The Impact of the Second World War on a London Borough: Bexley 1939-1945

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Jamie Albertsen

The Impact of the Second World War on a London Borough: Bexley 1939-1945

From studying the different sources of information about the Home Guard in Bexley, the reader can learn that people from all walks of life were enthusiastic and eager to be involved in helping to support their country.

Old soldiers were proud once again to be representing their country and organising their ranks.

The people banded together to form obstruction gangs that might be able to delay possible invasions by soldiers and tanks. Although their efforts were futile because of the lack of equipment, it kept the people’s morale high to think that they were doing something positive for their local community and country.

From looking at the information about the care of the community, the reader can learn that great care and attention was given to preparing for every worst possible event that might have happened within the Borough of Bexley.  Safety seemed to be one of the highest priorities and people were given plenty of information on safety precautions.

Preparations were made for passers-by in streets where there might have been air-raids.  Plenty of information was given to people who might like to be able to build their own shelters on their properties.  School children were well prepared in such things as using gas masks.  Local women were taught the skills of basic fire fighting and would in some areas do fire watching duties twice a week.

The Borough seemed to be prepared for the worst and even had an underground emergency hospital in Erith, so as to protect the sick and wounded in the event of a bombing raid.

From studying the sources about the different impressions of the effectiveness of the efforts to defend the Borough from enemy action, the reader can see two completely different sides of how the people were feeling.

On the one hand some people seemed to think that whatever they did, it would not be enough.  An example of this was in Source B when a        Mr Priest tried to form an obstruction gang to try to delay any invasion by soldiers or tanks.  Although the gang tried their hardest to build some sort device for this purpose, there were not many materials to allow them to do this.  The man making the comment reports “Our best effort was made from old scaffold poles and barbed wire and would not have harmed a “jeep” let alone a Panzer tank.”

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In source E an Erith resident describes how he refused to use his air raid shelter because he felt that “If I’m going to get hit, I’m going to get hit”.  He felt that he might as well be in bed and resting.  

By reading these two different accounts you can tell that although the first reporter would like to think he is doing something positive for his community, he is actually feeling negative about his actions and thinking that whatever he did would not have been any help in making the community a safer place.  The ...

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