History Notes

• Military and industrial centers were hit, often civilians were the victims.
• Bombing seemed to increase determination to resist.

• First target was the East End- it had docks and factories and densely populated
area.

• London was hit including Buckingham palace and Saint Paul's Cathedral.
Bristol, Southampton, Portsmouth were attacked because of their dockyards.
Belfast, Manchester and Liverpool also hit resulting in shattering consequences.

Impact of the Blitz

• Britain suffered more civilian than military casualties.

• Each week of September 40000 to 50000 people lost their homes, In November,
4500 killed and thousand refugees. In London 12500 died in December.
• London had lost some of it's finest buildings.
• Docks around the ship were devastated as were packed terraced homes of the
people living around the docks.
• Firestorm occurred in London .
• Coventry was hit by 30,000 incendiary bombs. People were so terrified that they
fled the city each night. They slept in farmer's barns or they camped in open
fields.
Belfast:
• At least 150,000 people were made homeless.
• Shipbuilding took 6 months to recover.
• German pilots said that the city of Belfast was like a sea of flame.
Baedeker raids( Targets were chosen from the Germans by the Baedeker tourist
guide):
• Cathedral cities of Canterbury and Norwich were among those hit.
Further attacks in 1944-1945
• 20,000 casualties from V-1 and V-2 missiles causing considerable damage.

Air Raid Precaution

ARP wardens
• In 1939 it had half a million members.
• The ARP wardens supervised the black-out.
• Householder had to make sure that no light was visible  ARP could fine people.
• They checked for incendiary bombs holding buckets of sand.
 Shelters
• Gov provided some public shelters but not enough of them.
• Gov. was against deep shelters b/c it feared that people would hide in them and
not continue the war effort. Also they were costly.
• 2 million Anderson shelters were provided  saved thousand of lives.
• Gov provided half a million Morrison shelters.

Black Out

• Homes, shops ,trains and even cars had to black-out  Number of road
accidents doubled .

Controlling Information

• Boost morale and support the war effort.

• Provide important information and instructions.
• Make sure the press did not publish and the BBC didn’t broadcast anything
that might be helpful to the enemy.
Press

Journalists had to submit their articles to the censor before they printed them,
Newspapers reported bad news with encouragement. Victories were celebrated
enthusiastically .

Radio

• BBC censored itself and tried to boost the morale of the public.
• It transformed Dunkirk into a morale-boosting triumph.
• 25 million people turned into BBC programs.
• Stage stars made programmes to boost the morale of civilians and troops.

Propaganda

• Posters encouraged people to conserver food and fuel and beware of enemy spies.
• Films were related to war. Generally they sent a patriotic message.
• Wartime propaganda made good use of the image of the Prime minister Winston
Churchill. He was a great wartime leader and BBC made him a legendary figure.