The Home Front Ww2

The Home Front WW2

Evacuation

During the war the Germans bombed British cities. The government was worried about this and they were also worried that the Germans would use gas. They wanted to protect the children in the cities so they brought in evacuation in 1939. This meant they sent the children to live out in the countryside, away from the cites and the threat of bombs.

School children went with their school and their teachers travelled with them. Children aged under 5 went with their mothers.

The campaign was very successful. Over 1 million children were evacuated out of London by train. Many children survived that would not have, had they not been evacuated.

But most parents found the process very difficult. They missed their children and were worried about how they were being treated.

Some children who were evacuated had a fantastic time. Most had never seen the countryside before and saw the whole thing as a one big adventure. The children were taken out of the cities by train. When they arrived they were lined up and people from the local village picked out which evacuee they wanted. This was very hard on the children and there was always one or two children who nobody wanted and so had to be sent home again. Some people were taking the children in out of the goodness of their hearts but some just wanted the children to use them as cheap labour.

Conscription

Conscription is compulsory military service.Conscription literally means compulsory military service.

Britain had always relied on volunteers to fight in times of war. Conscription had been introduced in 1916 when more men were needed to fight in the trenches, but it was abandoned when the war ended.

During the 1930s some men still chose to enter the armed forces after leaving school and in 1937 there were 200,000 soldiers in the British army. The government knew that this was not enough to fight a war with Germany and in April 1939 introduced the Military Training Act. The terms of the act meant that all men between the ages of 20 and 21 had to register for six months' military training. At the same time a list of 'reserved occupations' was published. This listed occupations that were essential to the war effort and stated that those employed in those jobs were exempt from conscription.

Men - 1916 Military Service Acts, all unmarried men aged between 18 and 41 could be called up. Later married men could be called up too.

Women - 1940 alls unmarried women aged between 20 and 30 were forced to do war work or join the forces.

There was the Woman's Auxiliary Air Force (NAAF), the Territorial Service (ATS) and the Woman's Royal Navy Service (WRNS).

Many women did exciting work like delivering aeroplanes from the factories to airfields. Many worked in factories making guns, aircraft, tanks and munitions. They worked long hours, a girl could start work at 7am and not get home until 7pm or later.

Censorship And Propaganda

Propaganda is information that is biased or trying to get a message across to people. It cam come in many forms, usually through the media.

Censorship is information that is censored if it is thought to be a threat to security.

During the second world war, TV was scarce. People got information from newspapers, radio and films at the cinema. The British government used the media to share their opinions and get their messages out. People on the business end of information co operated, as if they were an arm of the government. The government wanted to stop news or talk that would damage the allied cause or make the British doubt the war effort. The armed forces censored militarily sensitive information, whether it appeared in soldier's letters home or in dispatches from war correspondents at the front. Letters home were censored for information that may be passed on to the enemy. Information in newspapers, on the radio and in films was censored too. Even post and telegraphic communication was censored!!!

Films, newspapers and programmes on the radio were used for propaganda to keep peoples spirits up about the war. Propaganda was sometimes very obvious, making the enemy out as evil or wicked. Sometimes it was very subtle, for example newspapers were encouraged to print stories that seemed completely true but carried hidden messages. Films were made to show the British in a good light.

Blitz

The blitz was the German bombing of British cities. In 1940 Hitler delayed his plans to invade Britain. But although he couldn't invade he could still bomb. The idea was to cause enough terror in British cities that they would call on the prime minister to accept defeat. Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to launch a series of bombing raids on major British cities. The raids began on the 7th of September. Over the next 76 days London was bombed everyday bar 1. One of the worst raids on a British city was a ten hour bombardment on Coventry that destroyed one third of the city and killed over four thousand civilians. The blitz didn't finish until early summer in 1941. The blitz in total killed more than forty thousand civilians and left over two million people homeless.

Many steps were taken to try and protect the civilians. The government ordered a complete blackout. All windows had to be covered with thick blackout curtains. Street lights and car lights were shielded or dimmed. Showing light was an offence the could lead a German bomber to its target.

It had a huge effect on the civilian life. Everybody was issued with a gas mask to protect them from gas if the Germans dropped it. People built Anderson shelters in their gardens to protect them from bombs. People slept in public air raid shelters. Some families in London decided it was safer to sleep in the tube stations. Night raids were almost continual. People could not get a full nights sleep and were woken up time and time again by air raid warnings.

By bombing the British cities the Germans aimed to make Churchill accept defeat . They also aimed to destroy British morale before the planned invasion. The Germans did not succeed and the British government didn't accept defect.

Air Raid Precautions

The government needed to protect civilians in the war so they came up with a number of ideas