The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945

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The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945 Page 97

by Richard Overy


  95. TNA, PREM 3/27, Churchill to Anderson, 21 Sept 1940; Anderson to Churchill, 23 Sept 1940; Gregg, Shelter of the Tubes, 20–24.

  96. TNA, HO 207/363, ‘Note on Condition of Tube at S. Kensington’, Oct 1940.

  97. TNA, PREM 3/27, MacDonald to Churchill, 7 Oct 1940; Churchill to MacDonald, 9 Oct 1940. See too Juliet Gardiner, The Blitz: The British under Attack (London: 2010), 72–5.

  98. TNA, PREM 3/27, Kingsley Martin draft, ‘The War in East London’, 1–4; Clementine Churchill note, ‘Shelters visited in Bermondsey’; Churchill to MacDonald, 10 Dec 1940.

  99. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, OEMU/56/4, Zuckerman to Sir Leonard Parsons (Min of Health), 30 Sept 1940; ‘Notes on a discussion, Birmingham’, 9 Nov 1940. Solly Zuckerman, From Apes to Warlords: The Autobiography of Solly Zuckerman 1904–1946 (London: 1978), 133–8.

  100. TNA, DSIR 4/366, summary of Building Research Laboratory work for Service Departments, 27 Mar 1939; List of Enquiries, Aug 1940–Nov 1941.

  101. TNA, PREM 3/27, Edward Evans to Churchill, 24 Oct 1940; Ellen Wilkinson to David Robertson (MP for Streatham), 31 Oct 1940.

  102. Idle, War over West Ham, 64, 99–100.

  103. TNA, HO 186/608, report of the Regional Commissioner South, 14 Dec 1940, 1–2.

  104. TNA, HO 186/608, ‘Brief Visit to Southampton, December 3 1940’, Ministry of Food to Sir George Gater, 5 Dec 1940.

  105. Bernard Donoughue, G. W. Jones, Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician (London: 2001), 284–7; Herbert Morrison, An Autobiography of Lord Morrison of Lambeth (London: 1960), 182–3.

  106. TNA, HO 205/240, ‘Air Raid Shelter Health: Report by Horder Committee’, 18 Sept 1940; Lord Horder to Morrison, memorandum, ‘Air Raid Shelters’, 23 Oct 1940.

  107. TNA, MH 76/555, ‘Model Shelter Byelaws’, 28 Sept 1940; Harold Scott (MHS) to all London Region Officers, 19 Dec 1940.

  108. TNA, HO 207/386, London Civil Defence Region: Instructors’ Course for Officers Responsible for Shelters, June 1941, 3; United Synagogue Welfare Department to London Homelessness Commissioner, ‘Air Raid Victims – Special Jewish Facilities’, March 1941.

  109. TNA, HO 186/927, ‘Departmental Reports on Preparations for Heavy Air Attacks Next Winter’, Aug 1941, 7–9; Morrison to Churchill, 19 Nov 1940.

  110. Donoughue, Jones, Herbert Morrison, 290; TNA, HO 186/927, ‘Departmental Reports’, 8.

  111. TNA, MH 76/491, London Civil Defence Region Report, ‘Public Shelters’, 31 Jan 1941; ‘Progress Report for May 1941’, App v.

  112. TNA, PREM 3/27, memorandum from Morrison to Churchill, ‘Responsibility for Shelter Administration’, 23 Dec 1940; MacDonald to Churchill, 31 Dec 1940.

  113. TNA, HO 207/363, ‘Report on Comfort and Amenities in Shelters’, 4 Dec 1940, 4–5.

  114. TNA, HO 207/386, memorandum by M. A. Creswick Atkinson (Welfare Director), ‘Plan for Welfare in Shelters’, 5 Feb 1941; letter from J. Mooney to Creswick Atkinson, 4 July 1941; memorandum, ‘Welfare in Public Shelters’ [n.d. but Aug 1941]; Central Film Library, list of 16mm films for shelter controllers.

  115. TNA, HO 207/386, LCC Education Officer to Creswick Atkinson, 25 Feb 1941.

  116. TNA, MH 76/410, MH minute, ‘Face Masks’, 20 Feb 1941; Regional Officer, MH, Cambridge, ‘Hygiene in Public Air Raid Shelters’, 8 Mar 1941; MH circular, ‘Medical Aid Posts in Air-Raid Shelters’, 23 June 1941; TWA, MD-NC/276/3, Newcastle Council, ‘Preliminary Report as to Provision and Organisation of Dormitory Shelters’, 7 Feb 1941.

  117. TWA, Newcastle City Council: Reports, speeches, notes 1940–41, report of the town clerk, 10 Nov 1941; TNA, HO 186/927, ‘Departmental Reports’, 33–4.

  118. Gardiner, The Blitz, 129–30.

  119. HHC, ‘Coventry Conference’, notes for the Hull Emergency Committee, 17 Dec 1940.

  120. HHC, TSCD/4, ‘Town Clerk’s Report on the City’s Air Raid Welfare Services during raids of 7/8 and 8/9 May 1941’, June 1941, 1–10, 29–39.

  121. See e.g. the civil defence preparations at the Team Valley Trading Estate on Tyneside: TWA, 1395/61, ARP file 1941–4.

  122. LC, Doolittle papers, Box 18, James Doolittle, ‘Report on Visit to England from September 7 to October 15 1941’, 32–3.

  123. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, OEMU/50/2, REDept, ‘The Sheffield Gas Supply and Steel Industry’; TNA, PREM 3/28/4, Beaverbrook to Churchill, 9 Sept 1940, enclosing Ministry of Supply, Iron and Steel Control, ‘Loss of Production due to Air Raid Warnings and Air Raids’.

  124. TNA, PREM 3/28/5, Beaverbrook to Churchill, 30 Aug 1940; Beaverbrook to Edward Bridges, 1 Sept 1940; Anderson to Churchill, 3 Sept 1940.

  125. LC, Doolittle papers, Box 18, ‘Report on Visit’, 31.

  126. TNA, PREM 3/28/4, Bevin to Churchill, 1 Nov 1940, enclosing ‘Air Watching at the Rogerstone Works’.

  127. Helen Jones, British Civilians in the Front Line: Air Raids, Productivity and Wartime Culture, 1939–45 (Manchester: 2006), 40–41, 47–50, 104; David Thoms, War, Industry and Society: The Midlands 1939–1945 (London: 1989), 119–21.

  128. TNA, HO 186/927, ‘Departmental Reports’, 30–32, 38; TWA, MD-NC/94/18, Newcastle Air-Raid Damage Emergency Repairs Committee, minutes 4 May 1944; Thoms, War, Industry, Society, 120.

  129. TNA, AVIA 15/2330, MAP, ‘Evacuation of Factories: Outline of Scheme’, 25 June 1940; Ministry of Labour, ‘Report on Labour Evacuation’, 20 June 1940. In general see W. Hornby, Factories and Plant (London: 1958), 203–8.

  130. PArch, Beaverbrook papers, BBK/D/328, Note from MAP to the Air Ministry, 24 Oct 1940, memorandum on ‘Dispersal’.

  131. LC, Doolittle papers, Box 18, ‘Report on Visit’, 30–32; TNA, AVIA 15/3746, Bristol Aeroplane Co, ‘Aero Engine Department Dispersal Scheme’, 31 Aug 1940; MAP to Bristol Aeroplane, 30 Sept 1940; Bristol Aeroplane to Director Engine Production, MAP, 15 Aug 1940.

  132. TNA, HO 186/927, ‘Departmental Reports’, 29–30.

  133. TNA, PREM 3/18/2, minute for Churchill, ‘Report on Damage at Woolwich with Action Proposed’, 13 Sept 1940; PArch, Beaverbrook papers, BBK/D/329, Beaverbrook to Portal, 24 Feb 1941.

  134. TNA, PREM 3/18/2, Beaverbrook to Churchill, 14 Dec 1940; PArch, Beaverbrook papers, BBK/D/24b, Sir Ernest Simon to Beaverbrook, ‘Report on Lancashire Blitz Raids, December 20/24’, 25 Dec 1940, 1, 3; UEA, Zuckerman Archive, OEMU/57/3, draft report by Zuckerman and J. D. Bernal, ‘Birmingham’, 10 Jan 1942, 3–4; Thoms, War, Industry and Society, 106–12.

  135. PArch, Beaverbrook papers, BBK/D/24b, ‘Report on Lancashire Blitz’; NARA, RG107 Box 138, MHS memorandum, ‘German Bombing of Britain 1941: Industrial Damage Report’; TNA, AIR 40/288, AI9 report, ‘The Blitz’, 14 Aug 1941, 2. Figures on steel and aircraft from Statistical Digest of the War (London: 1951), 105, 152–3.

  136. TNA, MAF 83/194, file on ARP in West Africa and Malaya.

  137. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, OEMU/50/2, REDept, ‘The Effects of Air Raids on the Port of Liverpool’, 1, 6–12; NARA, RG107 Box 138, ‘German Bombing of Britain’, 1.

  138. TNA, PREM 3/18/2, War Cabinet, Air Raid Damage and Shelter Report, 11–18 Dec; ‘Statistical Summary of Air Raid Losses of Food and Animal Feeds’, 23 Dec 1940.

  139. TNA, AIR 41/17, ‘RAF Narrative: The Air Defence of Great Britain June 1940–December 1941’, App 1, 4–5.

  140. HHC, TSCD/4, ‘Town Clerk’s Report on the City’s Welfare Services’, June 1941; TWA, MD-NC/PH/1/1, ‘Medical Officer of Health Annual Report’, 1941, 34.

  141. TNA, HO 186/927, ‘Departmental Reports’, 33. For stock figures see R. J. Hammond, Food: Volume III: Studies in Administration and Control (London: 1962), 804. Pre-war flour stocks averaged 314,000 tons, but by the end of 1940 were 695,000 tons and the end of 1941, 857,000 tons.

  142. Jesse, Harwood, While London Burns, 118; Strachey, Post D, 48.

  143. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, OEMU/57/3, preliminary draft report, ‘Birmingham’, 10 Jan 1942; NC, Cherwell papers, G192, ‘City of Birmingham: Effects of Air Raids on Dwelling House Property’, 12 Feb 1942, 3;
TWA, DX 15/1, Gateshead Emergency Services Manual, MH circular, 24 Sept 1940.

  144. TNA, PREM 3/18/1, Minister of Health to Churchill, 8 Jan 1941; MH, ‘Houses Repaired by Local Authorities in Heavily Raided Towns’, 5 June 1941.

  145. TWA, Gateshead Emergency Services Manual, ‘Mutual Assistance in Clearing Debris’.

  146. HHC, TSCD/4, Hull City Engineer, ‘The Manchester Blitz’, 31 Dec 1940; TNA, AIR 40/288, Air Intelligence, ‘The Blitz’, Folder 3, ‘Report on Coventry’, 14 Aug 1941.

  147. TNA, AIR 40/288, 2–4; Donnelly (ed), Mrs. Milburn’s Diaries, 69, entry for 20 Nov 1940.

  148. TWA, Gateshead Emergency Services manual, MHS circulars, 204/1940, ‘Salvage of Property and Clearing of Debris’; 74/1941, ‘General Organisation of Recovery of Goods and Property’.

  149. MO-A, TC 15/1/A, ‘Demolition in London, 1941’, 15–16, 58–9.

  150. Todd Gray, Looting in Wartime Britain (Exeter: 2009), 185–9.

  151. MO-A, TC 15/1/A, ‘War Damage: Emergency Repairs and Supplies of Materials’.

  152. HHC, TYP Part I, Hull City Corporation, Damage to Property 1939–45; TNA, PREM 3/18/1, Churchill to Lord Reith (Minister of Works), 9 Dec 1940; Reith to Churchill, 3 Jan 1941.

  153. TNA, PREM 3/18/1, Minister of Health to Churchill, ‘Houses Repaired by Local Authorities, November 1941’; Minister of Production (Oliver Lyttleton) to Churchill, 22 Aug 1942.

  154. TNA, AIR 20/4768, Note for Director of Bombing Operations, Air Ministry, 6 Apr 1942.

  155. Alymer Firebrace, ‘Britain’s Wartime Fire Service’, in Horatio Bond (ed), Fire and the Air War (Boston, MA: 1946), 23–5, 33; Ewen, ‘Preparing the British Fire Service’, 221.

  156. Green, Caught, 179, 183.

  157. Firebrace, ‘Britain’s Wartime Fire Service’, 23.

  158. Ewen, ‘Preparing the British Fire Service’, 221; TNA, AIR 40/288, Air Intelligence, ‘Report on Coventry’, 14 Aug 1941.

  159. TNA, AIR 40/288, 34–7, 49.

  160. Michael Brown, Put That Light Out! Britain’s Civil Defence Services at War 1939–1945 (Stroud: 1999), 102–3.

  161. MO-A, TC23 Box 11, ‘Seven Months’ Experience of Industrial Firewatching’, 30 Sept 1941.

  162. TNA, HO 186/608, memorandum by Lt. Col. G. Symonds (MHS Fire Adviser), 4 Dec 1940.

  163. PArch, Beaverbrook papers BBK/D/24b, Sir Ernest Simon to Beaverbrook, 4 Dec 1940, ‘Fire Prevention’; ‘Report on Lancashire Blitz Raids, December 20/24 1940’, 25 Dec 1940; report by J. R. Scott, ‘Air Attacks on Manchester’, 24 Dec 1940; HHC, TSCD/4, Hull City Engineer, ‘Manchester Blitz’, 31 Dec 1940.

  164. Donoughue, Jones, Herbert Morrison, 292–3.

  165. Friends House Archive, London (FHA), COR 5/9, Note ‘Firewatching Cases’ [n.d. but Apr 1941]; Stuart Morris to Herbert Morrison, 1 Apr 1942. Hayes, Challenge of Conscience, 191–2.

  166. FHA, Temp Mss. 914, 914/BM/1, minutes of Central Board meeting, 26 Feb 1941; ‘Firewatching Cases’ [n.d. but Apr 1941]; Stuart Morris to Herbert Morrison, 1 Apr 1942.

  167. TWA, MD-NC/276/4, Fire Prevention Department, ‘The Guard Organisation: Progress Report’, 15 Dec 1941; ‘Fire Guard Organisation’, 27 Apr 1943.

  168. Firebrace, ‘Britain’s Wartime Fire Service’, 28–9; idem, ‘The Reorganization of the British Fire Service’, in Bond, Fire and the Air War, 48–50; Ewen, ‘Preparing the British Fire Service’, 214, 223–4.

  169. CCAC, Hodsoll papers, memorandum by Hodsoll, ‘Consolidated Lessons of Raiding in Great Britain’ [n.d. but 1945], 2.

  170. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, OEMU/56/5, Zuckerman to Ministry of Pensions, 28 Aug 1941; Aubrey Lewis (Mill Hill Hospital) to Stradling, 5 Nov 1941; Russell Fraser (Mill Hill Hospital) to Zuckerman, 23 Nov 1941.

  171. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, OEMU/57/5, Hull Survey, Tables Ia–VIIf.

  172. Ibid., OEMU/56/5, Aubrey Lewis to Zuckerman, 23 June 1942, 1.

  173. Ibid., OEMU/57/3, Draft report, ‘Hull’ [n.d.], 6; Zuckerman, From Apes to Warlords, 142–3, 405, App 2, ‘Quantitative Study of Total Effects of Air Raids’, 8 Apr 1942.

  174. Thoms, War, Industry and Society, 126–9.

  175. Süss, ‘Wartime Societies and Shelter Politics’, 34–5; Edgar Jones, Robin Woolven, Simon Wessely, ‘Civilian Morale during the Second World War: Responses to Air Raids Re-Examined’, Social History of Medicine, 17 (2004), 463–79.

  176. Field, Blood, Sweat and Toil, 43.

  177. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, OEMU/57/5, draft report, ‘Disturbances in the mental stability of the working population of Hull’, App II, Case Histories.

  178. Ibid., App II, Case 1 and Case 37.

  179. Gallup, The Gallup International Polls, 43. A second poll on war problems taken in August 1941 had a figure of 9 per cent for bombing, but 17 per cent for the Second Front.

  180. TNA, INF 1/254, Home Morale Committee, ‘First Interim Report, 22 May 1940’, 2; Harold Nicolson to Duff Cooper (Minister of Information), 5 June 1940, ‘Report of Home Morale Policy Committee’, 2.

  181. TNA, INF 1/849, Policy Committee minutes, 8 July 1940, 23 July 1940; INF 1/264, Morale: Summary of Daily Reports, 20 July 1940.

  182. TNA, HO 186/886, H. Rhodes (MoI) to S. Leslie (MHS), 29 Nov 1940; managing director, Liverpool Post and Echo, to Morrison, 4 Dec 1940; draft memorandum, ‘Publication of Casualties’; Duff Cooper to Morrison, 7 Jan 1941.

  183. TNA, HO 186/886, Churchill to Morrison, 7 Mar 1941.

  184. Cowles, Looking for Trouble, 445.

  185. Brittain, England’s Hour, 141–2.

  186. TNA, MEPO 2/6335, Croydon MP Station, ‘Air Raid – Notes’, 21 Aug 1940; Tooting MP Station, Aug 1940; East Ham MP Station, ‘Air Raid Warning’, 24 June 1940. On the class dimension of reaction to the raids see Süss, Tod aus der Luft, 332–3.

  187. TNA, INF/264, Daily Morale Summary, 17 June 1940; INF/292 Pt 1, Weekly Home Intelligence Report, 30 Sept–9 Oct, 1; 4–11 Nov, 2.

  188. TNA, HO 186/608, MHS memorandum, ‘Lessons of Intensive Air Attack: Working of ARP Services’ [n.d. but Jan 1941], 14; Gen. Gordon Finlayson, C-in-C Western Command to all Regional Commissioners, ‘Notes for Guidance of all Area Commands’, 26 Nov 1940.

  189. TNA, INF 6/328, London Can Take It!, 14 Oct 1940; MoI, London Can Take It!, film commentary.

  190. Cinema figures from UEA, Zuckerman Archive, OEMU/59/36, ‘Cinema Attendances’, 9 Aug 1945. Details on the film from Mark Connelly, We Can Take It! Britain and the Memory of the Second World War (Harlow: 2004),132–3.

  191. TNA, HO 186/1220, MoI Publications Division to S. C. Leslie (author of the booklet), 12 Jan 1943; Robert Fraser (MoI) to Leslie, 29 Jan 1943.

  192. Cowles, Looking for Trouble, 446.

  193. TNA, INF/174a, Director of Broadcasting Division, MoI, to Controller-General, BBC, 26 Feb 1941; Mary Adams (Home Intelligence) to Kenneth Clark, 28 Feb 1941, encl. ‘Script of Broadcast on Swansea Blitz’; ‘A Cardiffian Woman’ to Churchill, 5 Mar 1941.

  194. Edward Stebbing, Diary of a Decade, 1939–1950 (Lewes: Book Guild, 1998), 68, 80.

  195. TNA, INF 1/292, Weekly Home Intelligence Report, 30 Sept–9 Oct, 1; Report, 18–24 Dec, 1; INF 1/849, Policy Committee minutes, 3 Apr 1941, 1; INF 1/249, Home Planning Committee, minutes 26 Dec, 30 Dec 1940.

  196. Angus Calder, The Myth of the Blitz (London: 1991); Rose, Which People’s War; and more controversially Samuel Hylton, Britain’s Darkest Hour: The Hidden History of the Blitz (Stroud: 2001).

  197. James Doherty, Post 381: The Memoirs of a Belfast Air Raid Warden (Belfast: 1989), 92.

  198. Firebrace, ‘Britain’s Wartime Fire Service’, 26.

  199. Barbara Nixon, Raiders Overhead: A Diary of the London Blitz (London: 1980), 25–7.

  200. TNA, INF 1/292 Pt I, Weekly Morale Report, 30 Sept–9 Oct, 1; AIR 40/288, Air Intelligence, ‘The Blitz’, 14 Aug 1941, App A, ‘Morale’, 2.

  201. Jesse, While London Burns, 81–2.

  202. UEA, Zuckerman Archive, OEMU/57/5, Hull Survey, Table IIb. Fear as an expression of anticipa
tory silence followed by terrifying sound is explored in Peter Adey, ‘Holding Still: The Private Life of an Air Raid’, M/C Journal, 12 (2009), 3–5.

  203. Royal Society, London, Blackett papers, PB/4/4, ‘Notes on effects of bombing on civilian population’, 15 Aug 1941; ‘confusion, depression and possible loss of morale’, in TNA, HO 186/608, ‘Notes for the Guidance of Area Commands’, 26 Nov 1940; AIR 40/288, Air Intelligence, ‘The Blitz’, 3, ‘damage beyond a certain point produces depression and defeatism’.

  204. Nigel Nicolson (ed), Harold Nicolson: Diaries and Letters 1939–1945 (London: 1967), 126, entry for 8 Nov 1940.

  205. A Warden (anon.), From Dusk to Dawn (London: 1941), 71–2.

  206. TNA, HO 186/608, Midlands Regional Commissioner to MHS, 5 Dec 1940; TWA, MB-WB/27/1, Whitley and Monkseaton Urban District Council, ‘After the Raid’, 28 Jan 1942, 6.

  207. Cited in Robert Hewison, Under Siege: Literary Life in London 1939–1945 (London: 1977), 40.

  208. A Warden (anon.), From Dusk to Dawn, 23; Sara Wasson, Urban Gothic of the Second World War: Dark London (Basingstoke: 2010), 145.

  209. Wasson, Urban Gothic, 33; Hewison, Under Siege, 44–52.

  210. Brett Holman, ‘ “Bomb Back, and Bomb Hard”: Debating Reprisals during the Blitz’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 58 (2012), 403–5.

  211. LSE Archive, Peace Pledge Union papers, Coll. Misc. 825, PPU Information Service, no 22, 6 Nov 1940, 2.

  212. FHA, Foley papers, Mss. 448, Box 2, file 4, press review 23 Aug 1941, letter to Daily Mail from Lady Hilda Wittenham.

  213. Stebbing, Diary of a Decade, 51; Donnelly (ed), Mrs. Milburn’s Diaries, 77. TNA, INF/266, Reginald L. to Duff Cooper, 4 Dec 1940; MoI, internal memorandum, 5 Dec 1940.

  214. MO-A, TC 23, File 12/A, ‘Report on Reprisals from the RAF’, 6 Dec 1940. On the policy of avoiding ‘reprisal’ see Süss, Tod aus der Luft, 105–6.

  215. FHA, Foley papers, Mss. 448, Box 3, file 2, Note on British Institute of Public Opinion.

  216. Ibid., Mss. 448, Box 2, file 2, ‘The Bombing Restrictions Committee: Its Origin, Purpose and Publications’, Nov 1944; LSE, Peace Pledge Union Papers, Coll. Misc. 825, PPU Information Service, no 24, 7 Jan 1941, ‘The Case against Reprisals’.

 

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