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Blitz: The British Under Attack
From the author of ‘Wartime’ comes an outstanding history of the most sustained onslaught ever endured by Britain's civilian population – the Blitz.
September 1940 marked the beginning of Nazi Germany's aerial attack on civilian Britain. Lasting eight months, the Blitz was the form of warfare that had been predicted throughout the 1930s, and that the British people had feared since Neville Chamberlain's declaration that Britain was at war. Images of Britain’s devastated cities are among the most iconic of the Second World War.
Yet compared with other great moments of that war – Dunkirk, the North African campaign, D-Day – the Blitz remains curiously unexamined. Apart from fragmentary accounts and local records, there is little in the way of a comprehensive account of the experience that so many British civilians went through – as well as the social, political and cultural implications of the bombardment. Designed to break the morale of the British population, the nightly bombings certainly did devastate. But, as Juliet Gardiner shows in this hugely important book, they also served to galvanise the nation; from those terrifying eight months, a new determination amongst people and politicians steadily emerged.
Revealing, original and beautifully written, ‘The Blitz’ is a much-needed exploration of one of the most important moments in Second World War history.
September 1940 marked the beginning of Nazi Germany's aerial attack on civilian Britain. Lasting eight months, the Blitz was the form of warfare that had been predicted throughout the 1930s, and that the British people had feared since Neville Chamberlain's declaration that Britain was at war. Images of Britain’s devastated cities are among the most iconic of the Second World War.
Yet compared with other great moments of that war – Dunkirk, the North African campaign, D-Day – the Blitz remains curiously unexamined. Apart from fragmentary accounts and local records, there is little in the way of a comprehensive account of the experience that so many British civilians went through – as well as the social, political and cultural implications of the bombardment. Designed to break the morale of the British population, the nightly bombings certainly did devastate. But, as Juliet Gardiner shows in this hugely important book, they also served to galvanise the nation; from those terrifying eight months, a new determination amongst people and politicians steadily emerged.
Revealing, original and beautifully written, ‘The Blitz’ is a much-needed exploration of one of the most important moments in Second World War history.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
April 11, 2012
I've read several of Gardiner's books before, and this one doesn't disappoint. She has a very readable style and manages to strike a good balance between the broad picture and the intimate details of people's lives. The Blitz was obviously had an enormous impact across the nation, but what really brings it home are the small details of individuals - the mothers and children sheltering in the Tube stations, the old ladies in their Victorian bonnets bombed out of their home, the fire wardens stationed in St Paul's.
She also focuses not just on the physical impacts of the bombing, although it is incredible to read of the sheer physical destruction - being myself born over forty years after the Blitz it's hard to appreciate the scale of it - but the emotional and psychological impacts. The 'Blitz spirit' is such a cornerstone of the British mythical view of ourselves, so it's interesting to read about the reality - which was that people did get discouraged, people did get hysterical, people did get angry and frustrated and defeated, but such feelings were usually temporary and mostly served in the long run to strengthen people's determination that Hitler would not win.
She also focuses not just on the physical impacts of the bombing, although it is incredible to read of the sheer physical destruction - being myself born over forty years after the Blitz it's hard to appreciate the scale of it - but the emotional and psychological impacts. The 'Blitz spirit' is such a cornerstone of the British mythical view of ourselves, so it's interesting to read about the reality - which was that people did get discouraged, people did get hysterical, people did get angry and frustrated and defeated, but such feelings were usually temporary and mostly served in the long run to strengthen people's determination that Hitler would not win.
December 28, 2018
For the British, there is perhaps no more iconic event of the 20th century than the Blitz. The German bombing campaign that stretched from September 1940 until June 1941 was an event that people experienced throughout the British isles, from London and the southeast to Belfast in Northern Ireland. As such it was a shared experience, albeit one filtered through the personal circumstances of the individual and their particular experience of the war. Yet for all of the specific moments in which the Blitz touched their lives, it was an inescapable experience for everyone,
Encapsulating this within the covers of a single book is just one of the challenges undertaken by Juliet Gardiner in writing a history of the event. Another is to penetrate the shared mythology of the event that has grown up around it over the decades in order to convey the realities of the experience and the response of its survivors. In both respects her book is an unqualified success, as she moves beyond the "keep calm and carry on" legend to convey a more nuanced portrait of how Britons coped. For while many rose to the challenge, others faltered in response to a crisis unprecedented in its nature. Its impact proved far-reaching, forcing adjustments to a situation that unfolded in ways few anticipated. Gardiner's coverage here is impressively comprehensive, addressing everything from the shifts in official policy to the problems of looting and other criminal activities it spawned.
All of this makes Gardiner's book an excellent read for anyone seeking to learn about the Blitz. Yet its greatest strength is its focus. For while Gardiner addresses the evolution of official policy in response to the attacks, her narrative is centered primarily upon the experiences of the people themselves. By drawing upon contemporary reporting, published accounts, and the oral histories collected years afterward, she provides her readers with a superb study that conveys well the broad impact of the Blitz and its legacy for British history. For as she argues, it was from this event more than any other of the war that the commitment to the postwar "New Jerusalem" was forged. In this respect, the Blitz left an imprint upon Britain in ways that are still visible today, decades after the last craters were filled and bombed sites rebuilt.
Encapsulating this within the covers of a single book is just one of the challenges undertaken by Juliet Gardiner in writing a history of the event. Another is to penetrate the shared mythology of the event that has grown up around it over the decades in order to convey the realities of the experience and the response of its survivors. In both respects her book is an unqualified success, as she moves beyond the "keep calm and carry on" legend to convey a more nuanced portrait of how Britons coped. For while many rose to the challenge, others faltered in response to a crisis unprecedented in its nature. Its impact proved far-reaching, forcing adjustments to a situation that unfolded in ways few anticipated. Gardiner's coverage here is impressively comprehensive, addressing everything from the shifts in official policy to the problems of looting and other criminal activities it spawned.
All of this makes Gardiner's book an excellent read for anyone seeking to learn about the Blitz. Yet its greatest strength is its focus. For while Gardiner addresses the evolution of official policy in response to the attacks, her narrative is centered primarily upon the experiences of the people themselves. By drawing upon contemporary reporting, published accounts, and the oral histories collected years afterward, she provides her readers with a superb study that conveys well the broad impact of the Blitz and its legacy for British history. For as she argues, it was from this event more than any other of the war that the commitment to the postwar "New Jerusalem" was forged. In this respect, the Blitz left an imprint upon Britain in ways that are still visible today, decades after the last craters were filled and bombed sites rebuilt.
February 4, 2019
It took me a year to read this. It is a very good book, and a topic I am extremely interested in, but it was harrowing to read about the Blitz, and non-fiction isn't my favorite reading. So I took lots of breaks. A lot of it was first hand accounts of life in Britain during the Blitz, what people had to endure, the difficulty of providing support for those who had lost homes or families, and the devastation to the cities.
This is a very readable book and I would not discourage anyone from reading it, but I see it more as a historical reference in which the author has pulled together a tremendous amount of information about this event in history.
This is a very readable book and I would not discourage anyone from reading it, but I see it more as a historical reference in which the author has pulled together a tremendous amount of information about this event in history.
May 8, 2020
Historian Juliet Gardiner's The Blitz: The British Under Attack offers a highly focused view of World War II as seen from the shattered streets of Great Britain, particularly London, from the first wave of German bombers on the night of 7 September 1940 through the last major bombing runs in May 1941. The view is--and one struggles for an appropriate adjective--sobering, instructive, horrendous, unimaginable (at least for those readers who have never encountered wholesale destruction at first hand), terrifying, and even almost desensitizing in its repetitive duration.
How can one who has not experienced it imagine the degree of terror, horror and fear engendered by a nightly rain of high explosive bombs and tens of thousands of incendiary devices screaming down from a darkened sky, not for a brief moment but for nine interminable months? Shelter in trenches, basements, subway stations? Not a single shelter proved impermeable and hundreds of civilians were blasted to bloodied shreds of burnt flesh within those very shelters. No place proved a safe haven.
Nor was the incredible destruction limited to London. Bristol, Coventry, Hull, Glasgow and other cities were massively damaged and their citizens killed by deadly devices from the night skies. Ancient buildings that had endured for centuries vanished into piles of smoldering rubble. Horses, men, women and children died instantly or, perhaps worse, were entombed under collapsed buildings.
Fire fighters watched helplessly as water pressure vanished from exploded water mains while their hoses lay useless and as more bombs hurled their engines and colleagues against walls of yet-standing structures. We learn, of course, in any general history textbook that Great Britain was heavily bombed in a long spate of attacks collectively called "the Blitz" before the U.S. entered the war in December 1941, but that knowledge tends to be clean, sanitized fact. Gardiner's book forcefully shows what the Blitz really was and sanitizes nothing. The reality was much more than fact--it was also blood and pain and fear and cowardice and bravery and looting and selfless sacrifice.
As the reader makes his way through the carnage in this history, he realizes how close Great Britain came to falling before the Nazi advance. Hitler's ill-advised (for him) decision to turn his attention to an invasion of Russia eventually brought the British some relief while, a short while later, Emperor Hirohito's war-mongering cabinet ensured America's entry into the war by bombing its naval fleet at Pearl Harbor. Even though the tide of the war eventually turned against the Nazis, the nine months of the Blitz cost Britain over 43,000 civilian dead and another 71,000 seriously injured, and Gardiner's book pictures those months as they appeared to those casualties.
The reader begins to feel a sense of helpless frustration as he progresses through the book. Where are the RAF fighter planes? Why aren't the antiaircraft Ack-Ack guns more effective? What of the barrage balloons? In fact, German bombers were shot down. By no means did all return to Germany or to occupied France. In addition, German civilians in Berlin and other cities were also dying from the explosion of British bombs. However, these facts are not the focus of Gardiner any more than they would have been the focus of the British civilians under the onslaught of the Nazi bombers overhead. Her book is one-sided but intentionally so; we see the war through the eyes of the civilians on the ground in the cities falling into ruin under the roar of high explosives and falling walls.
As an American reader who is not at all familiar with the physical layout of London or of even the relative locations of many large cities in England, Ireland and Scotland, I often wished for maps showing the whereabouts of the sites of which Gardiner writes. Such maps would have made many of the place names more meaningful to a non-Britisher. Other than that lack, I can find no nit to pick with The Blitz, and I recommend it to all who seek a better understanding and fuller comprehension of World War II from the British perspective in the year before America herself became a combatant. The Blitz may not particularly easy to find in the United States. In fact, my copy shipped from London. However, for any reader interested in this sort of focused history, the book is well worth seeking out.
How can one who has not experienced it imagine the degree of terror, horror and fear engendered by a nightly rain of high explosive bombs and tens of thousands of incendiary devices screaming down from a darkened sky, not for a brief moment but for nine interminable months? Shelter in trenches, basements, subway stations? Not a single shelter proved impermeable and hundreds of civilians were blasted to bloodied shreds of burnt flesh within those very shelters. No place proved a safe haven.
Nor was the incredible destruction limited to London. Bristol, Coventry, Hull, Glasgow and other cities were massively damaged and their citizens killed by deadly devices from the night skies. Ancient buildings that had endured for centuries vanished into piles of smoldering rubble. Horses, men, women and children died instantly or, perhaps worse, were entombed under collapsed buildings.
Fire fighters watched helplessly as water pressure vanished from exploded water mains while their hoses lay useless and as more bombs hurled their engines and colleagues against walls of yet-standing structures. We learn, of course, in any general history textbook that Great Britain was heavily bombed in a long spate of attacks collectively called "the Blitz" before the U.S. entered the war in December 1941, but that knowledge tends to be clean, sanitized fact. Gardiner's book forcefully shows what the Blitz really was and sanitizes nothing. The reality was much more than fact--it was also blood and pain and fear and cowardice and bravery and looting and selfless sacrifice.
As the reader makes his way through the carnage in this history, he realizes how close Great Britain came to falling before the Nazi advance. Hitler's ill-advised (for him) decision to turn his attention to an invasion of Russia eventually brought the British some relief while, a short while later, Emperor Hirohito's war-mongering cabinet ensured America's entry into the war by bombing its naval fleet at Pearl Harbor. Even though the tide of the war eventually turned against the Nazis, the nine months of the Blitz cost Britain over 43,000 civilian dead and another 71,000 seriously injured, and Gardiner's book pictures those months as they appeared to those casualties.
The reader begins to feel a sense of helpless frustration as he progresses through the book. Where are the RAF fighter planes? Why aren't the antiaircraft Ack-Ack guns more effective? What of the barrage balloons? In fact, German bombers were shot down. By no means did all return to Germany or to occupied France. In addition, German civilians in Berlin and other cities were also dying from the explosion of British bombs. However, these facts are not the focus of Gardiner any more than they would have been the focus of the British civilians under the onslaught of the Nazi bombers overhead. Her book is one-sided but intentionally so; we see the war through the eyes of the civilians on the ground in the cities falling into ruin under the roar of high explosives and falling walls.
As an American reader who is not at all familiar with the physical layout of London or of even the relative locations of many large cities in England, Ireland and Scotland, I often wished for maps showing the whereabouts of the sites of which Gardiner writes. Such maps would have made many of the place names more meaningful to a non-Britisher. Other than that lack, I can find no nit to pick with The Blitz, and I recommend it to all who seek a better understanding and fuller comprehension of World War II from the British perspective in the year before America herself became a combatant. The Blitz may not particularly easy to find in the United States. In fact, my copy shipped from London. However, for any reader interested in this sort of focused history, the book is well worth seeking out.
September 24, 2021
12 minutes till the German bombers are overhead!
Someone might ask, why read a book about such a horrifying event in British history? And I’d respond that, among many important reasons, the one that stands out the most is that these people who withstood the Blitz, those who died and those who survived, must not be forgotten, nor should their sacrifice be forgotten, their heroism, or their deaths. They need to be honored and remembered just as nations honor and remember their military dead and the heroic deeds performed by their armed forces.
I’ve known people who went through the Blitz and told me about what it was like for them. I’ve written about the Blitz in my novel London Dawn. I’ve read extensively about the Battle of Britain. This seemed to be the book to provide me with the detailed information and personal testimonies about the months of bombing I needed to hear more about.
(September 7th, 1940 to May10th, 1941)
I was right. This book is well-written, packed with significant anecdotes, and is far more than simply a litany of nightly bombings and disasters. We read about food supplies coming into Britain from America and Canada to Liverpool; the firefighting; the shelters; digging victims alive out of the bomb rubble; the unfortunate looting; the unfortunate anti-Semitism; the loss of mental health; the determination to overcome and keep going day after day. The phrase Keep Calm and Carry On, which we see in thousands of variations today, had its origin in the Blitz.
I suppose this book is not for everyone. But I hope it is for some. Because the story of these people is important and shall always be important.
Someone might ask, why read a book about such a horrifying event in British history? And I’d respond that, among many important reasons, the one that stands out the most is that these people who withstood the Blitz, those who died and those who survived, must not be forgotten, nor should their sacrifice be forgotten, their heroism, or their deaths. They need to be honored and remembered just as nations honor and remember their military dead and the heroic deeds performed by their armed forces.
I’ve known people who went through the Blitz and told me about what it was like for them. I’ve written about the Blitz in my novel London Dawn. I’ve read extensively about the Battle of Britain. This seemed to be the book to provide me with the detailed information and personal testimonies about the months of bombing I needed to hear more about.
(September 7th, 1940 to May10th, 1941)
I was right. This book is well-written, packed with significant anecdotes, and is far more than simply a litany of nightly bombings and disasters. We read about food supplies coming into Britain from America and Canada to Liverpool; the firefighting; the shelters; digging victims alive out of the bomb rubble; the unfortunate looting; the unfortunate anti-Semitism; the loss of mental health; the determination to overcome and keep going day after day. The phrase Keep Calm and Carry On, which we see in thousands of variations today, had its origin in the Blitz.
I suppose this book is not for everyone. But I hope it is for some. Because the story of these people is important and shall always be important.
September 19, 2019
Excellent research tool that can only be read a bit at a time because of its harrowing narrative. The sheer scale of the subject is humbling. The last few chapters ran out of steam a little, and the table of statistics per city frequently referred to, but not included so far as I could tell, would have been useful, but otherwise a must read for anyone writing fact or fiction concerning Britain's Home Front during that time.
July 13, 2023
A brilliant insight into the lives of people trapped in the Blitz of WW2. We learn of the intense hardship and suffering people had to endure, but also the incredible community spirit that we had then to carry on through thick and thin! A really good read. You will learn a lot as I did!
abandoned
May 31, 2011Scored this at Hackney Library in the new books section. Read the first ten pages sitting in the sun yesterday looking across a bit of East London that was most certainly bombed in 1940-41 during the London Blitz.
So far all good - erudite and accessible. What more could you want from a history? Or from most things in fact.
Update: I've abandoned it as it had to go back to the library and I wasn't in the mood to rush it. Maybe one to take on holiday. After all I did read Beevor's 'Stralingrad' on a beach. There's something about Nazis and WWII that makes me want to collapse on a sun-lounger.
So far all good - erudite and accessible. What more could you want from a history? Or from most things in fact.
Update: I've abandoned it as it had to go back to the library and I wasn't in the mood to rush it. Maybe one to take on holiday. After all I did read Beevor's 'Stralingrad' on a beach. There's something about Nazis and WWII that makes me want to collapse on a sun-lounger.
July 10, 2020
This is the most comprehensive book one could possibly find to tell us what it was like living through the Blitz, not only in London but also in other major cities in the UK. It takes us in great detail through 57 nights of the bombing barrage from the German Luftwaffe that destroyed thousands of homes and killed over 40,000 civilians. Personal accounts are added where they're available which bring the horror even more to life. High recommended for anyone researching this period.
June 6, 2016
Excellent, dense detail of eye witness accounts of the devastation of the Blitz throughout Britain, but very little analysis. The accounts lose some of their effectiveness and power in an overwhelming onslaught that makes the last few chapters almost boring.
October 14, 2018
[Audiobook version]
I was worried this would be too grim and upsetting, but honestly it was just fascinating? I loved the level of detail, from the individual stories to the comprehensive look at how the Ministry of Information prepared (or didn't...) for the Blitz. I'm never sure how much I retain when I listen to audiobooks, but some of the stories that stood out for me included: the vicar who, fed up with beaurocracy, smashed locks on cupboards in order to hand out blankets at a rest centre. Or the statues in London that were too big to move, so they were covered in vaseline and bricked up for protection. Or the children's playground games which differed so much according to gender -- the girls who played out pretend air raid drills, and the boys who ran around crashing into each other shouting "help help". (I did laugh at that.) Or the conscientious objectors who seem to have been treated a lot better than in WWI, many of whom became bomb defusers/disposal because it was the best way to contribute to the war effort without causing harm (as opposed to working in a munitions factory, for example).
I was worried this would be too grim and upsetting, but honestly it was just fascinating? I loved the level of detail, from the individual stories to the comprehensive look at how the Ministry of Information prepared (or didn't...) for the Blitz. I'm never sure how much I retain when I listen to audiobooks, but some of the stories that stood out for me included: the vicar who, fed up with beaurocracy, smashed locks on cupboards in order to hand out blankets at a rest centre. Or the statues in London that were too big to move, so they were covered in vaseline and bricked up for protection. Or the children's playground games which differed so much according to gender -- the girls who played out pretend air raid drills, and the boys who ran around crashing into each other shouting "help help". (I did laugh at that.) Or the conscientious objectors who seem to have been treated a lot better than in WWI, many of whom became bomb defusers/disposal because it was the best way to contribute to the war effort without causing harm (as opposed to working in a munitions factory, for example).
July 10, 2017
Solid overview of the near year-long heavy bombing campaign against Britain's cities in WWII. Veers a little between narrative history based on contemporary accounts and a historical examination, but certainly conveys the human losses, and a sense of how it affected the population - something that the "Britain can take it" myth which was promoted at the time then accepted as history doesn't always acknowledge.
By coincidence, I was on a train in to Southampton when I found myself reading about that port city's heavy bombing and it's local authority's responses. Over the next few days, I was very aware of post-war buildings and wondered what the city would have looked like in early 1940...
By coincidence, I was on a train in to Southampton when I found myself reading about that port city's heavy bombing and it's local authority's responses. Over the next few days, I was very aware of post-war buildings and wondered what the city would have looked like in early 1940...
September 6, 2017
Right, firstly – this book is seriously long. That’s partly why it appealed to me – it kept me going for ages. Secondly, it’s very interesting – it’s an incredibly thorough account of life during the Blitz, the different roles played by various parties, the positives and negatives of how those parties behaved and the after effects of these terrible events. On the negative side, it’s insanely depressing. After a while all those lists of the dead become a bit numbing, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend you read this all in one go. However, it is excellently done, and really worth reading if you’d like to be better informed on wartime Britain.
July 4, 2020
This appears to be the definitive narrative history of the 1940 Blitz in the UK, giving voice to the German attacks in the non-London areas of the nation. A little too much detail, relying on a lot of first hand descriptions for my taste. I would have preferred a bit more overview on the affects of the campaign. Author did little to put the Blitz in the larger context of the nor, nor spend much time on the aftermath.
September 12, 2020
By the last 50 pages I was war weary, exhausted by the accounts of buildings and streets destroyed, 100s of dead people every night. Families trekking out to the country each night to sleep in ditches, the breadwinner trekking back again in the morning to go to work.
A clear and well balanced account of what it was like to live through the Big Blitz. 40-something thousand killed, just like Covid 19 in the UK, but at least the pandemic doesn’t flatten your home.
A clear and well balanced account of what it was like to live through the Big Blitz. 40-something thousand killed, just like Covid 19 in the UK, but at least the pandemic doesn’t flatten your home.
May 24, 2020
Terrific. A detailed social history of Britain under nightly bombardment. Her resources of diaries, oral and news reports are well marshalled to tell the full horror of the 7 months from October 1940 till May 1941 when Hitler marcher eastwards into Russia. A timely read reminding us that the British death toll in that 7 month period is not dissimilar to the covid 19 toll in less than 3 months!
December 10, 2020
Utterly harrowing - I had to stop repeatedly to cry - incredibly detailed and absolutely essential, this is a fantastic history of the Blitz. (15+)
*Please note: this review is meant as a recommendation only. Please do not use it in any marketing material, online or in print, without asking permission from me first. Thank you!*
*Please note: this review is meant as a recommendation only. Please do not use it in any marketing material, online or in print, without asking permission from me first. Thank you!*
February 17, 2018
Gardiner assembles terrific research and a wealth of personal narratives, but she seems to want to fill in every last detail -- even when it slows the narrative. In addition, she seemed fond of incredibly long and difficult-to-parse sentences. Overall a good but slow read.
August 30, 2018
Incredibly impressive example of non-fiction writing done well. Staggering, shocking statistics and figures woven into deeply personal accounts that can’t help but leave you reeling from the sheer scale of the horror that was The Blitz.
September 6, 2019
Amazing. A fairly long book which brought home to me the length and depth of the Blitz. I was born in London in 1943 but had not realized what my parents had lived through. I wish i had as it would have helped me understand them. I hope that some of my children will read at least some of this.
January 26, 2023
Read this book for research on an upcoming novel. Took me a long time to get through it due to the reason I had picked it up in the first place.
Juliet Gardiner is amazing. So thorough and so knowledgeable. Great reference book.
Juliet Gardiner is amazing. So thorough and so knowledgeable. Great reference book.
January 21, 2025
A superb, detailed volume on the history of the blitz in Britain during the Second World War. The work draws on a vast volume of personal accounts that allows the author to convey the true horror of this period of conflict as experienced by Britain's population!
December 8, 2019
A well-researched book with some interesting first-hand accounts of the Blitz, but also a dry presentation of this topic, and by the end, quite repetitive.
February 12, 2021
Absolutely brilliant Biography, because it gives a clear picture of the destruction the Blitz caused. The devastation, the loss. Pain. The Homelessness, everything in very clear detail.
June 2, 2024
Really good detailed book about an interesting topic. Lots and lots of detail.
October 15, 2010
The only reason this book gets 4 stars is because I didn't like it quite as much as Juliet Gardiner's earlier book, Wartime - Britain 1939-45. That book would have been hard to top in my opinion. If this one wasn't quite as hard to put down, that's not a criticism; Gardiner's brief here is narrower, as she focuses on a period of less than a year and doesn't refer much to rationing, internment of those regarded as enemy aliens, the V-1s and V-2s, or how the war changed as affiliations overseas shifted, especially in the Soviet Union. The role of the United States receives more attention. However, this book has pace and narrative flow and she does a brilliant job of conveying what the experience of the Blitz felt like to those on the receiving end. Some of the descriptions are shatteringly painful; the vulnerability of civilians, even in bomb shelters, the activities of looters (the Blitz spirit, it appears, was not experienced by all) the terrible sacrifices made by Civil Defence workers, the sense of desperation felt by those who had lost everything and found themselves with nowhere to go. The little things are often the most shocking; fire services were run locally, with their own procedures, their own terminology and their own equipment, so they could not move easily about the country to where they were needed. It was not unheard of for a fire service outside London to reach the capital, only to find that they could not attach their hoses to the local water mains.
What Juliet Gardiner does best of all, is to convey a sense of how the Blitz was a national event. She says that it would almost be easier to make a list of those towns which were not hit, rather than those that were; Coventry's experience is well known, but Plymouth's less so. Whatever your level of interest in the second world war, whether as someone with a background in the subject, or as a beginner, this book is for you.
What Juliet Gardiner does best of all, is to convey a sense of how the Blitz was a national event. She says that it would almost be easier to make a list of those towns which were not hit, rather than those that were; Coventry's experience is well known, but Plymouth's less so. Whatever your level of interest in the second world war, whether as someone with a background in the subject, or as a beginner, this book is for you.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 8, 2014
A thorough play-by-play of the "Big Blitz" in Britain from September 1940 to May 1941. Gardiner collects great first-person accounts and touches on much more than just the keep calm/carry on idea: the inefficiencies, looting, regional differences and antagonisms, censorship, and political issues. By the end, it gets a little wearying as she catalogs what got blown up when and how much, but the weariness is certainly part of the story. Makes we want to read further into the post-war era to see how it all was put back together again (and how it wasn't).
October 10, 2011
Clear, readable history with a wide range of subjects covered. The book is excellent at conveying some of the full horror of the blitz, although at times the descriptions of destruction in London become somewhat repetitive. I would have also liked a view of what the German high command were hoping to achieve and some description of aircrew experiences on both side. Nevertheless this is a well-written and enlightening history.
January 23, 2015
If you are interested in WWII, this is a fascinating book. I had no idea of the intensity of the Blitz. This book recreates the trauma, fear, and the devastation caused by the blitz, but also the buoyancy of the human spirit to adapt and to triumph.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews