The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945

The blackout was in general a more successful measure, though it imposed on the whole of Britain an exceptional experience for almost six years of war. Detailed regulations for street lighting and vehicle lighting, instructions to paint white lines on kerbs and other obstacles, stringent scrutiny of blacked-out windows, all succeeded in creating an effectively darkened but navigable environment. In cities, air-raid wardens patrolled from day one of the war to report any chink of light, and because it was an offence, unlike other civil defence regulations, persistent offenders were fined.⁵⁹ This even extended to government departments where it was regularly reported that they failed to show a good example to the community. Officials tried to claim Crown immunity but the police insisted on charging someone for each offence. A senior officer was appointed in each government building, answerable in court for any negligence; it was agreed that any subsequent fine would be paid for by the government employer.⁶⁰ The blackout was in many ways the most obtrusive of civil defence measures for it had to be observed daily and completely. ‘The lack of ventilation was stifling in hot weather,’ wrote the Warwickshire housewife, Clara Milburn, in her wartime diary, ‘but it is wonderful how one can conform to an order when it is absolutely necessary.’⁶¹ Enforcement of the blackout nevertheless provoked tensions with the wardens. Civil defence personnel had no right of arrest, except for those who were also enrolled as special constables or auxiliary policemen. Arguments over the blackout or shelter provision seem to have been widespread. ‘At present,’ noted a Ministry of Health official in autumn 1940, ‘anyone can assault an ARP warden.’ His or her only remedy was to take out a private lawsuit.⁶²

The tensions were at their highest through the long months of waiting for the bombing to start. On the one hand, some of the public thought that civil defence personnel were shirkers, men who ought to be in the armed forces (an irony given the hostility to employing conscientious objectors). The Ministry of Information was so concerned with the popular attitude to civil defence workers that in June, Under-Secretary of State Harold Nicolson recommended a concerted propaganda drive to restore confidence in ARP and ‘implicit obedience to the wardens’.⁶³ On the other hand, civil defence personnel became restless and disillusioned by almost a year of inactivity. In Hampstead it was reported that volunteer enthusiasm was on the wane by November 1939, exacerbated by long hours of unpaid work and poorly furnished ARP posts. Wardens were resigning at the rate of eight a day.⁶⁴ The Regional Commissioner for the Northern Region later admitted to an audience that the monotony of standing-by for months had been ‘the first enemy to be fought’.⁶⁵ When the first bombs dropped in late June and some civil defence services found themselves in action, the Ministry of Home Security announced to the nation that the fourth arm of the services alongside the army, navy and air force had finally gone into action. ‘You’ve had a long period of waiting,’ ran the broadcast. ‘Sometimes your purpose has been misunderstood.’⁶⁶ The preparation to meet the bombing war was nevertheless mixed: limited evacuation, disliked by many; a poor level of shelter provision with almost no amenities in place; an alarm system which invited distrust; emergency services untested in the crucible of home-front war.

RESCUE AND SHELTER

When the bombing began in earnest from August 1940 its effects were not uniform. Across the country the experience of bombing varied according to the strategy pursued by the enemy. Most of the population experienced alarms and disturbed sleep, but more than half were never bombed, and many of those towns and cities on which bombs fell were the victims just once or twice of stray or jettisoned bombloads. In rural areas bombing was a very occasional interruption. In North Devon, for example, a handful of bombs fell on villages which were on the flightpath to South Wales, and a bomb on Barnstaple, the largest town, left a crater in a road. Villagers watched the burning port of Plymouth in the far distance or went as bomb tourists to inspect the damage in local towns. The only three wartime fatalities in the region were the result of crashed RAF aircraft.⁶⁷