Showing posts with label MoI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MoI. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Women in Wartime



1939-45 [Australia at War - Women's Status Changes] - Free > .

Women

Historians highlight the importance of women to the war effort, showing that a vast number of women were involved at this time with the development of technology. There were indeed more women employed in this area than men. Penny Summerfield showed the growing importance of women in WW2. Women's roles can be contextualised within the wider study of military planning. Large factories for building aeroplanes were established across the country, and they were staffed by women. Furthermore, the increased role of women workers was highlighted by the Ministry of Information which, in its short movies, showed women working in the factories. This was an essential propaganda tool, and further demonstrates the vital position of women workers in the war effort.
https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/1114 .

"Many women served with the Women's Auxiliary Fire Service, the Women's Auxiliary Police Corps and in the Air Raid Precautions (later Civil Defence) services. Others did voluntary welfare work with Women's Voluntary Service for Civil Defence and the Salvation Army.

Women were "drafted" in the sense that they were conscripted into war work by the Ministry of Labour, including non-combat jobs in the military, such as the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS or "Wrens"), the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF or "Waffs") and the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). Auxiliary services such as the Air Transport Auxiliary also recruited women.

In the early stages of the war such services relied exclusively on volunteers, however by 1941 conscription was extended to women for the first time in British history and around 600,000 women were recruited into these three organizations.

In December 1941 the government passed the National Service Act (No 2), which made provision for the conscription of women. At first only childless widows and single women 20 to 30 years old were called up, but later the age limit was expanded to 19 to 43 (50 for WWI veterans).

British women were not drafted into combat units, but could volunteer for combat duty in anti-aircraft units, which shot down German planes and V-1 missiles.

The WRNS, having been disbanded at the end of WWI, were reformed in April 1939. WRNS were posted to every home and overseas naval unit. There were 72,000 serving WRNS in 1945. Another service disbanded after WW1 was the WAAC, they were reformed as the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) and totalled over 190,000. Other military organisations included Women in Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) and the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), originally formed in 1907.

Times had moved on and along with, still vital, clerical and domestic duties, women were driving and maintaining vehicles, manning anti-aircraft guns and RADAR stations, ferrying aircraft from factories to airfields, deciphering coded German messages in secret naval communications units and working as spies in the Special Operations Executive (SOE).

Civilian women joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE), which used them in high-danger roles as secret agents and underground radio operators in Nazi occupied Europe.

As part of the conscription requirement women had to chose whether to enter the armed forces or work in farming or industry. By December 1943 one in three factory workers was female and they were building planes, tanks, guns and making bullets needed for the war.

One civilian choice open to women was to join The Women's Land Army, set up in June 1939. At its peak in 1943, there were over 80,000 'Land Girls'. The women undertook hard farm work including ploughing, turning hay, lifting potatoes, threshing, lambing and poultry management. Six thousand women worked in the Timber Corps, felling trees and running sawmills.

As The Women’s Land Army was not a military force many women did not wear the uniform of green jersey, brown breeches, brown felt hat and khaki overcoat.

Another organisation that women could join was the Women's Voluntary Services For Air Raid Precaution (WVS), set up in June 1938. Initially their main duties were evacuation and making medical supplies, bandages (made from old sheets), nursing gowns and pyjamas. February 1939 brought about a name change to the Women's Voluntary Service for Civil Defence. The type of work they undertook broadened to include, salvage and old bone collection, harvesting of rosehips, running rest and mobile canteen services, providing temporary accommodation for those people whose homes were destroyed during air raids and organising talks on such issues as 'Make do and Mend' and avoiding the ‘Squander Bug’.

Women were also recruited to work on the canals, transporting coal and munitions by barge across the UK via the inland waterways. These became known as the 'Idle Women', initially an insult derived from the initials IW, standing for Inland Waterways, which they wore on their badges, but the term was soon adopted by the women themselves.

Britain underwent a labour shortage where an estimated 1.5 million people were needed for the armed forces, and an additional 775,000 for munitions and other services in 1942. It was during this ‘labour famine’ that propaganda aimed to induce people to join the labour force and do their bit in the war. Women were the target audience in the various forms of propaganda because they were paid substantially less than men. It was of no concern whether women were filling the same jobs that men previously held. Even if women were replacing jobs with the same skill level as a man, they were still paid significantly less due to their gender. In the engineering industry alone, the number of skilled and semi-skilled female workers increased from 75 per cent to 85 per cent from 1940-1942.According to Gazeley, even though women were paid less than men, it is clear that women engaging in war work and taking on jobs preserved by men reduced industrial segregation.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/womeninuniform/wwii_intro.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_World_War_II#United_Kingdom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_front
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_Fire_Service
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Raid_Precautions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Defence_Corps
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Voluntary_Service
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Royal_Naval_Service
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Auxiliary_Air_Force
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_Territorial_Service
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transport_Auxiliary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Operations_Executive Women's Land Army
https://plus.google.com/+antharch/posts/abnfNNTFr9s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Salvation_Army

Progress, Reversal - Women in WW1 ..

Women in Wartime ..

WW2 : British Women's Contribution To The War Effort - 1940's Educational Film - S88TV1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=513ZN8MzNcU


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLfzhyzk3_g > .
https://vimeo.com/39692006
Women in the Military - watm >> .

WW2 - Jam & Jerusalem
https://youtu.be/SLNuQNyeYh0?t=27m5s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denman_College

Women in War-time

An upbeat overview of British Women’s contribution to the war effort in both military and civilian capacities, featuring a speech by Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother).

http://film.britishcouncil.org/british-council-film-collection .
http://film.britishcouncil.org/women-in-war-time .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=513ZN8MzNcU .

Girls' & Women's services

ATA, WAAF
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL745-VcJ1xdVqZPWaS2vw1Wi-Kkitq0zL
ATS
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL745-VcJ1xdVNXCDVGvVG9LiIuuJvqySR
GTC - GTC, GNTC, WJAC
WAAF, ATA
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL745-VcJ1xdVqZPWaS2vw1Wi-Kkitq0zL
WRNS - Wrens
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL745-VcJ1xdUDNdlKmmXR8jiQ-wPG-3OC .

The women of the Second World War .
Australian women in WW2

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

MoI - Ministry of Information

MoI & British propaganda of the Second World War - naUK > .
Governmental Propaganda - Lewis >> .

Governmental Propaganda .. 
Ministry of Information .

Formed on September 4th 1939, the day after Britain's declaration of war, the Ministry of Information (MOI) was the central government department responsible for publicity and propaganda in the Second World War. The Ministry was located in Senate House at the University of London during the 1940s. The initial functions of the MOI were threefold: news and press censorship; home publicity; and overseas publicity in Allied and neutral countries.

Planning for such an organisation had started in October 1935 under the auspices of the Committee for Imperial Defence, largely conducted in secret; otherwise the government was publicly admitting the inevitability of war. Propaganda was still tainted by the experience of the First World War. In the ‘Great War', several different agencies had been responsible for propaganda, except for a brief period when there had been a Department of Information (1917) and a Ministry of Information (1918) Planning for the new MOI was largely organised by volunteers drawn from a wide range of government departments, public bodies and specialist outside organisations.

In the 1930s communications activities had become a recognised function of government. Many departments however had established public relations divisions, and were reluctant to give this up to central control. In early 1939 documents noted concern that the next war would be ‘a war of nerves' involving the civilian population, and that the government would need to go further than ever before with every means of publicity ‘utilised and co-ordinated', as it fought against a well-funded and established Nazi machine. Threatened by censorship, the press reacted negatively to the MOI, describing it as shambolic and disorganised, and as a result it underwent many structural changes throughout the war. Four Ministers headed the MOI in quick succession: Lord Hugh Macmillan, Sir John Reith and Duff Cooper, before the Ministry settled down under Brendan Bracken in July 1941. Supported by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the press, Bracken remained in office until victory was obvious.

The Ministry was responsible for information policy and the output of propaganda material in Allied and neutral countries, with overseas publicity organised geographically. American and Empire Divisions continued throughout the war, other areas being covered by a succession of different divisions. The MOI was not, in general, responsible for propaganda in enemy and enemy-occupied countries, but it did liaise directly with the Foreign Office. Responsibility for publicity in enemy territories was organised by Department EH (later part of the Special Operations Executive).

For home publicity, the Ministry dealt with the planning of general government or interdepartmental information, and provided common services for public relations activities of other government departments. The Home Publicity Division (HPD) undertook three types of campaigns, those requested by other government departments, specific regional campaigns, and those it initiated itself. Before undertaking a campaign, the MOI would ensure that propaganda was not being used as a substitute for other activities, including legislation.

The General Production Division (GPD), one of the few divisions to remain in place throughout the war, undertook technical work under Edwin Embleton. The GPD often produced work in as little as a week or a fortnight, when normal commercial practice was three months. Artists were not in a reserved occupation and were liable for call up for military service along with everyone else. Many were recalled from the services to work for the Ministry in 1942, a year in which £4 million was spent on publicity, approximately a third more than in 1941. £120,000 of this was spent on posters, art and exhibitions. Many extra designs were pre-prepared in order to cope with short lead-times and the changing events of war. Through the Home Intelligence Division, the MOI collected reactions to general wartime morale and, in some cases, specifically to publicity produced.

In March 1946, the MOI was dissolved. Its residual functions passed to the Central Office of Information (COI), a central organisation providing common and specialist information services.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/theartofwar/inf3.htm .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_propaganda_during_World_War_II .

War Ministries WW2 ..


Public Information Films 1/3 > .
Public Information Films 2/3 > .
Public Information Films 3/3 > .

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/theartofwar/inf3.htm .
https://history.blog.gov.uk/2014/09/12/chaos-and-censorship/ .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Information_(United_Kingdom) .
http://saynotothequo.blogspot.ca/2011/04/wwii-propaganda-wars-british-ministry.html .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Tallents .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Macmillan,_Baron_Macmillan .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Reith,_1st_Baron_Reith .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duff_Cooper .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Bracken,_1st_Viscount_Bracken .

Ministry of Information - public information films

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/theartofwar/inf3.htm
https://history.blog.gov.uk/2014/09/12/chaos-and-censorship/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Information_(United_Kingdom)
http://saynotothequo.blogspot.ca/2011/04/wwii-propaganda-wars-british-ministry.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Tallents

WWII Information Films
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3DF1E7F69CC6DEC3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Macmillan,_Baron_Macmillan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Reith,_1st_Baron_Reith
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duff_Cooper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Bracken,_1st_Viscount_Bracken
MoI - Public Information Films  - YouTube
Ministers of Information 1939–46
NameTerm of officePolitical partyPrime Minister
The Lord Macmillan4 September 19395 January 1940ConservativeNeville Chamberlain
(War Coalition)
Sir John Reith5 January 194012 May 1940National Independent
Duff Cooper12 May 194020 July 1941ConservativeWinston Churchill
(War Coalition)
Brendan Bracken20 July 194125 May 1945Conservative
Geoffrey Lloyd25 May 194526 July 1945ConservativeWinston Churchill
(Caretaker Min.)
Edward Williams4 August 194531 March 1946LabourClement Attlee

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Churchill

Tony >> B .
British History - thr >> .
Second World War - thr >> .

Churchill Chiefs of Staff ..
Churchill War Ministry ..
War Leaders versus Press ..
War Rooms ..

Churchill #ĠС .
Brendan Bracken > .

40-5-13 Churchill Victory House of Commons Speech > .
Winston Churchill . 1940-1945

41-12-22 Mr Churchill goes to Washington > .

43-1-14 Casablanca Conference > .

43-11-16 WWII: Tehran Conference - 1943, 28 Nov 16 > .
43-11-16 Big Three in Tehran > .

45-5-7 Winston Churchill with his chiefs of staff in the garden of No. 10 Downing Street on the day Germany surrendered to the Allies, 7 May 1945.

45-5-8 VE Day - Churchill's speech ..
45-5-8 VE Day - Churchill speech > .
45-5-8 VE Day ..
Fruits of Victory > .

45-7-5 UK general election ..How did Churchill lose the 1945 general election? > .

55-4-7 Churchill Resigns > .

Winston Churchill Got a Lot of Things Wrong, But One Big Thing Right: He contemplated using poison gas on German civilians. He wanted to keep England white. And more. But he had the quality Britain needed most at exactly the moment it was needed.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/winston-churchill-got-a-lot-of-things-wrong-but-one-big-thing-right

Winston Churchill - First Lord Of The Admiralty - WW1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMz3dO4EqiM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibst6OYUY88
"History Detectives - Red Herrings: Famous Words Churchill Never Said"
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-141/history-detectives-red-herrings-famous-words-churchill-never-said .

Tom Hiddleston "The Gathering Storm" >
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC1TjAQ9GCo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7I1X0Com_U
Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years > .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTzyAuFR60o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlO_0b5WHug
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCLiZxvQAYI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ymaigVpXgg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn2_U6MAn2g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9-U0hPIoo8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmsaki9Yr_w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvjIxxkBNfk

Winston & Brendan Bracken > .

War Leaders versus Press ..

Throughout the war, Churchill took little interest in government propaganda from a strategic point of view, since he believed that Hitler could be beaten only by armed force, not by words. However, he took an intense interest in how the press was depicting the government and him personally, amounting to an obsession.

Churchill would often phone the Ministry Of Information at midnight and demand that copies of the next day’s newspapers be sent over to Downing Street or Chequers for him to read in bed. He would scour each page for reporting that he considered disloyal and complain bitterly to Minister of Information Brendan Bracken – his former Parliamentary Private Secretary – who would then have to smooth things over with editors.

Churchill shared this dislike of the press with other members of his coalition War Cabinet, including Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Home Secretary Herbert Morrison. On several occasions Churchill and Morrison threatened full blown government regulation and censorship and on one occasion threatened to close down the Daily Mirror completely.
 ---

Would one like to verbally spar with Churchill? None dared.

Not all his insults were as thought provoking. Some were barbed curmudgeonly execrable retorts such as those directed at Neville Chamberlain. His decency and unwillingness to subject Britain to another world war, led him on the vain path of appeasement. In this approach, Hitler perceived weakness which he exploited.

Instead Churchill through inspired foresight recognised the rise of Nazism as a dire threat. To counter Chamberlain’s endeavours, he maligned Chamberlain mercilessly.

Here is a sample of those barbed sardonic comments: “He looked at foreign affairs through the wrong end of a municipal drainpipe.” On another occasion he noted, of Neville Chamberlain, “At the depths of that dusty soul there is nothing but abject surrender”. Finally Churchill quipped, “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last.

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Spring Offensive

.Spring offensive 1940 > .
 

The GPO Film Unit was a subdivision of the UK General Post Office. The unit was established in 1933, taking on responsibilities of the Empire Marketing Board Film Unit. Headed by John Grierson, it was set up to produce sponsored documentary films mainly related to the activities of the GPO.

Saturday, October 28, 2017

A-Tish-Oo! (1941-2)

1941 A Tish Oo! > .
Better quality (without irritating tabs) - Internet Archive > .

A [February] 1941 British film about how coughs and sneezes spread diseases. Some masks that can be worn to help stop the spread of diseases are shown. Produced by Verity Films for the Ministry of Information.

Why Londoners in the blitz accepted face masks to prevent infection – unlike today’s objectors ojectionables .

"For the countless Londoners driven into communal shelters by nightly German air raids, personal space had become a luxury. This was particularly so for those who sought shelter in the London underground. For its perceived subterranean safety, by the blitz’s peak, some 150,000 citizens were sleeping in tube stations.

Though the dangers of close personal contact were not the only thing on the minds of concerned public health officials, preventing epidemic disease in the overcrowded spaces of the tube stations was a major concern. The mask emerged as a common-sense solution to the problem of thousands of shelterers suddenly using the tube’s damp, poorly ventilated spaces as their nightly abodes.

Eager to prevent an epidemic before it started, the Ministry of Health set up an advisory committee to investigate conditions in air-raid shelters, with special reference to health and hygiene. The official call for masks came in December 1940, two months into the blitz and just as flu season was getting underway, in a white paper that recommended their use alongside a raft of other preventive health measures. British scientists conscripted to the Medical Research Council’s Air Hygiene Unit were convinced: the “principle of wearing masks for protection against droplet infection” was a sound practice.

The Ministry of Health endorsed three types of mask: the standard gauze type (similar to today’s homemade masks); a cellophane screen (like today’s visors, but only covering the mouth and nose); and the commercially available “yashmak” (in the style of the Muslim veil), for the “fashion conscious”. The ministry ordered 500,000 masks to be distributed as needed in the event of an epidemic and commissioned an instructional leaflet for shelterers.

British newspapers publicised the government’s new policy. On February 5 1941, the Times reported that Sir William Jameson, the chief medical officer, had endorsed the new masks, and, more colourfully, Ritchie Calder, a journalist for the Daily Herald tried one out in public. “After ten minutes yesterday my anti-flu ‘windscreen’ ceased to be a source of ribald remarks,” he reported. “People round me became used to seeing me working in what looked like a transparent eye-shade which had slipped down my nose.”

Predicting that masks would become “as commonplace as horn-rim glasses”, Calder wrote that he could even blow his nose with his mask on. The only thing he couldn’t do “in comfort”, he reported, was “have a cigarette”.
Sharp contrast

A short propaganda film commissioned by the Ministry of Information and released in February 1941 also saw the mask message as self-evidently good sense. “If the shelter doctor or nurse gives you a mask,” the narrator exhorted, “well, wear it!”
.....
Despite protests to the contrary, the source of the COVID-19 mask controversy is not rooted in longstanding concerns about individual rights or British character. We need to look elsewhere to find its source: to the general breakdown in communication and trust between experts, the government and [wrong-wing] members of the public, that became a mainstay of contemporary life well after the blitz had passed and has been exacerbated by the pandemic."
https://theconversation.com/why-londoners-in-the-blitz-accepted-face-masks-to-prevent-infection-unlike-todays-objectors-142021 .

Friday, October 6, 2017

War Leaders versus Press


Throughout the war, Churchill took little interest in government propaganda from a strategic point of view, since he believed that Hitler could be beaten only by armed force, not by words. However, he took an intense interest in how the press was depicting the government and him personally, amounting to an obsession.

Churchill would often phone the Ministry Of Information at midnight and demand that copies of the next day’s newspapers be sent over to Downing Street or Chequers for him to read in bed. He would scour each page for reporting that he considered disloyal and complain bitterly to Minister of Information Brendan Bracken – his former Parliamentary Private Secretary – who would then have to smooth things over with editors.

Churchill shared this dislike of the press with other members of his coalition War Cabinet, including Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Home Secretary Herbert Morrison. On several occasions Churchill and Morrison threatened full blown government regulation and censorship and on one occasion threatened to close down the Daily Mirror completely.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

>> Propaganda, DISinformation >>

Bubbles, Bias, Algorithms - Satya Ofuna >> .Censorship = Hiding Information - Alētheiai >> .
Commercial Propaganda - Guy >> .
DISinformation & Antisocial Media - Ræd Wald >> .
Truth Decay - DISinformation & Scapegoating - Alētheiai >> .

sī vīs pācem, parā bellum

igitur quī dēsīderat pācem praeparet bellum    therefore, he who desires peace, let him prepare for war sī vīs pācem, parā bellum if you wan...