War, and peace, hits our region
THE 1940s were as troubled a decade as any in the nation’s history.
World War Two saw Britain and its allies engaged in a bitter struggle with a powerful, ruthless enemy, Nazi Germany. The conflict brought unimagined death and destruction across the globe, shattering the existing world order, and ultimately creating a new order in which we all still live today.
When victory was finally achieved after a supreme effort and much sacrifice, the country was bloodied and exhausted. The second half of the decade, and way beyond, found Britain paying the price as it travelled the long, difficult road towards some sort of recovery.
For those on the home front during the war, it was a frequently desperate time. Husbands, sons and fathers were away fighting, there were deadly air raids by German bombers, and there were daily hardship and scarcities to contend with. Famously, everyone just got on with things as best they could.
The early 1940s saw towns and cities across the North East feel the full devastating force of Hitler’s Luftwaffe. Much damage was inflicted as the enemy tried to hamper the region’s important industrial contribution to the war effort – but when the bombs missed the shipyards or factories they would sometimes hit houses.
Many hundreds of civilians were killed, and thousands more maimed and rendered homeless, but the details and locations of air raids were usually kept vague, with newspapers such as The
Evening Chronicle,
Journal and Sunday
Sun subject to strict wartime reporting restrictions. It was important not give information and propaganda opportunities to the en–emy, or damage the morale of folk in the region.
At home, Britons were asked to exist on subsistence rations and bathe in no more than five inches of water, but pubs and cinemas stayed open to provide some normality.
With the Newcastle Home Guard being stood down in December 1944, it was clear that danger on the home front was receding. The end of the war in Europe finally came on May 8, 1945, with The Evening Chronicle marking the momentous event with one of the most iconic front pages in the newspaper’s history, pictured. Fighting would continue for three more months in the Far East before the war was finally won.
At home, the peace would bring its own challenges, with rationing, scarcities, queues and austerity lasting well into the 1950s.
But there were positive changes. Clement Attlee’s new Labour government introduced the NHS and the welfare state, which did much to improve the day-to-day lives of many Britons. As the end of the 1940s approached, absolute poverty had almost disappeared from Britain, and there was work for anybody who wanted it.
The post-war world would be much changed from the one which existed before 1939. On the international stage, Britain was no longer a major global player, and the two mighty opposing superpowers, the USA and USSR, would descend into a new cold war – the chill of which we are still very much feeling in 2022.
Our photographs from the Sunday Sun archive recall 1940s Tyneside during World War Two and the immediate post-war years.