I have to look at all the sources to see how the efforts affected different parts of the war and the next group of sources that I did look at were the air raids and bombing group. From B, E, D, H and I there are different types of sources, from official to unofficial. Source D is an official handbook about blackouts. It is quite reliable because it has been written by the Government and this may have made people think that it showed the effectiveness just because of who had written it. When reading the text they put on the handout, personally I think it illustrates how people were meant to black their houses out and it shows the actions but then again we do not know if people actually did this so although it informs people of what they had to do, it is ineffective. Secondly I studied Source E which is another official publication written by fords; because it is written by them it makes it efficient and extremely reliable. The piece of writing is about the fire brigade and it shows how they worked together and helped to win the war. It was quite an efficient source because it is saying that they worked to the best of their ability and that they affected everything in a positive way, they saw peoples houses being destroyed and families too, this meant they saw quite a lot of devastation so they were effective in helping the community. I also believe that this is true. The next source that I looked at that was under this category was source B which on the other hand is very different. It is a picture of some people in the Creekmouth Air Raid Patrol. Creekmouth is not in the borough of Barking and Dagenham which again could prove to be another problem because it means the people of this county are shown, so we don’t know if they would have been effective within their actions. This only shows them posing for a photograph, they are not in action and it doesn’t show the efforts they made and how effective they were. If I was to look at the photograph alone I would not think that what they had done had been very useful to the war situation, although they look as it they were trying to keep the moral up. The next source that I analysed was source H which shows which is a list of people who were killed. This links in with the fire brigade source because it shows the people who had died from these demolished houses. Although it is effective in showing the people who had died, it is not the most effective source to show how the efforts were effective. It is a list of people who have died, if I had to look at this on its own I would not know how effective the efforts of the borough of Barking and Dagenham. The next source that was under air crafts that I looked at to understand efforts that made a difference was source I. This is again a photographic source that shows the civic centre in Dagenham, it has been bombed. Although this shows how they went into buildings and it looks like they were helping by putting sandbags for extra protection it doesn’t shoe the proper efforts they made from this photograph. If this was the only source that I had from Barking and Dagenham, I would not believe that the efforts they made were effective. Source G is another list, but instead of showing only the families that died, it summed up the amount of bombs that were dropped and overall the amount of people that died. When studying this source I think that it does not show how their efforts were effective because they are only looking at the casualties, the bombs dropped and also the damage to the properties. Source I does not show a bomb attack, but it does show how the bombs caused terrible damage. This shows a family home that has been completed destroyed. Although this a piece of evidence from the war, it doesn’t show in any way that the efforts made were effective. It only shows a house that has been destroyed, and if this was looked at alone if would not be helpful. Source F shows a removal van picking up the remaining parts of bodies that were left after a devastating air raid. It is effective because it shows the actions they did in order to pick up the bodies but it also shows the measures they took when the public complained about the van they were using which was a garbage van. The reason that it could be ineffective is because it was recalled meaning they could have made parts up. The penultimate source that I used to help me understand how effective the borough were when it came to air raid was source K. this is the last piece of photographic evidence that is under this heading. It shows a bomb removal team that work for Fords. When I look at this source I think that this shows the efforts they made quite well because they are removing rubble and it shows how they dealt with the situation after the bomb had been dropped. The last source that shows the efforts made in the war is Q. This is an account that shows a factory that didn’t get out of time when an alarm went off. This could be seen as effective because it shows that they what the effective procedures were but they were unable to carry them out because they were not given a chance. To me this would show that the efforts made were effective but when some fctories did this they were not.
Source L is a photograph of Fanshawe School lining up ready to be evacuated. It shows how organised the school were and also how the process that they went through was always completed in an orderly fashion. With them lining up it also shows how they were equipped because they have all the possessions with them. Overall this shows that the evacuation process was effective in the way it was done. The next source that I studied was source M, again this is a photographic source that shows the children getting ready to get onto the boat. Although the source before demonstrated how the evacuation process was organised, this one doesn’t show this, there is no adult in the picture and everything is chaotic. This could suggest that the evacuation process was not effective therefore it does not show the efforts made. Source N is an account, the child has recalled this later on in life and this shows the actions that the parents and teachers took, they were lied to and it also shows how each experience was unique. Looking at this source I feel that the efforts were ineffective because it only shows one child’s experience. The last source that I looked at in this section was source O. This is an official publication that shows some of the measures taken within the war. It shows how they evacuated large numbers at a time and this is seen as a positive thing that could have been done at this time.
To conclude, I think that when the sources alone are looked at they show that the measures taken in the war were effective. With everything that happened Barking and Dagenham pulled together meaning that the amount of deaths was much lower than what it could have been. They had their own home guard that although they were portrayed in a bad way in many of these sources, must have done a good job because we did win.
