The People's War

Air Raid siren, c. 1940

Brighton and hove in Pictures

At the start of World War Two, the country made preparations for Total War.

On this page and in Preparations for Invasion, Air raid shelters, Fire-watching, and Identity cards you can explore the memories of how local people prepared for War.

You can download The People's War and its accompanying pages by clicking here (PDF format).

I was on the hill watching the lark after I heard that the war had started on that fateful Sunday. I had been there quite a long time when suddenly with an almighty swoosh three planes came swooping in over the cliff top and came very close to the ground on the hill. Of course I thought they were Germans and jumped up, taking to my heels and getting back home in no time, but afterwards found these planes to be Spitfires. I had never seen one before as we only had a few. I remember afterwards selling flags in the High Street for the Spitfire Fund and after that seeing many of these planes in dog fights over the coast.
Margaret Ward - Memories of Rottingdean

War broke out at the beginning of September 1939 but for roughly eight months it was all quiet on the Home Front as the uniformed civilians, who made up the greater part of the armed forces, called it. But when the German tanks over-ran Belgium and France in May 1940, the epic retreat of the British army from Dunkirk brought the Kent and Sussex coasts right into the firing line of the war in the air.
Michael Corum in Brighton behind the Front

It was almost impossible for anyone living in Britain during the Second World War to avoid the war. It was a Total War for the British people, not as total as the war was for Jewish families living in Warsaw and Paris, or for the unlucky refugees caught in the fire-storm of Dresden, but the Second World War has rightly been called 'The People's War'.

Wars fought by the British in the nineteenth century in distant parts of the world tended to be spectator sports for the civilian population. More British soldiers were killed in the First World War that in the second, but this situation is reversed when it comes to civilian casualties. The German conquest of mainland Europe and the advent of bomber aircraft meant that civilians found themselves in the front-line and were no longer merely spectators.

The Second World War presented people with a variety of experiences very different from the tradition of men going off to war, with the women and children waiting at home. In 1940, during the Blitz on London, men conscripted into the army from the East End found themselves safe in military camps, while their families were being bombed. During this same period opinion polls showed that the public considered that the Air Raid Precautions, fire and ambulance services were all playing a more important and dangerous role than the army in the war effort. This is not to deny the traditional horrors of war endured by the bomber crews, infantrymen, merchant sailors and many others who fought the enemy directly.
Michael Corum in Brighton behind the Front