What was blitz spirit

I began to question how accurate this could be. To compare how the people really felt about the bombing against the government view, I began to read personal letters and diaries of those who lived through it. I looked to different elements of society to get as clear and wide a picture as possible; shop workers, ARP wardens and government officials, those who lived the high life and those who lost it all.

I found a general consensus; no high morale to be found. As expected, people spoke of the psychological effect; the fear of being trapped under the rubble of their own house, of not getting to the shelter in time. Others spoke of the sheer inconvenience; the huge craters in the road preventing the buses travelling on their usual route, making it impossible for many to reach work. Office workers picking their way to work through bomb debris after a heavy air raid.

So now I had to answer the question; why? He theorised that in fact what seemed to be high morale, i. This means that they had this supposed fighting spirit because they had to, because they had no other choice, rather than because they wanted to carry on!

The Nazi leadership was shocked by British resilience and the Fuhrer turned his attentions to Russia. By the end of the year, the US had entered the war. The indomitable spirit demonstrated across the UK in and has been invoked since by politicians to galvanise national pride, and by the media to recall fondly an era when we were apparently made of sterner stuff.

It even goes to the heart of what many regard as Britishness. But there could be other, more subtle ways the Blitz has shaped national character. Mark Connelly, professor of modern British military history, says there is a modern tendency to focus on the glorious side to the Blitz and forget the bloodshed.

But the tale of heroism against German might has forged our national identity. Since , that British approach to the world, evident in the tabloids in relation to the European Union, is still deeply embedded, he believes. It has also influenced a defence policy, he says, that places at its core the ability of the country to defend itself.

For Ms Gardiner, the Blitz also forged a social contract for peacetime that remains to this day. The priority seemed to be to report where bombs had fallen, followed by providing reassurance to members of the public.

On the late afternoon of 7 September, Barbara witnessed the first big raid on Lon- don — a devastating onslaught that set fire to the East End. Then, coming off duty, she went into Soho for dinner. It was said that they fired 20, shells that night; it may have been extravagant, and not particularly effective, but it was worth it. It revived the spirit of the Londoners. Lucy Worsley is a historian, broadcaster and author. Sign in. Back to Main menu Virtual events Masterclasses.

People believe that because I am a man of colour, I am a lucky omen. These frightful pieces of flesh had once been living, breathing people. Thank God we can laugh at this sort of thing. In the heavily bombed cities — Plymouth, Southampton, Clydebank — tens of thousands of people trekked out of the city into the countryside or neighbouring villages for shelter and food.

Their understandable reaction was fear. Endurance was unavoidable, and survival their chief priority. Government researchers found that what people wanted most was sound information, the promise of welfare and rehabilitation, and somewhere to sleep. The sight of destroyed buildings, corpses and body parts was utterly alien to daily life.

The trauma this produced was largely unrecorded, and certainly untreated. The one exception was the city of Hull, where the government sent a team of psychiatrists and psychologists to study why the populations apparently panicked after heavy raiding.

The subsequent report, The Mental Stability of Hull, was based on interviews with hundreds of survivors. These case studies showed that people developed serious psychosomatic conditions, including involuntary soiling and wetting, persistent crying, uncontrollable shaking, headaches and chronic dizziness; men were found to indulge in heavy drinking and smoking after a raid, and prone to developing peptic ulcers.