London 1945: Life in the Debris of War

by Maureen Waller

Book Overview

London at the outset of war in 1939 was the greatest city in the world, the heart of the British Empire. By 1945, it was a drab and exhausted city, beginning the long haul back to recovery.The defiant capital had always been Hitler's prime target. The last months of the war saw the final phase of the battle of London as the enemy unleashed its new vengeance weapons, the flying bombs and rockets. They were terrifying and brought destruction on a vast scale, but fortunately came too late to dent morale seriously. The people of London were showing the spirit, courage, and resilience that had earned them the admiration of the world during a long siege. In the harshest winter of fifty years, they were living in primitive conditions. Thousands were homeless, living in the Underground and deep shelters. Women lined up for horse meat and were lucky to obtain one egg a month. They besieged emergency coal dumps. Everyone longed for peace. The bright new world seemed elusive. As the victory celebrations passed into memory, there were severe hardships and all the problems of post-war adjustment. Women lost the independence the war had lent them, husbands and wives had to learn to live together again, and children had a lot of catching up to do. Yet London's loss has often been its opportunity. Its people had eagerly embraced plans for a modern metropolis and an end to poverty. They voted overwhelmingly for a Labour government and the new, fairer social order that was their reward for all they had endured. The year of victory, 1945, represents an important chapter in London's---and Britain's---long history. Acclaimed historian Maureen Waller draws on a rich array of primary sources, letting the people tell their own story, to re-create that moment, bringing to it the social insight at which she excels.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312338031
• ISBN13: 9780312338039
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 528 Pages
• Weight: 2.07 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

The personal face of war

I read this book as a reference source for an historical fiction book I am writing, and found the information within it to be invaluable. The author must have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours doing research --- combing through photo archives, interviewing WWII survivors, visiting the Imperial War Museum, and who knows what else! The result is a book that is engaging, easy to understand, never dry or boring, and chock full of incredible information. The author has managed to put a personal face on the effects of war on civilians -- from food and clothing rationing, to air raids and shelters, loss of homes and lives, and even the lengths to which women went to look good (shoe polish for mascara, cooking browning for painted on stockings, and lard for makeup remover. The anecdotes, quotes, and photos really bring the time period to life! This is a wonderful book and it really shows the triumph of the human will, especially women's will, over adversity.

Simply Fascinating

Fascinating book. So often we read about soldiers' stories, idealized lustful romances flourishing in a war-torn city, or grandious accounts of military might. Not here. This book tells you what the average citizen had to endure during WWII. Having been born in the 1970s, the concept of citizens sacrificing their material goods for their country and cooperating with and whole-heartedly believing in their government is a foreign concept to me. I cannot imagine rationing food, stealing to survive, having a 1-inch bar of soap to last for a month, or living in a subway tunnel, but the people of London did so for years. Reading this book has helped me put my priveledged, American life into perspective.

Epic and personal

Maureen Waller gives a superb sense of what it was like for ordinary folks to live in London in the waining months of the war and just after, a time of profound change to the British lifestyle. She has combed original sources for the personal stories and telling details that bring the grand story of the War to life on an intimate scale. She honestly seems to have read every newspaper and government report issued for the entire period. Two examples will suffice: women's undergarments were almost impossible to obtain - the materials for corset stays had more worthy uses in the military - so women made undergarments out of blackout cloth, which wasn't rationed. Similarly, food in restaurants did not require the use of ration coupons, so Britons of the wealthier sort at least got in the habit of eating out for the first time - a habit which surely transformed British eating habits after the war as well. The sadder, tragic side of the war is not overlooked - Waller starts the book with a chapter on late-war bombings and their effect on the Londoners left behind in the city. The book is organized topically - a chapter on housing, one on food, one on kids, one on crime, one on politics, etc. The This topical method means the narrative thread is a bit lost (every chapter seems to start at January and wend its way to December over again). However, the accumulation of interesting stories is fascinating and a novel addition to the list of anyone interested in London, in the War, or both. Waller has written a similar book on 17th-century London which does not seem to be available in the U.S. but can be obtained on the UK website for those who enjoy this book as much as I did.

Superb coverage of wartime London

This well-written book covers life in London at the end of the war in immense detail. The ten chapters deal with (1) V-1/V-2 bombings, (2) censorship and propaganda, (3) housing, (4) rationing, (5) clothing, (6) crime, (7) V-E Day, (8) Churchill's defeat in the 1945 election, (9) heart-rending stories of the evacuation of children, and (10) demobilization and the transition to a peacetime society (my labels, not the book's). First person narratives are intertwined with historical fact to create a book that conveys the full flavor of living in that era. The author especially emphasizes the bureaucratic side of wartime London. For example, when a house was bombed, a complex set of procedures came into play to assess whether the house could be repaired, to account for the inhabitants and rescue them, to guard property against looting, to determine whether payments were warranted under insurance policies, to find replacement housing, to replace lost ration tickets, and lastly to serve snacks to the homeless victims. Everything was thought out, and everything was done in a systematic manner. Of course, crime and abuses of the system were commonplace as well. Even for those who are fairly knowledgeable about WWII history, it is amazing what Londoners suffered through. Homemakers had to be masters of bureaucracy to be on top of weekly changes to the ration system, as well as queuing for groceries and scrounging for clothes and household goods. The fear of being in the next bomb blast didn't disappear until the war ended. London housing was nothing to brag about even before the war, and during the war people crowded together in incredibly cramped conditions, often living in bombed-out ruins. Children were evacuated to the countryside for their own safety, but at the end of the war some children did not want to return to their real parents, and in many instances the parents didn't want their kids back. And when the war ended, wartime conditions continued. For instance, rationing continued after the war so that food could be provided to Germany. It took more than a decade after the war for London to truly recover. All in all, Waller has written a superb book that brings these events alive for the reader.

Life among the ruins

London at many times during its history has been the most desirable place to be. 1945 was not one of those times as a war weary population began the year by V2 attacks and then at the end faced 9 more years of rationing, queing and essentially living life down at heels. The author contends that it took 50 years to realize some of the dreams of the post war planners, I would add that it probably took the same amount of time to overcome some of the after effects of the war. Maureen Waller is very able to the task of setting the scene, providing what amounts to a comprehensive depiction of the British capital in the last days of the war. She does not indulge in the sort of glory mongering, but shows just how miserable life could be for some and how they chose to go on despite these difficulties. Waller's approach is thorough. If you wanted to know how one was reimbursed following V2 bombing, how one bough sugar, or the practices of wartime criminals, this is the book for youThe Britain of the period amounts to a vastly different world in which all activity is governed by the state and to a degree that seems somewhat claustophobic by today's standards. This is a remarkable book, both readable and comprehensive. Waller is to be commended for her scholarship and attention to detail.