The Day War Broke Out

by Jacky Hyams

  Public opinion had much to do with the political appeasement policy. Put simply, the politicians knew all too well that the people did not want another world war – the first one was still very firmly entrenched in the public consciousness.

  Twenty years after the end of the First World War, ‘the war to end all wars’, when nearly a million lives of those within Britain and throughout the empire had been sacrificed in a four-year conflict (which eventually claimed sixteen million lives across the world), the idea of a second war against Germany was a shocking prospect for Britain’s 47,760,000 inhabitants. Few families in Britain had not faced the many wartime hardships and losses. These were not restricted to the battlefields: more than 5,000 bombs were dropped by airships and aeroplanes in towns across Britain in the First World War, resulting in casualties of 1,413 killed and 3,409 injured, leading many to believe that there was little defence from bombardment from the air. As Harold Macmillan – British Prime Minister from 1957–63 – recorded in his memoirs; ‘We thought of air warfare in 1938 as people think of nuclear power today.’ Yet government spending on rearmament had not been a priority, thanks, in part to post-First World War economic depression and high unemployment in parts of the UK.

  After Hitler took power, Germany became openly engaged in rearming, preparing for conflict. Britain had watched – and still hoped against hope that such conflict could never happen. Winston Churchill, then a backbench Conservative MP, spoke out against the German rearmament frequently. At the time, these warnings went largely unheeded.

  Politically, too, there had been a deepening mood of gloom and unease among the public throughout 1936. This was the year of the Jarrow Crusade, when 200 men from the former shipbuilding town in County Durham, where nearly 70 per cent of the workforce was unemployed, had marched on London. Though unemployment had been falling since 1932, the national average was still 18 per cent; successive governments had attempted solutions – but failed. Another march held in October 1936 led to riots in London’s East End when Sir Oswald Mosley and his Fascist Blackshirts paraded through the predominantly Jewish area to clash with anti-Fascists. Then, at the end of the year, the constitutional crisis caused by the marriage of the then King Edward VIII to the divorced American Wallis Simpson, which led to the King’s abdication broadcast in December 1936, further heightened public unease.

  Yet if the Munich fiasco was a key turning point for Britain’s war planning, the subsequent events of November 1938 underlined the stark reality to anyone who still doubted Nazi aggression as reports of Kristallnacht (literally, ‘crystal night’, but generally translated as ‘the Night of Broken Glass’) started to come in.

  This was a huge public attack, an act of Nazi violence against Jews across Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland during which 269 synagogues and 1,000 Jewish shops and homes were ransacked and set alight, windows of Jewish-owned buildings were smashed, Jewish homes, hospitals and schools destroyed, with hundreds killed and 30,000 arrested and sent off to concentration camps. The world looked on aghast at this officially sanctioned violence carried out on an unprecedented and truly frightening scale. Anti-war proponents could no longer ignore the ugly facts: Germany was internationally dangerous.

  As if this wasn’t frightening enough, the British authorities were convinced that a second war with Germany would open with a huge air attack on the country – an attack which would, in all likelihood, occur within a matter of hours of war being declared. It was thought that in the space of two weeks 600,000 people would be killed by any initial German bombing attacks, and twice as many injured.

  London, it was believed, would be the main target. In the event, flat-pack cardboard coffins would be required since supplies of wood could not meet the anticipated demand. There might be mass burials. Moreover, the threat of poison gas attacks on civilians, following the use of different types of poison gas (by both sides) in the trenches during the First World War, also had to be taken very seriously indeed. This was a hideous prospect since mustard gas left survivors blind or at the very least with severely damaged lungs. The combination of air bombardment and poison-gas attacks, blinding, burning and tearing out the lungs of civilians led, not surprisingly, to fears that there could be panic on the streets.

  For some time it had all seemed unthinkable; now it seemed to be edging its way towards a fearful kind of reality.

  It was readily understood that a second war would partly be conducted by air. Since early 1935, with the establishment of the new German air force, the Luftwaffe (the Treaty of Versailles had forbidden Germany from maintaining an air force or submarine fleet, and reduced its army to a maximum 100,000 soldiers, and its navy to just six ships), Britain had witnessed Germany’s ambitious plans to rearm and build up its air power. Until this point the Treaty of Versailles had forbidden Germany from maintaining an air force or submarine fleet, and reduced its army to a maximum 100,000 soldiers, and its navy to just six ships. Yet British future planning for the likelihood of enemy air attacks had been tentative, to say the least. Discussions on air-raid precautions (ARP) had taken place as far back as 1924, but it wasn’t until July 1935 that local authorities in Britain had been urged by the government to prepare ARP plans.

  The Air Raid Precautions Act, passed in 1937, formally required local authorities to start planning for government approval of their plans to protect civilians in the event of air attack. Yet progress in this direction was erratic at first: some local authorities simply didn’t believe that war was likely to happen.

  A number of plans for home defence had been drawn up, too – early in 1938, for instance, blackout trials, where homes and streets were temporarily blacked out to lessen the likelihood of successful bombing raids, had been attempted in Leeds and Nottingham. Yet it was the September ’38 Munich crisis that propelled Britain’s authorities to escalate, with all due urgency, the country’s planning for conflict: war now became inevitable.

  Pre-Munich, in March 1938, the Home Secretary of the time, Sir Samuel Hoare, had made an historic broadcast: ‘If the emergency arose, I know you would come in your hundreds of thousands,’ he said, making an appeal for volunteers to become air-raid wardens. Similar appeals were also published in the press, asking for volunteers over the age of thirty to join the ARP services as air-raid wardens, rescue workers and first-aid and ambulance workers.

  Similarly, thousands of volunteer Army reservists had already signed up for the Territorial Army, and units trained alongside regular Army formations in summer camps during 1938 and 1939.

  Within months, the appeals and publicity drive bore fruit: thousands, including large numbers of women, came forward to sign up as ARP volunteers, many on a parttime basis. These ARP wardens would play many grim roles: organising the distribution of gas masks, checking provision of shelters and ensuring blackout regulations were carried out. The part they played would become central in wartime Britain, as would that of the Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS), also set up that year to expand the peacetime fire brigades.

  In May 1938, the Women’s Voluntary Service (now known as the Royal Voluntary Service) was formed, initially to help women into the ARP movement, to assist civilians during and after air raids, and to help with the evacuation and billeting of urban children to the countryside. Government plans for large-scale evacuation of large towns and cities had acknowledged the need for evacuation planning; how this was to be organised had yet to be publicly set out.

  The unofficial motto of the WVS, ‘We never say no’, characterised an important voluntary organisation which grew from 300,000 members in 1939 to over one million women, whose practical and organisational efforts would develop and expand into providing help in virtually every aspect of life in wartime Britain.

  Historically, during the First World War, women had been engaged in paid work: 1,600,000 women were employed in ‘men’s jobs’ like bus driving or as post office clerks as well as more traditional women’s jobs like teaching or nursing, while many others worked in munitions facto
ries.

  Nonetheless, any kind of official conscription or call-up for women, even in 1938 with war looming, still remained highly controversial: the belief that a woman’s place was firmly in the home continued to hold sway – until the exigencies of wartime with its demanding labour shortages took precedence and conscription for women in the armed forces became legal in 1941. Yet it would be the volunteering women, like those of the WVS, who would form much of the backbone of what became known as the Home Front, the mobilisation of civilians to support the war effort.

  By the autumn of 1938, war planning was evident to all: sandbags to protect public buildings were ordered by the thousand. Huge trenches were dug in parks and playing fields (for people to take cover in in the event of an air raid) and thirty-eight million gas masks were ordered by the government, produced by a firm in Lancashire. These were distributed, free of charge, at various assembly points – usually schools – in late September, following a huge public campaign by poster, car loudspeakers and announcements at football matches, cinemas and churches to encourage everyone to equip themselves with a mask. Small children were equipped with Mickey Mouse gas masks and the very young were issued with a ‘baby-bag’ which could be fitted over an infant’s head and shoulders.

  At the same time, ARP volunteers, including those from the WVS, were being trained in procedures for dealing with gas casualties.

  Air-raid shelters were built, many designed to be distributed free to low-income families for self-assembly in their gardens. This type of garden shelter was known as the Anderson shelter, named after Sir John Anderson (Home Secretary from September 1939–October 1940 and in charge of air-raid preparations) – a somewhat flimsy and damp form of protection from bombing raids. Three and a half million were produced. In the end, they did help save lives, but they were unpopular, mainly because their use in cold, damp weather made for a very uncomfortable experience. (In 1939 it was announced that those with an income of more than £250 a year had to pay a small amount for such a shelter.)

  Larger shelters were planned, too. In a prescient move, in January 1939, Croydon Borough Council approved the conversion of a car park into a huge shelter housing 30,000 people at a cost of £300,000. (Croydon, to the south of London, with its factories, warehouses and what was then Britain’s only international airport, as well as its proximity to RAF airfields in the South-East, was heavily bombed in the years ahead.)

  As ARP precautions were finalised, detailed planning for the mass evacuation of children developed. By the end of September 1938, the government published its plans for the assisted evacuation of an estimated two million people from London, a quarter of them schoolchildren. Many families started to make their own private arrangements to evacuate the main cities and many courting couples rushed to marry – although this would escalate to record numbers the following summer. Those who recalled food shortages in the First World War even started to buy and hoard food. Aircraft production increased alongside a huge campaign to recruit all types of civil defence volunteers across the country.

  In London, newspaper reports showed people invading the shops to buy blackout material to make coverings for windows at night. Every window in every home would have to be completely covered half an hour before sunset each night, not to be reopened until thirty minutes before sunrise. Volunteer local wardens would be responsible for patrolling the streets to ensure blackout rules were followed to the letter. There would be fines for breaching these rules.

  Even cigarette manufacturers joined in the public-awareness campaign. Cigarette cards, placed inside packets of cigarettes and usually depicting Hollywood stars, famous sportsmen or historical figures, were hugely popular collectible items at the time. Bristol manufacturer W. D. & H. O. Wills – makers of the famous Woodbine cigarettes – started to include cards depicting civilian first-aid groups, running with stretchers, rescuing those injured by bombing raids.

  The preparations, though eleventh hour, were wholly justified. In March 1939, the false dawn of Chamberlain’s little piece of paper was revealed for what it was: Hitler contemptuously stuck two fingers up to British diplomacy and the Munich Agreement and marched his troops into Prague. He had already made territorial demands on the Baltic port of Danzig (now Gdansk), part of Poland, claiming this rightfully belonged to Germany. (Under the Treaty of Versailles, Danzig and some two hundred surrounding towns and villages, the inhabitants of which were mainly German, had been declared a free city, in effect a semi-autonomous city-state, separate both from Germany and the newly independent Poland. The Treaty also guaranteed the ‘Polish Corridor’ to Danzig, which separated Germany’s West Prussia from East Prussia.)

  Two months later, plans for limited conscription in Britain were under way: 240,000 single men between the ages of twenty and twenty-two registered in June to undertake six months’ military training. Exceptions to all conscription would be those working in ‘reserved’ occupations – jobs that were crucial to the war effort. ‘Reserved’ jobs included doctors, police, teachers, railway workers and those employed in coal mining, shipbuilding and engineering-related professions and trades.

  In July 1939, the Civil Defence Act enabled faster progress to be made in the implementation of many wartime plans. Employers with more than thirty workers were now required to organise ARP training, while those with a workforce of more than fifty based in a large city or danger area had to provide a form of air-raid shelter for their employees.

  By August, the annual British holiday season had been completely overshadowed by the threat of war. Naturally, families hesitated about heading off to the seaside or to country beauty spots in this situation. But for many people, common sense prevailed, thinking, ‘Well, it might be our last good holiday before war breaks out,’ so they opted to take the holiday. The announcement that petrol would be rationed if war broke out was a sobering reality check, though.

  That August of 1939 was one of the warmest and driest on record. But when the news came through on 23 August that Germany and the Soviet Union had signed a non-aggression pact, it was clear that Poland was painfully exposed, on both sides, to powerful enemies. As a consequence, Britain signed a treaty of alliance with Poland.

  Within twenty-four hours of the news of the Nazi-Soviet Pact the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act was passed by both Houses of Parliament. This gave the British government wide powers to put the country on a war footing, creating regulations which affected almost every aspect of everyday life for population. Public safety, the defence of the realm, maintenance of public order and a host of other new wartime regulations were now in place.

  ‘The peril of war is imminent but I still go on hoping,’ Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the House of Commons.

  Such hopes were in vain. All school teachers affected by evacuation plans were recalled from holiday to return to their posts. On 25 August, BBC Radio (or the ‘wireless’ as it was then known) started to broadcast special news bulletins at 10.30am and 1pm.

  The rationing of food was now poised to be rolled out. Relatively limited food rationing had been introduced in the First World War at the beginning of 1918 and continued until 1920. By 1939, it was deemed a necessity in the event of war; three-quarters of food consumed in Britain came from abroad, even livestock were mainly dependent on imported foodstuffs.

  Ration books for all were printed and ready, though food rationing would not come into effect until the following year. (The rationing of bacon, butter and sugar was introduced on 8 January 1940, followed by rationing of many other foodstuffs and, later on, of other items like clothing, fuel, soap and paper.)

  Given the country’s need to feed itself where possible, a major campaign was instituted to encourage the nation to be self-sufficient when it came to growing vegetables. Everyone in the country, men, women, schoolchildren, would be encouraged to ‘Dig for Victory’.

  That last week of August, the nation braced itself for war. The Admiralty closed the Mediterranean to British ships and British mercha
nt shipping was ordered to leave Baltic waters. All passages by sea to New York and Canada were fully booked, and the cross-Channel boat trains were so crowded only passengers were permitted to travel on them; friends and relatives wishing to say goodbye could only do so at railway stations, rather than at the departure ports. The roads leading out of London and other large cities were crowded with streams of cars leaving the city for the countryside, piled high with luggage, prams, toys and other possessions.

  Many of the cars were driven by women; applications for provisional driving licences had soared in the preceding few days.

  In the early morning of 1 September 1939, under cover of darkness, German troops marched into Poland. Within hours, the capital, Warsaw, was being bombed. That same day, the planned evacuation of thousands of mothers and children from British cities began.

  Toddlers clutching tiny cases and gas masks, with luggage labels pinned to their lapels, boarded buses, trains and, in some cases, boats, to make their way to the safety of the countryside, waved off by anxious parents. Photographs of these partings appeared in all the mass-circulation newspapers, creating a positive sense that the country was protecting its most vulnerable. These images would carry huge impact down the years.

  That night, two days before Britain’s formal declaration of war, the blackout went into effect throughout the country and many cinemas, theatres, clubs and places of entertainment were closed. (Most would, in fact, reopen after the declaration of war.)

  Television broadcasting was shut down – the government was concerned that the VHF transmissions would act as a beacon for enemy aircraft homing in on London. In fact, in 1939, very few owned a television set – around 20,000 in London – but those who were watching discovered in the middle of a programme that the signal had been switched off, without warning. It would not be switched back on again until 1946.