History UsefulNotes / TheHomeFront

In December of 1939, with U-boats again on the prowl, Parliament commissioned a study to see if the population of the home islands could survive entirely on the food produced locally. Dietitian Elsie Widdowson and paediatrition Alex McCance used harvest data from 1938 to design and then test a hypothetical food program for every citizen of the isles. The good news: the home isles could produce enough food to feed the entire population of the United Kingdom and prevent hunger and starvation! The bad news: Due to the reliance on unlimited potatoes, vegetables, and whole grain breads, people [[{{Fartillery}} would need to get used to some unpleasant trips on the tube every morning.]] With the results of the study in hand, Britain introduced rationing in January of 1940 since 70% of its foodstuffs were imported and the Germans were attempting to implement a blockade of their own. All of Europe, including the neutral countries, followed and implemented rationing for the duration of the war. The severity of rationing varied greatly: Germany, for example, imposed a strict but very generous rationing law until 1943, in order to keep up civilian morale, until losses on the Eastern front finally convinced them to belatedly mobilize all of their economic resources for war.

Throughout Europe rationing of grain and all other foods continued long after the war's end due to the wartime devastation of European agriculture. In Britain, bread was first rationed in 1946 because of delayed after-effects of the massive 1940-45 downswing in European agricultural production (specifically French, Benelux, German, and Soviet production) caused in large part by the Germans' wholesale acquisition of untold millions of farm-horses and tens of thousands of trucks and tractors. Bread rationing lasted until 1948. It was not until 1954 that the last items (meat, bananas, and a few other foodstuffs) stopped being rationed.

* Beer was not rationed (bad for morale), but was frequently watered down, otherwise limited, or just plain unavailable. With France occupied by and Italy allied with ThoseWackyNazis, wine was {{Unobtainium}}.

Naturally, this led to [[BlackMarket black marketeering]].

Apple crumble and carrot cake were two recipes popularized due to the necessities of rationing.

This would have been very difficult. Britain could replace planes and pilots faster than Germany could, with the added bonus that an RAF pilot who bailed out could be returned to the fray, whereas a Luftwaffe one was permanently lost to the Germans. Even if the Luftwaffe had gained aerial superiority, it would have been likely to be a fleeting victory and it's capacity for attacking the Home Fleet (which, by itself, was still comfortably more powerful than the entire German Navy - even with the rest of the Royal Navy being engaged in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean) was totally abysmal, something cemented by the scuttling of the French Fleet at Toulon in 1942. However, the disabling of runways (by making large holes in them with bombs, for example) could easily have led to a downward spiral: fewer runways means fewer planes in the air, meaning more bombers get through to destroy runways, until you run out of runways and the remaining planes start getting destroyed on the ground.

But even more important than the radar network was the extremely sophisticated intelligence system that forwarded information from the radar stations (and an even larger network of ground observers) to "Sector Stations" where it was collate and analyzed before being forwarded it to the central station at Bentley Priory where all available information was plotted on large maps. This allowed the RAF manage their resources [[IncrediblyLamePun "on the fly"]] and pick-and-choose which forces to engage, ensuring lower losses and good odds in every engagement. The Germans never even conceived of anything anywhere near as sophisticated and it was only matched by the US Navy's "Big Blue Blanket" Combat Information Centers in the final months of the war.

As the high-intensity operations dragged on these factors became even more important than either side's chosen tactics or even their policies on the use of combat-methamphetamines, which only ''delayed'' the need for sleep and could not eliminate it. Of course, loose lips sink aircraft, and Britain didn't want the Luftwaffe to know just how important an effective and efficient RADAR system had been to their operations, so they publicly proclaimed that [[http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/carrots.asp the pilots had very good eyesight from eating carrots]]. Carrots suddenly became very popular in Britain, and while the Luftwaffe didn't swallow that particular lie it did give credence to the idea that they had underestimated the Commonwealth's aircraft-production capabilities.

Although the Chain Home stations were expensive and crude, this meant that they could be built using parts built in recently re-tooled factories - allowing them to be finished before The Battle of Britain - and were relatively reliable and easy to maintain. It became apparent to Luftwaffe intelligence that the effectiveness of the British defence was at least partly down to the RADAR installations, rather than just raw numbers, but they (accurately) determined that it would've been a waste of time to attempt to destroy the installations. Later in the war the US Army Air Force came to pride itself upon the accuracy it displayed as a product of the good bomb-sights on its 'planes and their insistence on daytime-bombing, often touting the term 'precision-bombing'. However, their definition of 'precision bombing' was 'landing 2% of bombs within 50m of the target', with each bomb having a blast radius of (considerably) less than 50m to boot. Early-war bombing was considerably less accurate than that.

It was during this period that King George VI and his queen, Elizabeth (no, not [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethI that one]] or [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethII that one]]) supposedly won the enduring devotion of their people; the King vowed to remain in London "[[InItsHourOfNeed for the duration]]," and, despite his stutter, made a series of wartime broadcasts that helped keep morale up even as bombs rained over southern England. Buckingham Palace was bombed at the height of the Blitz, and the Queen Mother cemented her place in the hearts of the British people forever with the quote, "Finally. Now I can look the [heavily bombed] East End in the face." She also said, when asked why the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret were not sent to the relative safety of the Commonwealth -- after all, the Dutch royals-in-exile had sent their Queen and princesses to Canada -- that "The children won't go without me. I won't leave the King. And the King will never leave."

It was more than the British citizenry and the Commonwealth being impressed by (or suitably dubious of) the Ministry of Information's StiffUpperLip portrayal of the British people's general reaction to the whole affair; the Americans, whom Winston Churchill desperately hoped would help, were watching this grand drama themselves. At first, people like US Ambassador Joe Kennedy brusquely wrote off the UK as doomed and American isolationists like Charles Lindbergh did everything in their power to persuade Americans that the British were going to be a bunch of Jewish duped pushovers to the unstoppable Nazi war machine, so the USA should just let them fall. However, great American reporters on assignment in the UK like Edward R. Murrow knew better as they breathlessly sent back inspiring stories of the indomitable British character determined to endure war's trials and then strike back. Slowly, Britain learned that Americans were more and more coming on to their side as US President UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt got the political ammunition he needed to send help.

The blackout affected German strategy- particularly with the use of incendiary bombs. They aimed to cause fires to guide the conventional bombers.

Everyone in the country was issued with gas masks, required to be carried at all times. There were "Mickey Mouse" red masks for children and gas mask drills at schools. The latter weren't taken too seriously- you could make rude noises by blowing through the rubber.

Postboxes were painted so they would change colour if gas was present. They were never needed. The German Army was even more dependent on horse-transport than the British were, and Germany itself was far less well-prepared for gas attacks than the British Isles were. Moreover [[PragmaticVillainy British retaliation-in-kind upon German civilians would have made The Party very unpopular]].

A quick note on the singularly creepy ''Series/DoctorWho'' example referenced -- the gas masks in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E9TheEmptyChild "The Empty Child"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E10TheDoctorDances "The Doctor Dances"]] are historically inaccurate, as civilian masks had only a single visor in the adult version. These were made for the show -- masks for the period have asbestos in.

Ultimately, the level of labour unrest was directly related to the danger that people felt they were in, as people's wartime conditions were generally just as if not more unpleasant than prewar conditions. Although wartime laws prevented employers from firing anyone without wading through a small sea of red tape and government approvals (which were generally only forthcoming for criminal activity), they also prevented people from leaving the so-called 'Essential Industries' (related to weapons-production) without doing likewise. There was also plenty to complain about as the shifts were generally very long (up to 10 hours a day six days a week), travel-time was not accounted for (when for some it could add another 4 hours daily), the demands of running your household were not accounted for (regardless of whether you were a single man living alone or a mother with twelve children), and some people were paid more than others for various and often dubious reasons (such as women, who received 2/3 pay for all jobs in government service).

Like its contemporaries in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, by 1942 the [=MoI=] had fully come around to the view that a 'pure' entertainment work with a well-crafted and desirable message was better at influencing public opinion than an EdutainmentShow. This was particularly the case with films, which were extremely expensive investments and so subjected to a high degree of scrutiny. Perhaps the most famous film to be approved and funded by the [=MoI=] was Film/AMatterOfLifeAndDeath (1945). This was thought useful because it promised to have a high entertainment value and prominently featured life-saving romantic love and friendship between British and American characters, which it was hoped would promote Anglo-American trust and goodwill in the postwar period.

However, the semi-official "soldiers' shows" which evolved on an ad-hoc basis as local entertainment for the troops, in which talented servicemen performed to entertain their mates and keep morale up, spawned an entire generation of talent who after demob became the mainstays of British entertainment until superseded in the 1960's and 1970's by the ''Creator/MontyPython'' generation. Artistes who honed their craft on their mates included Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers, Tommy Cooper, Norman Vaughan, and many others. ''Radio/TheGoonShow'', cited as a seminal influence on later British comedy, had its origins in UsefulNotes/WW2 as a satirical reaction to the petty indignities and Colonel-Blimp-like leadership imposed by the armed forces

Britain's full mobilization also extended to the arts and sciences. Unlike FascistButInefficient Germany, where the research efforts were often uncoordinated and scattered amongst various competing interests, England mobilized Academia for the duration. Their first task, a comprehensive review of old lab notebooks to see if anything useful had been overlooked, produced penicillin -- the original experiment being written off in the 1920s as a failure. Anything promising was promptly re-investigated; Promising research they lacked the time or resources to follow up on was sent to the United States -- national survival trumping national interest for the duration. The brilliant codebreakers at Bletchley Park are justly famous: less well known but no less important were the brilliant scientists of the Meteorological Office, whose weather forecasting gave the Western Allies a huge advantage throughout the entire war. Their crowning achievement came when they identified the narrow lull between two storm fronts that allowed the D-Day landings to proceed. Radar was rapidly developed from meter to centimeter and ultimately millimeter bands, allowing allied aircraft to go from spotting submarines to periscopes, ASDIC (soon re-christened with the more descriptive acronym [=SONAR=]) installations were made better, smaller, and more reliable. A huge range of weapons, from effective to wacky, were designed and tested. One of the best examples came shortly after D-Day, when it was found that the dust from dirt airfields in France was damaging the powerful Napier Sabre engines on Hawker Typhoon fighter bombers, a collection of aerodynamicists and engineers, designed, tested, and fielded an effective cyclonic air filter in just 24 hours. But perhaps their greatest achievement was the "Wizard War", where British radio and radar specialists engaged their German counterparts in an ever-escalating battle of spoofing, jamming, counter-jamming and other electronic countermeasures and soundly defeated them at virtually every turn.

For many Britons, in particular the young ones, it was their first exposure to another culture. Some things, like American music and American egalitarianism were to have significant influence on postwar life. (But not, as the legends would have it, baseball, which was actually more popular in interwar Britain than it is today.) It was also their first exposure to some less welcome things, like overt racial segregation and sexually transmitted diseases. For the Americans it was a pleasant respite or interlude between or before the unpleasant realities of combat, an exposure to a genuine lack of racial segregation (which is not to say that Britain didn't have problems with racism - it did - it just didn't enforce formal segregation) and a useful introduction to the people they'd been sent to help. Nor was the exchange entirely one-way, as tens of thousands of Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, and Fleet Air Arm personnel were sent "stateside" for training, taking advantage of America's weather and wide-open (and enemy free) skies and harbours.

For the most part people were got along well despite the inevitable misunderstandings, though you would think it was all sunshine and rainbows from the British and American propaganda of the times. Much as you'd expect, there were extra-marital affairs and children born out of wedlock as women reciprocated the attentions of the men they had available while their own served overseas. The Americans also offered serious competition for unattached women, because they were sharply dressed, comparatively well paid, had hundreds of pilots (and even some fighter pilots!) among them, and had access to otherwise unobtainable goods like chocolate and nylon stockings through the vast American supply system. Not all these relationships were temporary, with a fair few lifelong friendships and enough marriages that the term "war bride" became prominent in the postwar American and Canadian Lexicon. In the end, none of the fuss caused by the Americans was insurmountable and not everyone--particularly the children--was glad to see them go.

* Station X, the codename for Bletchley Park. Assembling crossword puzzle fanatics, mathematicians (famously, Alan Turing), electronics engineers, and assorted others, Station X succeeded in industrialising the business of signals intelligence. Intelligence derived from the breaking of the Wermacht's three-rotor Enigma machine was codenamed [=ULTRA=]; Turing helped design the machines, known as bombes, that applied the principles discovered by Czech and Polish cypher experts on an unprecedented scale, to the extent that it was suspected that the British had sometimes read secret messages before the Germans had[[note]] - because German commanders might have put off reading new messages until the morning, not because the British had actually ''decrypted'' them first[[/note]]. They also broke several other systems during the war; The Kreigsmarine had a four-rotor Enigma, used by the German U-boat fleet, the breaking of which ultimately won the battle of the Atlantic and secured supply lines from America. There was also a ten-rotor system based on teletype codes that was used for extremely high-level German government traffic; that was broken by a machine named Colossus, which fell only slightly short of being the first stored-program electronic computer. The intelligence services also organised the fabrication of cover stories to hide the fact that we were breaking the German codes; a large part of that consisted of locating German agents inside Britain based on [=ULTRA=] decrypts, and promptly turning them into double-agents.

** Mincemeat had the unintended but brilliant side effect of completely destroying the Army high command's faith in captured documents for the rest of the war. Throughout the war the Soviets kept their operational plans extremely close to their chests to prevent any possible leakage, accepting the attendant risk of operational incoherence. But the Americans and British valued the total comprehension of their operational plans by every element of their forces, accepting the attendant risk of the plans being intercepted. In the early days of both D-Day and Operation Market-Garden the Germans captured genuine Allied plans that could have been used to severely hamper the operations, but they ignored them out of fear of another Mincemeat-style deception.

In December of 1939, with U-boats again on the prowl, Parliament commissioned a study to see if the population of the home islands could survive entirely on the food produced locally. Dietitian Elsie Widdowson and paediatrition Alex McCance used harvest data from 1938 to design and then test a hypothetical food program for every citizen of the isles. The good news: the home isles could produce enough food to feed the entire population of the United Kingdom and prevent hunger and starvation! The bad news: Due to the reliance on unlimited potatoes, vegetables, and whole grain breads, [[{{Fartillery}}people would need to get used to some unpleasant trips on the tube every morning.]] With the results of the study in hand, Britain introduced rationing in January of 1940 since 70% of its foodstuffs were imported and the Germans were attempting to implement a blockade of their own. All of Europe, including the neutral countries, followed and implemented rationing for the duration of the war. The severity of rationing varied greatly: Germany, for example, imposed a strict but very generous rationing law until 1943, in order to keep up civilian morale, until losses on the Eastern front finally convinced them to belatedly mobilize all of their economic resources for war.

In January 1940 Britain introduced rationing, since 70% of its foodstuffs were imported and the Germans were attempting to implement a blockade of their own. All of Europe, including the neutral countries, implemented rationing for the duration of the war. The severity of rationing varied greatly: Germany, for example, imposed a strict but very generous rationing law until 1943, in order to keep up civilian morale, until losses on the Eastern front finally convinced them to belatedly mobilize all of their economic resources for war.

Once France fell the eyes of the Nazi War Mare-with-panje-cart[[note]] 'War Machine' is the popular term, but the horse was just as if not more important to the German military than was the steam-locomotive. Germany invaded the Soviet Union with 120,000 automobiles and more than ''600,000'' horses. Even the British had a more motorised (proportionally) military force than Germany did throughout the war despite their relative lack of strategic materials. [[/note]] turned to Italy's new enemy of Greece, the ally-turned enemy of Yugoslavia (which had suffered a British-backed coup), and Britain itself. After Dunkirk, the British army was in tatters, although if it had failed to evacuate as many troops from France, things would have been even worse. During the first year of the Battle of Britain the only adequately-armed (with machine guns, mortars, artillery, trucks, and radios) division in Britain was Canadian, the British forces having abandoned eight divisions' (120,000 combat troops) worth of heavy-weapons and machinery in the retreat. A galling and at the time much-noted consequence was that the lorries and motor vehicles, as well as some tanks abandoned in France, were refurbished and used to equip German 'third-rate' and anti-partisan units. Many saw action as far as Belgrade and Minsk under their new drivers (because they used such unorthodox parts and were worse than useless against contemporary Soviet armoured vehicles, they were used to massacre civilians and kill partisans). When the cream of the Wehrmacht's armoured forces were destroyed in the western Ukraine in 1943-44, some of these British tanks were actually put back into front-line usage... to little effect.

Typical weekly food rations for a British family of four in April 1945 were:
* Bacon and Ham - 1lb (454g).
* Meat - [[Usefulnotes/OldBritishMoney 4/8]] (24p) worth, which bought around 4lb 12oz (2.15kg) depending on the cut.
* [[BritsLoveTea Tea]] - 8oz (227g); that's around 100 cups worth or 3-4 cups per person per day.
* Sugar - 2lb (907g).
* Butter - 8oz (227g).
* Lard - 8oz (227g).
* Margarine - 1lb (454g).
* Cheese - 8oz (227g); vegetarian families could trade in their meat and bacon ration for an additional 12oz (340g).

Fortunately for Britain (though unfortunately for Japan) the Americans had...[[NukeEm other]] ideas on how to deal with the Pacific Theatre, but [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki that's another story...]]

They could be shot down by radar-guided anti-aircraft fire using proximity fuses or intercepted by fighters, with one Spitfire pilot reportedly flipping one over with his wing, though reports of this becoming a standard tactic were greatly exaggerated.[[labelnote:*]] This is referenced in ''Series/TheUnit'', when Bob tries it on a plane carrying a chemical weapon. It doesn't work.[[/labelnote]] Eventually London was protected by a nearly impenetrable three-ring defense, with an outer ring of the fastest long-range fighters (Tempests, Mustangs, and later the Gloster Meteor, the first jet fighter to enter service) an middle ring of short ranged Spitfires and and inner ring of AA guns that collectively accounted for nearly 80% of the V1s launched towards the end of the campaign.

It was during this period that King George VI and his queen, UsefulNotes/ElizabethI, supposedly won the enduring devotion of their people; the King vowed to remain in London "[[InItsHourOfNeed for the duration]]," and, despite his stutter, made a series of wartime broadcasts that helped keep morale up even as bombs rained over southern England. Buckingham Palace was bombed at the height of the Blitz, and the Queen Mother cemented her place in the hearts of the British people forever with the quote, "Finally. Now I can look the [heavily bombed] East End in the face." She also said, when asked why the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret were not sent to the relative safety of the Commonwealth -- after all, the Dutch royals-in-exile had sent their Queen and princesses to Canada -- that "The children won't go without me. I won't leave the King. And the King will never leave."

It was during this period that King George VI and his queen, Elizabeth (no, [[UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen not that one]], though then-Princess Elizabeth was well-loved in her own right), supposedly won the enduring devotion of their people; the King vowed to remain in London "[[InItsHourOfNeed for the duration]]," and, despite his stutter, made a series of wartime broadcasts that helped keep morale up even as bombs rained over southern England. Buckingham Palace was bombed at the height of the Blitz, and the Queen Mother cemented her place in the hearts of the British people forever with the quote, "Finally. Now I can look the [heavily bombed] East End in the face." She also said, when asked why the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret were not sent to the relative safety of the Commonwealth -- after all, the Dutch royals-in-exile had sent their Queen and princesses to Canada -- that "The children won't go without me. I won't leave the King. And the King will never leave."

* Another operation (Called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat Operation Mincemeat]]) involving disguising a dead tramp as a British soldier; the corpse was set to wash up on a Spanish beach with papers that suggested the Allies were not going to attack Sicily (the obvious target) but were actually only going to use Sicily as a distraction for a two-pronged assault, Sardinia on one side, the Grecian islands and the Balkans on the other. The deception was so successful that Sicily was taken with minimal Allied casualties. This incident was later immortalized in book and film as ''Film/TheManWhoNeverWas''.

* [[SpotOfTea Tea]] - 8oz (227g); that's around 100 cups worth or 3-4 cups per person per day.

Once France fell the eyes of the Nazi War Mare-with-panje-cart[[note]] 'War Machine' is the popular term, but the horse was just as if not more important to the German military than was the steam-locomotive. Germany invaded the Soviet Union with 120,000 automobiles and more than ''600,000'' horses. Even the British had a more motorised (proportionally) military force than Germany did throughout the war despite their relative lack of strategic materials. [[/note]] turned to Italy's new enemy of Greece, the ally-turned enemy of Yugoslavia (which had suffered a British-backed coup), and Britain itself. After Dunkirk the British army was in tatters, although if it had failed to evacuate as many troops from France things would have been even worse. During the first year of the battle of Britain the only adequately-armed (with machine guns, mortars, artillery, trucks, and radios) division in Britain was Canadian, the British forces having abandoned eight divisions' (120,000 combat troops) worth of heavy-weapons and machinery in the retreat. A galling and at the time much-noted consequence was that the lorries and motor vehicles, as well as some tanks abandoned in France, were refurbished and used to equip German 'third-rate' and anti-partisan units. Many saw action as far as Belgrade and Minsk under their new drivers (because they used such unorthodox parts and were worse than useless against contemporary Soviet armoured vehicles, they were used to massacre civilians and kill partisans). When the cream of the Wehrmacht's armoured forces were destroyed in the western Ukraine in 1943-44, some of these British tanks were actually put back into front-line usage... to little effect.

This would have been very difficult. Britain could replace planes and pilots faster than Germany could, with the added bonus that an RAF pilot who bailed out could be returned to the fray, whereas a Luftwaffe one was permanently lost to the Germans. Even if the Luftwaffe had gained aerial superiority, it would have been likely to be a fleeting victory and its capacity for attacking the Home Fleet (which, by itself, was still comfortably more powerful than the entire German Navy - and that's even before any reinforcements could be drawn from the Atlantic or Mediterranean fleets) was totally abysmal, something cemented by the scuttling of the French Fleet at Toulon in 1942. However, the disabling of runways (by making large holes in them with bombs, for example) could easily have led to a downward spiral: fewer runways means fewer planes in the air, meaning more bombers get through to destroy runways, until you run out of runways and the remaining planes start getting destroyed on the ground.

The pride of the Royal Air Force was the [[CoolPlane Supermarine Spitfire]], indisputably the most iconic British fighter of the war (perhaps most iconic fighter plane full-stop), and arguably the best. Faster than the vast majority of its competitors thanks to its signature elliptical wing shape, it was more than a match for the German Messerschmitt 109, and later versions went toe to toe with the Messerschmidt 262, one of the first fighter jets to see combat. Modified versions used their speed to serve on photo-reconnaissance missions. While media both at the time and since focused on the glamorous Spitfire, the more numerous fighter was the Hawker Hurricane - not as fast and agile as the Spitfire, but rugged, dependable and just as loved by its pilots. In a case of BoringYetPractical, the Hurricane's stability in flight, which made it less suited for dogfighting, made it far more capable when it came to the business of taking on German bombers; the Spitfires drew the glory, ideally keeping the German fighter escorts occupied, but the Hurricanes almost certainly saved more lives on the ground.

It was during this period that King George VI and his queen, Elizabeth (no, [[UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen not that one]], though then-Princess Elizabeth was well-loved in her own right), supposedly won the enduring devotion of their people; the King vowed to remain in London "[[InItsHourOfNeed for the duration]]," and, despite his stutter, made a series of wartime broadcasts that helped keep morale up even as bombs rained over southern England. Buckingham Palace was bombed at the height of the Blitz, and the Queen Mother cemented her place in the hearts of the British people forever with the quote, "Finally. Now I can look the [heavily bombed] East End in the face." She also said, when asked why the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret were not sent to the relative safety of the Commonwealth -- after all, the Dutch royals-in-exile had sent their Queen and princesses to Canada -- that "The girls cannot go without me; I cannot go without the King; and the King will never leave his country."

Despite all the destruction deaths and wounds were not as high as expected, mostly because pre-war projections for this kind of attack bordered on the insanely fatalistic. Most families with a garden had an Anderson shelter, a mostly underground bomb shelter. In London, despite instructions to the contrary, people used UsefulNotes/TheLondonUnderground as a shelter, and seeing as you could buy a platform ticket and stay as long as you liked anyway, no one could do anything about it - the government, despite initial attempts to stop it, ended up shrugging and going with it. People without bomb shelters were told to crouch under the table.

There was some further bombing by German aircraft in 1942 (the "Baedeker Blitz"), which targeted tourist cities without any military reason. (o be fair, these were in retaliation for RAF bombing of similar German cities, such as Lubeck. Both were partly motivated also because these cities were poorly defended and burned easily, and it has been suggested, for revenge, something noted by RAF Air Marshal 'Bomber' Harris when he famously said, [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge "They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind"]], and the largely ineffective raids of 1943/4.

'''Turn Out That Light! The Blackout'''

The V-2 was the first ballistic missile and first man-made object launched into space, the progenitor of all modern rockets. Over 3,000 V-2s were launched by the German Wehrmacht against Allied targets in World War II. Unlike the V-1, they were completely impossible to stop[[labelnote:Although...]]A system ''was'' proposed, by General Frederick Alfred Pile of Anti-Aircraft Command, to destroy V-2s in flight by saturating their descent paths with massed AA fire. This idea was first brought up as early as August 1944 (_before_ the first V-2 was fired in anger), but the vast numbers of AA shells required (over 300,000 per V-2) meant that more damage would have been caused by unexploded shells falling back onto London than the V-2 itself would have inflicted, and the idea was shelved. It was brought up again in January 1945, this time using only a few hundred to a few thousand shells per missile (which would be carefully aimed to explode along the V-2's flightpath, as opposed to the original proposal to basically put as much AA fire as possible into the air and hope for the best), equipped with new fuzes which would greatly reduce the number of shells that failed to explode, but was put on hold until incoming V-2s could be tracked well enough to allow accurate gun laying; vast improvements in the ability to predict the V-2s' trajectories allowed the Pile system to finally be approved for use in late March 1945, but Allied military advances in the Low Countries and northern France pushed the V-2's available launch sites out of range of London before it could become operational.[[/labelnote]][[labelnote:more]]One V-2 ''was'' successfully destroyed in flight; it had the bad luck to be launched just as a squadron of American bombers returning to base passed overhead, and an alert machine-gunner fired at, and hit, the missile, shooting it down.[[/labelnote]]; luckily, their accuracy left much to be desired, which Britain's Doublecross system worked hard to make worse with disinformation of the missiles' impact locations.

More people died making it (French and particularly Soviet POWs were used as slave-labourers) than were killed by it.

This would have been very difficult. Britain could replace planes and pilots faster than Germany could, with the added bonus that an RAF pilot who bailed out could be returned to the fray, whereas a Luftwaffe one was permanently lost to the Germans. Even if the Luftwaffe had gained aerial superiority, it would have been likely to be a fleeting victory and its capacity for attacking the Home Fleet - still comfortably more powerful than the German Navy - was totally abysmal. However, the disabling of runways (by making large holes in them with bombs, for example) could easily have led to a downward spiral: fewer runways means fewer planes in the air, meaning more bombers get through to destroy runways, until you run out of runways and the remaining planes start getting destroyed on the ground.

Britain, however, had a few tricks up its sleeve. One of these their large and relatively advanced CHAIN HOME network of long frequency RDF ("Radio Distance Finding") stations - a technology better known today by the American acronym RADAR ([=RAdio=] Detection And Ranging).[[note]] The RDF designation was specifically chosen prewar to disguise their intentions as was already in common use for "radio direction finding. [[/note]] While most of the world's military powers, such as France and the USSR, had just a few sets Britain had invested in creating several dozen. These gave them near-total coverage of the eastern approaches to their entire (admittedly relatively small) country. Though primitive, these early long-wave stations had more than twice the detection range as sound detecting devices and could also determine range and altitude with a fair degree of accuracy, something no sound-based device could do.[[note]] The CHAIN HOME stations were backed by an extensive network of ground observers equipped with optical tracking equipment and later reinforced by a high-frequency radar network called CHAIN HOME LOW that covered the low altitudes that CHAIN HOME couldn't see.[[/note]]

It was during this period that King George VI and his queen, Elizabeth (no, [[UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen not that one]], though then-Princess Elizabeth was well-loved in her own right), supposedly won the enduring devotion of their people; the King vowed to remain in London "[[InItsHourOfNeed for the duration]]," and, despite his stutter, made a series of wartime broadcasts that helped keep morale up even as bombs rained over southern England. Buckingham Palace was bombed at the height of the Blitz, and the Queen Mother cemented her place in the hearts of the British people forever with the quote, "Finally. Now I can look the [heavily bombed] East End in the face." She also said, when asked why the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret were not sent to the relative safety of the Commonwealth -- after all, the Dutch royals-in-exile had sent their Queen and princesses to Canada -- that "The girls cannot go without me; I cannot go without the King; and the King will never leave his country." Churchill made sure the nation heard that comment when he angrily overruled the censors trying to hush the strike up; after all, the population would not be complaining about enduring the bombs as much if the Royal Family has to dodge them too. Elizabeth and Margaret would remain in Buckingham Palace or nearby Windsor Castle for the duration, and HRH Elizabeth joined up with the Women's Auxiliaries as a driver and auto mechanic during the final months of the war. She remains both the only female member in the history of the British Crown to hold a military title in her own right[[note]]she rose to the rank of Junior Commander[[/note]] and the last living sovereign to be a veteran of the Second World War.

One of the most famous raids was on the industrial city Coventry on 14 November 1940, which killed at least 568 people and devastated much of the city, including destroying the ancient cathedral - it is sometimes claimed to have inspired the infamous Firebombing of Dresden. In any case, because of the devastation both cities suffered, they ended up in a twin-city arrangement after the war. The common theory is that ULTRA decrypts identified Coventry as a target, but the city could not be warned without alerting the Germans that the British were reading their messages, so the bombing was allowed to occur. RV Jones, a wartime scientist, however, says that the relevant message was not decrypted in time. He also pointed out that the Germans were using radio navigation beacons to find their targets, and on 14 November the British jammers were set to the wrong frequency and did precisely nothing.

There was some further bombing by German aircraft in 1942 (the "Baedeker Blitz"), which targeted tourist cities without any military reason. (To be fair, these were in retaliation for RAF bombing of similar German cities, such as Lubeck. Both were partly motivated also because these cities were poorly defended and burned easily.) and the largely ineffective raids of 1943/4.

Answer: The Local Defence Volunteers, later re-named The Home Guard. Unpaid and initially badly trained and equipped, these units were given army surplus and hand-me-downs when they became available but often had to make do with whatever they could scrounge up; the majority of Home Guard platoons were in rural areas, where there were at least plenty of privately owned shotguns and small-game rifles to go around, but members going on patrol with nothing but pitchforks or axe handles was not unheard of. They were often the butt of jokes and many did not take them seriously[[note]]One story goes that the reason that the Local Defense Volunteers were renamed as The Home Guard was because the initals "LDV" could also be read as "Look, Duck, and Vanish."[[/note]]. Hitler himself thought they were a cover for something else, and was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_Units partly right]]. But they did valuable work, such as fire-watching, emergency work and assisting in training exercises. Their primary function was to act as an anti-paratrooper force.

We will never know how effective they would have been, but one thing is for sure, they were keen and inventive. As one army officer running an explosives training course was heard to say, dangerously keen and terrifyingly inventive. Most famous these days as the setting for the comedy ''Series/DadsArmy''. The show depicts a lot of elements quite faithfully.

Britain's full mobilization also extended to the arts and sciences. Unlike FascistButInefficient Germany, where the research efforts were often uncoordinated and scattered amongst various competing interests, England mobilized Academia for the duration. Their first task, a comprehensive review of old lab notebooks to see if anything useful had been overlooked, produced penicillin -- the original experiment being written off in the 1920s as a failure. Anything promising was promptly re-investigated; Promising research they lacked the time or resources to follow up on was sent to the United States -- national survival trumping national interest for the duration. The brilliant codebreakers at Bletchley Park are justly famous: less well known but no less important were the brilliant scientists of the Meteorological Office, whose weather forecasting gave the Western Allies a huge advantage throughout the entire war. Their crowning achievement came when they identified the narrow lull between two storm fronts that allowed the D-Day landings to proceed. Radar was rapidly developed from meter to centimeter and ultimately millimeter bands, allowing allied aircraft to go from spotting submarines to periscopes, ASDIC (soon re-christened with the more descriptive acronym [=SONAR=]) installations were made better, smaller, and more reliable. A huge range of weapons, from effective to wacky, were designed and tested. One of the best examples came shortly after D-Day, when it was found that the dust from dirt airfields in France was damaging the powerful Napier Sabre engines on Hawker Typhoon fighter bombers, a collection of aerodymamicists and engineers, designed, tested, and fielded an effective cyclonic air filter in just 24 hours. But perhaps their greatest achievement was the "Wizard War", where British radio and radar specialists engaged their German counterparts in an ever-escalating battle of spoofing, jamming, counter-jamming and other electronic countermeasures and soundly defeated them at virtually every turn.

* The [[UsefulNotes/{{SOE}} Special Operations Executive]] a.k.a. 'the Baker Street Irregulars' a.k.a. the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, created by Churchill and part set up by Chamberlain while he was in the war cabinet, with the mandate to "Set Europe Ablaze" with every last act of sabotage and dirty trickery that the trainers could think of. Trained and dropped spies over Europe to help the resistance groups, ordinary men and women risking life and limb sending secrets back the British Government. They were also responsible for Operation ANTHROPOID, training and inserting the two Czechoslovakian nationals who assassinated Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the SS and major architect of the Holocaust. Former Agents include Creator/IanFleming, [[Series/DoctorWho Jon Pertwee a.k.a the 3rd Doctor (who notably favoured a more secret agent style and gadget based approach]], and Creator/ChristopherLee, with Fleming apparently basing ''Franchise/JamesBond'' on both of the latter. We won't know the full story of what they did and where until after all of their agents are dead as the files are sealed until then.

Music wise, the era is remembered for the GlamorousWartimeSinger Music/VeraLynn, aka "The Forces' Sweetheart", who is still alive today, although long retired from singing - though as recently as 2009, at the age of 92, her 'Best Of' album topped the UK Album Charts. "We'll Meet Again" or "The White Cliffs of Dover" is a StandardSnippet for a British war movie. The period was also enriched by the more proletarian Gracie Fields, a [[OOpNorth northern]] chanteuse who could be described as the Hurricane to Dame Vera's Spitfire. Buck-toothed comedian and ukelele-accompanied singer George Formby is also remembered with great affection.

There were a more than a few embarrassing instances when they where deployed as opponents in training exercises against the regular army. They had a lot of men from [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI the previous war]] in their ranks and a very good understanding of local terrain, leading to a nasty habit of winning.

* ''Film/HenryV'', the Olivier version.

* ''In Which We Serve''

They did however suck resources and money away from the army. Well done, Vergeltungswaffe.

Britain during the UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. That had such a massive impact on British history, it's usually referred to simply as "The War".

Once France fell the eyes of the Nazi War Mare-with-panje-cart[[note]] 'War Machine' is the popular term, but the horse was just as if not more important to the German military than was the steam-locomotive. Germany invaded the Soviet Union with 120,000 automobiles and more than ''600,000'' horses. Even the British had a more motorised (proportionally) military force than Germany did throughout the war despite their relative lack of strategic materials. [[/note]] turned to Italy's new enemy of Greece, the ally-turned enemy of Yugoslavia (which had suffered a British-backed coup), and Britain itself. After Dunkirk the British army was in tatters, although if it had failed to evacuate as many troops from France things would have been even worse. During the first year of the battle of Britain the only adequately-armed (wih machine guns, mortars, artillery, trucks, and radios) division in Britain was Canadian, the British forces having abandoned eight divisions' (120,000 combat troops) worth of heavy-weapons and machinery in the retreat. A galling and at the time much-noted consequence was that the lorries and motor vehicles, as well as some tanks abandoned in France, were refurbished and used to equip German 'third-rate' and anti-partisan units. Many saw action as far as Belgrade and Minsk under their new drivers (because they used such unorthodox parts and were worse than useless against contemporary Soviet armoured vehicles, they were used to massacre civilians and kill partisans). When the cream of the Wehrmacht's armoured forces were destroyed in the western Ukraine in 1943-44, some of these British tanks were actually put back into front-line usage... to little effect.

It was during this period that King George VI and his queen, Elizabeth (no, [[UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen not that one]], though then-Princess Elizabeth was well-loved in her own right), supposedly won the enduring devotion of their people; the King vowed to remain in London "[[InItsHourOfNeed for the duration]]," and, despite his stutter, made a series of wartime broadcasts that helped keep morale up even as bombs rained over southern England. Buckingham Palace was bombed at the height of the Blitz, and the Queen Mother cemented her place in the hearts of the British people forever with the quote, "Finally. Now I can look the [heavily bombed] East End in the face." She also said, when asked why the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret were not sent to the relative safety of the Commonwealth -- after all, the Dutch royals-in-exile had sent their Queen and princesses to Canada -- that "The girls cannot go without me; I cannot go without the King; and the King will never leave his country." Elizabeth and Margaret would remain in Buckingham Palace or nearby Windsor Castle for the duration, and HRH Elizabeth joined up with the Women's Auxiliaries as a driver and auto mechanic during the final months of the war. She remains both the only female member in the history of the British Crown to hold a military title in her own right[[note]]she rose to the rank of Junior Commander[[/note]] and the last living sovereign to be a veteran of the Second World War.

As a result of all these efforts: all there was of course grumbling about the state of food during the war, analysis of the situation concluded it was on the whole a resounding ''success'' with Britons having a better quality diet during the duration.