WVS - Women's Voluntary Service for Civil Defence

WVS > .

1938-5-16 Women's Voluntary Services (WVS) from 1938 to 1966 ⇒ Women's Royal Voluntary Service (WRVS) from 1966 to 2004 ⇒ WRVS from 2004 to 2013 ⇒ Royal Voluntary Service.

On 16 May 1938, the British government set out the objectives of the Women's Voluntary Service for Civil Defence or Women’s Voluntary Services for Air Raid Precautions:

It was seen “as the enrolment of women for Air Raid Precaution Services of Local Authorities, to help to bring home to every household what air attack may mean, and to make known to every household [in the country] what it can do to protect itself and the community.”

In the words of Home Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare, "as regards their civil defence functions, the Minister regards the Women's Voluntary Service as occupying ... much the same relationship as that of the women's auxiliary services for the armed forces of the Crown."

Hidden army - WVS .
Hidden army video - WVS .

The Women's Voluntary Services was founded in 1938 by Stella Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading, as a British women's organisation to recruit women into the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) services to help in the event of War.

The WVS/WRVS was a voluntary organisation, and it was Lady Reading's vision that there would be no ranks. It was perhaps the only organisation where you could find a Duchess and a char lady working side by side. While many members of the WVS mucked in on pretty much all tasks, the idea of an organisation without a hierarchy would not have worked and so while there were no ranks, there were titles. Women were recruited for specific tasks, whether that was to drive ambulances, to be a member of a knitting work party or collect National Savings. Inevitably those women who signed up for one thing often ended up being co-opted for other work, especially if they showed aptitude.

The WVS was split into 12 Regions (using the same boundaries as Civil Defence) which started with 1 in the NE of England and moved clockwise down the country and back up. London was Region 12 and Scotland Region 11. Each Region had a Regional Administrator who was paid for by the Home Office. Under this each County had a County Organiser and 'staff' and below that were the Centres. During and after the Second World War, there were almost 2,000 WVS centres around Great Britain (as well as Northern Ireland during the war) each at the sharp end of providing help to their communities. Each was prominently positioned within a town or village and was run by a Centre Organiser appointed by Headquarters in London. Each Centre Organiser had a team of members who were responsible for different aspect of WVS work e.g. evacuation, Training, Food or Clothing. Under their direction were the 'ordinary' members.

The WVS played a key part in the evacuation of civilians from urban areas. The WVS had been asked to pinpoint areas of safety and billeting for evacuated children. Moving children out of the cities proved reasonably easy. Getting them to a known area of safety proved a lot more difficult as trains did not always arrive at an expected destination or would turn up at a reception point unexpectedly. The WVS is credited with helping to move 1.5 million people (the majority were children) out of cities in the early days of September 1939.

The WVS also played a major role in the collection of clothing required for the needy. In October 1939, Lady Reading broadcast to the United States about the need for clothing in the UK. The broadcast led to large quantities of clothing (known as "Bundles for Britain") being sent over to the United Kingdom by the American Red Cross. These were distributed from WVS Emergency Clothing Stores.

When troops returned to ports after the evacuation at Dunkirk, members of the WVS were there to greet them and hand out food, drink and warm clothing. The WVS base at the railway station in Headcorn, Kent was an especially busy place for feeding returning soldiers before they dispersed—a spit was installed so that meat could be roasted there and then. The WVS also played a vital part during the Blitz of London and other cities.

By the time of the Blitz, women in the WVS were adept at providing food and drink around the clock. While ARP wardens and firemen fought the fires, women in the WVS set up mobile canteens to keep them refreshed, thus placing themselves in serious physical danger with collapsing buildings a constant threat. When the raids ended, the WVS also played a part in looking after those who were injured and had lost their homes. Records indicate that the WVS dealt with and helped over 10,000 people every night of the Blitz.

As the Blitz lasted for 57 nights, the WVS helped in total a vast number of people who went to their rest centres. Some people stayed just for a night—many stayed for much longer and stretched the resources of the WVS to the limit. In Barnes, one WVS member fed 1,200 bomb victims in just one day, cooking in her own kitchen.

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the work done by the WVS during the Blitz: the rest centres provided shelter, food, and importantly, sanitation. But working so near to the centre of the bombing inevitably led to casualties. 241 members of the WVS were killed during the Blitz and many more were wounded. 25 WVS offices were destroyed.

The WVS began running IIPs (Incident Inquiry Points), places where people came to find out about their loved ones who were in an area that had been bombed in order to free the ARP to work with the fire brigade. The WVS also helped with the Queen's Messenger Food Convoys which took food to areas in need after a bombing raid. The people who survived the bombing of Coventry received help from one of the convoys with 14,000 meals being served.

By 1941, one million women belonged to the WVS. Their work did not slacken after the end of the Luftwaffe's bombing raids. The Battle of the Atlantic and the devastating toll of merchant ships sunk by U-boats led to shortages in Great Britain. The WVS did all that it could to assist in the collection of required material for the war effort and also to educate people not to waste what they had.

Each WVS centre had its own Salvage Officer and Food Leader. The Food Leader did whatever was required at a local level to assist the authorities in the complicated task of food rationing. Educational pamphlets were produced and lectures held. The WVS organised campaigns such as 'Salute the Soldier', 'Wings for Victory', 'Spitfire Funds' and Warship Week.

In the buildup to D-Day, the expertise the WVS had in catering was put to use again. The skills learned during the Blitz were again put to good use when the V1 and V2 rockets fell on London. Once again, the WVS played a key role in evacuation. With the success of D-Day, the WVS moved into Europe to support troops there. The first WVS abroad had landed in Italy with the success of the invasion there.

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

Women's Voluntary Service: 'The army Hitler forgot' .
https://www.royalvoluntaryservice.org.uk/about-us/our-history .
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1419318354/hidden-histories-of-a-million-wartime-women .
https://www.royalvoluntaryservice.org.uk/about-us/our-history/timeline-list .
https://www.mylearning.org/stories/women-at-war-the-role-of-women-during-ww2/480 .
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/categories/c54954/ .
http://www.caringonthehomefront.org.uk/search-the-library/volunteering/ .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/timeline/factfiles/nonflash/a6651894.shtml .
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/71/a3384371.shtml .

44-12-3 Home Guard Stands Down ..
Voluntary Organisations ..
Women's Institute .. 
Women's Voluntary Service .. 

Komsomol, post-WW2

.

23-10-1 Summer Paradise for Soviet [Pioneer] Children - Setarko > .

21-4-11 Pioneer Movement in USSR - How Young Soviets Were Raised  - Setarko > .

23-9-29 Hitler Youth | State-Mandated Patriotism vs Pioneers (subs) - Katz > .

22-3-13 Tsar Vlad's Юнармия (Yunarmiya) preps Russian Cannon Fodder - VisPol > .

History of the Cold War: Every Month - Dec '45 to Dec '91 > .

Entire History of the Cold War Explained | Life Guide > .

Cold War: Seven Minutes to Midnight | Wars of World > .

Stasi and the Berlin Wall | DW Doc > .

Berlin Wall: Escaping for Freedom and Love - Geographics > .

Reunification: Re-Absorbing East Germany After Fall of Berlin Wall - Megaprojects > .

German reunification – a short history | DW Doc > .

> Capitalism >>

> > Econopolitics > >

Thirty years after the collapse of the USSR, the martial rhetoric and other trappings of the "strong men" of the totalitarian era are making a comeback. Why? The film's director Ivo Briedis and the journalist Rita Ruduša were both born in the Soviet Union. Together, they embark on a journey to explore the phenomenon of Homo sovieticus. They want to know if a totalitarian mindset can still be found in countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union. The thinker Alexander Zinoviev defined as Homo sovieticus as a person who is, at their core, an opportunist. They [RWAs] do not rebel against their [SDO] leadership, and want to take as little individual responsibility as possible. Did these characteristics develop specifically as a result of growing up in the Soviet Union, or can they develop in any society? To find out, they speak with people who lived under the Soviet regime, as well as with members of the first post-Soviet generation.

Scouting, Hitlerjugend, Komsomol ..

Soviet Youth Organizations - Cold War ..

The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, usually known as Komsomol, a syllabic abbreviation of the Russian Коммунистический Союз Молодёжи (Kommunisticheskiy Soyuz Molodyozhi), was a political youth organization in the Soviet Union. It is sometimes described as the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), although it was officially independent and referred to as "the helper and the reserve of the CPSU".

The Komsomol in its earliest form was established in urban areas in 1918. During the early years, it was a Russian organization, known as the Russian Young Communist League, or RKSM. During 1922, with the unification of the USSR, it was reformed into an all-union agency, the youth division of the All-Union Communist Party.

It was the final stage of three youth organizations with members up to age 28, graduated at 14 from the Young Pioneers, and at nine from the Little Octobrists.

Active members received privileges and preferences in promotion. For example, Yuri Andropov, CPSU General Secretary (1982–1984), achieved notice through work with the Komsomol organization of Karelia in 1940–1944. At its largest, during the 1970s, the Komsomol had tens of millions of members.

During the early phases of perestroika in the mid-1980s, when the Soviet authorities began cautiously introducing private enterprise, the Komsomol received privileges with respect to initiating businesses, with the motivation of giving youth a better chance. The government, unions and the Komsomol jointly introduced Centers for Scientific and Technical Creativity for Youth (1987). At the same time, many Komsomol managers joined and directed the Russian Regional and State Anti-Monopoly Committees. Folklore quickly coined a motto: "The Komsomol is a school of Capitalism", hinting at Vladimir Lenin's "Trade unions are a school of Communism".

The reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev, perestroika and glasnost, finally revealed that the quality of Komsomol management was bad. The Komsomol, long associated with conservatism and bureaucracy, had always largely lacked political power. The radical Twentieth Congress of the Komsomol (April 1987) altered the rules of the organization to represent a market orientation. However, the reforms of the Twentieth Congress eventually destroyed the Komsomol, with lack of purpose and the waning of interest, membership, and quality of membership. At the Twenty-second Congress of the Komsomol in September 1991, the organization was disbanded. The Komsomol's newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda, outlived the organization and is still published (as of 2019).

A number of youth organizations of successor parties to the CPSU continue to use the name Komsomol, as does the youth organization of Ukrainian communists: Komsomol of Ukraine.

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

MHS - Ministry of Home Security

The Ministry of Home Security was a British government department established in 1939 to direct national civil defence (primarily tasked with organising air raid precautions) during the Second World War. The Ministry for Home Security was headed by Sir John Anderson the Home Secretary and Minister of Home Security. The Ministry's responsibilities covered all central and regional civil defence organisations (such as air raid wardens, rescue squads, fire services, and the Women’s Voluntary Service). It was also responsible for giving approval to local ARP schemes, and providing public shelters.

The Ministry (run under the auspices of the Home Office) produced hundreds of leaflets that were delivered to the population advising on how to deal with the impending air raids. It also managed propaganda poster campaigns to encourage, amongst other things, the carrying of gas masks and for volunteers to join civil defence groups like the Fire Guards.

In October 1940, Sir John Anderson was replaced by Herbert Morrison in a reshuffle precipitated by Chamberlain's resignation over ill-health. Anderson became Lord President of the Council and full member of the War Cabinet.

With the Allied victory in Europe the Ministry was disbanded in May 1945.
.......
John Anderson, 1st Viscount Waverley, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, PC, PC (Ire), FRS (8 July 1882 – 4 January 1958) was a British civil servant and politician who is best known for his service in the Cabinet during the Second World War, for which he was nicknamed the "Home Front Prime Minister". He served as Home Secretary, Lord President of the Council and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Anderson shelters are named after him.

.......

Herbert Stanley Morrison, Baron Morrison of Lambeth, CH, PC (3 January 1888 – 6 March 1965) was a BritishLabour politician who held a variety of senior positions in the Cabinet.

During the inter-war period, he was Minister of Transport during the 1929-31 Labour Government, then, after losing his seat in Parliament in 1931, became Leader of the London County Council in the 1930s. Returning to the Commons in 1935, he was defeated by Clement Attlee in the Labour leadership election that year, but later acted as Home Secretary in the wartime coalition.

In 1940, Morrison was appointed the first Minister of Supply by Winston Churchill, but shortly afterwards succeeded Sir John Anderson as Home Secretary. Morrison's London experience in local government was particularly useful during the Blitz, and the Morrison shelter was named after him. He made radio appeals for more fire guards in December 1940 ('Britain shall not burn').

Morrison had to take many potentially unpopular and controversial decisions by the nature of wartime circumstances. On 21 January 1941, he banned the Daily Worker for opposing war with Germany and supporting the Soviet Union. The ban lasted for a total of 18 months before it was rescinded.

The arrival of black American troops caused concern in the government, leading Morrison, the Home Secretary, to comment "I am fully conscious that a difficult social problem might be created if there were a substantial number of sex relations between white women and coloured troops and the procreation of half-caste children." That was in a memorandum for the cabinet in 1942. In 1942, Morrison was confronted with an appeal from the Central British Fund for German Jewry (now World Jewish Relief) to admit 350 Jewish children from Vichy France. Although Case Anton ensured the scheme's failure, Morrison had been reluctant to accept it beforehand, wanting to avoid provoking the ‘anti-foreign and anti-semitic feeling which was quite certainly latent in this country (and in some isolated cases not at all latent)’.

In 1943, he ran for the post of Treasurer of the Labour Party but lost a close contest to Arthur Greenwood.
......
During the Second World War Jacob Bronowski worked in operations research for the UK's Ministry of Home Security, where he developed mathematical approaches to bombing strategy for RAF Bomber Command.

War Ministries WW2 ..

MoF - Ministry of Food

Rationing In Britain - [US perspective] - IWM > .  

Mrs. T. And Her Cabbage Patch (1941) (approved by Ministry of Food) - BFI > .

Coping on Rationing .. 

https://www.cooksinfo.com/british-wartime-food/ .

Minister of Food

"The Minister of Food Control (1916–1921) and the Minister of Food (1939–1958) were British government ministerial posts separated from that of the Minister of Agriculture. In the Great War the Ministry sponsored a network of canteens known as National Kitchens. In the Second World War a major task of the Ministry was to oversee rationing in the United Kingdom arising out of World War II. The Minister was assisted by a Parliamentary Secretary.

The ministry's work was transferred in 1921 to the Board of Trade which had a small Food Department between the wars. This became its Food (Defence Plans) Department in 1937 and was then constituted as the Ministry of Food on the outbreak of war in 1939."

In April 1940 Lord Woolton, a prominent businessman, was appointed Minister of Food by Neville Chamberlain, one of a number of ministerial appointments from outside politics. Woolton retained this position until 1943. He supervised 50,000 employees and over a thousand local offices where people could obtain ration cards. His ministry had a virtual monopoly of all food sold in Britain, whether imported or local. His mission was to guarantee adequate nutrition for everyone. With food supplies cut sharply because of enemy action and the needs of the services, rationing was essential. Woolton and his advisors had one scheme in mind but economists convinced them to try point rationing. Everyone would have a certain number of points a month that they could allocate any way they wanted. They tried an experiment and it worked very well. Indeed, food rationing was a major success story in Britain's war.

In the dark days of late June 1940, with a German invasion threatened, Woolton reassured the public that emergency food stocks were in place that would last "for weeks and weeks" even if the shipping could not get through. He said "iron rations" were stored for use only in great emergency. Other rations were stored in the outskirts of cities liable to German bombing. When the Blitz began in late summer 1940 he was ready with more than 200 feeding stations in London and other cities under attack.

Woolton was faced with the task of overseeing rationing due to wartime shortages. He took the view that it was insufficient to merely impose restrictions but that a programme of advertising to support it was also required. He warned that meat and cheese, as well as bacon and eggs, were in very short supply and would remain that way. Calling for a simpler diet, he noted that there was plenty of bread, potatoes, vegetable oils, fats and milk.

By January 1941 the usual overseas food supply had fallen to half what it had been. However, by 1942 ample food supplies were arriving through Lend Lease from the U.S. and a similar Canadian programme. Lend Lease was a gift and there was no charge. Most food was now rationed. Worried about children, Lord Woolton made sure that by 1942 Britain was providing 650,000 children with free meals at schools; about 3,500,000 children received milk at school, in addition to priority supplies at home. The bad news was that his "national loaf" of mushy grey wholemeal bread replaced the ordinary white variety, to the distaste of most housewives. Children were sad to learn that supplies of sweets were reduced to save shipping space on sugar and chocolate.

Woolton kept food prices down; eggs and other items were subsidised. He promoted recipes that worked well with the rationing system, most famously the meatless "Woolton pie" which consisted of carrots, parsnips, potatoes and turnips in oatmeal, with a pastry or potato crust and served with brown gravy. Woolton's business skills made the Ministry of Food's difficult job a success and he earned a strong personal popularity despite the shortages."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_of_Food_(United_Kingdom)

4 September 1939 to 3 April 1940
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Morrison,_1st_Viscount_Dunrossil

3 April 1940 11 to November 1943

In April 1940 [Woolton] was appointed as Minister of Food by Neville Chamberlain, one of a number of ministerial appointments from outside politics. Woolton retained this position until 1943. He supervised 50,000 employees and over a thousand local offices where people could obtain ration cards. His ministry had a virtual monopoly of all food sold in Britain, whether imported or local. His mission was to guarantee adequate nutrition for everyone. With food supplies cut sharply because of enemy action and the needs of the services, rationing was essential. Woolton and his advisors had one scheme in mind but economists convinced them to instead try point rationing. Everyone would have a certain number of points a month that they could allocate any way they wanted. The experimental approach to food rationing has been considered successful; indeed, food rationing was a major success story in Britain's war.

In late June 1940, with a German invasion threatened, Woolton reassured the public that emergency food stocks were in place that would last "for weeks and weeks" even if the shipping could not get through. He said "iron rations" were stored for use only in great emergency. Other rations were stored in the outskirts of cities liable to German bombing. When the Blitz began in late summer 1940 he was ready with more than 200 feeding stations in London and other cities under attack.

Woolton was faced with the task of overseeing rationing due to wartime shortages. He took the view that it was insufficient to merely impose restrictions but that a programme of advertising to support it was also required. He warned that meat and cheese, as well as bacon and eggs, were in very short supply and would remain that way. Calling for a simpler diet, he noted that there was plenty of bread, potatoes, vegetable oils, fats and milk.

By January 1941 the usual overseas food supply had fallen in half. However, by 1942 ample food supplies were arriving through Lend Lease from the U.S. and a similar Canadian programme. Lend Lease was a gift and there was no charge. Most food was now rationed. Worried about children, he made sure that by 1942 Britain was providing 650,000 children with free meals at schools; about 3,500,000 children received milk at school, in addition to priority supplies at home. The bad news was that his "national loaf" of wholemeal brown bread replaced the ordinary white variety, to the distaste of most housewives. Children learned that sweets supplies were reduced to save shipping space.

Woolton kept food prices down by subsidizing eggs and other items. He promoted recipes that worked well with the rationing system, most famously the "Woolton pie", which consisted of carrots, parsnips, potatoes and turnips in oatmeal, with a pastry or potato crust and served with brown gravy. Woolton's business skills made the Ministry of Food's difficult job a success and he earned a strong personal popularity despite the shortages.

He joined the Privy Council in 1940 and became a Companion of Honour in 1942. In 1943 Woolton entered the War Cabinet as Minister of Reconstruction, taking charge of the difficult task of planning for post-war Britain and in this role he appeared on the cover of Time on the issue of 26 March 1945.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Marquis,_1st_Earl_of_Woolton

Ministry of Food - Rationing
https://plus.google.com/103755316640704343614/posts/5af393TbvMH

The Ministry of Food: Terry Charman explores Food Rationing in World War Two | Culture24

War Ministries WW2 ..

11 November 1943 to 26 July 1945
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jestyn_Llewellin,_1st_Baron_Llewellin

Farming: Make Fruitful The Land - 1945 Educational Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5oSmJpB6S4
Medieval 3-field rotation - introduced by Saxons
https://youtu.be/h5oSmJpB6S4?t=1m21s
18th century population explosion
https://youtu.be/h5oSmJpB6S4?t=2m35s
clover introduced from Flanders
https://youtu.be/h5oSmJpB6S4?t=3m17s
Norfolk 4-course rotation
https://youtu.be/h5oSmJpB6S4?t=4m12s
https://youtu.be/hQYpRhkkOKs?t=7m1s
https://plus.google.com/103755316640704343614/posts/hmnY2vHt9uM
Rotation - farming calendar 1940s
https://youtu.be/h5oSmJpB6S4?t=6m43s

The Butcher, The Baker - 1947 Educational Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9yw4Kgl-_g

Village Bakery (1940-1949) - silent, subtitles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4QAaqEsza8
Modern Bakery (1940-1949)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNVhqA_ULy4 .

Food Shortages ..

Ministers of Food (1939–1958)

Minister of Food

Name		Portrait	Term of office		Political party
	W. S. Morrison (subsequently Viscount Dunrossil)		4 September 1939	3 April 1940	Conservative
	The Lord Woolton		3 April 1940	11 November 1943	Independent
	Colonel J. J. Llewellin (subsequently Lord Llewellin)		11 November 1943	26 July 1945	Conservative
	Sir Ben Smith		3 August 1945	26 May 1946	Labour

Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei

22-10-6 Rise of Hitler, 1930s, Invasion of Poland | WWII. E 2 (subs) - Katz > .

24-10-2 Why Denazification Failed - IWM > .

23-8-21 A Democracy Without Democrats: Weimar Republic Explained - Used > .

23-7-17 Nazis: A Warning from History | BBC Select > .

22-10-3 Comparing Pootin to Hitler | Dream of the Great Past (subs) - Katz > .

22-10-21 The Rules Of War Must Not Be Broken (war crimes) - OBF > . skip > .

21-11-2 Describing Military Doctrine - Anders Puck Nielsen > .

Was Chamberlain wrong to appease Hitler? - IWM > .

Myth [Excuse] of the Nazi Police State - WW2 Doc Special > .

Rise of the Nazis - doc | BBC Select > .

1925-7-18 Adolf Hitler publishes first volume of 'Mein Kampf' - HiPo > .

Weimar Republic - Stab-in-the-Back Legend - doku > .

10 Times Fascism Overtook Democracy - Tenz > .

Weimar Republic and National Socialism - doku >> .

History of Fascism - Historian's Craft >> .

Weimar Republic and National Socialism - doku >> .

Anti-Nazism in Germany ..

Edelweiß Pirates ..

Eiserne Front und Drei Pfeile ..

Hitlerjugend ..

Nazis & Palestinian Arabs ..
Swingjugend & Counter-Culture Cool ..

Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei .

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

Nazi Germany - The Underground Resistance - Resistance to Hitler > .
Pockets of Resistance survived throughout the Nazi era. But in a climate of fear and almost absolute Nazi control, their efforts made little impact.

Nazi Germany >> .

Nazi Germany - Night of the Long Knives - Life in Hitler's Germany > .

Nazi Germany 2 >> .

Waffen SS > .

Nazi Fanatics The Waffen SS History Documentary > .

What is Fascism? (Political Philosophy) - Carneades > .

Political Philosophy - Carneades >> .

Gladiators of World War II Series >> .

The Schutzstaffel (SS; literally "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II. It began with a small guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz ("Hall Security") made up of NSDAP volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and given its final name. Under his direction (1929–45) it grew from a small paramilitary formation to one of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. From 1929 until the regime's collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, surveillance, and terror within Germany and German-occupied Europe.

The two main constituent groups were the Allgemeine SS (General SS) and Waffen-SS (Armed SS). The Allgemeine SS was responsible for enforcing the racial policy of Nazi Germany and general policing, whereas the Waffen-SS consisted of combat units within Nazi Germany's military. A third component of the SS, the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV), ran the concentration camps and extermination camps. Additional subdivisions of the SS included the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) organizations. They were tasked with the detection of actual or potential enemies of the Nazi state, the neutralization of any opposition, policing the German people for their commitment to Nazi ideology, and providing domestic and foreign intelligence.

The SS was the organization most responsible for the genocidal killing of an estimated 5.5 to 6 million Jews and millions of other victims in the Holocaust. Members of all of its branches committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II (1939–45). The SS was also involved in commercial enterprises and exploited concentration camp inmates as slave labor. After Nazi Germany's defeat, the SS and the NSDAP were judged by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg to be criminal organizations. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the highest-ranking surviving SS main department chief, was found guilty of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials and hanged in 1946.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel

Syndrome E .
A syndrome is a group of biological symptoms that together constitute a clinical picture. And E stands for evil. With Syndrome E, Itzhak Fried (1997, The Lancet) identified a cluster of 10 neuropsychological symptoms that are often present when evil acts are committed – when, as he puts it, ‘groups of previously nonviolent individuals’ turn ‘into repetitive killers of defenceless members of society’. The 10 neuropsychological symptoms are:

1. Repetition: the aggression is repeated compulsively.
2. Obsessive ideation: the perpetrators are obsessed with ideas that justify their aggression and underlie missions of ethnic cleansing, for instance that all Westerners, or all Muslims, or all Jews, or all Tutsis are evil.
3. Perseveration: circumstances have no impact on the perpetrator’s behaviour, who perseveres even if the action is self-destructive.
4. Diminished affective reactivity: the perpetrator has no emotional affect.
5. Hyperarousal: the elation experienced by the perpetrator is a high induced by repetition, and a function of the number of victims.
6. Intact language, memory and problem-solving skills: the syndrome has no impact on higher cognitive abilities.
7. Rapid habituation: the perpetrator becomes desensitised to the violence.
8. Compartmentalisation: the violence can take place in parallel to an ordinary, affectionate family life.
9. Environmental dependency: the context, especially identification with a group and obedience to an authority, determines what actions are possible.
10. Group contagion: belonging to the group enables the action, each member mapping his behaviour on the other.

Fried’s assumption was that all these ways of behaving had underlying neurophysiological causes that were worth investigating.

Note that the syndrome applies to those previously normal individuals who become able to kill. It excludes the wartime, sanctioned killing by and of military recruits that leads many soldiers to return home (if they ever do) with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); recognised psychopathologies such as sociopathic personality disorder that can lead someone to shoot schoolchildren; and crimes of passion or the sadistic pleasure in inflicting pain.
.....
Neuroscience gives an interesting physiological model of the emotion of empathy as a complex, dynamic process that unites executive, premotor and sensorimotor functions. It recruits, in particular, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the orbitofrontal context (OFC), with which the vmPFC overlaps in part, and which is crucial for the processing of emotions generated in the amygdala – an evolutionary ancient structure within the limbic system. Lesion to the OFC impairs emotional feeling – and with it, decision-making. With his ‘somatic marker hypothesis’, the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles has shown how bodily feelings that participate in signalling emotions, processed in the OFC and vmPFC, enable appropriate, socially situated decision-making, thereby informing our evaluations of the world, including our moral sense.

In the phenomenon of diminished affect, hyperactivity in these same areas of the frontal lobe inhibits activation of the amygdala. Studies have shown dysfunctional activity of the OFC in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder. It thus might also be involved in the obsessive nature of ideas about one group that justify murderous intent against its members. And the sense of elated hyperarousal – such as that induced by cocaine – that entrains action upon these ideas involves processing in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). In short, in cases of Syndrome E emotional pathways in the brain no longer regulate judgment and action. A breakdown occurs in the feedback between the amygdala and higher, cognitive cortical structures. The acting self splits away from the feeling self, a phenomenon that Fried calls ‘cognitive fracture’. He believes that, under given circumstances, about 70 per cent of the population can be subject to it and be able to take part in crimes as part of a group – as might have happened in the Stanford prison experiment, despite caveats regarding its results.
.......
The acting self of the individual with cognitive fracture feels no empathy. But empathy is not always a reliable guide to appropriate behaviour – we don’t feel empathy for the insects dying because of climate change, for instance, but we can decide rationally to act against the disaster. It can even lead to bad decisions with regard to those at whom it is directed – a surgeon who feels empathy for the patient under drapes should really not operate. There is such a thing as a surfeit of feeling. The psychologist Paul Bloom at Yale University has argued ‘against empathy’, in a 2016 book of that title and elsewhere, suggesting that ‘rational compassion’ is a better barometer with which to evaluate our environment and how we should act upon it. That is to say, members of a group whose mission is to kill its perceived enemies might have the ability for emotional empathy for their group, and no rational compassion for their perceived enemy.
.......
Along with what Fried calls this ‘catastrophic’ desensitisation to emotional cues, cognitive functions remain intact – another Syndrome E symptom. A torturer knows exactly how to hurt, in full recognition of the victim’s pain. He – usually he – has the cognitive capacity, necessary but not sufficient for empathy, to understand the victim’s experience. He just does not care about the other’s pain except instrumentally. Further, he does not care that he does not care. Finally, he does not care that caring does, in fact, matter. The emotionally inflected judgment that underlies the moral sense is gone.

Such a state involves the fusion of identity with a larger system within which occurs the splitting of the feeling self and the cognitive self, and the concomitant replacement of individual moral values with that system’s norms and rules. Chemistry is operative throughout, as it is in all cerebral and somatic functions – and tweakable by pharmaceuticals. The neuroscientist Trevor Robbins at the University of Cambridge has studied ‘pharmacoterrorism’, and how, for instance, the amphetamine Captagon – used, inter alia, by ISIS members – affects dopamine function, depletes serotonin in the OFC, and leads to rigid, psychopathic-like behaviour, increasing aggression and leading to the perseverance that Fried lists among the Syndrome E symptoms. It shuts off social attachment, and disables all emotional feeling (empathy included), a condition called alexithymia.
.......
The neuroscientist Mathias Pessiglione and his team in Paris have also shown a central role for vmPFC in value-attribution to a stimulus or an idea, whereby we choose to undertake an action based on its attractive reward or its aversive outcome. But when this function is overstimulated, new inputs – such as cries for mercy – have no impact on the attribution of value to the idea, for instance that ‘all you people deserve to die’, and action cannot change. It becomes automatic, controllable by an external agent or leader, independently of any sense of value.
......
Certain socio-psychological conditions in childhood – such as an absent father or an unstable mother, and a history of foster care – affected the development of identity, in some cases eventually leading to the need to subsume it into a wider group with a transcendental message. Again, group trumps family. As the anthropologist Scott Atran has shown, conflicts are often intractable and non-negotiable because they are conducted in the name of absolute, spiritual values – secular or religious – and not for any utilitarian outcome. These values can seem highly attractive – stronger than family ties.
https://aeon.co/essays/is-neuroscience-getting-closer-to-explaining-evil-behaviour

The lure of fascism: Fascism promised radical national renewal and supreme power to the people. Are we in danger of a fascist revival today?
Lying for science: Psychologists used to manipulate and deceive their subjects with impunity. Did the end justify the means?
https://aeon.co/essays/is-it-ok-for-psychologists-to-deceive-their-test-subjects

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

45-11-20 Nuremberg Trials Filmed 46-10-1 ..

Is neuroscience getting closer to explaining evil behaviour? | Aeon Essays

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichswehr
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf

Hitler & The Nazis: The Playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjMj2OmLNnZC8M6-wGmZuQdMnX83YkTaa

Lebensborn e.V. (literally: "Fount of Life") was an SS-initiated, state-supported, registered association in Nazi Germany with the goal of raising the birth rate of "Aryan" children via extramarital relations of persons classified as "racially pure and healthy" based on Nazi racial hygiene and health ideology. Lebensborn encouraged anonymous births by unmarried women, and mediated adoption of these children by likewise "racially pure and healthy" parents, particularly SS members and their families.

Initially set up in Germany in 1935, Lebensborn expanded into several occupied European countries with Germanic populations during the Second World War. It included the selection of "racially worthy" orphans for adoption and care for children born from Aryan women who had been in relationships with SS members. It originally excluded children born from unions between common soldiers and foreign women, because there was no proof of racial purity on both sides.

At the Nuremberg Trials, no evidence was found of direct involvement by the Lebensborn organization in the kidnapping of Polish children. However, Heinrich Himmler directed a programme with other segments of the Nazi bureaucracy, whereby thousands of Polish children were kidnapped and subjected to 'Germanisation'. Germanisation involved a period at one of the 're-education camps', followed by being fostered out to German families.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn

Nazi Germany - Introduction - The Rise of Hitler > .
next >> .

Evacuation Plans & Pied Piper

Protecting the Innocent - Kindertransport, Kids' Evacuations - Homefront - WW2 > .

38-12-2 - Arrival of Jewish refugee children in England - WELT > .

'36+ Central Government War Headquarters: '49 UK’s Secret Nuclear Bunker > .

skip ad > .

20th to 21st UK's Nuclear Contingency Plans (and Bunker) - TLDR > .

> CoG - Continuity of Government >>

CGWHQ - Central Government War Headquarters, Cold War ..

CoG - Continuity of Government ..

Although the upper levels of government would remain in London to act as a “nucleus” the plan was to evacuate the majority of civil servants, mainly to seaside resorts that would have empty hotel accommodation. In this way for example the Ministry of Agriculture established a major presence at Colwyn Bay. This was the “yellow move”, but a last ditch “black move” was also planned should London become unusable or threatened by invasion. Under this plan the nucleus would relocate to planned accommodation in the west midlands eg the War Cabinet would move to Hindlip House near Worcester and Parliament to Stratford-upon-Avon.
.......
The initial plan was to relocate the machinery of government to the suburbs of north and northwest London. A bombproof citadel known as PADDOCK was built at Dollis Hill for the War Cabinet with supporting bunkers at Cricklewood and Harrow. The bulk of the civil servants would be accommodated in neighbouring schools and colleges left empty by evacuation.

The plan was however changed. Now, the seat of government was to remain in London for as long as possible and protected accommodation was developed. The most famous was the bunker under the New Public Buildings (also known as George Street) which was partly occupied by the Cabinet War Room. Other citadels were developed, notably the Admiralty Citadel which was in fact built illegally on part of St James’s Park and the “Rotundas” which were built off Horseferry Road in the massive holes originally dug in the previous century for gas holders. As well as these citadels a series of reinforced “steel framed buildings” were constructed in central London.

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/features/government/

https://prezi.com/7vjabhizqnei/evacuation-of-british-children-during-wwii/

The evacuation of civilians in Britain during the Second World War was designed to protect civilians in Britain, particularly children, from the risks associated with aerial bombing of cities by moving them to areas thought to be less at risk. Operation Pied Piper, which began on 1 September 1939, officially relocated more than 3.5 million people. Further waves of official evacuation and re-evacuation occurred on the south and east coasts in June 1940, when a seaborne invasion was expected, and from affected cities after the Blitz began in September 1940. There were also official evacuations from the UK to other parts of the British Empire, and many non-official evacuations within and from the UK. Other mass movements of civilians included British citizens arriving from the Channel Islands, and displaced people arriving from continental Europe.

Government functions were also evacuated. Under "Plan Yellow", some 23,000 civil servants and their paperwork were dispatched to available hotels in the better coastal resorts and spa towns. Other hotels were requisitioned and emptied for a possible last-ditch "Black Move" should London be destroyed or threatened by invasion. Under this plan, the nucleus of government would relocate to the West Midlands—the War Cabinet and ministers would move to Hindlip Hall, Bevere House and Malvern College near Worcester and Parliament to Stratford-upon-Avon. Winston Churchill was to relocate to Spetchley Park whilst King George VI and other members of the royal family would take up residence at Madresfield Court near Malvern.

Some strained areas took the children into local schools by adopting the World War I expedient of double shift education—taking twice as long but also doubling the number taught. The movement of teachers also meant that almost a million children staying home had no source of education.
......
The Government Evacuation Scheme was developed during summer 1938 by the Anderson Committee and implemented by the Ministry of Health. The country was divided into zones, classified as either "evacuation", "neutral", or "reception", with priority evacuees being moved from the major urban centres and billeted on the available private housing in more rural areas. Each zone covered roughly a third of the population, although several urban areas later bombed had not been classified for evacuation. In early 1939, the reception areas compiled lists of available housing. Space for a couple of thousand people was found, and the government also constructed camps which provided a few thousand additional spaces.

In summer 1939, the government began to publicise its plan through the local authorities. They had overestimated demand: only half of all school-aged children were moved from the urban areas instead of the expected 80%. There was enormous regional variation: as few as 15% of the children were evacuated from some urban areas, while over 60% of children were evacuated in Manchester and Belfast and Liverpool. The refusal of the central government to spend large sums on preparation also reduced the effectiveness of the plan. In the event over 1,474,000 people were evacuated.

Refugee Children Movement - 38-12-2 ..

Evacuations of civilians in Britain during World War II - Wikipedia

Pied Piper

Mothers who waved goodbye: Evacuation in World War II > .  

Evacuees of the Second World War: Stories of children sent away from home - IWM > . 

Evacuation of children during the war | I Was There | WW2 > .
Protecting the Innocent - Kindertransport, Kids' Evacuations - Homefront - WW2 > .

38-12-2 - Arrival of Jewish refugee children in England - WELT > .

I Was There - BBC >> . 

 

The evacuation of civilians in Britain during the Second World War was designed to protect civilians in Britain, particularly children, from the risks associated with aerial bombing of cities by moving them to areas thought to be less at risk. Operation Pied Piper, which began on 1 September 1939, officially relocated more than 3.5 million people. Further waves of official evacuation and re-evacuation occurred on the south and east coasts in June 1940, when a seaborne invasion was expected, and from affected cities after the Blitz began in September 1940. There were also official evacuations from the UK to other parts of the British Empire, and many non-official evacuations within and from the UK. Other mass movements of civilians included British citizens arriving from the Channel Islands, and displaced people arriving from continental Europe.

Government functions were also evacuated. Under "Plan Yellow", some 23,000 civil servants and their paperwork were dispatched to available hotels in the better coastal resorts and spa towns. Other hotels were requisitioned and emptied for a possible last-ditch "Black Move" should London be destroyed or threatened by invasion. Under this plan, the nucleus of government would relocate to the West Midlands—the War Cabinet and ministers would move to Hindlip Hall, Bevere House and Malvern College near Worcester and Parliament to Stratford-upon-Avon. Winston Churchill was to relocate to Spetchley Park whilst King George VI and other members of the royal family would take up residence at Madresfield Court near Malvern.

Some strained areas took the children into local schools by adopting the WW1 expedient of double shift education—taking twice as long but also doubling the number taught. The movement of teachers also meant that almost a million children staying home had no source of education.
......
The Government Evacuation Scheme was developed during summer 1938 by the Anderson Committee and implemented by the Ministry of Health. The country was divided into zones, classified as either "evacuation", "neutral", or "reception", with priority evacuees being moved from the major urban centres and billeted on the available private housing in more rural areas. Each zone covered roughly a third of the population, although several urban areas later bombed had not been classified for evacuation. In early 1939, the reception areas compiled lists of available housing. Space for a couple of thousand people was found, and the government also constructed camps which provided a few thousand additional spaces.

In summer 1939, the government began to publicise its plan through the local authorities. They had overestimated demand: only half of all school-aged children were moved from the urban areas instead of the expected 80%. There was enormous regional variation: as few as 15% of the children were evacuated from some urban areas, while over 60% of children were evacuated in Manchester and Belfast and Liverpool. The refusal of the central government to spend large sums on preparation also reduced the effectiveness of the plan. In the event over 1,474,000 people were evacuated.

https://prezi.com/7vjabhizqnei/evacuation-of-british-children-during-wwii/ 

Refugee Children Movement - 38-12-2 ..

Evacuations of civilians in Britain during World War II - Wikipedia .

Refugee Children Movement - 38-12-2

Kindertransport: A Journey to Life - BBCn > .

December 2nd 1938: Nearly a month after the infamous Kristallnacht, the Nazi November- pogrom in Germany, the first transport of Jewish refugee children from Berlin arrives in the United Kingdom. The number having been around 200 people in the beginning, the figures rose steadily in the years ahead. Between December 1938 and September 1939 a total of 10,000 children were taken in by the United Kingdom. These children not only came from Nazi Germany but also from Austria, Poland and Czechoslovakia. The so-called "Refugee Children Movement" was a desperate attempt to rescue at least part of the Jewish population before the Holocaust. Most of the evacuated children were to never see their parents again.

The Kindertransport (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from Nazi Germany, Nazi-occupied Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland, and the Free City of Danzig. The children were placed in British foster homes, hostels, schools and farms. Often they were the only members of their families who survived the Holocaust. The programme was supported, publicised and encouraged by the British government. Importantly the British government waived all those visa immigration requirements which were not within the ability of the British Jewish community to fulfil. The British government put no number limit on the programme – it was the start of World War II that brought the programme to an end, at which time about 10,000 kindertransport children had been brought to the United Kingdom.

The term "kindertransport" is also sometimes used for the rescue of mainly Jewish children, but without their parents, from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia to the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. An example is the 1,000 Chateau de La Hille children who went to Belgium. However, often, the "kindertransport" is used to refer to the organised programme to the United Kingdom.

World Jewish Relief (then called the Central British Fund for German Jewry) was established in 1933 to support in whatever way possible the needs of Jews both in Germany and Austria. Records for many of the children who arrived in the UK through the Kindertransports are maintained by World Jewish Relief.

The British Kindertransport programme was unique – no other country had a similar programme. In the United States, the Wagner–Rogers Bill was introduced in Congress, but due to much [xenophobic] opposition, it never left committee.

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

What was Kindertransport? BBC.

Kindertransport ..

Spousal Separation

.Wives – What Soldiers Left Behind - WW2 - On the Homefront > .

Bomb Sight Site

.Why the V1 Flying Bomb couldn't turn the tide of WW2 - IWM > .

The Blitz, V1s, V2s

BOMB SIGHT SITE
http://www.bombsight.org/#15/51.5050/-0.0900

First striking Britain in September 1944, V2 - V for 'vengeance weapon - was Hitler's last throw of the dice
Around 1,500 'vengeance weapons' were fired at London and the south east, ultimately leaving around 7,250dead
The rockets used astonishingly advanced technology to shoot 50 miles into air, before arcing in a 120-mile trajectory
Unlike the predecessor the V1, you could not see - or hear - a V2 coming as it travelled faster than the speed of sound
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2750353/Interactive-map-reveals-hundreds-sites-Hitler-s-V2-rockets-killed-thousands-British-civilians-final-months-WW2.html

The Blitz refers to the strategic bombing campaign conducted by the Germans against London and other cities in England from September of 1940 through May of 1941, targeting populated areas, factories and dock yards.

The first German attack on London actually occurred by accident. On the night of August 24, 1940, Luftwaffe bombers aiming for military targets on the outskirts of London drifted off course and instead dropped their bombs on the center of London destroying several homes and killing civilians. Amid the public outrage that followed, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, believing it was a deliberate attack, ordered Berlin to be bombed the next evening.

About 40 British bombers managed to reach Berlin and inflicted minimal property damage. However, the Germans were utterly stunned by the British air-attack on Hitler's capital. It was the first time bombs had ever fallen on Berlin. Making matters worse, they had been repeatedly assured by Luftwaffe Chief, Hermann Göring, that it could never happen. A second British bombing raid on the night of August 28/29 resulted in Germans killed on the ground. Two nights later, a third attack occurred.

German nerves were frayed. The Nazis were outraged. In a speech delivered on September 4, Hitler threatened, "...When the British Air Force drops two or three or four thousand kilograms of bombs, then we will in one night drop 150-, 230-, 300- or 400,000 kilograms. When they declare that they will increase their attacks on our cities, then we will raze their cities to the ground. We will stop the handiwork of those night air pirates, so help us God!"

Beginning on September 7, 1940, and for a total of 57 consecutive nights, London was bombed. The decision to wage a massive bombing campaign against London and other English cities would prove to be one of the most fateful of the war. Up to that point, the Luftwaffe had targeted Royal Air Force airfields and support installations and had nearly destroyed the entire British air defense system. Switching to an all-out attack on British cities gave RAF Fighter Command a desperately needed break and the opportunity to rebuild damaged airfields, train new pilots and repair aircraft. "It was," Churchill later wrote, "therefore with a sense of relief that Fighter Command felt the German attack turn on to London..."

During the nightly bombing raids on London, people took shelter in warehouse basements and underground (subway) stations where they slept on makeshift beds amid primitive conditions with no privacy and poor sanitation facilities.

Other British cities targeted during the Blitz included; Portsmouth, Southampton, Plymouth, Exeter, Bristol, Bath, Cardiff, Birmingham, Coventry, Nottingham, Norwich, Ipswich, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, Hull, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Newcastle and also Glasgow, Scotland and Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Hitler's intention was to break the morale of the British people so that they would pressure Churchill into negotiating. However, the bombing had the opposite effect, bringing the English people together to face a common enemy. Encouraged by Churchill's frequent public appearances and radio speeches, the people became determined to hold out indefinitely against the Nazi onslaught. "Business as usual," could be seen everywhere written in chalk on boarded-up shop windows.

By the end of 1940, German air raids had killed 15,000 British civilians. One of the worst attacks had occurred on the night of November 14/15 against Coventry, an industrial city east of Birmingham in central England. In that raid, 449 German bombers dropped 1,400 high explosive bombs and 100,000 incendiaries which destroyed 50,000 buildings, killing 568 persons, leaving over 1,000 badly injured. The incendiary devices created fire storms with super-heated gale force winds drawing in torrents of air to fan enormous walls of flames.

In London, on the night of December 29/30, the Germans dropped incendiaries resulting in a fire storm that devastated the area between St. Paul's Cathedral and the Guildhall, destroying several historic churches. Other famous landmarks damaged during the Blitz included Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and the Chamber of the House of Commons. The Blitz climaxed in May of 1941, leaving 375,000 Londoners homeless.

However, the RAF, utilizing newly developed radar, inflicted increasingly heavy losses on Luftwaffe bombers. British Fighter Command was able to track and plot the course of German bombers from the moment they took off from bases in Europe. RAF fighter planes were then dispatched to attack the incoming bombers at the best possible position. As a result, the Luftwaffe never gained air supremacy over England, a vital prerequisite to a land invasion. Failure to achieve air supremacy eventually led Hitler to indefinitely postpone Operation Sealion, the Nazi invasion of England, in favor of an attack on the USSR. The Blitz came to an end as Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe transferred to eastern Europe in preparation for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the USSR.

In all, 18,000 tons of high explosives had been dropped on England during eight months of the Blitz. A total of 18,629 men, 16,201 women, and 5,028 children were killed along with 695 unidentified charred bodies.
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/about-blitz.htm

Bombing of Britain
https://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/collegeofhumanities/history/researchcentres/centreforthestudyofwarstateandsociety/bombing/THE_BOMBING_OF_BRITAIN.pdf

The Blitz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz

The Blitz and World War Two
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/world-war-two-in-western-europe/britains-home-front-in-world-war-two/the-blitz-and-world-war-two/

VIDEOS
The First Day Of The Blitz (Documentary)
44:00 min
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtZema1yjOk
The Blitz : London's Longest Night 1/2
45:19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFlIY-YVB8s
The Blitz : London's Longest Night 2/2
40:40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCdIyRoK_2U

The London Blitz, 1940
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/blitz.htm

West End Blitz
http://www.westendatwar.org.uk/page_id__152_path__0p2p.aspx

Disaster at Balham Tube station
http://ww2today.com/14th-october-1940-disaster-at-balham-tube-station

German bombing of Coventry
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-33986317

Remembering WWII blitz on Coventry
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11741315

Morning after Coventry blitz
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-34796057

Battle of Britain
http://www.battleofbritain1940.net/0029.html

The Battle of Britain, 1940
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/airbattle.htm

Clapham Common shelters now
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/gimme-shelter-the-last-of-the-capital-s-second-world-war-bunkers-is-up-for-rent-9244731.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3143564/Growing-underground-Forgotten-World-War-Two-bomb-shelter-100ft-tube-tunnels-world-s-subterranean-farm.html .