Since May, the Home Intelligence Department of the Ministry of Information has been preparing daily reports on the state of British morale: what people are talking about, what they are worried about, what they are happy about, and what are thought the government should do. A wide variety of sources is used for this, both formal and informal: BBC listener surveys, Mass-Observation reporters (AKA 'Cooper's snoopers'), overheard conversations on buses or in pubs, gossip from friends and relatives. Each region of the country has its own information office which sends data in to London; and London itself has a more extensive (but still somewhat informal) network of informants reporting on what is going on in their part of town. The resulting reports are, of course, secret.
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Post-blogging 1940-2
Tuesday, 27 August 1940
Today we're reading The Times. London was again menaced by German bombers last night, though it seems bombs fell only on the 'outskirts' (4), in particular 'one bomb' hit 'a building in the outskirts of London'. Folkestone was much harder hit by a daytime raid in which 'German bombers swooped out of the sun [...] people saw the bombs leaving the racks as the raiders dived to within a few hundred feet of the roof tops'. Three people were killed, laundry workers all. British fighters chased the bombers ('believed to be Messerschmitt Jaguar bomber-fighters') out over the Channel, claiming three.
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Monday, 26 August 1940
Since yesterday's Observer was actually put to bed on Saturday night, it missed out reporting the German raid on London in the following hours. Of course, most of London would have already known of it thanks to the alerts and the explosions, while the rest of the country would have heard about it on the BBC. So the morning papers are generally going to be a bit behind in reporting night raids.
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Sunday, 25 August 1940
These are the headlines from the Observer (5). Yesterday was another good day for the RAF, which on Air Ministry figures shot down 45 German aircraft with 10 of its own missing. There were 'Battles all day long':
Until mid afternoon the attacks were concentrated on aerodromes in East Kent. Then large numbers of German bombers and fighters were flung into two new mass raids.
While some of them were attacking aerodromes almost up to the outskirts of London, others were raiding the Portsmouth area.
The Portsmouth raiders were largely turned back by 'an intensive A.A. barrage' assisted by fighters. Casualties 'are believed to be relatively few in view of the number of bombs dropped', though a cinema was hit during a showing, burying some patrons in rubble.
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Post-blogging 1940: re-introduction
Tomorrow I'll start post-blogging 1940. My starting point will be 25 August 1940 (the day after the first bombs fell on central London, one of the starting points of the Blitz) and will take it through to some point in October. As usual, I'll be presenting the view from the press, using daily newspapers like The Times, the Manchester Guardian and the Daily Mail, and also a Sunday weekly, the Observer. I might also try complementing this with the view from home intelligence. Unlike my previous efforts I won't try to cover everything that was going on; the basic facts are well enough known anyway. Instead I'll take inspiration from Alan Allport's now-completed post-blogging of British demobilisation and try to give a flavour, an impression of what was happening, how people felt and reacted. Of course it may evolve as it goes along.
Don't forget to keep reading the other 1940 post-blogging efforts, as well as my 1940 aggregation blog.
Post-blogging 1940
Follow the events of 1940 day by day and week by week, seventy years later:
Airminded - 7 October 1940
Battle of Britain Day by Day - 31 October 1940
Days of Glory - 31 October 1940
Duxford Operations Blog - 31 October 1940
Nick Cooper's Random Blog - 31 October/1 November 1940
Orwell Diaries - 25 October 1940
Spitfire Site - 6 October 1940
World War II Day-By-Day - 31 October 1940
World War II Today - 31 October 1940
WW2: A Civilian in the Second World War - 29 October 1940
@RAFDuxford1940
@ukwarcabinet
@BattleofBritain
1940 Chronicle
Battle of Britain Pilot's Blog
See also: an introduction; and an aggregation blog.
Post-blogging 1940: introduction
Recently, Martin Waligorski contacted me to see if I'd like to collaborate with him in his post-blogging project, Battle of Britain - 70 Years. I had been thinking about doing some sort of post-blogging this year to mark the 70th anniversary of 1940, but probably not until later in the year, and for the Blitz rather than the Battle. But I would like to highlight Martin's efforts somehow, as well a number of other 1940 post-blogging (and post-tweeting) exercises going on, some of which have a broad overview, while others focus on the experience from one perspective. So what I've decided to do is put up a sticky post which will stay at the top of Airminded for the duration, with links to the various blogs and the most recent posts (I won't try do this for tweets as they come too often). I'll try to keep it as up-to-date as possible, and will put a cumulative list in the sidebar. The initial list is below -- if you know of any more, please let me know. Indeed, if you're interested in contributing yourself, either at Martin's site or your own, please do!
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