All language subtitles for 33db76baf40847849bf950cc1a69c9fa_track3_eng

NARRATOR: September 1940.

Bombs rain down on London.

Nazi Germany is trying
to destroy Britain from above

with a series
of night-time bombing missions

that will become known as the Blitz.

MAN: London got
the worst of it initially.

Just an attempt
to bomb them into misery, dejection,

where the morale would be so low

that the British would want to do
nothing else but surrender.

Over an 8-month period,
London and many other major UK cities

were under siege

as the Nazis tried to batter Britain
into surrender.

But the country
refused to bow or break.

WOMAN: The Blitz
perhaps changed British society

and British character forever

because of the fact
that it had this sense of knowing

that it could cope with things
more than it thought it could,

and these sort of got embedded
into the British character

to the point
that they still linger today.

But not all the stories
surrounding the Blitz are well known.

Some secrets
remain buried in the debris.

They used to gather round of
a night-time when the Blitz was on,

trying to get people out
from the rubble.

I think they saved a lot of lives,
really, and they was only kids.

This is the secret history
of the Blitz.

By September 1940,

the Battle of Britain
had been raging for two months.

The RAF's fearless pilots

had fought off the planes
of the German Luftwaffe,

all but snuffing out
any chance of a Nazi invasion.

MAN: Basically,
Hitler was looking for a way

to subdue the British, to...

..to overcome the British.

He wanted, first of all,

with the Battle of Britain,

to clear the path for an invasion.

Well, clearly,
that hadn't succeeded.

So then he turned to bombing.

For the Germans,
in some ways, it's easier,

instead of actually flying
in the daylight

and coming up against
RAF Fighter Command,

to fly at night, to target cities.

It's a kind of
an easier form of attack.

These after-dark bombing missions
targeted many strategic sites.

Lasting until May 1941,
Britain was pounded by German bombs.

The hellish 8-month period
became known as the Blitz.

The Blitz
saw Britain
being bombarded

for 57 consecutive nights

by the Luftwaffe

in the hope of interfering
with British wartime production,

bringing Churchill
to the negotiating table

in order to try and sue for peace,

and interfering with civilian morale
by trying to destroy

their homes, their livelihoods
and their families.

If the factory workers
have got no factory to work in

and no home to live in,
how can Britain continue to fight?

So these were
very, very basic attempts

to absolutely batter
the British public into submission.

WOMAN: It becomes a total war.

Every Brit is impacted.

He is bombing indiscriminately in

one of the biggest civilian cities

on the planet - children, women.

Who isn't affected by the war?

Everyone's affected.

The nerve centre of
the British Empire is under attack.

New technology
allowed the German bombers

to rain literal fire
down from the skies.

VICTORIA TAYLOR: During the Blitz,
Britain had to contend with

a lot of different
aerial threats from the skies

from the German bombers,

so they had to deal
with high explosives,

which, of course,
could cause incredible injury

to the civilian population,

and, perhaps even more damagingly,

they had to deal
with incendiary bombs,

the fires of which could
absolutely rip through businesses,

homes and factories.

By May 1941, around 43,000
British civilians had been killed

and nearly 140,000 more had been
wounded by the aerial bombardment.

SEAN LONGDEN:
This went on for months.

From the first day of the Blitz,
430 people were killed.

Vast swathes of London
were burned down.

It became part of their life.

The nightly bombing of London
in the latter half of 1940

became a turning point

and it became an illustration that,

as the saying goes,
"London can take it."

Even the Queen is out there
looking at where Buck Pal's been hit

and meeting East Enders
face to face.

This idea of sort of pluck,
the need to be brave, really grows.

WOMAN: The Blitz did put Britain
under a time of great stress,

and so there are some tensions that

were exacerbated
and exposed by that.

British morale was shaken, for sure,
but it certainly wasn't broken.

Blitz spirit has become
part of the British psyche,

the sheer embodiment
of stoicism and togetherness.

But what's a secret to many

is that some ideologies from
one of the nation's most trying times

aren't as clear-cut as they may seem.

HARRY BENNETT:
In terms of popular history,

we often think about
the period of the Blitz

as a moment
when the nation comes together -

"We're all in it together,"
in terms of a certain famous phrase.

And to a large extent, that is true,
but also there are other elements

which rather go against that story.

You know, there are certain moments

when that doesn't
necessarily hold up.

There was a kind of Blitz consensus
that grew up, a story of the Blitz,

that was later called
the myth of the Blitz.

People were singing in shelters,
working towards one single goal

and coming out of their shelters
when the bombing was finished

to...to shake a fist at bloody Adolf

and then make their way to work
in their factories the next morning,

walking over broken glass, and...
and the spirit was never shattered.

Now, clearly, that's not true,
because life isn't like that.

Nothing so...so simplistic
could ever be true.

While many bonded together,
opportunistic crime skyrocketed,

especially in London,
the worst-hit city of all.

SEAN LONGDEN: War brings out
the best and the worst in people.

And so in the Blitz,

there were situations
where people just had to survive.

And if that means stealing
from a shop, looting from a house,

because you have nothing left
of your own,

for some people, that's just
the only way they could get by.

HARRY BENNETT: You have a home there
that's received a bomb

where the...the front
of the property is gone,

some of the valuables are gonna be
spread out here and there.

So there are cases of looting
which take place

as people literally use the Blitz
as an opportunity for criminal gain.

So while overall, the picture of
kind of "We're all in it together"

is right,
it's not 100% in terms of totality.

At a time when the nation
needed each other more than ever,

crime rates across Britain
increased by 57%.

The so-called Blitz spirit was
being stretched to breaking point.

When the German bombs
began falling over Britain

at the start of the Blitz
in September 1940,

it opened up a huge window
of opportunity for criminal gain.

Looting and crime within Britain

was said to have increased

by about 60% during the Blitz,

because the blackouts

and, of course, the...the chaos
that comes from aerial bombardment

provided an absolutely perfect cloak

for criminals
to do their activities.

You do have some petty criminals

who...who get very organised.

So you have some who arrive

with air-raid warden armbands

that allow them
to walk around at night

when really there's a curfew, but
they can then have rich pickings,

and there are some stories,
unfortunately,

of people arriving with ambulances
and then just loading up with goods

and taking them away
for the black market.

But not all the looters considered
themselves to be criminals.

During wartime,
the line between thieving and finding

was a blurred one.

JOSHUA LEVINE:
Now, what's the difference between

looting and recycling?

If you're passing a house

and it's been completely bombed out

and there's something on the street

and you think
the people are dead in the house

and you pick something up, "I could
use that. That would be handy,"

is that good, is that recycling,
or is that looting?

HARRY BENNETT: The kinds of things

that might be spilling out
into the street

are really too tempting
for some people,

who might just quietly pocket
one or two things.

This is a time of great privation.

People are desperate, and people who
are desperate do desperate things.

The lawlessness of the time

clashes with the idea
of a heightened unity.

(INAUDIBLE)

But in truth, both ideologies
lived side by side during the Blitz.

VICTORIA TAYLOR:
The myth of the Blitz spirit

actually isn't intended
as a disparaging concept.

It's more wanting to be honest
about the fact

that there wasn't any real spirit
that was all-encompassing

and that followed across
all social classes and backgrounds,

so it's the idea of the fact
that you did have the buildings

that had signs that said
"Open as normal"

or "Blast!"
or having these sort of jokes,

this sort of British humour
in the face of...of terror,

but also that you did have increases
in crime, increases in looting,

you have people going AWOL,

and so it's looking at the fact

that neither of those explanations
should be considered by themselves

and that they
should be put together.

Another crime that became big
business during the Blitz was fraud.

CLARE MULLEY: The British government
would provide a £500 grant

for people
whose homes had been bombed out,

to help set them up in a B & B
for a while

and get them back on their feet.

And there was one guy
who applied for that grant

19 times within a period of months.

So there are always some frauders
looking for those opportunities.

But all-in, there wasn't...you know,
given the conditions of blackout,

limited police,
exposed and broken properties,

there wasn't the mass lawlessness,

the level of looting, that
you might well have anticipated.

In fact, pretty much,
people did come together.

With many members
of the emergency services

called up to serve during the war,

maintaining order
in communities around Britain

fell into the hands
of a new team of uniformed workers.

VICTORIA TAYLOR: Air-raid wardens
in Britain had to contend with

a lot of different challenges,
one of them being

that they had to consistently keep
studying up on the different bombs

that were being dropped on Britain,

to know what they did, how they
impacted buildings and civilians,

but also, naturally, dealing with
those bombs as soon as they fell,

and sometimes they wouldn't be armed

with anything more
than a stirrup pump

in order to neutralise them,

so they really had to deal with
a lot of different tasks,

from saving people
from burning buildings

to identifying bodies,
and it really was a...

..a taxing
and an emotional job to have.

But the story of one warden in London
is less well known than many others.

Ita Ekpenyon didn't look like
many of the other

1.4 million ARP wardens
across Britain.

It was a role he never expected
to be in but one he excelled at.

Ita Ekpenyon
wanted to study law in the UK,

and that was initially
why he came over.

He'd been a headmaster in Nigeria

and wanted to sort of
expand his expertise,

but, of course,
with the coming of the war

and also
with financial difficulties,

he wasn't immediately able
to pursue that ambition.

When war broke out in 1939,

46-year-old Ita
was too old to join the army,

but he immediately volunteered
for civilian defence duties.

I think he wanted to do his bit,
and this was something he could do,

something he was accepted
as part of,

and I think he didn't
just want to sit on the sidelines.

London had become his adopted home,

Britain had become his country,

and he wanted to contribute.

JOSHUA LEVINE: He understood
that he was responsible

for order within the community
as the bombs came down.

Various different things
he...he had to do.

So he...he...
he had to patrol the streets,

making sure
that people didn't have lights on.

The idea was during the blackout,
people had to keep their lights off

so there was no guide
to the bombers up above.

There was this idea that if you lit
a match or you had a cigarette lit

that a bomber at 20,000 feet
could see your cigarette down below.

Well, that wasn't true, but the fact
was that in heavily populated areas,

lights did attract the bombers
to that area.

He rose quite quickly
in the ranks of that position

and became the air-raid warden
for Marylebone,

which is in the heart
of Central London,

and proved to be
very popular with the people.

Ita's role as
the air-raid warden for Marylebone

was quite unprecedented
for an African man in 1940.

We weren't exposed really

to very many ethnic minorities

in Britain at that time.

There were
a few educated black people

who came to study, for instance,
between the wars.

This was gonna change overnight
in the war.

JOSHUA LEVINE:
It would have been very difficult

to be a black person in Britain
at this time.

There were very few black people

and certainly very few
in positions of authority.

And as an air-raid warden,
he was stepping into

a position where he was going
to have to tell people what to do.

He was gonna be responsible
for people's lives.

He was gonna be responsible
for shelters, for posts,

and he was going to have to
order people to do certain things.

And how they reacted
to being ordered by a black person

was going to be quite interesting.

Ita documented his experiences

in a series of broadcasts
and journal entries,

including one night during the Blitz
when he had to act as peacemaker.

OKU EKPENYON: There was an incident
that, actually, he has written about

where there were some people
in a shelter

who didn't want those coming in
who were not British

or were seen as foreigners,

and he pointed out that he himself

was someone
who was not a white Brit.

Even at times like that,
racism was evident by some people.

Ita would not allow
any discrimination

within the bomb shelter.

So, what did he do? He stood up
and, basically, he made a speech.

He said that, "If you don't like it,

"you better get out
and shelter somewhere else."

He said that, "We are fighting
this war for freedom, for tolerance,

"and there are going to be
foreigners in the shelter,

"there are going to be
all sorts of people in the shelter,

"and we are going to be together,

"and if you don't like it,
you can get out."

And he says some people did,
some people did leave.

But he also says that after that
point, he didn't have any problems.

OKU EKPENYON: I think
he was trying to be a pacifier,

because there was
so much trauma happening outside,

you didn't want to introduce it
into a shelter

where people were together for...
it could be any length of time.

Could be hours.
It could be all night.

And so I think
he tried to defuse a situation

that potentially
could have been quite destructive

in a confined area where people
had to live with each other

for how many hours
they were in the shelter.

It's counterproductive
to react in such a way,

because nothing
is going to be achieved

by taking an aggressive,
unpleasant approach.

Despite facing racism
in some parts of the community,

Ita wrote about
how he was accepted and embraced

by many Londoners during the Blitz.

"It amuses me to know
that in the district where I work

"the people believe
that because I am a man of colour,

"I am a lucky omen.

"I had heard
of such childlike beliefs,

"but I am delighted
that such beliefs exist,

"for wherever my duties take me,

"the people listen
to my instructions and orders

"and are willing to allow me
to lead them,

"so I'm able to control them,

"which makes my duties lighter
in these troublesome days."

He talks about it
as a strange superstition

but one that he was able
to take advantage of,

and he was able
to tell people what to do

because he was considered lucky
in their midst.

Ita Ekpenyon survived the war but
never got to finish his law degree.

He worked as a postman
until his death in 1951, aged 58.

OKU EKPENYON: I feel proud.

I feel very proud,
because he brought people together

in those war years,
in that difficult time.

He didn't have to sign up.

He could have
just stayed on the sidelines.

So I'm proud of what he did.

I'm proud when
I read his experiences, and...

..I just think, "Well done."

Like so many men at the time,

Ita Ekpenyon would have loved
to serve in the army

if he had the chance,

but there were some men in Britain
during the Blitz

who, for ethical reasons,
flat out refused to fight.

The story of these pacifists
is not widely known.

(INAUDIBLE)

In the Second World War, there were
59,000 'conscientious objectors',

commonly known as 'conchies',

which is four times the amount
there were in the First World War.

So these were people who refused
to take part in armed combat

for very specific reasons,
due to their conscience,

freedom of thought
and freedom of religion.

And it wasn't
an easy position to take.

David Briggs was 22 years old
during the Blitz.

As a devout Christian,
he didn't want to bear arms.

We all knew that war was coming,

and I wanted to take part,

but the problem is

what was the right reaction
in accordance with my beliefs?

At the end of the day,
Christ didn't resist people.

It's all about
turning the other cheek.

If that's not true, then
it doesn't make any sense to me.

Archie Tucker
was a fellow conscientious objector.

He raised his family,
including son Nicholas,

as pacifists during the war.

My father was a small man in size,

but he had a gigantic determination

to do what he thought
was the right thing,

and you couldn't shift him on that.

And that was one of
those convictions of his,

was his total pacifism.

As a teenager, Archie had seen the
atrocities of the First World War.

At the age of 32, he swore an oath.

In 1936,
the Peace Pledge Union started,

and my father always had
a little badge on his lapel

with the initials PPU,

and the Peace Pledge Union
just said,

"I renounce war,
and I will never fight in another."

These people always had, I think,
in the back of their mind

the First World War,
the trenches, the slaughter,

and they didn't want to have
anything to do with that,

and so a lot of people
actually signed that pledge.

But as the threat of another war

became more apparent,

the enthusiasm for pacifism dwindled.

People were really nice
and almost, you know, apologetic

for not agreeing with his views,

because there was no appetite
for the war when the war started.

Nobody wanted it.

And so, in a way, those pacifists
had quite a local following

until the Blitz began,
and that changed everything.

The German bombs
awoke a patriotic fervour

that the fight
should not be questioned.

Every Brit was expected
to do his duty for the war effort,

and that included the men of peace.

The Blitz was Germany's attempt
to bomb Britain into surrender,

but by late 1940,

the country was becoming
more in favour of fighting the war.

Even pacifists like David Briggs were
caught up in the German bombardment.

DAVID BRIGGS: I happened to be

in Banstead Military Hospital,

and it had a direct hit

in the evening

and all the lights were...
were out and so on.

And the whole hospital wing
was smashed up,

and we had to spend the whole night

rescuing the bod...
bodies in the dark,

which wasn't easy.

Despite making a pledge
to not take up arms,

some pacifists still found a way
to help the war effort.

A number of the men
who had registered

conscientious objector status

did serve, for example,
in London during the Blitz

and in other cities as air-raid
wardens and fire officers as well

and firemen,
fighting those blazes, so...

..it was actually
incredibly dangerous work,
just not on the front line.

One of these conscientious objectors

who felt impelled to help out
during the Blitz

was Archie Tucker.

He got some old tin hat somewhere,
and he put initials on it,

PSU, Pacifist Service Unit,
or something like that.

And then twice a week, he went to
a hospital in Old Street, London,

on the roof, fire-watching.

And, of course,
he was in the middle of the Blitz,

and so he wasn't
in any sense a coward.

The truth of the matter is
that he rather enjoyed it.

Fellow pacifist David Briggs
was eligible for conscription,

in spite of any beliefs he held.

I was called up, 'cause I...
I had to go before a tribunal,

and in the tribunal, I had to
state my case and defend it,

and...and the tribunal found
that I should take part,

but in non-combatant duties,
which is what I did.

David was assigned to the Medical
Corps and served for six years.

His beliefs made him stand out
from the crowd.

I think initially
they were rather suspicious of me,

but then I got to be
friends with them,

and I think they understood -
they thought me a bit of an oddity.

And they...they knew my crossing
the line was I would not carry arms.

I would refuse to carry arms.

David ended up
on the Normandy beaches during D-day,

a frightening experience
of the realities of war

for an armed soldier,

let alone a man of peace
who refused to carry a weapon.

This is the armband
that...that...that we wore,

when we crossed over...
over to France.

It was supposed to protect us, but,
of course, it was no use at all.

If I had to live life again,
so help me God,

I would do basically
what I have done.

Although I've made
endless mistakes, basically,

I believe in what I've done.

Archie Tucker also remained a
staunch pacifist throughout the Blitz

and right up until his death in 1980.

He said this thing which I...
still shocks me now.

He said, "But, you see, I...
I wanted us to lose the war."

He said, "I didn't want Germany
to win the war,

"but I didn't want Britain
to fight in the way

"that I found morally unacceptable."

And that's when I realised
that he actually

had a bit of a martyr complex.

His strength was...

..just this...

..unafraid to be
very unpopular and...

..sticking up for his rights and...

..he's quite a moral force.

He was that voice
that sometimes needed to be heard.

The Blitz lasted for eight months,
ending in May 1941.

By late 1943, Britain was retaliating
with a blitz of their own...

..strategically bombing
many major German cities

in an attempt
to obliterate Nazi resources.

A secret project
carried out during this time

helped pave the way
for these successful missions.

Operation Corona was the use of

high-frequency ground transmitters

to send messages

to German night fighters

and to their controllers.

MAN: During this time, the Germans
had introduced broadcasts

to their night fighters

so that they could direct them en
masse on the Bomber Command streams.

And they were doing so from a number
of high-powered transmitters,

but that meant
they only had a...very few

frequencies they could operate on,

and it was determined in Britain
that it'd be possible to jam those.

The thought then occurred,
"If we can jam them,

"could we not also broadcast
on a higher strength

"and misdirect
those night fighters?"

And that's what Corona
attempted to do.

The RAF's plan was to broadcast
instructions to the German pilots

in order to confuse them.

These radio operators,
known as ghost controllers,

had to be convincing.

You have to be able
to not only converse in German,

effectively, you need to pass
as a native German speaker.

So, of course, it helps if you are
actually a native German speaker,

and that is what happens in Corona.

They use Germans who have come
to this country, often as refugees,

to mislead
the German night fighter defence,

and there's something
quite nice about Corona

in that it's a people
who have been displaced

able to take part in the fight.

VICTORIA TAYLOR: Of course, because
they were fluent German speakers,

they were
absolutely ideal
for Operation Corona

in that they could even mimic

certain dialects and accents

within Germany in order to be
as convincing as possible.

HARRY RAFFAL: So they might
tell them that the bomber stream

was going in a different direction.

They might tell them the weather
was bad in a particular area.

They might simply
countermand the instructions

the previous controller
had given them,

in order that there was confusion

and the German night fighters didn't
actually know what they should do.

The chaotic instructions
led to a huge disruption

in the German night fighter missions.

So you had this
really almost comic situation

where you had the real
ground controller sending a message,

and then you had
the ghost controller, in Britain,

using these incredibly
high-powered transmitters,

sending another message.

So the pilot wouldn't know
which was the real message.

So you'd have situations genuinely

where the real controller
would tell them to do something

and the ghost controller would say,

"No, no, no, no, don't...
ignore that.

"That's not the real controller.
I'm the real controller.

"You should be doing this instead."

HARRY RAFFAL: There are some
really great stories from Corona,

and one of those
which I particularly like is

a ghost controller's introduced,
and he's not just fluent in German,

he's capable of mimicking the voice
of the German controller.

So it now becomes almost impossible

for fighters to know
who is the true controller.

And this, understandably,
drives the German

who is trying to control
the night fighters

to despair.

And more than that, he becomes
quite obscene over the broadcast,

which leads to
the British ghost controller saying,

"The Britishman
is now swearing over the radio,"

and the German replying, "It's not
the Britishman swearing. It is me."

Though one imagines

that he probably added
several words into that broadcast.

The RAF's retaliation to the Blitz
was hugely successful.

Britain's strategic bombing campaign
of Germany,

which included Operation Corona,

lasted until the end of the war.

Operation Corona
was incredibly important

as an additional supplement
to the British intelligence effort

and to interfering
with the Luftwaffe's plans

because of the fact
that jamming devices

could so often be foiled and
new technology could be brought in

in order to interfere
and supersede those systems,

so keeping that up and using
a sort of a multi-pronged attack

was incredibly important
in keeping Britain

in the intelligence in the air war.

JOSHUA LEVINE: It came into force
in October of 1943,

and by early 1944,
it wasn't working anymore.

But while it did work,
it was great, it was glorious,

and it was even quite funny.

The bombing of German cities
was in retaliation to the Blitz,

which began in September 1940.

When the bombs began falling,
many men and women did their best

to help out their communities,

but what's less well known is
that children played their part too.

Not all children were sheltering

in the relative safety
of the countryside.

Many were right in the heart
of the cities,

and some even pitched in to help
during the nightly attacks.

TESSA DUNLOP: Hundreds of thousands
are moved, of course,

at the beginning of the war.

I think before war's declared,

actually, we're shifting children

out of the main cities,

predominantly London,
also Birmingham,

but, do you know, it is
the largest mass movement of people

ever to have taken place in Britain.

Large numbers of children
didn't ever want to be evacuated.

In some cases, parents just said,

"No. We live together.
We'll die together."

And some mothers just did not
want their children to go away.

So children started
to just head home,

and especially
for the older children,

who liked the idea of being home

and didn't want to be
away in the countryside,

they just started trickling back.

Mary Lock grew up
in the industrial city of Coventry,

in the West Midlands.

She was 17 years old
when the Blitz began.

We'd all been registered and
had a...an identification number,

and I've still got the bracelet
and I've got the number.

And we were all issued
with gasmasks,

which we carried around with us
wherever we went, just in case.

So although there was activity,

we didn't expect it
to happen in Coventry.

Mary's family prepared
as best they could

for any potential attack from above.

My father, very sensibly,

realising that things
could get quite desperate,

decided that
we'd better have a shelter

built in the garden, which we had,

and then he decided that as
we'd got to black out the windows,

he decided that it were better
if we had shutters,

so he made shutters
for the windows of the house,

which, in the long term,
proved to be our salvation.

On 14 November 1940,
Mary and her family were caught up

in one of the most devastating
German attacks during the Blitz.

That night, we did the usual things.
We had our tea.

But the sirens went
about nine o'clock.

My father, he went to survey
what was going on outside

and came back and said there was
something looking like a sheet

on the tree
doors down from where we lived.

So he came back and sat down
and we all got ourselves settled

behind the 3-piece suite
by the wall in the house.

It was about 20 minutes later
that we...

..I don't remember a noise.

But we had all the...
wall fall down on us

and all the cement from the wall,
but we all just got up

and walked out into the garden,
to the shelter.

Shaken.

Couldn't understand
what had happened.

And we stayed there
until the following morning,

until the sirens went to say that it
was all clear about seven o'clock.

Hundreds of German bombers

had destroyed
almost 2,500 homes across the city.

Over 550 civilians were dead.

The shutters on the windows
saved us, without a doubt,

'cause our house just fell down
and we all walked out.

And a man on the next two house,

he'd gone out to investigate
about the bomb and he was killed.

So altogether, 10 people
lost their lives that night.

Shocked.

The bomb that had
killed Mary's neighbours

was a new type
of devastating explosive.

Perhaps the most dangerous weapon

that the Germans were dropping
in the Blitz proper

was the parachute mine, which had
1,500 pounds of explosives,

which was 70% of the overall weight
of the munition.

Because it had a very thin case,

it could allow an extraordinarily
large destructive potential

from an explosive filling

and take out very large areas
when it was dropped on cities.

MARY LOCK: We'd never seen
anything like this happen before,

and we think they touched it,
they moved it from where it was.

This is what we understand since.

They moved it.

And all of those men
that had gone out to investigate,

to see what had happened,
lost their lives.

Teenagers like 17-year-old Mary
had to grow up

during one of the most traumatic
times in British history.

But instead of shying away
from the war effort,

many children
decided to take a stand.

The Blitz lasted for eight months
from September 1940 to May 1941.

Life for many children growing up
during this terrifying time

included regular trips
to the bomb shelter.

Mary Lock survived the
devastating German attack on Coventry

in November 1940.

Aged just 17, it inspired her
to help in the war effort.

Eventually, I decided
to join the Civil Defence.

I went round giving talks

on how to use a stirrup pump

and where to keep the water

and help people wherever you could

with the security
of their own houses

in case they were bombed
or needed any help,

and I think...
I think I grew up. (LAUGHS)

Nearly 100 miles south of Coventry,
in the East End of London,

many children were facing
night after night of bombing raids.

Jean Duggan was just four years old

when the Blitz began
in September 1940.

My mum...
I think all the mums was the same.

They had their...

..children and that,

and the bombs was dropping.

It must have been terrible.

We didn't take no notice
'cause we was too young.

It was an adventure, really,
but we was too young to understand.

SEAN LONGDEN: For teenagers,
there was a real sense of excitement

for what they were living through.

They didn't see it in the same way
that their parents saw it.

They didn't see the dangers.

They saw London
as this giant playground.

Those that were actually
just living their lives as normally

found it exciting to be bombed,

even though it was terrifying
at the same time.

They had a sense of immortality.

This no-fear attitude

led to the formation
of a small gang of youngsters,

headed up by a 17-year-old boy
named Patsie Duggan,

who were determined to help out
their devastated community.

The Dead End Kids were led by
a local docker named Patsie Duggan,

and he wanted to join the military,

but because he was a docker,
he was in a reserved occupation,

so he got together
a group of younger children

and formed
this group of firefighters,

private firefighters,
who would just go out

and do what they could in the docks

to try and prevent fire
from spreading.

Because in this period, the fire
services were utterly overstretched.

So everything
that could be done to help

and to rescue people was a bonus.

JEAN DUGGAN: The Dead End Kids
was my husband's family more.

His brother Patsie
sort of organised it.

They used to gather round of
a night-time when the Blitz was on

and then go out...

..outing fires, if there was any,

making sure people were safe,

trying to get people out from
the rubble and that that'd fell.

I think they saved a lot of lives,
really, and they was only kids.

He had cousins, nephews, brothers
and a sister all in this gang.

And the youngest was Maureen.
She was 13.

The Dead End Kids were equipped with
nothing more than a few basic tools.

They all had a tin helmet each.

They'd help people out
that'd been bombed.

And I think they saved
quite a few people by helping.

SEAN LONGDEN:
They used a handcart to transport

their meagre sort of supplies,

their tools just iron bars
to force open doors

in order that they could get
inside buildings and rescue people.

The boys had a ladder,
to reach upper windows.

They had buckets of sand
that could be used

to snuff out incendiary bombs
and help put out fires.

When they found an incendiary bomb,
they'd get a rope,

tie it around the fins of the bomb,

drag it out
and then dump it in the river.

Anything they could do
to help protect their local area.

JEAN DUGGAN:
As soon as there was a bombing,

then they'd be there with their gear
to do whatever they had to do,

which was great, I think.

I'd like to have been there myself.
(LAUGHS)

But fighting fires and saving lives
in a metropolitan war zone

comes with inherent dangers.

It is reported
that two members of the gang

lost their lives during the Blitz,

which underlines
the tales of their bravery.

They wasn't frightened, don't...
didn't seem to be anyway,

you know, like some kids
would be frightened, their age.

They didn't seem to be.

SEAN LONGDEN:
Very little is known about them.

But they made
a real, real important contribution

to the war effort
in their local area.

Millions of children all over Britain

were left with harrowing memories
of the Blitz.

It was very traumatic for any of us

at that particular time
in our lives.

When...you lose some of your youth,
without a doubt.

You feel almost as if the rug's
been pulled from under your feet.

TESSA DUNLOP: Over 7,000 children
die in bombing raids during the war.

And another 7,000-plus are injured.

So, it's a total war.

We'd had a taste of this
in the First World War,

but the Second World War
totally changes people's mentality.

Before, war was something men did.

They put on a uniform and
they went off and fought in a war.

No. Now anyone could be a victim.

The German bombs
fell for the last time in May 1941,

when Hitler turned his attention
towards an invasion of Russia.

In the eight months that it lasted,

the Blitz claimed the lives
of over 43,000 Britons

and the entire landscape
of the country had been changed.

It's hard to imagine now, but
often you would look down a street,

at the end of the war,
and it was almost like

a row of teeth with one missing.

You know, 200,000 homes were
totally destroyed during the war.

There were 34 million
changes of address.

And it wasn't just
if your house had been bombed.

It was that it might be bombed
or that Mum and Dad were dead,

or baby Tommy was dead
or, do you know...

..or, "Actually,
we need to move now,

"because this might be
the next target for a Nazi bomb."

Although it had
a devastating effect on the country,

Britain was spurred on and went on
to win the war just four years later,

thanks largely to
the indominable spirit of the nation.

VICTORIA TAYLOR:
The Blitz perhaps changed

British society and
British character
forever

because of the fact
that it had this sense of knowing

that it could cope with things
more than it thought it could

and that it could endure
more than it thought it could,

and these sort of got embedded
into the British character,

to the point that they still
linger today in certain circles.

HARRY RAFFAL: British people don't
want to be told they can take it.

They want to know
that they will retaliate.

They want to know
that they can strike back.

British people
standing up to bombing,

perhaps not in a unified way

that we perhaps like to picture,

but certainly a way
which it's hard to imagine

if we were undergoing
those kind of attacks.

But it's certainly an idea
that they want to make sure

that they strike back as well.

Captions by Red Bee Media
(c) SBS Australia 2021