All language subtitles for BBC.Blitz.Spirit.with.Lucy.Worsley.1080p.HDTV.x265.AAC.MVGroup.org.srt - eng(2)

During the Second World War,
German planes dropped 32,000 tonnes

of bombs on British cities...

..from Clydebank to Coventry,
Liverpool to London

in an eight-month onslaught
known as the Blitz.

The resilience shown by the British
people in the face of this horror

would become known as Blitz spirit.

It's often held up as a sort
of benchmark of Britishness -

something we can call upon
in times of crisis.

But I think it's important
to understand

just how much of this
is really true.

Nearly every street had
a house in flames...

..dead and dying on the pavements...

..frantic parents
searching for their young.

Through the experiences of
six real people, I'm going

to show you what living through
the Blitz was really like.

It was really heartbreaking.

No sooner would fire
be got under

than it would be hit
and start again.

And they're going to tell you
their stories in their own words.

I had absolute conviction
that my number

would be on one of those bombs.

In a national crisis...
It's not out! More water!

..they volunteered for roles that

would put them on the front line
of a bloody and terrifying war...

We crouched in doorways, thinking,
the next one must get us.

..and it would cost some
of them their lives.

Blitz spirit is only
part of the story.

I want to show you why
we remember what we do

and what's been left out...

..because this chapter in our
history has never been more

worthy of a closer look.

The bombing of British cities
during World War II was a defining

moment for the country. 80 years on,
it still resonates profoundly.

We talk the whole time
about Blitz spirit

and keeping calm and carrying on,

as if these things define us -
but they've become cliches.

I want to look again at the
experiences of real, ordinary people

living in extraordinary times.

After all, our archives
are full of them.

It looked as though half of
London must be burning...

Again and again...

Seek shelter...

The press proclaimed
the public were...

We've been hit. One in a million...

This is the diary of a 17-year-old
Jewish girl called

Nina Masel from Romford.

In September 1939,
she was working in her parents'

shop in Essex.

"In a general way, I was horrified
by the prospect of war..."

..And the world-wide
suffering it would bring.

In a particular and personal way,

I was hoping and hoping
it would happen.

War, for me, was the single force
strong enough to release me

from the dull predictability
of my daily life.

Hence, too,

a feeling of excitement rather than
apprehension on the morning which

we were expecting
the announcement of war.

To withdraw their troops
from Poland...

On the other side of London,
in Chelsea, Frances Faviell -

a socialite and artist - was living
with her husband, Richard.

..No such undertaking
has been received

and that, consequently, this
country is at war with Germany.

You may be taking your part
in the fighting services,

or as a volunteer in one of the
branches of Civil Defence.
You'll be OK.

If so, you will report
for duty in accordance
with the instructions you receive.

It seemed extraordinary
that one could listen over

the air on a perfect summer day
to such world-shaking events.

It must have been strange

in the 1914-18 war to have had

no radio and to have had

to rely on couriers

and war correspondents'

despatches for news.

Now...

..people would await the BBC News
bulletin with such eagerness

and apprehension.

Now that we have resolved
to finish it,

I know that you will all play your
part with calmness and courage.

In 1939, when Germany invaded Poland
and Britain declared war,

it was clear that this time

it wouldn't be fought
in faraway trenches.

This war was coming home.

And everybody knew that this
time it would be different.

War would bring unprecedented
terror from the skies.

In the years since World War I,

there had been huge advances
in military technology.

Government experts predicted that,
in two months,

bombs and poison gas
dropped from planes

could kill half a million civilians.

the government's biggest fear
was that people would panic...

..and a collapse in morale
would force a surrender.

I think that the people in power
looked at ordinary people -

about whom most politicians
knew very little, actually -

in a new light.

They realised that any
chance of winning the war

depended upon the ordinary people
of Britain keeping their nerve.

So how do you prepare
a nation for death, for devastation,

for disruption
on an unprecedented scale?

Their answer was Civil Defence.

The idea of Civil Defence - or
of taking Air Raid Precautions -

was to train civilians to protect
themselves, their property

and their community during war.

Men too old or unfit to fight
volunteered for the Home Guard,

as air raid wardens or as gas
decontamination specialists.

Taxi drivers signed up to
the Auxiliary Fire Service,

teenagers became bicycle messengers.

It was estimated that more than a
million volunteers would be needed.

Among them was Nigerian-born
Ita Ekpenyon.

He'd been a teacher before
moving to London ten years
previously to study law.

And here at the Westminster Archives are
his memoirs of his wartime experience.

"The people of the world
are divided into two camps -

"one camp trying to enslave
the world, the other camp..."

..Fighting to have peace
and freedom in the world.

In this struggle, Civil
Defence is very important.

So...

..my training as an air raid warden

began in September, 1939.

It made me able to do my share
for the British Commonwealth

of Nations, to which I belong.

A third of Civil Defence
volunteers were women.

Many became ambulance drivers
or - like Frances -

had just a week's training
to become an Auxiliary nurse.

One in six ARP wardens
were women - among them,

an out-of-work theatre actress from
Islington called Barbara Nixon.

I joined the Wardens' Service
because it seemed to me

to be the most active

and obviously helpful Civil Defence
occupation open to women.

My own work had closed down
on the eve of the war.

I wanted an active job.

Civil Defence training exercises
took place all over the country

and were probably quite good fun.

Here we were in Chelsea,
having a full-scale

exercise in our little borough.

Mrs Freeth - my housekeeper - and I
had both been given parts to play.

My leg - broken in two places -
was strapped.

My wounds were bandaged with
many giggles and much chafing,

and I was taken in charge to
await an imaginary ambulance.

In 1939, rolling news took
the form of newspapers, radio

and newsreel shown in cinemas.

Managing the news and preparing
Civil Defence volunteers

and the rest of the population
for attack

gave the government an
unprecedented challenge.

It was clear that this war would
be fought not just with weapons

but also with information.

So the government set up
a new ministry

here at Senate House in Bloomsbury -
it was the Ministry of Information.

The Ministry employed 1,000 staff

to issue national propaganda,
to control the flow of all news and

information relating to the war
and crucially to prevent panic.

They distributed training
manuals for Civil Defence

and information leaflets
for the general public -

much of it focused on
the thing people feared most.

Nose-irritant gas...

..lung-irritant gas...

..blister gas.

Terrifying!

There were lots of official
publications issued to

members of the public
like this one -

Air Raid Precautions Handbook No 1:
Personal Protection Against Gas.

It suggests that you make a sealed
refuge room in your house

and any bits and pieces you might
need for your gas-protected room

can be got, according to this advert
here, from Boots the Chemists.

And this fantastic thing is a little
smelling set to train people

to identify different types
of poisonous gas.

Here they all are.
Who knew there were so many of them?

Here's a sample of the smell
of mustard gas,

and this one here at the end
is deadly lewisite,

which apparently
smells of geraniums!

And this is to demonstrate
the sort of blister that would

appear on your skin if you came
into contact with mustard gas.

Now, if all this didn't give you
nightmares, nothing would.

We were given lectures on the smells
and effects of the different gases.

We were told of the various
standards of shelter protection.

We were taught three ways of dealing
with the small incendiary bomb.

And we were told that the blast
from a high explosive travels

like sound in all directions and has
an outward and a suction wave.

The government was so sure the
Germans would drop poison gas

on British people that
air raid wardens were issued with

full personal protective equipment.

And by the time war was declared
in September 1939,

38 million gas masks had been
issued to the entire population.

Now, the minutes of the Committee
of Imperial Defence tell us

that the gas mask weren't just
issued for physical protection -

they were also supposed to
make people feel better.

They were issued
"for the sake of mass psychology

"and to avoid general panic that
might decide the fate of the war".

Your gas mask was supposed
to be good for your morale.

To get the public ready and to
rally morale, the Publicity

division of the Ministry
of Information devised

a propaganda campaign.

These posters were signed off by
the Home Secretary in August 1939.

These two were issued immediately,
but they kept this one back -

they were going to issue it later on

when morale needed a boost after the
destruction had actually started.

It's so familiar, isn't it?

It's the best-known wartime slogan.

And I think it's right
at the heart of what

we understand about this
chapter in our history.

Keeping calm and carrying on seems
like the essence of Blitz spirit.

It must have captured
the public mood...mustn't it?

The government certainly hoped so -
now war had been declared,

the whole nation braced itself
for the bombing to begin.

The warning may be short -
prepare now.

Official information and
instruction will be given over
the wireless and in the newspapers.

In a matter of days,
a million children

were evacuated, 400 million
sandbags were piled up,

86,000 hand-held fire extinguishers -

called stirrup pumps -
were distributed.

Patients were discharged
from hospitals to make way

for casualties and the millions
of predicted cases of hysteria.

Paper mache coffins were
mass-produced for the huge

number of expected dead.

If you are provided with
a steel shelter

and have not erected it,
do so at once.

The most important preparation
of all was to provide people

with shelter from the bombs.

Tin self-assembly Anderson
shelters were given out...

..basements of existing
buildings converted

and brick surface shelters
built on streets.

But to keep transport running
smoothly, the government

rejected the idea of allowing people
to shelter in underground stations.

When you hear these warning sirens,
take cover at once...

SIRENS WAIL

..put on your gas mask
and keep it on.

In the first terrifying weeks
after war was declared,

there were frequent false alarms.

People expected bombs at any moment.

Would they keep calm and carry on?

As Nina recorded in her diary,
there were signs they might not.

She was working in her parents'
shop where she observed

what sounds like an awful
lot of panic buying.

"I served in my father's
shop all day.

"Every third person asked for
candles or night-lights..."

..Every fourth for sugar,
every sixth for black paper.

We soon sold out of
all these things,

as did every other shop in Romford,
and it became clear that people were

wandering from shop to shop, getting
a pound of sugar here, a pound

there, a candle here, a night-light
there, and as cheaply as they could.

At the outbreak of war, London
was home to 1.5 million cats

and half a million dogs. They'd
also suffer when the bombing began.

Official advice was issued about
what should happen to your pets.

It was repeated in the newspapers.

It says here that,
if you and your family have to

leave your home at short notice,

and if your neighbours can't look

after your pets, "it really is
kindest to have them destroyed".

And this little book -
Air Raid Precautions For Animals -

suggests how you might best do that.

There's an advert just here
for a bolt pistol, which is

"the speediest and most efficient
means of destroying

"any animal, including cats
and all sizes of dogs".

Tragically,

in just that one first week
after the declaration of war,

750,000 pets were put down.

Now, this idea that we became
a nation of pet-killers

doesn't really tally with our usual
image of the British in the Blitz.

But what I think it does show

is that people were really truly scared,

and if the one thing the government
truly feared was mass panic,

then the slaughter of the pets
was a warning sign.

The government realised they
needed to keep a close watch

on the public mood, so the Ministry
of Information set up

a Home Intelligence division,

which would produce
daily reports on morale.

You could say that this
is the first time the government had

taken the trouble to discover
and to analyse public opinion.

Home Intelligence enlisted
the help of an organisation called

Mass Observation -
a left-wing social research project

that invited ordinary people to
keep diaries of their wartime

experiences and observations.

500 people signed up...

..among them, 17-year-old Nina.

I came across an appeal
for volunteers to join the
Mass Observation panel.

I can't recall now the lofty
line of thought which made me

offer my youthful services to MO.

Nina made an immediate impression

and persuaded them to give her
a full-time paid job.

She moved out of her parents' house
to digs in Stepney, east London.

Mixing with all those
bohemians and writing folk,

my parents warned me,
would be my ruin.

But I was thrilled to bits.

We had all kinds of rather ingenious
ways of assessing morale -

like, for example, counting how
many people had gas masks or

how many people we saw in the pubs.

From all these sources, I put
together reports in what Londoners

were thinking about the war.

Six months after war was declared,
in April 1940,

Germany invaded Norway and Denmark...

..but in Britain war was still
something people only read about.

The thought of invasion was

so remote that almost
a million of the children who'd been

evacuated were brought by
their families back to the city.

Only 1% of people were still
carrying their gas masks.

It became known as the Phoney War.

Home Intelligence commissioned
a survey to find out how

well the morale-boosting
red-poster campaign was working.

Mass Observation reports revealed

that people found these
posters patronising.

"YOUR courage, YOUR cheerfulness,
YOUR resolution

"will bring US victory" seemed like
a message from an out-of-touch

ruling class who were expecting

the working classes
to sacrifice themselves

in a way that some people thought that
they'd done in the First World War.

Now, given that the expected
destruction hadn't yet materialised,

and given that this whole campaign
was deemed a failure, early in 1940,

this poster -
Keep Calm And Carry On -

got pulped.
All 2.4 million copies of it.

Well, almost all.

One showed up in a book shop in the
year 2000, and the rest is history.

And this is the perfect case in
point - something we associate

so strongly with Britain in wartime

turns out to have a fairly
tangential relationship to reality.

It's a myth.

The Imperial War Museum holds
a vast archive of World War II

memoirs and diaries.

They reveal the shift in the public
mood from anxiety to apathy

during the Phoney War.

This is the moment that
long-serving fireman Frank Hurd

begins his wartime diary.

"As soon as the warning went,
we were required to rig ourselves

"in full fire gear with respirator..."

..At the alert

and to stay rigged
until the all-clear sounded.

We were getting a bit fed up
with this sort of thing,

and I think a few of us -
I know I did -

half-hoped for something to happen

and then felt ashamed for letting
the monotony get us down.

The public was already grumbling
that the full-time Civil Defence

personnel was a waste of money -
a set of slackers after easy jobs.

Raids at some time,
however, were a certainty.

On 10th May, 1940, the Germans
were on the march again.

They invaded Belgium,
Holland, Luxembourg.

And on the very same day, Winston
Churchill became Prime Minister.

Churchill set about renewing
the nation's readiness for war.

We shall defend our island,
whatever the cost may be.

We shall fight on the beaches,

we shall fight on the landing
grounds,

we shall fight in the fields

and in the streets.

We shall never surrender.

Two weeks later, the Germans
advanced rapidly across the border

into France, surrounding Allied troops.

338,000 of them were miraculously
rescued from the beaches at Dunkirk.

Then France, too, surrendered.

It seemed inevitable that
Britain would be next.

17-year-old Robert Barltrop
was working as a porter

in a Sainsbury's warehouse
when he heard the news.

Somebody came into the warehouse
and, almost with satisfaction,

rubbed his hands together and said,
well, we're on our own now.

For all of us, there was a feeling
of danger for the first time,

unlike the panickiness
of 3rd September, 1939.

The idea of the Germans invading
Britain was in the air.

To pave the way for invasion,
Hitler first needed air superiority.

In July 1940, his Luftwaffe
took on the RAF in an aerial fight -

the Battle of Britain.

The Germans dropped bombs
on British shipping convoys

and strategic sites along the coast.

For many British people,
this was their first

glimpse of the planes
they'd feared for so long.

The government was paranoid
that Nazi spies were already

landing in Britain,
aided by an enemy within.

27,000 Italians, Germans

and Austrians -
whether British residents

or refugees - were arrested.
80% of them were Jewish.

They were imprisoned in internment
camps, like this one in Liverpool.

The Ministry of Information
launched a campaign

encouraging people to be
suspicious of their neighbours.

The Blitz is often held up as this
time of great national unity -

everybody pulling together,
everybody doing their bit.

But clearly,
the reality was much messier.

I think that at the moment
Britain faced this terrible test,

there was genuinely some confusion
about what it meant

to be British,
what values you should uphold.

In times of crisis, we always get
a new perspective on ourselves.

When events start to
unfold beyond our control,

when it really matters,
the question is - who will we be?

In August 1940,
a lone German bomber dropped

bombs on Harrow, a suburb of London.

In retaliation, Churchill
ordered the bombing of Berlin,

and Hitler was furious.

What Londoners didn't know
was that this was the moment

he decided they were now a target.

Hitler determined to bring
Britain to its knees,

to attack its political
and economic heart,

to stir class division

and to crush the morale
of the people.

It had been exactly a year since
Britain declared war on Germany.

Finally, on 7th September, 1940,

all the predictions,
all the planning,

all the recruitment,
all the training,

all the resolve of
the entire population

would be put to the most
extraordinary test.

7th of September was one of those
beautiful early autumn days

that feel like spring.

There was hardly a wisp of cloud
in the pale blue sky.

Cheers, Phil. That's all right.

SIREN WAILS

At 4:43pm, the sirens wailed and the
population trooped to the shelters.

Here we go again.

But nobody was seriously frightened.

There had been repeated alerts

and a few actual bombs dropped
during the preceding weeks.

Something might possibly happen
this time, but probably not.

Robert had volunteered
to be a firewatcher.

That afternoon,

he was taking his turn up on
the supermarket warehouse roof.

It wasn't bad during these
daytime warnings,

sitting up there in the sunshine,
smoking and watching the sky,

looking down below at people
just going on as usual.

PLANES RUMBLE OVERHEAD

And I sat there and...

..on the skyline, coming in along
the Thames like a swarm of flies,

and I saw and heard the
anti-aircraft fire all around them,

the puffs of smoke
and the thumping...

..and the swarm of flies
weaving its way through it.

A large, V-shaped formation
of planes flew over us,

heading to the southeast.

The tiny machines glinted
in the sunlight and looked more like

a flock of geese migrating before
winter than hostile aircraft.

I watched them flying along.

I began to hear thumps,

and those were bombs falling.

And still they were coming.

It was going to be the docks
that were going to get it.

In 1940, the docks of
London's East End

went all the way
from London Bridge,

nine miles along the river
to Woolwich.

This whole area was a major hub

of transport and industry.

Wharves, railway lines,

power stations and vast
warehouses full of materials

essential to Britain's ability
to fight a war.

But they were also home to dock
workers and their families.

Some 200,000 people
lived in Stepney alone.

The river, lifeblood of London,

would now provide a clear path
to guide in 965 German planes.

As they reached the docks,
the bombers began to drop

hundreds of 18-inch incendiary
bombs, containing a magnesium

mixture which ignited on impact and
burnt at a very high temperature.

Incendiary bombs were very carefully
designed to start fires -

and start fires they did.

My training was tested
when London was heavily bombed

and I found that it had
not been in vain.

My first incident was to put out an
incendiary bomb with a stirrup pump.

I knew exactly how to
approach the bomb

and the fire caused by it without
exposing myself to danger.

EXPLOSION

But stirrup pumps would be
no match for the fires they faced.

By 6pm, there were more than
40 separate fires in the East End

burning out of control.

The enormous blazes were captured by
the fire brigade's own film unit.

Huge warehouses and
factories on both sides

of the river went up in flames.

Four miles away, in North London,

air raid warden Barbara was
waiting to be called in.

That afternoon, the danger
was still remote from us.

Most wardens waited in a mixture
of dread, expectation,

and impatience, wondering whether
the Civil Defence plans

would really work...

..and how they themselves
would react.

The fire brigade was utterly overwhelmed.

At Surrey Docks, 300 pumps
and 1,000 men were fighting

to contain just one of the fires.

Crews from as far away
as Birmingham and Bristol,

and from all over London,
were called to help.

We all guessed it must be
something unusual to send us

from Euston on a journey that long.

As soon as we entered the East End,
we saw evidence of the raids -

the first most of us had seen.

Houses were demolished,
roads torn up,

and a surface shelter was wrecked.

Ambulance rescue squads
were at work as we passed.

My unit was sent
to Beckton gasworks...

..and chaos met our eyes.

The raid lasted 90 minutes

and the fires could be
seen from 30 miles away.

At 6:10, the planes went
back down the River Thames,

leaving behind them
nothing but flames.

Out there, with nothing to
do except watch the hose,

we had the time to look round.

And what a sight.

About a mile to our right
was the riverfront.

The whole horizon on that side
was a sheet of flame.

On all other sides, it was much
the same - fires everywhere.

AIR RAID SIREN

I've been called in.

As the all-clear sounded,
auxiliary nurse Frances

wasn't the only one going out into
the chaos for the first time.

17-year-old Nina had been in her
local Stepney shelter and wrote in

her Mass Observation diary what she
saw when she stepped outside.

Every street was damaged,

smoke and flames
streaming from the docks.

Bombs everywhere.

Shouting.

Finding relatives.

Chaos.

She turned up.

It sounds daft, but perhaps
we thought it was a bit romantic

to meet in an air raid.

All this was
going on very close to us -

we could smell the smoke
and hear the bombs.

When the all-clear sounded at 6:15,
people left the shelters,

saying, "About time, too."

I had not immediately grasped
the principle that an important part

of the incendiary raids

was to provide a beacon
for the later bombings.

That was something, wasn't it?
You all in one piece? Yeah, just!

AIR RAID SIREN

At 8:10, a second wave
of planes came up the Thames.

Those fires in East London
had been started to guide in

these 318 bombers,
carrying with them 300 tonnes

of high-explosive bombs
and land mines.

The onslaught
was about to begin again.

A 500kg high-explosive bomb could
take out two houses in a terrace.

A 1,000kg parachute bomb
could destroy a whole street.

This was what rained down
onto ordinary Londoners.

Bombs so powerful that,
even at a distance,

they could kill you by sucking
the air out of your lungs.

Again and again,
they returned to drop more

and more bombs into the inferno.

There was a weird whistling sound.

I ducked beside the pump together
with two more of the crew -

the others, as scattered as we were,

had thrown themselves down
wherever they happened to be.

Then...the vivid flash of flame,

a column of earth and debris
flying into the air,

and the ground heaved.

I was thrown violently against
the side of the appliance.

12,000 reported on the run
to the West End.

Everyone asking, "Where shall we go?
Where CAN we go?"

Again and again, we heard
the whoosh of a bomb.

Building fell on a group
of men and women.

Screams, groans.

The road shuddered with
the explosions.

A sudden rush back of the people

followed immediately
by a rush forward.

AA shells were bursting overhead,
shrapnel literally rained down.

The area of glowing red/orange
light was so vast.

Women fainted, mass hysteria.

Man threw a fit.

By 10pm, the shelterers
were growing exasperated.

Men, women and children,
crying and sobbing.

By midnight,
they were very frightened.

It was now about midnight,
and still this incessant racket...

..frantic parents searching
for their young,

dead and dying on the pavements.
Someone's sick...

..and every time there was a thump,
a mother screamed.

Nearly every street had
a house in flames.

Fire engines were everywhere,
people shouting,

"My house was burning!
Call the fire brigade!

"What shall we do?!"

Roads blocked, streets in ruin,
named places that I knew.

By 3am, the raid
was heavier than ever

and the bombs were much closer.
Bombs flying everywhere.

They came down with a tearing sound.

It gave us a horrible
feeling of impotence

in the face of its magnitude.

Crouched in doorways, thinking...

..the next one must get us.

At 4:30am, after eight hours,

the bombing finally stopped.

I went home.

When they heard me come in,

my father came down
and made a cup of tea.

We...

..sat there.

And how grievingly
he talked about the East End

and the people in it
and what they must be suffering.

And then we went to bed.

And should we wake up
in the morning...

..what would tomorrow be like?

430 dead.

Hundreds more injured.

People trapped in the wreckage
of their own homes.

But on the morning
of Sunday the 8th of September,

the Sunday Express had this to say.

"There is no reason whatsoever
for dejection or depression,

"the RAF is more than
holding its own."

The Government has imposed strict
rules on what you could and couldn't

report about an air raid.

If your only source of news in
September 1940 was the papers,

then you'd have no idea at all
about the emergency unfolding

in the East End of London.

After a devastating night,

Civil Defence volunteers continued

the desperate search for survivors.

It's no good, one of us is going to
have to go down.

After her night shift
at the hospital,

Frances walked home through
the ruined streets.

Passing a gap in a terrace, I...

..saw a little group
of people bending over

what seemed to be a hole in what had
been the basement of a house.

Nurse!

Nurse, we need your help.

I could hear voices now.

Someone was in mortal
anguish down there.

It was horrible.

It was like...

..an animal caught in a trap.

"Oh, God," I thought...

.."let them be quick and get them
out or let them die quickly."

We need somebody to go down.

There's somebody down there, OK?

"Take off your coat,"
said the doctor.

"And your dress," he said.

"It's too dangerous, the folds
may catch in the debris

"and bring the whole thing down."

"It will have to be
the chloroform," he said.

"Hold it the face.

"Try to keep yourself
from inhaling it.

"Be as quick as you can."

The torch showed me that

the chest of the man trapped
there was...crushed.

His face was so injured that...

..you could not tell the mouth
from the rest of it.

It just seemed one...

..great, gaping red mess.

I took the torch cautiously
from between my teeth

and began trying to soothe the
remains of what had once been a man.

I held the pad firmly over him.

"Breathe deeply.

"Deeply. Deeply."

There was a small convulsive
movement of revulsion.

Another, fainter one, and...

..then the sound stopped.

All was quiet.

You're all right, you're safe now.

Thank you so much.

There were other bodies down there.

I'd...

I'd seen the pieces.

All I wanted was to get away.

All the way back to Chelsea,
I vomited at intervals.

450 or more people had been
killed in East London.

A huge number injured,
terrible destruction carried on.

And they were coming back
that night.

As a second night
of bombing approached,

people were desperate to find
somewhere safe to shelter.

Some headed
for Underground stations,

but the Government had banned
their use and locked the gates.

On the afternoon of
September the 8th,

a great crowd of people gathered
here, outside the guarded gates

of Liverpool Street
Underground Station.

The station staff called in soldiers
to help keep people out,

but the crowd kept on growing
and getting angrier.

Eventually, though,
sheer force of numbers meant

that they had to open the gates.

The people came surging in,

they went rushing down
to the platform,

ready to fight for the space
to shelter for the night.

This is not what we expect from
Blitz spirit.

People driven by desperation,
willing to break the law

to find safe shelter underground.

AIR RAID SIREN

Above them, the bombers
were returning

and scores of volunteers
were heading out onto the streets.

Air raid warden Barbara was on duty,

checking on the shelters in her
north London patch.

Suddenly, the shabby
five-storey building ahead of me

swelled up like a child's balloon.

Almost instantaneously,
there was a crash

and double explosion
in the street to my right.

I was mildly surprised to find
that I was not hurt in the least.

Now I would know whether
I was going to be of any use

as a warden or not.

And I was not let down lightly.

In the middle of the street...

..lay the remains of a baby.

It had been blown clean
through the window

and had burst
on striking the roadway.

To my intense relief...

..as pitiful and horrible
as it was...

..I was not nauseated.

I found a torn piece of curtain
in which to wrap it.

That day, London had changed.

It was like a drunk man
suddenly sobering up

when he receives tragic news.

At last, people realised
there was a serious war on.

A war that meant visible death
and destruction -

not only newspaper articles

and recruiting posters
and war memorials.

And they did not like that
realisation.

Once the Blitz had started,

war, for ordinary people,
was no longer hypothetical.

This was the new reality -

terrifying bombs falling
night after night.

But it soon became the new normal.

And if you look closely,
like here on the walls

of the Victoria & Albert Museum,

London still bears the scars.

For Civil Defence volunteers,
the new normal meant a regular job

by day and then a shift on
this new front line by night.

Air raid wardens were usually

the first on the scene
after a bombing raid.

Then came the fire brigade,
and the heavy rescue squad,

who cut off gas and water supplies

so anyone trapped under
the wreckage wouldn't drown.

The First Aid Party
assessed the injured,

tying parcel labels to them -

X for internal injury,

T for tourniquet,

M for morphine.

The Stretcher Party would transfer
them to the nearest first-aid post.

In the first few weeks
of September 1940,

bombing raids came every
single night.

They were soon taking their toll.

Every night for the past week -

God only knew for how
many weeks to come -

we'd been out tackling fires
started by enemy action.

It was really heart-breaking.

No sooner would a fire be got
under than it would be hit

and start again, or else one
would be started next door to it.

I know what it is to feel
really tired nowadays.

In East London,
Nina was now sending daily reports

to Mass Observation of what
she was witnessing in Stepney.

Faces this morning
were grim and tired.

There is a lot of talk
about casualties -

how many? Who? Anyone I know?

There is also a lot of bewilderment

and a kind of hopelessness
about shelters.

AIR RAID SIREN

Meanwhile,
at the Ministry of Information,

the Department of Home Intelligence

were producing reports on what
all this was doing to morale.

It became apparent that some
brick surface shelters

had been shoddily constructed

and were prone to collapsing
fatally on their inhabitants.

As the morale reports tell us,

people were increasingly reluctant

to use the surface shelters.

Here we go.

"Continued belief in many districts
that public surface shelters

"are not safe and people use
tube stations instead.

"Last night, the tubes are reported
to have been as crowded as ever."

The War Cabinet looked again at
this question of whether or not

people should shelter in the tube

and their minutes show
that they decided not.

It was more important,
they agreed, to keep the tubes

available for transport services.

So they put an appeal
into the papers.

"Sheltering in tubes -
please don't do it."

It says here, "Refrain from using
tube stations as air raid shelters

"except in the case of
urgent necessity."

Now, I don't think you'd want to
use a tube station as a shelter

except in a case of urgent necessity -

they were super-crowded down there

and conditions were deteriorating fast.

By the end of September, 200,000
Londoners each night were buying

tickets - not to travel, but so they
could shelter on the platforms.

East Enders with nowhere else to go
also occupied other buildings.

None of these unofficial
shelters had any facilities.

The enormous Tilbury shelter,
underneath a railway warehouse,

was on Nina's East End patch.

It was regularly occupied by
10,000 people

and she reported on it for
Mass Observation.

The first impression was of a dim,
cavernous immensity.

HUBBUB, CHILD CRIES

The hall is oblong in shape
and covers many acres,

so huge and dim,
the end seems out of sight.

You couldn't see anything,
you could just smell the fug,

the overwhelming stench.

There were thousands
and thousands of people

lying head-to-toe all along
the bays and with no facilities.

There were just four earth buckets
down the far end,

behind screens, for toilets.

The place was a hell hole.

The conditions East Enders
were enduring,

and the sheer scale
of the bombing raids

were barely mentioned in the press.

The Government imposed a 28-day
rule - locations of bombing raids

and casualty numbers
couldn't be reported

until four weeks after an attack.

Newspapers were monitored
by the aptly named Scrutineers,

here at the Ministry of Information.

Photos for the newspapers had to
get past the censors, as well.

In this picture, the censor's taken
the red pen to all this side,

because that would have revealed
that the raid

was in Leicester Square.

If you included a picture
of a bombed building,

you also had to include a building
that was still standing.

It was all done
with good intentions,

but in fact, the failure publicly
to acknowledge the suffering

that was going on in east London
was doing more harm than good.

The press and BBC versions of
morale reaction in the East End

are much more misleading,

and in some cases bear no relation
whatever to the reality.

There was no bread,

no milk,

no electricity,
no gas, no telephones.

As usual, the press proclaim
the public were unshaken,

marvellous, etc, etc.

On a 38 bus in Piccadilly,
a wretched-looking woman

with two children got in
and sat down next to me.

They still had blast dust
in their hair

and they were utterly miserable.

And the lady opposite moved seats

and said loudly that people like
that should not be allowed on buses.

If Hitler's intent in bombing London
had been to fuel class division

and catastrophically damage morale,

I think it was starting to look
like that plan was working.

Morale report, 10th of September 1940.

"Class feeling growing

"because of worse destruction
in working-class areas.

"Many shelters in district
too badly damaged for use.

"All this has led to talk today
of marching to the West End

"to commandeer hotels."

Bomb shelters for
the well-to-do up west

couldn't have been more different.

In certain hotels, you could book
dinner and a bed in the basement.

In late September,
as many as 100 East Enders

converged upon the Savoy.

They whipped out banners they'd
hidden under their coats

calling for access to the tube
and better conditions

for people who were less well-off.

At a time of so-called
national unity,

class divisions were more
apparent than ever.

Angry shelter-users
and wardens like Barbara

had once again to take matters
into their own hands.

In our area, we suggested to
the shelterers that they and we

should club together
and buy disinfectant sprays.

In the larger Underground stations,
sheer force of numbers

and the leadership of a few stalwarts

compelled the provision of lavatories.

In one shelter, a local optician
called Mickey Davis took charge.

He enlisted the help
of a wealthy socialite,

who persuaded Marks & Spencer's to
fund a communal meal service.

The Government adopted the model.

Before long, hundreds of canteens
were providing 10,000 meals a day.

They were first called
"Citizens' Kitchens,"

but Churchill said this
sounded too Communist,

and insisted they be called
"British Restaurants" instead.

However well-intentioned,

Government preparations for
aerial bombing had fallen short.

Gas attacks hadn't materialised,

and 38 million gas masks remained unused.

Shelters were too few
and ill-equipped -

and it was ordinary people who
took the lead to put things right.

This is the most
remarkable paper trail.

It's a Mass Observation report about
conditions in the Tilbury shelter

"by an East End working girl."

That's our Nina.

"The place is so filthy and
decrepit that when you get over

"the shock of seeing so
many sprawling people..."

..you are overcome with the
smell of humanity and dirt.

People are sleeping on piles of
rubbish, dirt abounds everywhere...

There's no escaping it.

Now, Nina's words were
quoted very extensively

in an article in the New Statesman.

"When you get over the shock of
seeing so many people..." Etc, etc.

And we know that this article
was read by the Prime Minister.

Because the minutes of
the War Cabinet tell us that,

having read the article,

"The Prime Minister urged
the need for strong action

"to prevent large numbers of people
crowding into this building

"until the necessary work had
been done to make it safe."

Isn't that cool?

The testimony of 17-year-old Nina
from the East End

is influencing government policy.

Within days, work began to improve
conditions at the Tilbury shelter.

The War Cabinet then reviewed their
position on Underground stations.

On the 25th of September,

the Government announced
its U-turn in the press.

From now on, the use of
tube stations as shelters

would officially be recognised.

In fact, the little branch line
that went to this particular station

in the Strand was closed
off to trains altogether.

The station would be given over
entirely to members of the public

to use as a shelter.

Soon 79 other tube stations
became official shelters -

better equipped with
toilets and bunks -

which made the long nights
underground more tolerable.

But despite this Government U-turn,
there was another crisis brewing.

In the first six weeks of the Blitz,

of the 250,000 Londoners who'd
been made homeless by the bombs,

only 7,000 had been rehoused.

People who'd lost their
houses had nowhere to sleep,

nowhere to wash, nowhere to eat.

No clothes, no money,
no ration book -

and no idea what to
do about any of this.

Within weeks, Rest Centres -
set up to offer temporary respite

to bombed-out Londoners -
were overflowing

with tens of thousands of people.

The Government delegated
the problem of homelessness

to the peacetime agencies, but they
were much more used to dealing with

people made homeless through
poverty, not through bombing,

and these agencies
also harboured really

old prejudices against "the poor".

The Public Assistance officials
could not rid themselves

of the idea that they
were dispensing charity,

and it was this attitude that
caused even more resentment

and anger than the delays.

It was seldom a man's own fault
that he was out of work.

Still less was it his fault that
a Nazi bomb had demolished his home

and destroyed all his possessions
and means of living.

I was sitting in the kitchen when
a bomb fell, me house collapsed.

I lost all me clothes and money.

Once again, it was ordinary people

and voluntary organisations
who stepped in.

I hope you will like this house.

It'll fix you up for the
moment, anyway. Thank you...

The Citizens Advice Bureau
provided information

about where to find help.

The Women's Voluntary Service

provided hundreds
of mobile canteens.

The Red Cross, St John's
Ambulance, the Salvation Army -

all provided first aid,
blankets and clothes

to the many thousands left
destitute by the bombs.

What all this tells us, I think,

is that when the chips were down,
people stepped up.

They didn't fall prey to mass panic,
they didn't morally collapse.

But if this sense of
resourcefulness and resilience

is what call Blitz spirit,

I think we should remember it
was born entirely of necessity.

In October 1940, after five
weeks of relentless bombing,

two disasters shocked London.

On the 13th, a nearby bomb
strike caused the tunnel

to collapse at Bounds Green
tube station, killing 19 people.

As these remarkable photos show -

the very next night, a bomb strike
above Balham tube station

burst a water main, flooding
the tunnel with water and soil.

66 people drowned.

The fact was,
nowhere was truly safe,

and who lived and who died
turned on the flip of a coin.

This little thing is a
marvellous illustration

of the vagaries of fate.

It's a cigarette lighter,

which belonged to an ARP warden
called George Hutchins.

He had it in his breast pocket
during a raid one night -

and that small, mundane fact...

..saved his life.

You can see that the shrapnel
has gone through his lighter,

and not through his heart.

That such a tiny everyday decision -

whether or not to take your lighter,

whether to go left or
right down the street -

had life-or-death consequences

must have been very hard
to get your head around.

People found their own ways
to keep such profound

uncertainty at arm's length.

Oh, listen here.

Capricorn, don't pay
attention to rumours.

More column inches than ever
were dedicated to horoscopes.

Some carried lucky charms,

or developed their
own superstitions -

as air raid warden Ita experienced.

It amuses me to know that in
the districts 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 I go,

people listen to my instructions

and are willing to
allow ME to lead THEM.

Some told stories about
their brushes with fate,

or resigned themselves
to uncertainty.

I'm 75 years of age
and I think I'm a fatalist,

so I think if my name had been
on that bomb,

I'd have been killed with it.

But as it is,
I'm still merry and bright

and full of beans, thumbs up!

MAN: Bob's your uncle!

Oh, Bob's me uncle, thumbs up!
LAUGHTER

The bomb, and everyone's special bomb,

was still a source of endless
interest and possibilities.

They were coming
so thick and fast that...

..everyone had a better story
than his neighbour.

But I had absolute conviction

that my number would be on
one of the bombs.

Richard's re-assurances that
the chances were one in a million

made no difference.

I just knew it.

While fear bound some people together...

MAN SHOUTING

..the forced proximity
of bomb shelters

also brought long-standing
divisions to the fore

and a rather different Blitz spirit.

This guy is crazy!

The bombing of London forced
a mixed crowd to be

in one another's company,
though their ways and manners

and views of life in some cases
were as opposite

as the north and south poles.

Some of the shelterers
told the others

to go back to their own country

and some tried to
practise segregation.

Anti-Semitism has increased markedly.

To a remarkable extent, Jews
and Cockneys live in the same area

and in the same streets
without mixing socially...

..but air raids have
forced them into proximity,

especially in the communal shelters.

Under the trying conditions,

underlying antagonisms
have been fanned into flames.

I told people that
the British Empire -

which is also known as the British
Commonwealth of Nations -

is made up of people of many races.

Then, I spoke of three classes
in the shelter -

His Majesty's subjects,
protected persons and guests.

These last were refugees
from other countries.

I said that, this being the case,
I would like to see a spirit of

friendliness, cooperation
and comradeship prevail

in this very trying time
in the history of the Empire.

I further warned my audience
that if what I had said was not

going to be practised, I would
advise those who did not agree

to seek shelter somewhere else.

See, it sometimes seems
like the Blitz did as much

to push people apart
as it did to bring them together,

but we tend to think about the past
in a series of neat, little images

that cover up that complexity.

For example, this image -
perhaps the most famous of all -

the cheerful milkman delivering
the milk through the ruins.

He's the quintessential plucky Londoner.

I think there's no single story here.

The Blitz was both
division and unity.

It was fear but also resilience.

It was falling apart
and it was carrying on.

But there's something else here
that is so interesting to me.

This famous picture
is not what it seems,

because that's not a real milkman.

The photographer borrowed
the bottles and the milkman's coat

and he got his assistant to pose.

So, even at the time, Blitz spirit
wasn't just being observed -

it was also being contrived.

ARCHIVE: London raises her head,
shakes the debris of the night

from her hair, and takes stock
of the damage done...

In October 1940, the Ministry
of Information made a film

to be shown in America -
it was also screened in Britain -

that epitomised the version
of the Blitz

the Government wanted people to see.

The nightly air raids
have had a terrific effect

upon the morale
of the people of London.

Today, the morale of the people
is higher than ever before...

"London can take it"
meant the East End

and the people in the East End
accepted this to some extent.

They knew they were
taking the brunt of it

and lots of other people weren't
seeing a great deal of brunt.

But a bomb has its limitations.

It can only destroy buildings
and kill people.

It cannot kill the unconquerable
spirit and courage

of the people of London.

London can take it.

Let no-one think that press
phrases about "taking it"

or much-loved Cockney jokes while
bricks and mortar crushed to rubble,

that there were not many who groaned
every time we raided Germany,

in dread of the retaliation
they would get.

The film showed how the truth was
being manipulated for propaganda

and how the myth of Blitz spirit
was taking shape.

By November, Nina was fed up with
the way Mass Observation research

was being "misused" by the Ministry,

including her report about people's
distrust of surface shelters.

To Nina's utter dismay, her report
about the terrible conditions

in surface shelters WAS used by
the Ministry of Information,

but not to argue for
their improvement.

Instead, the Ministry used it
to finesse a leaflet

reassuring people that surface
shelters were absolutely fine!

I was shocked to the core.

I was well aware that the value of
the information depended on

which political force was using it
and, until that moment,

I'd stuck to my belief
that MO's heart was

broadly in the right place.

But I hadn't come to grips
with its changed function

under the Ministry of Information.

I was terribly ashamed by the part
I had unwittingly played

in this act of betrayal.

I left soon afterwards in a blaze
of indignation and fury.

ARCHIVE: Night raids over Britain
have lately increased.

Birmingham has been
one of the enemy's targets.

Damage was done and lives lost.

By mid-November 1940,
German tactics changed

and other British cities
were targeted, too -

Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester,

Liverpool, Bristol,
Sheffield, Southampton.

The people of Coventry buried
more than 500 of their dead

in mass graves.

But even amid
the nationwide destruction,

the myth of Blitz spirit
had taken root.

ARCHIVE: And despite the worst time
Manchester has experienced

since the outbreak of war,

the people's chins are up and
protruding a little more than usual.

Manchester can take it.

MUSIC: Jingle Bells

By Christmas 1940,
after four months of bombing,

22,000 British people
had been killed.

The British government heard,
via Washington,

that Germany intended to suspend
attacks over Christmas.

ITA: We formed a committee
of shelterers

and agreed to have a party
on Christmas Day.

When this was made known,
the shelterers worked together

and decorated the four rooms
of the shelter,

much to the admiration of visitors.

We had a marvellous party there,
underground.

Everybody who could be raked in,
standing round the piano, singing,

and party games.

There was this feeling of...

.."Let's have a good time."

At Christmas, when the raids
were lighter,

the old lady in the newspaper shop
asked me if I thought

it was now safe for her to undress.

She hadn't, she said, had her
clothes off since September!

In this sudden lull in the bombing,

there must have finally been
a sense of hope for the future -

especially for Richard and Frances.

I'm pregnant!

THEY LAUGH

Before the bombing started,

people feared war from the air
would bring civilisation to an end.

Terrible though it was,
that hadn't happened,

and people began to contemplate
the kind of world

they wanted to live in
when the war was over.

But it was not over yet.

AIR RAID SIREN

On December 29th,
on the cusp of a new year...

..the silence was broken.

This would be one of the heaviest
nights of bombing of the Blitz.

BOMB WHISTLES PAST, EXPLOSION

The Germans chose low tide -

to make it harder to get water
from the river -

and dropped 100,000 incendiaries
and high-explosive bombs

onto the city around
St Paul's Cathedral.

Thousands of firefighters
were called to tackle

hundreds of fires in the city's
Square Mile,

but they struggled to bring
the water

to get the fires under control.

Among them was a crew led by Frank.

SHOUTING

FRANCES: We went up onto
our flat roof,

which was pretty high and gave
a splendid view over London.

It was awful...

..although beautiful...

..a brilliant blood-red.

All I could think of
were the words of the round.

# London's burning

# Fire, fire
Fire, fire

# Fetch the water

# Fetch the water... #

Or all will be lost.

9,000 firemen were called to fires
in the city that night.

250 of those firemen were injured...

..and 16 of them were killed.

And among them was Frank.

He was fatally injured
by a collapsing building

here near Smithfield Market.

Churches, factories, offices,

pubs, homes - all destroyed.

163 civilians were killed,
and 500 injured.

Firewatchers on the roof had fought
desperately to protect it,

making the great survivor of this
terrible night St Paul's Cathedral.

There is no photo more famous,
more iconic, than this one,

to capture the Blitz and Blitz spirit.

It shows St Paul's Cathedral
standing unharmed

in the midst of the burning city.

Its propaganda value
was obvious immediately.

And in this case, the 28-day rule
wasn't applied.

Just two days later, it appeared
on the front of the Daily Mail,

and it became this potent symbol

of the indomitable spirit
of the British.

But, crucially, in the paper,

this image has been cropped

to minimise these bombed-out
buildings in the foreground.

And that, for me, is why this image
really epitomises Blitz spirit.

It IS powerful, it IS evocative,

but it's also been edited,

cropping out the more troubling,

the more complex reality

of what went on beneath the bombs.

After the devastating raids
of December,

the Blitz went on until May 1941.

Then, having failed to force
a British surrender,

Hitler's attention shifted
to the Soviet Union.

The people of London,
and of other cities -

from Cardiff to Hull,
Belfast to Plymouth -

had endured an unprecedented crisis.

In total, the Blitz cost
44,652 people their lives.

When we look back at
this extraordinary chapter in

our history, I think it's important
to try to look beyond the cliches.

Yes, there was remarkable
resilience, nationwide...

..but there was also terrible suffering.

History is an inherently messy business -

there's never just one version of events.

And beyond the official version,

I think we owe it to the people
who were there

to make the reality of
their experience count.

If there's one thing we can learn
from the Blitz

about a national crisis,

it's how to value everyone -

from the planners, to the front line
workers, to the volunteers.

So, next time when you hear
that phrase "Blitz spirit"...

..you'll know what it really means.

That the ordinary people of London
showed the stubborn fortitude

they did, for so long,
is something of a miracle.

It showed even more clearly
that life goes on

under the most intense
and fearful pressure,

and that it is all but impossible
to destroy the will to live.

EXPLOSION

SHE GASPS

At last, it appeared
to have stopped.

I raised my head.

I could see sky and...searchlights.

I knew the whole upper three storeys
of the house was gone.

"We've been hit," I said.

"One in a million."

# If today your heart is weary

# If every little thing looks grey

# Just forget your troubles
and learn to say

# Tomorrow is a lovely day. #