Wartime Britain

What was life like in Britain during the Second World War (1939–45)? Here we explore rationing, evacuation measures, the Blitz, crime, and the role of women

A British soldier uses a searchlight to spot German aircraft during the Second World War. Britain has lived with the fear of invasion for several centuries, a fact reflected in its architecture, its art and its people’s mental health. (Photo by David Savill/Getty Images)

The LibraryThe island fortress fallacy. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Blitz

Second World War

The cruel cost of the Blitz: how did everyday Britons rebuild their lives?

Second World War

The Coventry Blitz – Q&A with historian Frederick Taylor

Second World War

The wartime wireless and the lost voice of Cyril Lakin

Migrating to Britain. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Persuading the people: British propaganda in the Second World War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Soviet science and feeding Britain at war. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Britain’s Second World War and the Country House. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists

The LibraryBritain’s tearoom fascists. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

World War Two spies and an extraordinary naturalist. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The LibraryThe History Essay: How Europe rose from the dead. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A Black Market camera seller

Criminals of the Blitz: how the German bombings created a golden age of crime. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

North Sea oil and the Blitz. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Women wearing unrationed shoe soles during the war

Dressed for war: fashions of the Second World War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Huts in Lambeth built for bombed-out families, 1945. (Getty)

Britain in 1945: Life in the shadow of victory. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Soldiers guard England's south coast behind a bank of banned wire on 2 September 1940

Britain's fight for survival: Fortress Britain 1940. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

10 tips for surviving on the home front during the Second World War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Portrait of Juliet Gardiner for BBC History Magazine

History explorer: the Second World War home front. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Escaping the Blitz and recording the First World War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Worshippers inside the Duke Street Baptist Church in Richmond, Surrey, listening to a service in 1954. (Photo by Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Getty Images)

The LibraryD-Day for God?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The aftermath of the Second World War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Industrial might: Blenheim bombers in production in England, late 1939. The Allies’ combined industrial strength proved too much for the Axis. (Getty Images)

Second World War

The LibraryThe world in flames

Hard labour: a woman tarring and flinting in Oxford Street, central London, 1919. (Getty Images)

The Library“Our Excess Girls": women after the First World War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

German scientists Dr Carl Eisenmann, Dr Mersch, Dr Trabat and Dr Stocklin. (Express/Getty Images)

The intelligence war for German scientists. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A woman at a floral tribute to Neville Chamberlain at a florist in Ludgate Circus, London, 1938. In the wake of the Munich agreement, the prime minister was understood to be a hero of women everywhere. (Photo by Harry Todd/Getty Images)

The LibraryGuilty women?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

English soldiers in the ruins of Palmyre in charge of taking over the Syrian Territory occupied by Vichy’s France. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

The untold Second World War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Clean-up crews salvaging what they can from the ruins of buildings in Hornsey, a north London suburb, 1944. (Photo by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

Hitler's secret weapon. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Schoolchildren helping workmen construct a new estate of pre-fabricated houses in Watford, Hertfordshire in 1946 following the devastation of the Second World War. (Photo by Keystone Features/Getty Images)

Postwar squatters: a very British uprising. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A colossus at war. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Where the Bosworth battle really happened and a detailed look at rationing. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.