ABSTRACT
A major problem with living through the Blitz was that it was quite indiscriminate. You could not avoid death simply because you were not in uniform. Someone you could not see and who could not see you could kill you in your own home. Once again, it was the extraordinariness and the incongruity of everyday life that needed explanation. The impact of bombing was never as apocalyptic as had been expected before the war, but it would be simplistic as well as patronizing to those who lived through it to minimize its impact. This style of warfare was utterly indiscriminate; it killed Old Age Pensioners and babies, middle class and working class, even the odd aristocrat. Some 3500 British soldiers had been killed in the Battle of France. Over 40,000 civilians were killed between September 1940 and May 1941, and it was not until late 1942 that total British uniformed casualties in the war exceeded civilian. This was, in the most literal sense, a people’s war. Bombing targeted the economic, social and cultural fabric of the nation, and in so doing it laid bare the sinews that articulated the nation, exposing them to close examination.
