The Battle of London 1939-45

by Jerry White

The definitive social history of London in the Blitz, which transformed life in the capital beyond recognition.For Londoners the six long years of the Second World War were a time of almost constant anxiety, disruption, deprivation and sacrifice. The Blitz began in earnest in September 1940 and from then on, for prolonged periods, London was under sustained aerial bombardment by night and by day. Throughout the war, the capital was the nation's front line; by its end, 30,000 Londoners had lost their lives.Yet if the bombing defined the era for those who lived through it, the months of terror were outnumbered by those spent knitting together the fabric of daily life at work, in the home, on the allotment, in the cinema or theatre and, not least, standing in those interminable queues for daily necessities that were such a feature of London's war.Much has been written about 'the Myth of the Blitz' but in this riveting social history, Jerry White has unearthed what actually happened during those tempestuous years, getting close up to the daily lives of ordinary people, telling the story through their own voices. At the end of it all, the Battle of London was won not on the playing fields of Eton but in the playgrounds of a thousand council elementary schools across the capital.

Genres: London, History, Nonfiction

448 pages, Hardcover

Published November 4, 2021

About the author

This is the disambiguation profile for otherwise undifferentiated authors publishing as Jerry White

See also:
Jerry White, historian
Jerry E. White, author of The Joseph Road: Choices That Determine Your Destiny
Jerry P. White, author of Aboriginal Education: Current Crisis and Future Alternatives
Jerry M. White, author of Until Today: Stories and Poems on Life as I Know It
Jerry A. White, author of U.S. Army Infantry
Jerry White, author of The 5 Keys to the Great Life
Jerry C. White, author of Let There Be No Doubt! What the Bible Says..
Jerry S. White, author of Turnaround: The Canadian Guide t Rescuing Your Company From Creditors, Predators And Competitors

Reviews

[Stephen Goldenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like Angus Calder’s ground breaking book ‘The People’s War’, Jerry White goes far deeper into the experience of ordinary Londoners during the war, giving a ‘warts and all ‘ account that goes beyond the usual story of heroic endurance. Here we get the full story of petty looting, black marketeering and racist attitudes in the air raid shelters.
But there’s also an appreciation of the enormous debt Londoners owed to the ARP wardens, the emergency services and the legion of volunteers. The comprehensive lists of statistics of tonnages os bombs dropped and the deaths and casualties are leavened by copious quotes from diary entries, bringing to life people’s day to day experiences. There is also a clear explanation of how these wartime experiences changed people’s attitudes leading to the landslide victory for Labour in the 1945 election.

[Chris Fowler · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘The Battle Of London: 1939-45’ puts readers in expert hands with author-historian Jerry White, whose previous volumes have illuminated so much London’s past.

The Blitz story is a familiar one, but Mr White’s deep dive into the details of Germany’s bombing campaign against the city pays dividends;

London’s front line services were prepared for intensive bombing attacks because they had trained during the ‘Phoney War’. Wardens were also able to react with celerity to bombings was because they were all born locally. They had all been to the same schools at different times and knew the family histories of everyone in the neighbourhood. Knowing who needed help and where they were likely to be saved many lives.

But the work was gruesome. They located one old friend under rubble who had been turned into a doormat by the bombardment. A general lack of hysteria and determination to get on helped enormously, although everyone agreed that the shelters were a scandal, along with the treatment of the newly homeless. As ever, the real problems came from red tape and council intransigence, not from those on the street.

It's a pretty definitive overview of Londoners at war, drawing from a great many sources, and Mr White balances moments of light and dark, keeping this a fair-minded, fascinating read.

[Stephen Ede-Borrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book absolutely fascinating with a great deal of information that was new to me and, in many cases, that I had never even thought about! The book is an excellent account of how London responded to what is rightly termed the longest and most intense attack on a city in history - the attacks from the V weapons continued into almost the last days of the War, something that many Londoners, and more than a few military men, found unforgiveable. Also almost unforgiveable is the way that national politicians treated London in the years after 1945 when doctrinal belief trumped over the wishes and wellbeing of the population of London
An absolutely fascinating account, well written, superbly researched and thoroughly recommended to anyone interested in WWII in the West, if only to give an unusual view of the War.