Let’s try to get a sense of the bigger picture through the various editorial pages of four newspapers published today. What is the meaning of the air raids? Will there be an invasion? What are the Germans trying to do? What does the future hold?
For the last two nights Bomber Command has been hitting hard at both the invasion ports — ‘their heaviest blows yet’ — as well as Hamburg and Berlin, says the front page of the Daily Mail: The Anhalter railway terminus was severely damaged following the previous day’s attack on the Potsdam stations. These stations are
Saturday’s bombing of London isn’t quite as prominent on the front page of the Daily Mail as one might expect. There are a few small items about it (e.g. a panorama of London ablaze, taken from the top of Northcliffe House; a report from Italian radio that Londoners are ‘absolutely terrified’ by the raids) but
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 […]
Every day during the Blitz, the Daily Mail published a selection of letters from readers on various topics, out of the hundreds received every day. Clearly it can’t be assumed that these are representative of British public opinion generally, or of Mail readers, or even of those readers motivated to write letters to the editor
During the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, British newspapers regularly published official German statements about the progress of the air war. Those relating to the war over Britain could be checked against both British communiques and, to an extent, personal experience. There were large discrepancies: for example, for 7 September 1940, the Luftwaffe claimed
[Update: due to my misunderstanding of a key word, this post is fundamentally misconceived. Exercise due caution!] Hello everybody, I seem to have got here at last, it’s been a long long time but here I am and jolly glad I am to be here at last. I bring [inaudible] from the people of England
