The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945

The poor level of amenity and hygiene in all public shelters was immediately evident once the bombing began. One of the most notorious shelters was the ‘Tilbury’ shelter in Stepney in east London, a warehouse and cellar area near Liverpool Street Station. Part of it was an official public shelter, the rest not, and an estimated 14,000–16,000 clustered into the area during raids. When the Minister of Health, Malcolm MacDonald, visited the site in early October he told Churchill that the sanitary facilities were appalling. Churchill wrote back a despairing note: ‘If we cannot cope with a problem like this, we are certainly not going to be able to beat the Hun.’⁹⁷ Other public figures visited the shelters and reported back to the government. Kingsley Martin, the editor of the New Statesman, sent his account of the shelters to MacDonald in September, who passed it on to Churchill. Martin found the stench indescribable. At the Aldgate shelter there was one tap serving the whole shelter, situated by the men’s toilet; the floor was soiled and dotted with contraceptives; the racial mix, he thought, promoted conflict. The most severe critic was Clementine Churchill, the prime minister’s wife, who complained after trips to view East End shelters that people continued to live in conditions of ‘cold, wet, dirt, darkness and stench’. She observed few first-aid posts, overcrowding, latrines side by side with the beds, no hot drinks, few washing facilities, poor lighting and ventilation. Hers was by no means the only account presented to the government but her avenue to her famous husband was direct and, from the evidence of the correspondence, forcefully exploited.⁹⁸

The lack of amenities did not reflect an absence of planning and preparation. There had been no intention of turning either public or domestic shelters into dormitories, since it was expected that most of the bombing would be done by day. The preoccupation with the prospect of gas attack had also distorted pre-raid training. There were thousands of decontamination squads, decontamination chambers and civil defence and nursing personnel thoroughly trained to cope with the consequences of every type of poison gas. This remained an idle resource while the shock of heavy explosive and incendiary raids had to be met without sufficient forethought or experience. Even the nature of the casualties had not been properly calculated. Solly Zuckerman with Lindemann’s support persuaded the Ministry of Health in October to establish a Casualty Survey under his direction, which would examine the physiological effects of bombing to better understand how to protect the body against its effects and reduce death and injury. Bomb blast was a particular concern since it was capable of killing a victim without any external signs of injury. On the other hand, blast could also inflict mutilating damage; wounds to the eyes were typical, including numerous cases where glasses had been driven into the wearer’s eyeballs by shock waves.⁹⁹ The effect of blast on air-raid shelters was also poorly understood. The Building Research Laboratory was recruited in 1939 to study the physical blast effects, but many of the inquiries were not undertaken until after the raiding had started and there were ruined shelters to examine.¹⁰⁰ In both cases the completed surveys and reports were available only after the main bombing was over.

The sudden shock of heavy raiding did not prevent the civil defence structure from operating as an organization, but the immediate assistance needed for the bombed population was in some cases poorly understood. The system of Rest Centres set up by each authority had few beds, no centre for giving information to the homeless and disorientated population, and a standard and inadequate diet of tea, biscuits and bully beef. The lack of bunks and beds was a severe difficulty. In Streatham and Wandsworth, in south London, the local authorities distributed hammocks, which Churchill also favoured, but they were unpopular with the public (‘Stout women do not like hammocks, nor do pear-shaped men,’ ran one report) and were eventually rejected by the Ministry of Home Security.¹⁰¹ There was a lack of canteen facilities for aid workers and for the bombed-out which was most marked in the East End, where the heaviest bombing took place. In September 1940 in West Ham there were no shelter canteens, mobile canteens or communal feeding centres. A local pie-maker, working among the ruins of his neighbourhood and his shop, improvised the sale of 2,700 dinners to the homeless after a major raid. The ARP Controller was eventually replaced at the insistence of the Regional Commissioners.¹⁰² It was in the East End that the absence of sufficient first-aid posts with adequate stocks was also most marked. By late September 1940 there were fears that the front line in parts of London might well give way.