Second World War

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Inspection of a public air raid shelter in Derby during the Second World War

A street party in Chaddesden celebrating VE Day

ARP helper sorting gas masks at St Mark's School, Derby, during World War II

The Second World War (1939-45) was the amalgamation of two conflicts, one starting in Asia as the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the other beginning in Europe with the Invasion of Poland. It resulted in more than 60 million deaths - making it the deadliest conflict in human history.

Britain declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939. The country had been expecting war throughout what had been a long, hot summer and many preparations had been made leading up to this day.

The extended school summer holiday saw furious activity in the deserted school playgrounds and public parks. Mechanical excavators were busy digging trenches in these playgrounds, in almost every city park, and in many sports grounds. (People were also digging Anderson shelters and Morrison Shelters at their own homes).

The aim of all this activity was to provide underground refuges for the population. This war would bring a new threat – aerial attack by bombs of 500kg and more – the front line was not to be a muddy field in some far-off land. These trenches were to be known as 'Public Underground Air Raid Shelters'.

Some shelters were basic, offering merely protection from the German bombers overhead and somewhere to sit and answer the call of nature. Others rose to the luxury of bunks and a canteen.

By late 1940, virtually everybody living in a town or city, was hopefully no more than five minutes from an underground refuge. These air raid shelters would be no protection against a direct hit (as would be so painfully proved later in the war) but would give excellent protection against a near miss and perhaps more importantly against flying debris such as roof slates, masonry, glass and shrapnel.

More than 61 nations were involved in the fighting and 100 million soldiers were mobilised.

The main starting points of the Second World War are generally held to be the German invasion of Poland, as well as the Japanese attacks on China, the United States, and the British and Dutch colonies. All of the attacks resulted from the leadership of authoritarian ruling elites in Germany and Japan.

Germany and France had been struggling for dominance in Continental Europe for fifty years, and fought two previous wars, the Franco-Prussian War, and the First World War. Meanwhile the power of the Soviet Union threatened to eclipse them both as industrialisation spread to this massive country.

World War I had been a pre-emptive strike by Germany against what was then the Russian Empire, but it ended in disaster for Germany with millions dead, the loss of some peripheral territory, and economic hardships.

In the six years leading up to the Second World War, Adolf Hitler, leading the Nazi Party, took power in Germany and eliminated its democratic government, the Weimar Republic. Hitler's goal was to invade and conquer lands around Germany, and to make them German. He railed against Communists and ethnic minorities, such as Jews. After taking power, he prepared Germany for another war with large political rallies and speeches.

The Spanish Civil War, between 1936 and 1939, saw a democratic government supported largely by the Soviet Union and other members of the League of Nations get overthrown by a Nazi-supported Nationalist party lead by General Franco.

The British and French governments followed a policy of appeasement to try and avoid a new European war. They felt the huge death tolls of the First World War meant there was no appetite for further conflict. This policy culminated in the Munich Agreement in 1938, in which the seemingly inevitable outbreak of the war was averted when Britain and France agreed to Germany's annexation and immediate occupation of the German-speaking regions of Czechoslovakia. In exchange for this, Hitler gave his word that Germany would make no further territorial claims in Europe.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared that the agreement represented "peace for our time."

In March 1939, Germany invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia, effectively killing any notions of appeasement and leading to the outbreak of the Second World War.

VE Day - Victory in Europe - was declared on May 8, 1945. VJ Day - Victory in Japan - was declared on August 15, 1945.

Click on the link below to listen to Glenna Newbold's memories of Melbourne during the war, including the time bombs were dropped on the town, and recollections of Melbourne's market gardeners.

East Midlands Oral History Archive

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