levo

London and the Second World War, 1939–45

Sources for a London Blitz enquiry

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 1

Overview

Personal accounts, diaries and photographs, censored pictures, borough newspapers, council records and bomb damage maps, the Ministry of Home Security's returns and other official papers, Mass Observation, newsreels, national dailies and later memoirs, the strengths and limits of each, and how to plan a follow-up enquiry from a detail in a source.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Key term

What does a national daily paper offer an enquiry into the bombing?

Key term

Why do historians of the bombing use official national records alongside neighbourhood ones?

Key term

Which kind of local source records what one individual actually saw and felt during a raid?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Which kind of local source records what one individual actually saw and felt during a raid?

    Model answer

    A personal account, such as a diary kept at the time, a letter to a relative or an interview recorded with a survivor later.

  2. 2

    Why is a diary written on the night of a raid particularly valuable?

    Model answer

    It was set down before the writer knew how the war would end, so it captures immediate fear, rumour and detail that later accounts smooth away.

  3. 3

    What is the main limitation of relying on one survivor's account of the bombing?

    Model answer

    It shows one person's experience of one street, shaped by memory and emotion, and cannot show how wide or heavy a raid was.

  4. 4

    What can a photograph of a wrecked terrace tell a historian, and what can it not?

    Model answer

    It shows exactly what the damage looked like, but not who was hurt, nor whether the photographer chose or arranged the view.

  5. 5

    Why were some pictures taken during the raids never printed in the papers?

    Model answer

    Censors held back images of dead bodies or of severe damage that might frighten the public or tell the enemy where its bombs had landed.

  6. 6

    What can a borough newspaper add to an enquiry that a national title cannot?

    Model answer

    Reports of particular streets and families, funeral notices, rest centre announcements and readers' letters about local grievances.

Other ways to work this

The same content, four other ways.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

1Closed book
2Open book
3Closed book

The 3-step method, run for you

Answer cold, learn it, then prove it stuck. Levo tracks the jump between your first attempt and your last.

Anglo-Saxon and Norman England, c1060–88
British America, 1713–83: Empire and Revolution
Conflict in the Middle East, 1945–95
Crime and Punishment in Britain, c1000–present

Cram a whole paper in one sitting

Sort every topic into what you know and what you do not, then drill only the weak ones.

£6.6 , fixed in 1921.
billionmillionthousand

Blank Blitz makes facts automatic

Rapid timed gap-fills on the terms and numbers you need to recall without thinking.

AThe huge loss of life left England short of workers.
BForeign craftsmen and labourers were wanted.
CCompetition for work also bred resentment.

Build It gets the exam shape right

Assemble a full-mark answer from its marking points, in the order an examiner wants them.

Strategy means the plan for a whole campaign.
TrueFalse

Test It catches misconceptions

Spot the fault in a statement. The traps are the mistakes students actually make.

721941163128510

Brain Breaks between sessions

Short focus games to reset attention, so the next set lands better than the last.

Every question in London and the Second World War, 1939–45, on a schedule.

Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.

Or £46 a year, about £3.83 a month. Cancel anytime.