London At War
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- £9.99
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
In 1939 London was not merely the greatest city in the world, it was the most tempting and vulnerable target for aerial attack. For six years it was the frontline of the free world's battle against Fascism. It endured the horrors of the Blitz of 1940 and 1941, the V1s, the V2s. Other cities suffered more intensely; no other city was so constantly under attack for so long a time. This is the story of London at war - or, perhaps, of Londoners at war, for Philip Ziegler, known best as a biographer, is above all fascinated by the people who found their lives so suddenly and violently transformed: the querulous, tiresome yet strangely gallant housewife from West Hampstead; the turbulent, left-wing retired schoolmaster from Walthamstow, always having a go at the authorities; the odiously snobbish middleclass lady from Kensington, sneering at the scum who took shelter in the Underground; the typist from Fulham, the plumber from Woolwich. It was their war, quite as much as it was Churchill's or the King's, and this is their history. Through a wealth of interviews and unpublished letters and diaries, as well as innumerable books and newspapers, the author has built up a vivid picture of a population under siege. There were cowards, there were criminals, there were incompetents, but what emerges from these pages is above all a record of astonishing patience, dignity and courage. 'I hope,' Ziegler writes, 'we will never have to endure again what they went through between 1939 and 1945. I hope, if we did, that we would conduct ourselves as well.'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ziegler (Mountbatten) tells the epic story of the British capital's wartime ordeal largely through the words of contemporary Londoners. The dominating drama of this elegant narrative revolves around the German air raids, the underground culture of the bomb shelters and rescue crews where common purpose cut across class lines. Despite widespread death and destruction during the blitz and the threat of invasion, the plucky Londoners not only maintained business as usual but kept alive their cricket matches, held debutante balls and availed themselves of an extraordinary array of entertainment. Ziegler describes the arrival of American GIs along with dire predictions of their unruliness, the early impression being that ``U.S. forces were peopled entirely by short-tempered pugilists.'' Though he avoids sentimentalizing the Londoners' legendary indomitability, Ziegler's overall view is sympathetic and admiring. Photos.
