It was a time when a siren would send a city underground and much of that wartime spirit kicked into action: songs were sung and community was vital. Children were evacuated to the countryside to try to take them out of harm’s way, while bomb shelters and blackouts became the norm of British life. The Blitz of 1940–41 saw the destruction of many British streets, but nowhere more so than in London. Over the following six years the Nazi war machine would encompass the bulk of Europe, parts of Africa and the Middle East, and would knock menacingly on Britain’s door. Churchill, broadcast of 8 August 1939īeginning in September 1939, World War II was instigated when Germany invaded Poland in its quest for Lebensraum two days later Britain and France declared war on the Nazi state. Don’t you hear it? It is the tramp of armies crunching the gravel of the parade grounds, splashing through rain-soaked fields, the tramp of two million German soldiers and more than a million Italians - ‘going on manoeuvres’- yes, only on manoeuvres!” – Winston S.
Listen! No, listen carefully, I think I hear something - yes, there it was quite clear. “There is a hush over all Europe, nay, over all the world … Alas! It is the hush of suspense, and in many lands it is the hush of fear. And this time the horrors of concentration camps, death marches and the systematic persecution perpetrated by Nazi forces would be condemned by all at the war’s end. This time the trenches would be traded for u-boats, planes and the deadliest weapons technology could produce. Within the space of a generation, Europe and the world had entered a second world war. World War II represents a dark time in modern history: a second plunge into devastation that ought never to have been repeated after World War I.
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