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Defense Policy - World War II

By September 1939 the worst British re-armament deficiencies had been rectified. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had safely arrived in France and the RAF began carrying out leaflet raids on German towns. Although the war at sea began immediately after Britain announced war with Germany, the period from September 1939 until May 1940 was marked by few military operations and termed 'phoney'.

On 10 May 1940 Germany launched its attack on France. On the very same day Neville Chamberlain's leadership suffered a crisis in confidence and Winston Churchill was asked to form a national coalition government. Belgium and Holland asked for Allied help, and so the northern group of armies, including the BEF. moved to resist the German advance through the Low Countries. However, a heavy blow fell on Luxemburg and the Ardennes forest, and the Germans shattered the French Army around Sedan. German armoured divisions poured into France and raced across to the channel coast near Abbeville, cutting off the British and French forces in Belgium and Northern France.

Paralysed by the speed of the German advance, the French Army never recovered. Politicians in France and Britain were aghast at the speed of the collapse. In the north, the British were forced to retreat to Dunkirk where the Navy succeeded in rescuing many of the troops. The technique was then repeated in ports along the French Atlantic coast. Losses were heavy, but hundreds of thousands of Allied troops were brought back to Britain.

The British Expeditionary Force had left almost all its equipment behind on the beaches of Dunkirk and was in bad shape. By early June it was clear that France was now incapable of offering organised resistance to the Germans. The War Cabinet rejected the idea of seeking terms if France surrendered. By the time France finally collapsed, the decision had been made - Britain would fight on.

The catastrophic defeat of France and the collapse of Allied plans on Norway devastated British strategic thinking. However, despite a threatened invasion, Britain refused to negotiate terms and fought on under Churchill's leadership.

The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was lifted off the beaches at Dunkirk by the Royal and Merchant Navies. Unfortunately, almost all the British army's equipment was left behind. It was considered fortunate if soldiers managed to bring their personal weapons off with them; many did not.

Britain now faced a serious strategic dilemma. Germany controlled the Atlantic seaboard (from the North Cape of Norway to the Spanish frontier) and by July 1940 the Germans were already basing their U-boats in the French Biscay ports. The ports provided the Germans with a point of safety for surface raiders and blockade-runners. With aid from alliances in Eastern Europe and resources taken from overrun Poland and Western Europe, Germany secured massive economic resources for its war effort.

Before Dunkirk, measures had been taken to improve home defence - the most famous being the formation of the Home Guard. After Dunkirk, with the army in a woeful state and with the Battle of Britain under way, risk of invasion seemed high. The Royal Navy kept cruisers and destroyers close to the straits of Dover as well as having the Home Fleet on stand-by in case of a seaborne invasion. The longer the Germans waited, the better equipped the land forces became. The Royal Navy's ability to close the channel at night now posed an almost insoluble problem for the German Navy.

Invasion fears reached a climax on 7 September 1940. An attack seemed imminent between 8 and 10 September. The 'Cromwell' code was issued, signalling maximum readiness to the land forces (the Navy and Air Force were already prepared), but unable to secure local air superiority, the Germans scaled back their plans. British invasion fears finally disappeared when Russia was invaded by Germany.

The need to increase production of war materials and, at the same time, expand the fighting services necessitated massive involvement from civilians; although unemployment fell rapidly, there were still insufficient numbers of workers. The shortage of labour meant that some men who had been conscripted under the impression they would be sent to fight were instead sent to work in the coal mines.

In order to release the maximum number of men for the fighting services and increase war production, there was a huge expansion of female workers. They worked in all areas, but particularly in manual roles that had not previously been considered suitable. By the end of the war female manual workers were labouring in agriculture (as part of the Women's Land Army), in the women's auxiliary services of the Royal Navy, Army, Civil Defence and Air Force, and in factories and shipyards across the country. Only the most physically arduous occupations such as mining remained for men only.

Many of the thought processes behind government decisions that affected life on the Home Front had been tried and imagined years before. The control of food was no exception. Rationing was seen, not just as restricting supplies, but also as guaranteeing them - preventing price inflation and profiteering.

Between 1933 and the outbreak of war, a nucleus organisation was established and many of the problems of food supply in war were examined. However, in December 1936 and in February and July 1937, the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence tried and failed to get the Cabinet to take action on food reserves. Rationing was not introduced at the outbreak of the war and only sugar, butter and bacon were rationed in January 1940. Meat was added to the rationing system in March and tea, margarine and cooking fats in July. The amount of food permitted under rationing varied throughout the war, with cheese, preserves and sugar varying the most while tea, bacon and ham remained fairly constant.

The Ministry of Food made a great effort to ensure everyone received a balanced and nutritious diet and suggested recipes making use of substitute ingredients. In order to maximize food production, people were encouraged to grow their own vegetables whenever possible and 'dig for victory'. Some civilians even raised poultry and livestock. Large amounts of previously unproductive countryside were ploughed to help raise food production. Later, clothing and even furniture were rationed or controlled by the government.

In order to maximize war production and reduce imports, massive schemes were undertaken to recycle as much material as possible. The public was encouraged to help finance the war effort by buying war bonds and raising money to allow individual communities to contribute to purchasing a weapons system. This was often an aircraft; an example being the 'wings for victory' campaign.

Some of the measures taken to control the civil population outlived the war; for example identity cards were not abandoned until 1951, and many food items remained on ration for years (sweets were still rationed in 1953). The poor economic state of Britain, combined with the philosophy of the incoming Labour government, contributed to the level of control maintained after the end of the war. The massive change in the level of government control over civil life during the Second World War helped prepare people for the impact on individual life of the policies of nationalisation and the development of the welfare state.