In the 2nd World War there was a lot of propaganda. In a report made by a newspaper, it is clearly mocking the Germans when it says, “345 years old-can still take it”. This is referring to the Whitgift Almshouses, which was bombed yet “the Almshouses were still too tough.” This writer also puts the bad news to the end of the article, another form of propaganda, because if people are just scanning the article, people will pick out the big bold heading rather than the little text at the end of the document. At the end it says “Another bomb crashed through the roof of the Davis Theatre at the same time and killed six people and injured 25 others.” Also, it does not show the Allders store either which, according to the text was “shattered” but still they put a morale boosting picture on the page.
Keeping morale was very important just to keep the hopes of the public up. When you kept the people’s hopes then you kept the country together, otherwise people would have lost discipline and there may well have been a lot more deaths.
In a newspaper picture it shows the affects of a bomb on one house. It says “A bomb completely demolished a house” and then it goes on to say, “Adjoining property was hardly affected and no neighbouring windows were broken”. There is propaganda in this newspaper and this is when they state that although one house has been destroyed, the other houses have been “untouched” and this comment on its own, lets the public know that no other damage has been done to the area, making them feel a little more safe.
“War really came to Croydon on August 15, 1940 when Croydon Airport was attacked” they attacked here because it was a strong base and also it was “familiar to many German pilots from pre-war days”. This attack killed 62 people and wounded 172. Bombs were not just dropped on the airfield but also on the factories and houses surrounding the area. This report also gives the names, from which we can work out their sex, and addresses of the deaths. Although there are only 35 names we can assume that people working in the Croydon area had houses out of the borough or were in temporary housing. About 83% of the deaths were male and 17% were female. Also the age group, which had most deaths, was the 20 - 30 age group. There were about a third of the dead people in this age group. “Patrick Joseph HOGAN (22) of 3 Guildford Way, Wallington” was in both of the highest percentage catagories (Male and 20-30 years old).
This is a contrasting newspaper article on Friday 21st 1944, and there seems to be no censorship and explains the full extent of damage which the two bombs, dropped by a “lone raider”, created. In a cinema 6 were killed and 35 were injured, by the bomb. The other bomb was dropped on a department store, which cause “extensive damage with windows shattered”. It also goes on to say “traffic was diverted”. This is a straightforward truthful newspaper.
The reliability of this newspaper is nearly certain in my opinion because this is an English newspaper and is not going to over exaggerate the facts because that would lower morale, so we can assume it has gone against the censorship and published the facts. It may feel that the people have the right to know what is really going on in their area.
To help with these attacks, the government (Commercial ARP (Air Raid Patrol) Service) done its bit by handing out leaflets, with information to follow when there is an air raid. It tried everything to cut down on civilian casualties. The instructions were strict and every civilian was given a gas mask.
On 20th September 1940 homeless people were given advice and the government said, “Opportunities are still open in an evacuation area”. There are many things which you could have done, if you were homeless, to get over this problem, according to the report.
These reports are official and this means that they are absolutely reliable. We do not know whether these duties were carried out in an efficient way because it doesn’t tell us what happened after the advice was given to these people.
