The Blitz

   

Exam Practice (click here for the full markscheme)

Extraction from a Source (markscheme)

This is what a London Air Raid Warden said in January 1941.

It has started!   If they keep this up for another week, the war will be over.   The East End won’t be able to stand much more of this sort of thing.   What’s more, the Fire Brigade won’t be able to stand much more of it either.   This is the first leave I’ve had since Thursday…

Down came the bombs.   You could hear the HEs going over the top with a low whistling sound.   After a moment or two they started in with the incendiaries and dropped a Molotov over the docks.   There was fire in every direction.   The City was turned into an enormous, loosely-stacked furnace, belching black smoke.

What does Source A tell us about the reaction of people to the Blitz?

   

  

Utility (markscheme)

A statement made by a Hull Air Raid warden after a bombing raid:

I just went down to the Post an’ when I came back my street was as flat as this ‘ere wharfside – there was just my ‘ouse like – well, part of my ‘ouse.   My missus was just making me a cup of tea for when I came ‘ome.   She were in the passage between the kitchen and the wash-‘ouse, where it blowed ‘er.   She were burnt right up to ‘er waist.   ‘Er legs were just two cinders… and ‘er face…   The only thing I could recognize ‘er by was one of ‘er boots…    I’d ‘ave lost fifteen ‘omes if I could ‘ave kept my missus.

   

How useful is Source E to an historian studying the reaction of people to the Blitz?   Use Source E and your own knowledge to answer the question.

   

  

Why produced? (markscheme)

This photograph, published in the Daily Mail in December 1940 – showing St Paul’s towering over the fires of the Blitz – was called by the newspaper: ‘the Greatest Picture of the War’.   It had symbolic meaning to the people at the time - can you think what?

Why was Source B published in the newspapers in December 1940?   Use Source B and your own knowledge to answer the question.

   

  

Evaluation of an Interpretation (markscheme)

Part of a speech broadcast by Winston Churchill on 27 April 1941

The British nation is stirred and moved as it never has been at any time in its long and famous history, and they mean to conquer or to die.   What a triumph the life of these battered cities is over the worst that fire and bomb can do!

    The terrible experiences and emotions of the battlefield are now shared by the entire population.   Old men, little children, the crippled, the veterans of former wars, aged women, the hard-pressed citizen, the sturdy workman with his hammer in the shipyard, the members of every kind of ARP service, are proud to feel that they stand in the line together with our fighting men.   This, indeed, is a grand, heroic period of our history, and the light of glory shines upon all

Is the view given in Source D an accurate interpretation of people's attitudes to the Blitz?   Use Source D and your own knowledge to answer the question.

   

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