Diaries of World War II

Contemporary Diaries and Journals from World War II now appearing as Blogs

Given the nature of blogging it sometimes seems strange that there are not more people producing historical blogs – blogs that follow historical dates from a past age, day by day. There are a growing band of blogs covering some aspect or other of World War II. However there are only a few sites reproducing contemporary diaries that were written seventy years ago and serving them up day by day in blog form.

 

Rural Lincolnshire becomes an armed camp, ready for invasion

May Hill’s diaries combine the domestic and the international. Follow the lives of her family as they are all affected by the wartime conditions that are imposed on her village near Skegness.

Wed Jan 21 8.45 am. [1942]
# POLITICIANS FACE STRATEGY CRITICISM
# GUN POST PREPARED ON NEARBY FARMLAND
# RUBBER SALVAGE PROCEEDS DISPUTE SETTLED
# LARGE BATCH OF JAM MADE
Very cold and I am afraid another bitter black frost, tho’ there is not so much wind. It is barely daylight yet. The snow has gone and I hope it does not return, tho’ I daresay it would be warmer. Yesterday Japs were only 75 miles from Singapore. Mr Churchill is back from America, think he will have an uneasy time getting things into shape again. Was interested to hear how Lord Addison stuck to his previous views about Popham and Malaya. I think a good many share his views. Russ[ians] have recaptured Mozhaisk. Soldiers here are barb wiring round J. Kirk’s farm, say they are bringing a gun in or near his yard, hope it is not A.A. or we shall be in a war corner, and I do not want to move. I hate “flitting” but that is a small matter, when we think of all the homes ravaged and blitzed and burned. Sometimes when I think how well fed we are and the extra luxuries with our “pink points” from abroad, I feel like David when he poured out the water before the Lord and cried “Is not this the blood of men, who went in jeopardy of their lives.” Not yet have we plumbed the depth of Mr Churchill’s prophesy of toil and sweat and tears and sacrifice, but we may do yet. I hope not. C Parish just brought milk. Says it is colder than ever, but I don’t think it can be, at least that icy wind doesn’t blow. Snip. [kitten] came in again for new milk tho’ she had porridge and potatoes before.

 

Facing the tribes of Waziristan on the North West Frontier of India

A Story of War started before World War II when Colin Dunford Wood was engaged in an entirely different conflict. The British Empire still had troops stationed on the North West Frontier of India to quell the troublesome tribes of Waziristan, even as Britain fought for her survival in the summer of 1940. However Dunford Wood’s diaries make clear that he wanted to be elsewhere, preferably in the air:

June 7th 1940 Lahore

Met Appleton, joining the RAF (3 Blenheims) in Calcutta. Up again this evening for 40 minutes. Walters the pilot instructor unable to teach me aerobatics, so I go on a recce over Lahore, about ten miles away. Keep at 2000′ and try to take a couple of photographs. A bit of a haze and much smoke, but most enjoyable and finish with a perfect landing. The damn man won’t let me spin her, me who has spun at 3000′ in Madras – he says he doesn’t like chaps of only 6 or 7 hours flying throwing the planes about. What the hell’s he think I am? Met a flying British officer there and was telling him what Adams had told me about Haig going to the RAF, and found he WAS Haig, and that they had accepted him and then done nothing more about it.

 

The Orwell Diaries cover life in war time London

Perhaps in a different league is George Orwell who records all sorts of fascinating minor detail about peoples attitudes and how they coped with the war:

17th September 1940

Heavy bombing in this area last night till about 11 p.m……. I was talking in the hallway of this house to two young men and a girl who was with them. Psychological attitude of all 3 was interesting. They were quite openly and unashamedly frightened, talking about how their knees were knocking together, etc., and yet at the same time excited and interested, dodging out of doors between bombs to see what was happening and pick up shrapnel splinters.

Afterwards in Mrs. C’s little reinforced room downstairs, with Mrs C. and her daughter, the maid, and three young girls who are also lodgers here. All the women, except the maid, screaming in unison, clasping each other, and hiding their faces, every time a bomb went past, but betweenwhiles quite happy and normal, with animated conversation proceeding, The dog subdued and obviously frightened, knowing something to be wrong. Marx [his dog] is also like this during raids, i.e. subdued and uneasy. Some dogs, however, go wild and savage during a raid and have had to be shot. They allege here, and E. says the same thing about Greenwich, that all the dogs in the park now bolt for home when they hear the siren.

World War II London Blitz Diary 1939-1945

Diary of Ruby Side Thompson (1884-1970) an English housewife and mother of seven sons living in Romford, London during World War Two. Her style is to combine revelations on both the general progress of the war and daily life, for example …

Monday May 12, 1941

…

No morning letters yet. Do not know what has happened to Mother, but presume she is all right, or I should have heard to the contrary. We had three alerts last night, and a fairly noisy night, though nothing like as bad as Saturday night. Saturday’s was another terrorizing raid on London.

In the nine o’clock news last night we were told of some of the damage. The heart of the attack was at Westminster. Serious damage was done to Westminster Abbey, the British Museum, and the Houses of Parliament. Big Ben, The Houses of Parliament, and Westminster Hall were all seriously damage by high explosives and incendiaries. The abbey is open to the sky, the Lantern Roof burned. The Little Cloisters were burnt out. Five more hospitals hit, a cinema, a “large” hotel.

In the hotel one hundred and forty guests and employees were sheltering in the basement, but a bomb crashed through, and it is feared all are dead. Frightful. It is the Devil’s work.

About four o’clock yesterday Mary Bernadette came in pale and shaking. She came to bring me news o f Doreen Peel. Mary had been in her house alone all night. She had spent the evening at the Peel’s; they asked her to stay the night, but she declined. About noon a boy called in to tell her that the Peel house was destroyed, the family all safe, but Doreen was in the hospital. The Peel’s live or lived on Castellan Avenue, Gidea Park. A land mine came down just outside their house. Doreen heard it landing and went to warn the family. Before she could do so, the front door blew in on her, knocked her unconscious and cut her face open. (It is feared she will lose an eye.) The house is collapsing. Mary had come from seeing it, and described the fantasticness of the wreckage to us. The house is beyond all repairs. …

The diaries have been published but also feature as a day by day blog that can be read online at London Blitz Diary.

On the home front there are no less than two diarists from Colchester in Essex whose diaries are appearing day by day:

Alwyne Garling: WW2 in Colchester

Mr. Garling kept a sharp eye not just on the minutiae of life in wartime Colchester – always the weather and his family’s health – but events on the local, national and international stage too. So, on October 3, 1940, he wrote:

Dull wet day. Cold still rather bad. Another bomb dropped at Colchester by lone raider Chamberlain resigns from Cabinet. 3 girls killed at Old Heath Laundry & 2 people in house.

Mr. Garling, who had just turned 30 when war was declared, noted the dates in 1940 when meat and sugar rationing began and when King George VI visited Lexden that October. He also kept a monthly air-raid tally, recording bombings at Mile End and Berechurch in Colchester, Marks Tey, West Bergholt, Eight Ash Green, Fordham, Tiptree, and further afield.

On a snowy day in Januray 1941, he recalled:

We heard that some bombs had dropped down Chitts Hill, so decided we would go and see if there was anything to be seen. We battled our way through the blizzard and when we got to the gates, we found that the railway gates’ house had been damaged and the telegraph wires brought down – a nasty mess. The gatekeeper was having a bath, but was not hurt. There was some casualties in the train which was machine-gunned – two being killed.

At times, the war came much closer to home. As enemy aircraft flew overhead, Mr. Garling, his sister Vera and parents Albert and Annie, were often forced to take refuge in the Morrison shelter built in their garden in London Road, Lexden.

Discover his most recent entries at: Alwyne Garling: WW2 in Colchester

 

E.J. Rudsdale: A Civilian in the Second World War

E.J. Rudsdale picks up much incidental detail about the war:

4th October 1940

Heavy rain and high wind. Names of the dead on the Casualty Board at the Public Library, together with an incredible coincidence, the names of three evacuated children, sent to Rushton, near Kettering, and killed there in school yesterday. Amazing that two such things should happen on the same day.

 
 
 

Do you know of any other sites that are reproducing contemporary diaries from World War II in Blog form ?