The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945

The task of rehabilitation and rescue began as soon as a raid was over. Local authorities set up schemes for Mutual Aid so that immediately after an incident there would be lorry-loads of labourers, craftsmen and equipment arriving from neighbouring towns. In the Northern Civil Defence Region seven cities could supply at once a total of 44 vehicles and 1,150 men for mutual aid. Each man arrived with a pick, shovel and a meal, while every five men had a crowbar and a wheelbarrow between them. The first help would be followed by heavy equipment – hydraulic jacks, steamrollers, bulldozers, excavators, concrete mixers and cranes.¹⁴⁵ The work could be interrupted by unexploded or delayed-action bombs or the fall of badly damaged masonry, but temporary repairs could be undertaken very quickly. In Liverpool there were 7,000 workers employed on clearing and repairing the damage the day after the heavy raids in May 1941. Sometimes cities that sent mutual aid found themselves the victim of bombing before their crews had returned. Manchester in late December had 24 rescue squads away in Liverpool and had to call for assistance from Bury, Oldham, Bolton, Huddersfield and Nottingham to compensate. A month before, Manchester had sent 12 squads to help in Coventry alongside 52 from neighbouring Midlands towns.¹⁴⁶ The rescue services worked in difficult conditions, sometimes short of food and comfortable accommodation, but they were able to restore housing, road traffic and utility services in a remarkably short period of time. In Coventry electricity was restored two days after the raid, two-thirds of the water supply a week later, half the private telephone lines after a week, all but one train line and all bus routes after just four days. After six weeks 22,000 houses had been made habitable. Clara Milburn and her village neighbours took in a number of temporary refugees from Coventry but found after four or five days that many preferred to go back to bomb-damaged homes, including a woman with just one intact room for her, her daughter and the piano accordion she refused to abandon.¹⁴⁷

The urge to return home in cases other than complete destruction is not difficult to explain. Householders were anxious to salvage what they could from badly damaged housing or to find where salvaged furnishings had been sent in their absence. The Ministry of Home Security issued detailed regulations on salvage in August 1940 but made it clear that primary responsibility lay with the owner for recovery and protection of ‘removable goods’. As the bombing intensified, this responsibility had to be shared increasingly with the civil defence authority, particularly in cases where the owners could not be traced.¹⁴⁸ Goods were transported and stored free of charge; storage facilities could be requisitioned and piles of fire-damaged, damp and dusty possessions made their way to a motley number of church halls, warehouses, theatres and equipment stores where they ran the risk of pilfering. Demolition workers stole anything they regarded as both useful and portable, though a Mass Observation report pointed out that many refused to steal from poorer houses if there was a street of middle-class villas available.¹⁴⁹ During the Blitz there were almost 8,000 reported cases of looting, of which only a quarter resulted in arrests. The opportunity to steal was widespread, but over the course of the war, crime and punishment remained little different from pre-war levels, though looting was punished with increasing severity because it challenged the community values of a country at war.¹⁵⁰

As many people as could returned to live in familiar surroundings and with familiar things, however damaged. The immediate repair of housing was undertaken by the Ministry of Health, which may well explain why it was called ‘first aid’. A great many houses had windows blown in and slates removed from the roof. Stocks of likely materials had been established in advance and could be utilized at once; lists of contractors willing to be part of the programme were drawn up beforehand and mobilized when repairs were needed. Instructions were issued to replace windows with linoleum, cardboard or plasterboard, leaving some ventilation and, in habitable rooms, between one-third and one-half covered with translucent fabric to let in a pale daylight. Ceilings were repaired with stiff cardboard screwed to the joists above. Roofs were covered with tarpaulins and retiled as soon as labour was available.¹⁵¹ The results were neither attractive nor comfortable but, in the absence of a further explosion, habitable.