Throughout the spring semester my classmates and I learned that World War Two was the “people’s war” for the British people. It is known as such because the war effort was aimed towards innocent civilians, and because ordinary people helped to win it. This was unlike any other war to date. The Germans hoped to break the morale of the British citizens, leading them to beg their government to stop pursuing the fight. Our group gained insight into who and what was targeted by the German war effort by visiting sites such as the imperial war museum and Bletchley Park.
On May 12, we toured the Imperial War Museum, and one of the exhibits within the museum explored what family life was like during the war. The aim of the exhibit was to humanize the people impacted by the war. The Allpress family was a working class family and the exhibit shows that these people could have been anyone. The family was rather large, and had two sons who served in the British army. Along side the two sons the four daughters joined the Women’s Volunteer Corps in London, which helped the war effort by creating awareness about bombing precautions and procedures. This ensured every citizen had the information needed to survive an air raid. This exhibit helps one to understand how dedicated the British people were to winning the war. They were willing to help in any way that they could. Both men and women knew they could help their country by fighting or volunteering. The exhibit explained rationing during the war. The exhibit had a replica of the family kitchen. The kitchen was small and bare showing the harsh reality that was rationing. This rationing lasted years after the war. The text in the exhibit would ask you to guess how much food was given to a person in a week; once you guessed the answer illuminated to show the actual amount that was given. Having a prediction then seeing the answer was very shocking. The reality of what the people of Britain went through was completed by a replica of a bomb shelter. Sitting in the bunker gave you a sense of the fear that the country must have had during the bombings. The bunker was not large but it made the English feel safer. One walked away from the exhibit with a new understanding of the effort given by the British people to aide the war effort, and the dangers happening around them.
Michael Hanscomb, who was a young boy when the war broke out talked to our group at dinner one night. He told us that they never feared the bombs, but rather just rolled along with them. Even though London suffered constant bombing he never feared the possibility of being struck by one. This view was likely not shared by everyone living in London. A question I never thought to ask was answered during Hanscomb’s speech. “Who would help those trapped by the rubble”? Average citizens helped save their neighbors, and it happened quite often. Mr. Hanscomb enlightened us about his efforts with his father to help those trapped by the bombs. He remembers going out frequently in his scout uniform so he wouldn’t be told to go home. Mr. Hanscomb’s first-hand accounts of the bombs gave us an insight into what the average citizen encountered after an air raid. His story of his friends making the bombings into a sort of game gives you more insight into British views. The young boys would search for scraps of metal and would win by finding the largest piece. This story proves that the British, or at least Hanscomb didn’t see the bombings as something to fear, but rather just a part of the times they were living. Hearing the first-hand accounts about the bombings of London put a face and voice with the suffering of the Londoners.
On the other side of the war effort was Bletchley Park. The Park was the center for decryption. Enigma was the German intelligence coding operation. Bletchley was an essential operation for the success of the Allied war effort. The Park was the workplace for 9,000 people during the war. These people were regular citizens. The women would work to decrypt a message which was sent for translation. A lot of times the workers would work twelve hour shifts and would decode as many messages as they could. On the busiest day at Bletchley the workers decoded 18,000 messages. They often didn’t know what the message said because another hut would translate the message, which was sometimes across the park. While on the tour we met a guy who said his mother was a worker at Blecthley park. He did not know any more than that because she had signed the secrecy agreement, and even after it was lifted she still did not talk about her time there. Her entire life she went without discussing her time at Bletchley. Not even her son knows the details of what she did. Her dedication to keep her secret highlights the determination of winning the English people had.
London was a very eye-opening experience in the respect that we got to see the places where people struggled as well as succeeded. First-hand accounts and the locations we visited humanized the victims and heroes of the war. Seeing the faces and reading stories showed our group that World War Two truly was the “people’s war”.