Seventy-Five Years On

The War in England

We have been taking the opportunity recently to post pieces about World War II--most of them about the struggle as faced and experienced by the United Kingdom.  These events took place 75 years ago: the next general remembrance and anniversary will doubtless be in twenty-five years time.

Here are a few more observations, gleaned from historian, Robert Tombs.

Firstly, the rapid socialisation and centralization of the UK economy.  The free market could not sustain the war.

Millions of acres of grassland, heath and fen went under the plough, some for the first time since the Black Death.  Golf courses and ancient lawns and meadows were sacrificed.  Windsor Great Park became the largest cornfield in England.  The number of allotments nearly doubled as people "dug for victory."  Clubs were set up to keep pigs.  Diets had to change, requiring control of food supplies.  Inflation had to be checked. . . .

Many older people, including at least a million women, volunteered for a range of tasks.  Nearly three-quarters of teenagers between fourteen and seventeen were engaged in some kind of war work.  This was a great social and psychological upheaval--there were 60 million changes of address during the war.  But at the time the disturbances were seen as temporary.  [Robert Tombs, The English and Their History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), p.716f.]

Secondly, the critical contribution of Ernest Bevin.  Here is someone whose name is rarely mentioned. yet in terms of the war effort, Bevin was the glue which kept the nation together.
  It is hard to imagine what might have been the outcome if someone of Bevin's personality, character, and stature had not risen to the top.

The Ministry of Labour and National Service was held by the tough, able and patriotic union boss, Ernest Bevin, surely England's greatest working-class politician.  Child of a single mother, sometime farm worker, van driver, Baptist lay preacher and co-founder of the Transport and General Workers' Union, Bevin held a key position in the government and the war effort, far more than simply as a symbol of cross-class unity.  Though autocratic, even egotistical, he was capable of utter loyalty and was respected and trusted by both Churchill and Atlee.

The Emergency Powers Act (1940) permitted him to direct any person to perform any service he saw fit, and set their wages, hours and conditions.  He wrote, "Immediately a nation is involved in a great crisis . . . it is bound to become collectivist," and he used his powers over more than 8 million workers both to prosecute the war and to extend collective agreements, unionization and regulation of working conditions.  [Ibid.]

Intriguingly, both the USSR and Germany had to imprison and enslave people to sustain their respective war efforts.  England never did.  Nor, for that matter, did the United States.  This leads to the third observation: Britain's war economy out-produced the USSR, Germany and Japan, despite a significantly smaller population.

Yet British industry performed better than those of Germany, Japan and Russia, being outpaced only by the USA.  In the key area of aircraft, Britain out-produced Germany every year except 1944, when the latter was forced to turn out a vast number of fighters to counter the bombing campaign.  Britain also built more battleships and aircraft carriers than any country except the United States.  The performance of its products was generally as good as and often better than those of enemies or allies . . . [Ibid., p. 719]

Interesting notes . . . lest we forget.