17 Feb London at War
London at War, WWII Book by Philip Ziegler
(1995) London at War: 1939-1945 by Philip Ziegler documents what was happening in the “greatest city in the world” during the wartime years.
For me, this book was an excellent early read of how London must have appeared to my mother when she arrived there in January of 1944. Londoners had already endured a couple of years of blackouts, bombings, and scarcities. But the “Yanks” had arrived and suddenly in spite of it all the theatres and restaurants were jammed. With was a lull in the bombing raids, there was excitement again.
Then on January 21st 268 tons of bombs fell on London. A week later they came again. This was the “Little Blitz,” and it went on into April.
By the end of May, most of London’s military was gone. The theatres, the restaurants, half empty.
Then came the buzz bombs, the V1’s, the flying bombs that Hitler sent in retaliation for the invasion. The first serious attack was the night of June 15th. During the day and during the night … as long as you heard the bomb you were okay. Once it stopped, take shelter!
Hedy left for Stockholm before the V2’s, Hitler’s “secret weapon” rockets started to come over.
The citizens of London had suffered through with remarkable resilience. Now, however, everyone was sure that the Allies would win the war so no one really understood why Hitler kept up the assault all the way to the end of March 1945. Londoners “were carrying on as before, but the air of a boom city, prosperous and gay, which London had early in the spring had completely disappeared.”
Ziegler writes of wartime London through the stories of the citizens who lived through it. He goes into the politics and government logistics, but what I enjoyed the most was reading about the experiences and challenges of everyday London.
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