was not all "stiff upper lip", "press on regardless" stuff but they certainly didn't buckle en masse and there's plenty of proof of that.
Personally I don't think there has been any undermining, or attempts to to do so. But I do think there is a place for an examination of the true picture of what was going on at grass roots level. However, just like any other event or period of history, the interpretations of the individual historians should be taken into account, and no serious student of history would rely on just one book or source. For example, a counterbalance to the Myths of the Blitz seems to be: Amazon.co.uk: Half the Battle: Civilian Morale in Britain During the Second World War: Books: Robert Mackay or this one which seems to fall somewhere in the middle of the above two studies: Amazon.co.uk: The Test of War: Inside Britain, 1939-45 (Warfare and History): Books: Robert Mackay I read this article a while back and found it quite interesting: http://www.healthsystem.virginia.ed...ce/articles/s2006/public_panic_and_morale.pdf
Writer who disputed Blitz 'myth' dies at 66 Writer who disputed Blitz 'myth' dies at 66 - Scotsman.com News
Believe me the Blitz was real,I was 18 years old,when it started. I lived in Woolwich,near the Thames which was a guide to the Bombers, I was on duty with the Home guard,it was hell, so I joined the navy & ended up in the U.S.A. to pick up my ship H.M.S.Fencer Escort Carrier built in the U.S.A.Douglas.Birch
G'day Douglas and welcome. We would be most grateful to hear about your time on the Fencer if you have time to post some anecdotes.
Hi there Douglas and welcome to the forum It would be interesting to hear about your time in the Navy.
Personal view of Blitz One of the problems academics face is "publish or perish". So there is a constant pressure to find a new angle --hence revisionism. The other problem, touched on by Kyt is that historians often have a personal agenda, whether conscious or not. That said let me put some recollections that might refute the Calder view. I was living in Bermondsey during the Blitz and being an industrial area and adjacent to the docks it was heavily bombed. I can vouch for a high morale among the people of my area. One example. We were sheltering in the London Bridge Underground when we were told we couldn't come out. A land mine had dropped outside the entrance and was hanging from an overground railway signal. There was not one iota of panic and finally a CD warden came and told us that the power on the lines had been shut down and we were to walk along the tunnerl to the Borough Station. This was done without fuss by women and children and I remember after a few minutes someone started a sing song. My mother lived on the third floor in a four story high block of flats. We went down the local shelter because Stainer Street Arch which was being used as a shelter got bombed with many casualties and my mother decided London Bridge Railway was too good a target but after one in the local park received a direct hit and killed the occupants my mother, among others decided it wasn't worth the discomfort and we slept in our own beds. I can remember being on the landing and watching a bomber caught in a searchlight cone. Of course there were those who for various reasons could not cope. There were the inevitable opportunists ready to make a profit out of misery. But the majority of those I saw in Bermondsey were resigned to trying to live normal lives in abnormal conditions I haven't read Calder but I know enough about historical methodology to know that how you present a question can determine the answer. I should also add that my father, before he was called up for army service, was a volunteer in, at first the ARP and then as it was called later, the Civil Defence. There is much more I could use to indicate that Calder was wrong but forums, by their nature, are not the place for full histories. Jerry
Thank you for your post Jerry. I have to agree that historians do, indeed, have agendas, and just as important is the types of questions (and how they are asked). From what I have read about the Blitz, I would say that the "truth" is probably in the middle ground; between the 'stiff upper lip' portrayed by the authorities during the war, and the stance taken by the likes of Calder. What is obvious is that the majority of the population did struggle through, and there were no mass panics, which would have indicated mass low morale. However, as micro-analyses of things like crime, social movement, perosnal diaries etc show, there was a lot more disgruntlement amongst the population than the authorities admitted. But this wasn't just a direct result of the bombing but a combination of factors, including class divisions, and the fact that the working classes perceived the upper classes using their power and wealth to escape the worst conditions. These conditions included access to non-rationed (i.e. black market) items, escaping conscription (even if this was an erroneous belief) etc. The sociology of that period is fascinating and it is a pity that so much of it is clouded by political (with a small 'p') biases
Itis a truism that too often history is hacked into "periods" and this fails to acknowledge that the response of people to a situation is often influenced by previous events. WW11 is not my area of historical expertise, so observations I make are based on personal knowledge of Bermondsey which would not necessarily be the same as other working class areas. In my childhood I can remember two cameos with great clarity. One was the local pub where an ex soldier of WW1 and his wife used to stand outside with a barrel organ. He had lost his toes (probably through "trench foot" ) so his wife was there to push the barrell organ. The other was of another ex soldier of WW1 who stood with an old pram and a gramaphone along one road that led to the Sunday market at East Street known locally as "The Lane" or "East Lane". He only had one or two records and one I remember was "There's a long long trail awinding. I mention these because Bermondsey was a tough working class area with not much sentiment, and very little disposable wealth but these veterans were treated with sympathy. Even as a child I was told that "trench foot victims received no pension because the military establishment deemed it a self inflicted wound, avoidable if the chap kept himself clean. What experience engendered in the community was a remarkable bond of help to others that was not middle class bleeding heart guilt but a form of survival. You helped because you knew you could get help. It was that that shows Calder's distorted view was not based on real understanding. The class divide was intense and based on experience. Next to where I lived was a leather works, a foundry, a jam factory and a tin box manufacturers. The women who worked in the tin box factory must all have been deaf because the noise was horrendous. A better way to understand the people was that they were not beguiled by Communism. The words to "The Red Flag" that I learned was, The working class may kisss my a**e I've got the Foreman's job at last. After WW11, the local Communist aspirant for Parliament, from memory Joe Bent (here I could be wrong) lost his deposit. I will try to read Calder objectively, but I fear it will be difficult. What I have tried to convey is even a glib statement such as class difference fails to gain even the smallest grasp of the complex social structure where even the police were seen as agents of the establishment. Attached is a photo of the ARP wardens of the block of flats I lived in. These men, my father was one, worked by day and were out in the worst of the Blitz by night. Jerry
It is interesting you mention the communists because their lack of appeal amongst the British working classes has beguiled sociologists for decades. Though, socialism, with a small 's' had strong foundations, this was usually tied in with trade unionism etc. And in many ways that itself was an offshoot of the very solidarity that you have mentioned. In fact, communism has had more of an appeal amongst a certain minority of the middle classes - some psychologists would probably ascribe it some guilt complex. But going back to the war, I think one of the things that some historians take at face value are the reports submitted by undercover police officers sent out to gauge the mood of those in the shelters etc. Well, the one thing Londoners (and I am one ) have always been supremos at is complaining. That doesn't mean that they would take to the streets. But the psychological impact of the bombings from the first war must still have been evident, as would have the rather defeatist proclamations made by the authorities in the 1930s about the bomber always getting through. Couple with the mass evacuations of the children, people would have been expecting the worst. The fact that people actually did cope was despite all that.
I predicated my early comments by stating I could only speak from the point of view of living in Bermondsey during the Blitz. Sociologists make a mistake when talking of "The Working Class" in London by lumping them all together. London, during Dickensian times, was "The Great Wen" and it's population growth was no a natural growth but one of migration. Working class London was a series of villages that had very subtle differences in culture that only one who lived there would recognise. The Bermondsey area I lived in was heavily industrialised and had a high proportion of Irish ancestry. I suspect it stemmed from railway work and building in general The East End was a natural starting point for new waves of migrants and had a reasonably high Jewish content, which was possibly a later migratory wave. Here there was a fair number of furniture makers. I had a large number of friends with Irish names, but only one family was Jewish. It is perhaps too late now for sociologists to study these differences as the people are aging and/or dispersing. Therefore any comments, including attitudes to Communism and concepts of Class must be seen in that light. Bombing during the First World War would probably had no psychological effect on the working class. Nor would defeatist media comments. The inter war period was one of dogged survival with the Great Depression having much more impact. Getting a job and doing it was uppermost. The generally good organisation of evacuation and rationing shows more the Estabishment view than it does the working class. Jerry
I was nearly 10 when WW2 started, lived in west London, by the end of the war we had learn't there had been black marketeers, looters, etc. BUT the overwhelming majority of people were confident that the Allies would win, even in the worst times. I also believe that King George and His Queen by refusing to leave their LONDONERS was a huge moral booster, they frequently visited the bombed parts of London to give support. To my recolection no one in need was ever refused help. We had an elderly lady living nearby, she was strugling to survive on her own, my Mother would make a pot of soup when she could, and leave it on this lady's doorstep, later that day the pot would be back on our doorstep washed and clean....no words were ever spoken by Mum to or from the lady...My mother realised and respected this lady's pride. It was common to hear people whistling during the war...never heard much today. I believe those that question the resolve of the British during that time were either not there, or just stupid. Probably the same people who deny the holocaust existed.
Hi Alan, I to was about your age and living in West Kensington next to Queens Club, at the outbreak of war. My mother soon sent me to the N.E. just north of Newcastle to her family to be out of harms way. I later learnt from my stepfather, who was an Ack Ack Gun Sgt in the Royal Artillery, that even though she never had a driving lesson in her life, she drove an ambulance all during the blitz. After the war was over she never drove again. Cheers Keith
I agree with Ron also, I have enough ingrained stories from my mum on her experiences of the Livepool Blitz to bare that out. The pic of me, my dad and brother on my cp page....where we stand is the site of the old Anderson shelter from her parents garden. The house had its window blown in by a landmine in the field opposite the house, the houses at the back where destoryed and her school friend killed during one nights bombing...the blitz was no myth for some.
Hi All, I remember being reasonably aware of the war during my stay in the N.E. of England. We did have a few bombers try to bomb the local pit, very much to their cost for when flying in on an approach heading they were suddenly confronted with unpteen very high slag heaps with a few of them not escaping. Living quite near Acklington RAF Base a few of us would venture round the edge of the airfield looking for bits and pieces. Locally near the sea was an electronic shooting range always good for a few bullets when not in use.(the range I mean) In the centre of the dining room we had a large steel Table Type Shelter we would all huddle together in if the siren went. A thing that still stands out in my memory was watching raids in operation at Blyth R.N Base, 10 miles away, from our front door, and seeing what I was told were Flaming Onions being launched into the air against the raiders. Has anyone any idea what these were, I know they were some sort of Anti Aircraft device. Seemed to climb into the air quite slowly following each other in a continuous stream, for all the world like a lit up string of onions. Cheers Keith
