Screening, July 1944

Abstract

By comparison with conditions at the Front, life in Britain seemed comfortable, if not luxurious, in July 1944. To the prisoners, warm baths and comfortable railway compartments were a source of considerable pleasure. But in fact the British people at this time were still faced with severe food, petrol and clothes rationing. They were also prey to Hitler’s‘wonder weapon’. The first of these flying bombs, pilotless aircraft familiarly known as VIS or, even more familiarly, as‘buzz-bombs’ or‘doodle-bugs’, fell on London on 13 June. The menace of the doodle-bugs did not cease altogether until nine months later, in March 1945, though it did diminish before then. By that time the flames shooting out of its tail and the discordant note of its engine had become an integral part of the British skyscape. By then every civilian knew that, when the engine noise suddenly cut off, he must fall flat on the ground and begin to count. The explosion came, on average, after ten seconds. In July, when the nightmare of the bombs’ surprise arrival was at its height, with more than seventy a day falling on London, the Secretary of State for War was asked in the House of Commons for an assurance that German prisoners-of-war would not be transferred from camps in the south of England to areas unaffected by flying bombs.