Londond The Second World War 2 Flashcards
South Hallsville disaster 1940
-schools were used as temporary centres for homeless
-1000 moved to South Hallsville school
-plan to evacuate them failed on 9th Sep, on 10th Sep it was thought to dangerous to move them so coaches were sent away
-hit by a bomb that night, up to 700 killed
Consistency of air raids
There were 57 consecutive nights of air raids, then a night of bad weather, then night raids consistantly until mid November
Disruptions to civillian life caused by the Blitz
-disrupted transport: getting to work was difficult
-the blackout: difficult to travel at night
-disrupted gas+electricity+water
-first six weeks, 250,000 Londoners lost homes
-sep1940-may 1941, 54,000 killed and injured
Class clashes caused by Blitz
-East end working class moved westward to find shelters, they encountered westend theatre-goers and nightclubbers using the underground
-people sheltering in underground stations often had nowhere to wash and stations weren’t connected to sewers
Importance of morale
Morale was important because people needed to be motivated to work, fight ect.
Incendiary bombs
Started fires that acted as targets for later waves of attack
High explosives
Some had delayed action fuses
Mines
Dropped with a parachute to make them silent. Sometimes didn’t explode when they fell
The government used propaganda to:
-keep up morale
-encourage people to carry gas masks and use anderson shelters
-stressing importance of ‘war effort’ (encouraged people to collect scrap metal for reuse and growing food)
-warn of dangers from spies
-win support of other countries, especially the USA
Ways propaganda was used
-posters (e.g. keep kids in the country, eat ‘National’ wholemeal bread
-films (e.g. the next of kin 1942)
-news reels in cinemas
Balham tube station disaster
-4th October 1940, 1400 kilo semi armour piercing bomb penetrated 32 feet underground and exploded just above the cross passage between the two platforms
-water and gas mains along with sewage pipes had been broken. Tunnels flooded and gas hampered rescue efforts
-60 died in total, stories soon developed of trapped people drowning
The Lull
May 1941- January 1944
-a period with air raids which weren’t every night. Raids often followed allied raids on German cities
-many only slept in shelters the night after hearing of a raid on Germany. A minority continued sleeping in shelters all the time
The ‘Baby Blitz’
21 Jan- 19 April 1944
-the last attack in Londom by German aeroplanes
-killed and injured 3973
-by this point, allied air forces were stronger than the German’s so only a few planes got through to London
Bethnal Green disaster background
-Bethnal Green, one of few underground stations in the east end
-held up to 7,000 during first Blitz but only 200-300 regulars in the Lull
Bethnal Green disaster events
3 March 1943
-there’d been a heavy allied raid in Germany so 1500 people used it
-new anti-aircraft rockets were confused by people for bombs, they rushed to get into the station and 173 people died in the crush
Bethnal Green disaster: Governement response
-the Government censored the incident, there was an enquiry which was kept secret
-lead to more ticketing systems at shelters, but this wouldn’t have helped as ticketing meant more people came last minute
There was no publicity on the new rockets, shows the impact of Gov censorship, shows how important the government saw mainting morale to be and how vital secrecy about new weapons was
V1
Was a flying bomb
-pilotless aircraft aimed at London from Northern France and the Netherlands
-9000 fired in a ten month campaign from June 1944
-first day time bombing since Autumn 1940
V2
The first ballistic missile used against London between September 1944 and March 1945. Gov tried to keep attacks secet initially
-they were too fast to stop
-biggest attack: Deptford November 1944, 160 killed and 200 injured
Impact of V1 and V2 attacks for civillians
-morale: absenteeism amoungst factory workers was the highest in the summer of 1944
-new wave of evacuation: July 1944, 559,000 people evacuated
-more people slept in the underground: 81,240 per night in July 1944
-combined V1 and V2 attacks killed or injured 28,891 people
Impact of V1 and V2 attacks impact on Government
Gov popularity fell because of delay in officially admitting to the V2 attacks and inability to protect London when the war was nearly won
