Describe the Effects of the Blitz on Everyday Life in Britain

Authors Avatar

Oliver Tetlow

Describe the Effects of the Blitz on Everyday Life in Britain

The Blitz that lasted from 1940-41 had a huge effect on everyday life in Britain. It disrupted normal day life, affected businesses and the government, whilst destroying vast areas of industrial importance such as the East End of London, Coventry, the docklands and other major cities across Britain. The Blitz affected the whole British way of life.

It stopped the ability for British people to live. The bombing put the innocent civilians on the front line as there were no soldiers there to fight back to the attacks.

On the first night of bombing 430 people were killed. Over the complete 76 consecutive nights of bombing a massive 40,000 civilians were massacred. A total of 800,000 houses were demolished by German shells and other weaponry.

However daily life in Britain completely changed during the Blitz, although this was the only way that Britain could survive the bombing. Methods used to combat the bombing were to; build shelters disable use of lights, air raid wardens were introduced, children evacuated and everybody was registered with a ration book.

The effects of the bombing were not only destructive but also effected people psychologically as well as physically. The psychological effects were the thought of never waking up in the morning because of the bombing through out the night. Psychologically everyone was affected, by death and the thought of being made homeless with nowhere to go and losing loved ones. Physical effects were pretty obvious, being caught in attacks and being wounded by the bombing whether the injury was serious or not.

Join now!

Shelters were seen as the most important aspect of protecting yourself. The government decided to distribute shelters to the British public for them to rest in over night whilst the bombing took place. The shelters were simply delivered in parts and instructions were left to you to construct it wherever you may wish.

There were two different types of shelter, one common shelter which was for outside and the other for indoors. The Anderson shelter was the most common shelter, which was for outside. A whopping 2 million of these were distributed. As they were set up outside ...

This is a preview of the whole essay