Worksheet: The Blitz: Air Raids

Taking these documents as a cluster, the students can be asked to think about the pattern of a raid:

First, the warning:

  • either a siren
  • or a police officer on a bicycle.

[Metropolitan Police Orders 18th September 1939]

 Instructions for police officers issuing air-raid warnings. Take cover: a policeman on a bicycle issuing an air raid warning

How were people expected to react, and whether they always did?

The initials L.P.T.B. refer to the London Passenger Transport Board.

[Metropolitan Police Orders 4th September 1939]

 Action to be taken by drivers after an air-raid warning, part 1. Action to be taken by drivers after an air-raid warning, part 2.

The experience of the raid itself: Fred Fancourt was a police ambulance driver. Remember that Fred is writing about a night-time raid, whereas all of the photographs are taken in daytime. A transcript is available.

Listen to an account of one of his journeys.

If a problem is encountered with the audio, copy the file from the Resource page to your usual media player folder.

 Fred Fancourt with his colleagues infront of a police ambulance in 1942. Fred Fancourt's written account of his experience driving a police ambulance
After the raid, working through the bombed buildings loooking for survivors. a woman being carried from a bombed building on a stretcher in London Sergeant Fred Greenstreet directing rescue workers in a bomb-damaged building

The weariness of men after spending a night and day searching bomb-damaged buildings.

Sergeant Robson in London  

The reporting of the raid in newspapers.

These two examples were published in The Times: The first (on the left) appeared the day following the raid; the second, giving more details of the rescue operations, appeared on the 22nd January 1943.

Report of an air-raid in The Times Report of an air-raid in The Times

Click on any image for a larger view.

Students might be asked to write:

  • Their own version of Fred Fancourt’s drive.
  • Their own account of Fred Greenstreet’s story.

After reading the two newspaper reports, ask the students:

  • To compare the style and content of the two articles.
  • The first report contains two official statements - how could these be interpreted?
  • Can they relate these reports to the photographs above?
  • How might they record this event if they were writing a history?

More questions:

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Police & WWII

The Blitz

County Chief Constable

A Volunteer

Modern Echoes

Work Sheets

Resourcess

Acknowledgements