How useful are sources B and C in helping you to understand the effects of the Blitz on people in Britain? (10)

However Source B is only partly useful because it only shows one photograph of one incident at Catford Girls school in January 1943. From Source B we cannot see the damage to the school and it also does not show how many people were killed. From the photograph we can see that the fence by the side and the wall and the buildings behind were not damaged by the air raid. This suggests that Catford Girls School might have been purposely targeted to be raided but this is not very likely since it would have been very difficult. The source also does not suggest if there were any other targets e.g. factories or docks and it also does not imply if the air raid was an accident or not. The photograph is of limited use in showing the full effects of the Blitz on all the people in Britain. The source does not even show the full effects on the people in London.

Source C is a photograph of people looking happy and showing thumbs up. It is a photograph showing the positive aspects of the Blitz. It is dated 15th September 1940 with the caption, ‘British grit’ which shows it was a propaganda source.

The source illustrates soldiers and civilians in the aftermath of a bombing raid. The source also hints at the damage to buildings and furniture; ‘their houses are wrecked’ but this is not clearly shown. The number of people and the number of possessions suggests the hh air raid caused extensive damage. The source would be very useful as an example of Government propaganda very early in the Blitz because it shows the people’s determination despite the extensive damage suffered. The photograph also implies that the civilian morale was high since we can see no panic in the photograph, suggesting that community sprit was good. However Source C is only partly useful because it is posed propaganda photograph. It is posed because all the people are smiling, showing thumbs up and there are absolutely no physical injuries. The photograph is also taken from a  high angle and it is not a realistic response. The photograph is merely intended to keep morale high and to illustrate ‘British grit’. I believe that source C is not very useful in helping us to understand the effects of the Blitz but the source does show that extensive damage done by the bombings. We can see this because of the number of people and possessions in the photograph. The source is only one photograph of one incident in a part of  London in the first week of the Blitz. The photograph was and probably cut down to cut out the damaged buildings to keep morale high. Like source B, the source cannot illustrate the effects of the Blitz on all British people and it is very limited in showing the full effects of the air raid throughout London and Britain.

In conclusion, sources B and C are partly useful in helping us to understand the effects of the Blitz on people in Britain. Source B would come in more useful since it shows the horrific effect of the air raid and is an example of censorship, whereas Source C shows how they posed a photograph illustrating the effects of the Blitz for propaganda purposes.