Listen to the audio clip Try and pick out as many different sounds as possible What do you think might have been going through the minds of the people who were caught in air raids The Blitz b ID: 421269
Download Presentation The PPT/PDF document "Why do we remember ‘The Blitz’" is the property of its rightful owner. Permission is granted to download and print the materials on this web site for personal, non-commercial use only, and to display it on your personal computer provided you do not modify the materials and that you retain all copyright notices contained in the materials. By downloading content from our website, you accept the terms of this agreement.
Slide1
Why do we remember ‘The Blitz’Slide2
Listen to the audio clip. Try and pick out as many different sounds as possible.
What do you think might have been going through the minds of the people who were caught in air raids? Slide3
‘The Blitz’ began on 7 September
1940.
At its height autumn 1940 – May 1941
When?Slide4
Bombed every night from 7 September 1940 – 2 November 1940
Main target: London
Docks
and factories of the East End particularly
hit.
12,500 people killed December
1940.Slide5
Other targets
Bristol
Southampton
PlymouthSlide6
Other targets
Portsmouth naval base
10 Jan 1940930 civilians killed 3,000 injuredSlide7
Other targets
Coventry November 1940
Series of raids using incendiary bombsSlide8
People were so scared they fled the city at night, staying with relatives or sleeping in fields.Slide9
The death toll has never been totally confirmed. There were so many people killed that mass burials had to be held for the dead. Slide10
Other targets
Manchester December 1940
Liverpool May 1941 – A raid of over 500 bombersSlide11
Other targets
Belfast was hit hard in April and May 1941.
Glasgow and the Clyde ship yards were hit hard in the spring of 1941Slide12
To destroy civilian morale
Force the British into
submission
Undermine armaments
production
Why?Slide13
Did it work?Slide14
Your task is going to be to investigate ‘The Blitz’.
What impact did it have upon Britain?Slide15
You will be given a selection of sources on your table. Read through them and use them to complete your semantic map.Slide16
What impact did ‘The Blitz’ have?
How people lived
Destruction and death
What people felt
Work
Family lifeSlide17
It is June 1941. You are a German spy on a undercover operation in Britain. You are to investigate and decide what impact German bombing is having on the people living in British cities. You must analyse images and interview people. You are to write a report on the evidence you collect. This report will help Hitler decide whether to continue or abandon this tactic.
In your report, you should include:
Remember to PEE!
For example:
In certain areas the affect of the bombing had very little affect.
One source
says:
‘we
can take it. The Blitz didn’t affect us.’
This leads me to believe
that...
Homework
You might want to begin your report in this way (you do not have to if you do not wish to):
Report
on the impact of the Blitz on British cities.
Date: June 1941
After spying on the British citizens during the Blitz, it is my opinion that the impact of bombing towns and cities has had [a great effect / some effect/ little effect ]
For example …Slide18Slide19Slide20Slide21Slide22Slide23Slide24Slide25Slide26Slide27Slide28Slide29
“The streets were lit up like day. Houses were burning, shops were burning, it was a proper inferno. Heat was something terrible. The soles of your shoes were being burnt because of the heat of the pavement. In one period I never took my clothes off for six weeks.
....
We used anything we could find. I remember bringing out one fellow
....He
looked up at me and said: "Have you got a cigarette, mate? I lit it up for him and put it in his lips. He took a couple of puffs and said: "Will you tell me landlady I shall not be home to tea." And with that he closed his eyes and was gone.”
Harry Meacham, Air Raid Warden, 1941.
Source 1Slide30
In the first place, most people had to spend five minutes or more every evening blacking out their homes. (This was to try and make sure that German pilots found it harder to navigate from the air) If a person left a chink visible from the streets, an impertinent air raid warden or policeman would be knocking at their door.
In September 1940 the total of people killed in road accidents increased by nearly one hundred per cent. This excludes others who walked into canals, fell down steps, plunged through glass roofs and toppled from railway platforms. A Gallup Poll published in January 1940 showed that by that stage about one person in five could claim to have sustained some injury as a result of the blackout - not serious, in most cases, but it was painful enough to walk into trees in the dark, fall over a kerb, crash into a pile of sandbags, or merely cannonade off a fat pedestrian.
Angus Calder
Source 2Slide31
A victim of the Blitz, 1940
?
“I remember that our street had been badly hit. Many families had lost their homes and some had lost family members. We even received a visit from Mr Churchill.
“We can take it!” he kept saying to all the people who stood around watching. Mrs Jones, from number 32, seemed rather annoyed by that.
“It’s US who has to take it Mr Churchill, not YOU! You are so very far away – you are SAFE! Do not tell us what we can and cannot take!” she said.
Source 3Slide32
An Air Raid Warden, January 1941.
It has started! If they keep this up for another week, the war will be over. The East End won’t be able to stand much more of this sort of thing. What’s more, the Fire Brigade won’t be able to stand much more of it either. This is the first leave I’ve had since Thursday…
Down came the bombs. You could hear the HEs going over the top with a low whistling sound. After a moment or two they started in with the incendiaries and dropped a Molotov over the docks. There was fire in every direction. The City was turned into an enormous, loosely-stacked furnace, belching black smoke.
Source 4Slide33
A west-end London resident.
“In the West End, we could 'take' the raids we got; whether we could have survived many more like the last two raids in the spring of 1941, when many of London's gas and water mains were destroyed, I don't know. We might not have been able to carry on, but bombs do not induce surrender. The Government had miscalculated the effect of raids; the 300,000 cardboard coffins which were ready when the bombing began were never used and the hospitals, which were cleared for patients who were expected to be driven mad by raids, remained empty. On the contrary, bombs tended to cure mental health issues. Many people who were worried about the prospect of war were cured by its reality. They had too much to do to have time to be frightened.”
Source
5Slide34
Winston Churchill, September 1940
“Hitler expects to terrorise and cow the people of this mighty city… Little does he know the spirit of the British nation, or the tough fibre of the Londoners. “
Source 6Slide35
Nazi-controlled French Radio, October 1940
“All reports from London are agreed that the population is seized by fear. The Londoners have completely lost their self-control”
Source 7Slide36
A Hull Air Raid Warden, June 1940
“I just went down to the Post and when I came back my street was as flat as this ‘ere
wharfside
– there was just my house like – well, part of my house. My missus was just making me a cup of tea for when I came home. She were in the passage between the kitchen and the wash- house, where it
blowed
her...........The
only thing I could recognize ‘
er
by was one of ‘
er
boots…
I’d ‘
ave
lost fifteen homes if I could ‘
ave
kept my missus. “
Source 8Slide37
A British journalist, February 1940
We have learned with horror and disgust that while London was suffering all the nightmares of aerial bombardment a few nights ago, there was a contrast between the situation of the rich and the poor which we hardly know how to describe. There were two
Londons
that night. Down by the docks and in the poor districts and the suburbs, people lay dead, or dying in agony from their wounds; but, while their counterparts were suffering only a little distance away, the plutocrats and the favoured lords of creation were making the raid an excuse for their drunken parties in the saloons of Piccadilly and in the Cafe de Paris. Spending on champagne in one night what they would consider enough for a soldier's wife for a month these
monied
fools shouted and sang in the streets, crying, as the son of a profiteer baron put it, 'They won't bomb this part of the town! They want the docks! Fill up boys!'
Extension source
Source 9