Battle of Britain and the Blitz (Military History)

Introduction

The Battle of Britain and the Blitz were two central moments in the British war effort during World War II. They have usually been treated as distinct campaigns, but they are linked by the fact that the German Air Force conducted a continuous eleven-month offensive against Britain from July 1940 to June 1941. Historians nevertheless have persisted in separating them, and the structure of the bibliography here reflects that distinction. Both topics have generated serious academic interest only since the 1990s; prior to that the literature was dominated by popular accounts and memoirs and by the official histories, written in the 1950s. Popular accounts, memoirs, and picture books still predominate The Battle of Britain is of more limited interest historically than the Blitz, though the reasons for German failure have generated considerable debate. The Battle, however, has come to play a central part in British memory of the conflict as the moment when Hitler’s Germany was defied and invasion averted. The Blitz is a more complex story. German strategy in pursuing the long bombing offensive against British ports and industrial cities has been examined less carefully than other strands of German strategy, partly because its achievements were modest, partly because historians have focused far more on the preparations for the large war against the Soviet Union. The Blitz history focuses instead on the British social, cultural, and political experience under the impact of bombing, and on the significance and effectiveness of British civil defense. Bombing in the Blitz and elsewhere in Europe symbolized the conduct of total war, in which civilian communities were in the front line as much as the armed forces. The ethical implications of this change in the character of modern war and the limits of legally permissible violence are a significant aspect of the study of wartime bombing. Historians have also been interested in this case in more fundamental questions about how civilian society coped with the social, material, and psychological impact of bombing and what averted more serious political crisis. In particular, the so-called myth of the Blitz, which since the war maintained that British society pulled together, eroded class differences, and withstood the damage with a collective stoicism, has been subjected to careful critical scrutiny. The last section in the bibliography deals with the development and function of the “myth” since 1945 as an important element in British historical identity and public history.

General Overviews

The Battle of Britain and the Blitz both fit into a wider literature on the evolution of air warfare in the 20th century and in particular the link between air power and total war. The best introduction to this relationship is Buckley 1999, but there are solid introductions to the history of air warfare in World War II in Murray 1999 and Overy 2006, which give extensive coverage to both the Battle and the German bombing offensive. The wider history of air warfare across the 20th century, which contributes to an understanding of the development of air defense systems and the changing nature of bombing technology, tactics, and strategy, has a rich literature. Olsen 2010 and Pape 1996 are among the most useful in charting these changes, but Werrell 2009 supplies an up-to-date history of bombing that puts the Blitz in particular into perspective. The common assumption in the literature is that air power is a defining feature of modern war whose utility and effectiveness have improved over time. A skeptical critique of those assumptions can be found in van Creveld 2011, but there is also a growing literature critical of the bombing campaigns in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. In response to the high civilian losses and damage to the civilian milieu brought about by bombing in these conflicts, there is now an extensive literature on the ethics and legality of bomb attack on civilians, a literature in which the edited book Tanaka and Young 2009 can be regarded as the best introduction.

Buckley, John. Air Power in the Age of Total War. London: UCL Press, 1999.
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One of the few books to place air power in the context of total war, as an instrument designed to assault both the home front and the fighting front. This is an excellent introduction to the evolution of the air weapon and its use.
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Murray, Williamson. War in the Air, 1914–1945. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999.
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A standard account of the development of the air weapon and its use in the period of the World Wars, the book benefits from generous illustration and useful statistics.
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Olsen, John, ed. A History of Air Warfare. New York: Potomac, 2010.
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A useful and up-to-date set of essays by a number of prominent air-power historians covering all the major uses of air power during the past century, it is a good summary for anyone starting out to examine the impact of aircraft on modern war.
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Overy, Richard. The Air War, 1939–1945. 3d ed. New York: Potomac, 2006.
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One of the first general histories of the air war, first published in 1980 and reissued twice. The book covers not only the air campaigns but also technology, leadership, economics, and organization of air forces.
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Pape, Robert. Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.
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A clear analysis of the nature and limitations of the bombing wars on the past century, the book explores critically the ways in which air power has been exercised and explains its strategic purpose.
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Tanaka, Yuki, and Marilyn Young, eds. Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth-Century History. New York: New Press, 2009.
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One of the most important of the books on the ethics of bombing and damage to civilian life, the essays include studies of international law in relation to bombing and the arguments for and against using nuclear weapons.
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van Creveld, Martin. The Age of Airpower. New York: Public Affairs, 2011.
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An essential critical view of the air-power century, the book explores each of the major air campaigns and the claims made for them and shows the gap between expectation and reality. This is a useful introduction to all the debates surrounding air power.
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Werrell, Kenneth. Death from the Heavens: A History of Strategic Bombing. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2009.
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An essential addition to the literature on bombing in which the operational, ethical. and strategic issues raised are explored more widely than in Murray 1999 or Buckley 1999.
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Official Histories

For much of the narrative of the Battle and the Blitz, historians have relied on the British official histories in particular, a series that began in the 1940s. The early histories suffer from an absence of footnotes or evidence for the sources used, and have been supplemented by more recent archive-based history. The story of the role of the Royal Air Force (RAF) is told in Richards 1974, recently reissued in a new paperback form, and this volume helped to shape the historians who treated both the Battle and the Blitz in subsequent accounts. The military aspects of the defense of Britain in broader terms are covered in Collier 1957, which in addition to a detailed narrative includes large numbers of very helpful maps, charts, and appendices. Intelligence across the period of the Battle and the Blitz is dealt with in the first volume of the official history Hinsley, et al. 1979. The impact of the Blitz on British society is covered in Titmuss 1950 and O’Brien 1955, both very detailed studies of government policy on civil defense and social responses to the bombing. The effect of the campaign on the British economy can be explored in Postan 1957, which also provides a wide range of statistical material. For the German side of the story there is much material in British Air Ministry 1983, a narrative on the German Air Force, first written in 1947 but published only after its declassification in 1983. The official German history, Maier 1991, has a limited account of the German offensive and is based on the archive sources then available, but there are large gaps in the discussion of the Blitz. A model official history of Canada’s role in the air war, Greenhous, et al. 1994, benefited from the wide release of archive files and is fully referenced and complete with maps and charts. The volume covers the period when Canada was providing training areas for Battle of Britain pilots and the early Canadian contribution to the RAF’s campaigns. For the British bombing of Germany all through the Battle and the Blitz, Webster and Frankland 1961 is indispensable. There is a useful critical guide to official history as a genre in Grey 2003.

British Air Ministry. Rise and Fall of the German Air Force, 1939–1945. Reprint. London: Arms & Armour, 1983.
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Still an essential introduction to the history of the German Air Force, based on captured German records and written shortly after the end of the war. The book contains numerous maps and helpful charts of German Air Force strength, losses and operations.
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Collier, Basil. The Defence of the United Kingdom. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1957.
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A very full narrative account of all aspects of British defense during the war, with extensive sections on both the Battle and the Blitz. The author had unrestricted access to documents but for security reasons could not reveal that German codes had been broken. It contains full details of the size and structure of the RAF and German Air Force.
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Greenhous, Brereton, Stephen Harris, William Johnston, and William Rawling. Vol. III of Crucible of War: The Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1994.
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A detailed and academically scrupulous study of the role of the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II, it contains useful detail on the air training programs set up for the RAF early in the war.
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Grey, Jeffery, ed. The Last Word? Essays on Official History in the United States and the British Commonwealth. New York: Praeger, 2003.
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A series of essays exploring official history writing in different countries. There are two useful chapters on the writing of official history in Britain, and on Webster and Frankland 1961, an official account of the bomber offensive.
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Hinsley, F. H., E. E. Thomas, C. F. G. Ransom, and R. C. Knight. Vol. 1 of British Intelligence in the Second World War. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1979.
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The best account of the development of British intelligence during the war. Covers intelligence gathering in its many forms and the development of the organizations concerned (the three services, the Foreign Office, the Political Warfare Executive, MI6) as well as an assessment of its value.
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Maier, Klaus. Germany and the Second World War. Vol. II, Germany’s Initial Conquests in Europe. Translated by P. S. Falla. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
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The English-language version of the German official history first published in 1979 by the Military History Research Office in Freiburg (now in Potsdam). One of the very few accounts to present the German side of the history.
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O’Brien, Terence. Civil Defence. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1955.
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One of the earliest British official histories, the volume covers all aspects of the civil defense schemes and has a very full (and occasionally critical) account of the performance of the civil defense services during the Blitz.
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Postan, Michael. British War Production. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1957.
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The volume, by a leading economic historian, covers all aspects of war production in World War II, including the period of the Blitz. It contains a high level of serious economic analysis, though no footnotes.
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Richards, Denis. Royal Air Force 1939–1945. Vol. I, The Fight at Odds. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1974.
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The standard official account of the RAF at war, Volume I covers the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. The story of the Battle relies a good deal on the narrative constructed during and just after the war, and has been extensively used by other historians.
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Titmuss, Richard. Problems of Social Policy. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1950.
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In one of the very first official histories, Titmuss seeks to demonstrate the extent to which class solidarity and social cooperation played a role in the Blitz as a background to the welfare reforms of the postwar Labour government. His views are now the object of criticism from recent historians of the Blitz.
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Webster, Charles, and Noble Frankland. Vol. I of The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1961.
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One of the best of the official histories, with proper referencing of sources, the first volume covers the early RAF bombing campaign in 1940 and 1941 across the period of the Battle and the Blitz and has excellent appendices and supporting charts.
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Historical Background

There has been substantial interest during the past decade in the popular attitude in Britain between the wars to the threat of bombing and the advent of total war. The concerns, which dated from the early bombing raids against Britain carried out in World War I, are explored fully in Fredette 1991, a book that also contains complete statistical data on the bombing raids. Air defense against bombing is dealt with in Ferris 1999. Three recent books explore the popular cultural and social response to the fear of bombing after 1918. Grayzel 2012 looks at the fears through the prism of cultural representation, while Patterson 2007 uses the bombing raid on Guernica on 26 April 1937 as the hook on which to hang the popular response in the 1930s to the bombing threat, again expressed in cultural terms. Haapamaki 2014 is a more thorough account of not only the cultural resonance of bombing, but also the practical effects provoked by the fear and the public pressure for protection. The response of the state was to find ways to counteract the threat and calm the fears. Bialer 1980, by the first writer to look at fear of bombing in other than military/strategic terms, explores the ways in which government reacted to popular anxiety. Lee 2003–2004 provides a detailed account of the interplay between public fear and government behavior in the study of the Munich crisis, and is a useful supplement to Bialer. The government and the RAF were also active in finding military ways to obstruct the possibility of bombing or to deter the potential aggressor. Higham 2012 puts French and British air-power developments together, exploring the paradox in British preparation in simultaneously preparing a bomber offensive and a fighter defense against bombing. To complement active military preparation were civil defense measures, derived from experience in the First World War. The standard book on British civil defense is Lemke 2005, which puts British and German developments together. There is also detailed material on civil defense preparations in Overy 2013, cited under the section the Blitz.

Bialer, Uri. The Shadow of the Bomber: The Fear of Air Attack and British Bombing 1932–1939. London: Royal Historical Society, 1980.
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The first book to deal seriously with the bomber threat and the response of the state, the air force, and the public to the possibility of bombing, and the book that has prompted a substantial wave of new research on air power, society, and culture in Britain.
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Ferris, John. “Fighter Defence before Fighter Command: The Rise of Strategic Air Defence in Great Britain 1917–1934.” Journal of Military History 63 (1999): 845–884.
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An excellent detailed account of the development of British fighter defenses from the early response to German bombing in 1917 to the evolution of an integrated air defense system in the early 1930s before the creation of separate functional commands.
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Fredette, Raymond. The Sky on Fire: The First Battle of Britain 1917–1918, and the Birth of the Royal Air Force. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991.
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An indispensable introduction, first published in 1966, to the first air offensive against Britain mounted by German long-range bombers, with good detail about the active and passive defenses developed in Britain to respond to the threat, echoed years later in the Blitz.
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Fritzsche, Peter. A Nation of Fliers: German Aviation and the Popular Imagination. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.
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An original exploration of the impact that the airplane had on German society, emphasizing the enthusiasm and technical fascination, but also looking at the anxiety felt by German society too at the prospect of a bombing war.
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Grayzel, Suzanne. At Home and under Fire: Air Raids and Culture in Britain from the Great War to the Blitz. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
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An excellent analysis of the development of cultural responses to the bombing threat from the Great War through to the Blitz, set usefully in the context of the development of the air arm and the demonstration of the threat in the 1930s. Complements Haapamaki 2014.
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Haapamaki, Michele. The Coming of the Aerial War: Culture and the Fear of Airborne Attack in Inter-War Britain. London: I. B. Tauris, 2014.
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To be read in conjunction with Grayzel 2012, the book explores not only the cultural dimension of the response to the bombing threat, but also the popular arguments surrounding the effort to provide effective protection in the late 1930s.
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Higham, Robin. Two Roads to War: The French and British Air Arms from Versailles to Dunkirk. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2012.
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One of the more recent accounts of the evolution of the British and French air forces, showing how patterns of development and doctrine were laid down before the stage of high rearmament, and exposing the paradoxes in RAF preparation both to bomb and to defend against the bomber.
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Lee, Gerald. “‘I See Dead People:’ Air-Raid Phobia and Britain’s Behaviour in the Munich Crisis.” Security Studies 13 (2003–2004): 230–272.
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An interesting case study of the relationship between appeasement and popular fear of bombing, a fear articulated by Prime Minister Chamberlain as he contemplated options during the Czech crisis.
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Lemke, Bernd. Luftschutz in Grossbritannien und Deutschland 1923 bis 1939. Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2005.
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The book is available only in German, but it is the best account available of civil defense preparation in both countries and the dilemmas faced in trying to provide at least minimum protection for the urban population.
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Patterson, Ian. Guernica and Total War. London: Profile Books, 2007.
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A well-written and perceptive introduction to the fear of the bomber in the 1930s, prompted by the wide political and cultural response in Britain to the bombing of Guernica. The book explores the links made in the popular mind between bombing and total war.
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The Battle of Britain

The early literature on the Battle of Britain relied heavily on the official narrative, first developed in the wartime pamphlet called The Battle of Britain (Air Ministry, 1941), and solidified in the official histories. Much of the non-academic writing on the battle, both memoirs and popular narrative, is historically unreliable but forms by far the larger part of all the literature so far produced on the Battle. The standard history for years was Wood and Dempster 1961, which reinforces the wartime image of an embattled RAF close to defeat until the heroic defeat of the bombers in mid-September, and relies heavily on an early account, now reprinted, in James 2002. A more critical assessment can be found in Ray 1994, written by the first historian to go back properly to the archive record on the battle. Since 2000, the history of the battle has been transformed. The best short introduction is Overy 2000, which sets the battle in its wider strategic and political context and has useful statistics. The larger story of the battle is told in Bungay 2000 and Holland 2010. Holland has also set the battle in the wider context of air conflict in 1940, taking May 1940 as the starting point and showing the extent to which the battle for France in May and June 1940 affected and merged with the battle of Britain later in the summer. These books should be read in conjunction with the edited volume of essays Addison and Crang 2000, which brings a variety of military, social, and cultural perspectives to bear on the battle. This is the most comprehensive academic treatment of the battle. The most significant debate generated on the battle can be followed in Robinson 2005 and Cumming 2010, which both argue that the Royal Navy was a much more significant strategic deterrent to German invasion plans than was the RAF. The other debate concerns the extent to which Hitler was serious about the invasion of Britain at all. The author of Förster 1997 is one of many German historians to emphasize the importance for Hitler of the war against the Soviet Union and the shift in German strategy even before the Battle of Britain.

Addison, Paul, and Jeremy Crang, eds. The Burning Blue: A New History of the Battle of Britain. London: Pimlico, 2000.
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A volume of eighteen essays on aspects of the Battle of Britain, derived from a conference in Edinburgh. Particularly useful are the essays by Maier and Boog on German strategy. The book also benefits from a section devoted to the memories of two pilots, one from each side.
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Bungay, Stephen. The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain. London: Aurum, 2000.
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One of the fullest scholarly accounts of the Battle, the book explores critically many of the assumptions previously held about the conduct of the battle and the effectiveness of RAF operations. Interesting treatment, based on extensive oral interviews, of the issue of crew morale. Complements Holland 2010.
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Cumming, Anthony. The Royal Navy and the Battle of Britain. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2010.
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The major book on the debate over the relative significance of the Royal Navy and the RAF in persuading Hitler to abandon invasion in 1940 comes down on the side of the Royal Navy as the principal barrier to any cross-Channel operation. Can be read as a companion to Robinson 2005.
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Förster, Jürgen. “Hitler Turns East: German War Policy in 1940 and 1941.” In From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia and the World 1939–1941. Edited by Bernd Wegner, 115–134. Providence, RI: Berghahn, 1997.
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One of the main statements available in English on the transition in Hitler’s strategy from the war against the West to the planned war against the Soviet Union. Uses Hitler’s planning discussions in summer 1940 to show that the East became a German priority even before the Battle began.
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Holland, James. The Battle of Britain: Five Months That Changed History, May–October 1940. London: Bantam, 2010.
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A book that can be read in conjunction with Bungay 2000. It sets the battle in an original context by looking at the whole air war from May 1940 in France through to October, when the Battle petered out, as a continuous campaign of air warfare.
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James, T. C. G. The Battle of Britain. Edited by Sebastian Cox. London: Frank Cass, 2002.
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The second volume of the official narrative of the Battle, first written during the war and classified by the Air Ministry until its recent publication. The narrative provides the chronological phases and details of the fighting used in subsequent official accounts.
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Overy, Richard. The Battle of Britain: Myth and Reality. New York: Norton, 2000.
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A short introduction to the battle, the book looks critically at the idea of the “Few” against overwhelming odds. The book sets the battle in the wider context of the war and of German strategy and argues against the idea that Hitler was not serious about invasion.
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Ray, John. The Battle of Britain: Dowding and the First Victory, 1940. London: Cassell, 1994.
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A straightforward account, based on the archive sources, of the Battle, this is one of the first books to look critically at the established narrative set up in the 1940s and 1950s.
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Robinson, Derek. Invasion, 1940: The Explosive Truth about the Battle of Britain. London: Constable, 2005.
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A polemical study of the relative importance of the RAF and the Royal Navy, this is the first popular presentation on of the argument and should be read in conjunction with Cumming 2010. The book is dedicated to playing down the historical significance of the “Few.”
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Wood, Derek, and Derek Dempster. The Narrow Margin: The Battle of Britain and the Rise of Air Power, 1930–1940. London: Hutchinson, 1961.
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The classic history of the Battle from which much subsequent writing on the campaign has been derived. It benefits from extensive statistical data and useful maps, but sustains the argument that victory in 1940 was very much against the odds.
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The Blitz

The literature on the Blitz is almost entirely focused on the British experience of the bombing campaign rather than the German intentions and operations while conducting it. Apart from the official histories, there is relatively little literature that puts the air campaign and the social consequences together. The best account is Ray 1996, with a more popular overview in Whiting 1999. The most recent treatment of the Blitz from both the German and British perspective is included in Overy 2013, though only a small part of the whole book. On the impact of the Blitz on British society there is a fuller and more informed literature. The best account is Gardiner 2010. which provides an extensive survey of all aspects of the political, social, and cultural impact of the bombing, but this book should be supplemented with Süss 2014, whose comparative survey of the effects of bombing on British and German society is based on extensive and original archive sources. Süss is interested in the way particular social and political systems react to bombing as well as in the private strategies developed by civilians when faced with the effects of bombing disaster. A case study of the impact on civilians can be found in Gaskin 2005, which uses one particular raid on London as an entry point for examining the social and psychological reaction to raiding. A counterweight to the historical concentration on the experience of London can be found in Thoms 1995. On the economic and material effects of bombing very little has been written beyond the official histories, with the exception of Overy 2013. Much of the popular writing on the Blitz is impressionistic and inaccurate and should always be used with caution or tested against the archive record. On the distorting effects of the Blitz “myth,” Calder 1991 is indispensable. This was one of the first books to look critically at the reality of the Blitz and to explain how the popular memory of the “Blitz spirit” was constructed and sustained after 1945.

Calder, Angus. The Myth of the Blitz. London: Jonathan Cape, 1991.
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The first book to examine the nature of the Blitz “myth” and the process through which public history and memory are constructed. It is not a polemical study but a serious examination of the content of the myth and of the extent to which it reflects historical reality.
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Gardiner, Juliet. The Blitz: The British under Attack. London: Harper Collins, 2010.
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Now the standard account of the Blitz year in Britain, it is based on an extensive reading of the archive and of the diaries and oral testimony available since the war. The book shows that the social reaction was a mixture of steadfastness, fear, and self-interest.
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Gaskin, Margaret. Blitz: The Story of 29 December 1940. London: Faber & Faber, 2005.
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The book takes one of the heaviest raids on London to exemplify the limits of the bombing campaign in terms of affecting morale or exacting insupportable levels of damage. Good use is made of oral testimony and memoir literature.
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Overy, Richard. The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945. London: Allen Lane, 2013.
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The first complete history of the bombing war, the book includes two chapters on German operations and on British responses, from active and passive defenses to the protection of war production and the psychological effects on bombed communities.
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Ray, John. The Night Blitz, 1940–1941. London: Arms & Armour, 1996.
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This is one of the first accounts of the Blitz to put together a detailed operational analysis with a study of the impact of bombing on the economy, infrastructure, and communities in the bombed cities.
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Süss, Dietmar. Death from the Skies: How the British and Germans Survived Bombing in World War II. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
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An indispensable study based on extensive local archive research in Britain and Germany, the book examines the social reaction to bombing in terms of two different political systems. The study of shelter life, the role of religion, and the psychological reaction to being bombed are the most original elements.
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Thoms, David. “The Blitz, Civilian Morale and Regionalism.” In War Culture: Social Change and Changing Experience in World War Two. Edited by Pat Kirkham and David Thoms. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1995.
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One of the few academic studies of the impact of the Blitz in areas outside London. Although there are many popular local accounts of the bombing of individual cities, the comparative study of the morale effects is much more limited. This is the best example.
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Whiting, Charles. Britain under Fire: The Bombing of Britain’s Cities, 1940–1945. Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword, 1999.
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A popular presentation of the Blitz, using a wide range of illustrative material, the book is useful for the detailed discussion of the Blitz across the United Kingdom rather than the conventional focus on London.
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German Air Force Strategy

One of the weaknesses of the literature on the Battle of Britain and the Blitz is the paucity of academic writing on the German side of the contest. The official history, Maier 1991 (cited under Official Histories), devotes a section to the air campaign, but large gaps remain in explaining German strategy and German operational performance, or the tactical adaptation and crew morale of the force. More has been written about the evolution of prewar doctrine and preparation in the German Air Force. The most important is Corum 1997, a thorough study of the doctrinal and technical evolution of the force in the interwar years. The article Maier 1985 covers much of the same ground, while detailed discussion of the German Air Force and the strategic bomber can be found in Overy 1978. On the course of the battle and the bomber offensive, the best general history is Murray 1985; the author’s work is also useful for the prewar period of preparation. In Neitzel 1995, there is a full and detailed discussion of the air-sea blockade strategy adopted by Germany in 1940–1941 and its relative ineffectiveness, while Wakefield 1981 provides a detailed operational and technical history of the German target-marking force, Kampfgruppe 100, used during the Blitz to lead the bomber force as accurately as possible onto the target. The best account of the electronic war between the two sides, in particular radar and navigation aids, can be found in Price 2005. On the supply of aircraft and aero-engines during the period 1940–1941, the most recent account in English is Uziel 2012, though once again this book forms a small part of the larger wartime history. On German air intelligence there is a general essay, Boog 1990. There is nevertheless room for more studies on German air strategy during the Battle and the Blitz. To date there is still no serious academic study of Operation Sea Lion, the German plan to invade southern England in autumn 1940, or of the strategic relation between the air campaign against Britain and preparations for the campaign against the Soviet Union in summer 1941.

Boog, Horst. “German Air Intelligence in the Second World War.” Intelligence and National Security 5 (1990): 350–424.
DOI: 10.1080/02684529008432056Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A study of German air intelligence across the war years. This is one of the few studies on air intelligence on the German side, and it highlights the dilemmas faced in trying to assess RAF strength during the critical stages of the Battle.
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Corum, James. The Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, 1918–1940. Lawrence,: University Press of Kansas, 1997.
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The best available history of the development of the German Air Force up to 1940, the book argues a clear case that the air force was regarded in Germany as principally an instrument for supporting surface forces.
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Maier, Klaus. “Total War and German Air Doctrine before the Second World War.” In The German Military in the Age of Total War. Edited by Wilhelm Deist, 210–219. Oxford: Berg, 1985.
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Maier is the leading German historian of the German Air Force and this article sets out the evolution of German air doctrine in terms of ground support but in broader strategic terms as well.
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Murray, Williamson. Luftwaffe: Strategy for Defeat 1933–1945. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985.
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The standard general history of the wartime German Air Force, the book draws heavily on the surviving captured air force records. There are very useful statistical tables and charts throughout the book, including material on the Battle of Britain.
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Neitzel, Sönke. Der Einsatz der deutschen Luftwaffe über dem Atlantik und der Nordsee 1939–1945. Bonn, Germany: Bernhard & Graefe, 1995.
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A very detailed study of the role played by the German Air Force in the sea-air war against Britain, for which there is no English-language equivalent. There are helpful maps, charts, and photographs throughout the book, whose main focus is on the period 1939–1941.
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Overy, Richard. “From ‘Uralbomber’ to ‘Amerikabomber’: The Luftwaffe and Strategic Bombing.” Journal of Strategic Studies 1 (1978): 154–178.
DOI: 10.1080/01402397808436996Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A study of the German Air Force’s thinking about the doctrine and technical requirements for the conduct of independent strategic operations. It argues that the German Air Force was not solely committed to ground support but failed to develop the aircraft needed for strategic operations.
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Price, Alfred. Instruments of Darkness: The History of Electronic Warfare, 1939–1945. London: Greenhill, 2005.
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The standard history of the competition between Britain and Germany in the development of radar and electronic navigation/target marking. The book covers the British efforts to counteract the German navigation beams during the Blitz. Complements Wakefield 1981.
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Uziel, Daniel. Arming the Luftwaffe: The German Aviation Industry in World War II. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012.
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A study of the production side of the German Air Force effort, the book covers the period of the Battle and the Blitz to explain the low level of air force procurement during 1940–1941. A useful range of statistical material throughout the book.
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Wakefield, Kenneth. The First Pathfinders: The Operational History of Kampfgruppe 100. London: William Kimber, 1981.
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A detailed history of the German target-marking force developed for use during the nighttime bombing in the Blitz. Highlights many of the problems faced in securing effective accuracy, and can usefully be read in conjunction with Price 2005
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British Defenses

The defensive effort in Britain during the Battle and the Blitz was divided between active and passive defense, the first organized around fighter and night fighter forces supported by the radar chain, anti-aircraft artillery and searchlights, the second organized as an integrated system of civil defense supported by the fire and emergency services. The starting point for understanding both forms of defense are the volumes Collier 1957 and O’Brien 1955, cited under Official Histories, while the general books on the Battle of Britain and the Blitz contain detailed discussion of both aspects of defense. The best accounts of the static defenses are to be found in Dobinson 2001 on anti-aircraft guns and Dobinson 2010 on the British radar network. This second volume can be supplemented with the article by Rose on the evolution of radar during the 1930s (Rose 1998). On the fighter effort, there are numerous popular books on the RAF Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire day fighters. The best example of an extensive genre is Sarkar 2010. The standard work on night fighters is Gunston 1976, a book that covers both sides and the entire war. On British aircraft production, the best guide is Ritchie 1997. The organization of civil defense and the emergency services lacks a single scholarly treatment. On the fire services, the standard history is Wallington 1981. On other aspects of the civil defense effort, the article Wiggam 2011 compares the blackout in Britain and Germany, while the article Noakes 2012 explores the issues surrounding mobilization of civilians for the civil defense effort, including the development of popular discourse on the duties of modern citizenship and the maintenance of gender difference in the roles ascribed to men and women. The regional diversity in the establishment and operation of the civil defense effort has not been subjected to any serious scholarly analysis, nor has there been any serious scrutiny of the effectiveness of the civil defense effort.

Dobinson, Colin. AA Command: Britain’s Anti-Aircraft Defences in World War II. London: Methuen, 2001.
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This is the standard history, providing a comprehensive survey of the development, deployment, and technical characteristics of the British anti-aircraft artillery service. The book has useful photographs, technical data, and statistical charts and tables.
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Dobinson, Colin. Building Radar: Forging Britain’s Early-Warning Chain, 1935–45. London: Methuen, 2010.
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An indispensable history of the development of the British radar system and its performance during World War II, the book acknowledges the international nature of radar research, and the problems faced by the radar chain during the early years of the war. Can be read as a companion to Rose 1998.
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Gunston, Bill. Night Fighters: A Development and Combat History. Cambridge, UK: Patrick Stephens, 1976.
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The standard work on the night-fighter during World War II, the book includes an extensive discussion of the formation of the night fighter arm in the RAF in 1940 and 1941 and of its limited operational performance.
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Noakes, Lucy. “‘Serve to Save:’ Gender, Citizenship and Civil Defence in Britain 1937–41.” Journal of Contemporary History 47 (2012): 734–753.
DOI: 10.1177/0022009412451290Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An original approach to the British civil defense effort, the article focuses on the problems of civil defense recruitment during the prewar and early-war period, and the issues raised by the large number of women volunteers.
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Ritchie, Sebastian. Industry and Air Power: The Expansion of British Aircraft Production, 1935–41. London: Frank Cass, 1997.
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A thorough and original analysis of the development of British aircraft production through the difficult years of war preparation and the early battles. Makes a strong case that this was a successful story of adaptation and improvisation.
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Rose, Alexander. “Radar and Air Defence in the 1930s.” Twentieth Century British History 9 (1998): 219–245.
DOI: 10.1093/tcbh/9.2.219Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
To be read in conjunction with Dobinson 2010, the article explores the evolution of radar in Britain and the issues surrounding its introduction and integration into the air defense system.
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Sarkar, Dilip. How the Spitfire Won the Battle of Britain. Stroud, UK: Amberley, 2010.
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This is a partisan book in which the role of the Spitfire is given a central place in explaining the success of British air defenses. It is nevertheless a very good introduction to the technical and operational history of the airplane during the Battle of Britain.
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Wallington, Neil. Firemen at War: The Work of London’s Firefighters in the Second World War. Newton Abbot, UK: David & Charles, 1981.
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The standard work on the development of the British fire service from a largely decentralized volunteer service in 1939, to a national professional service during the war. Although the focus is on London, the story involves the creation of the national force during the course of the Blitz.
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Wiggam, Marc. “The Blackout and the Idea of Community in Britain and Germany.” In Bombing, States and Peoples in Western Europe. Edited by Claudia Baldoli, Andrew Knapp, and Richard Overy, 43–58. London: Continuum, 2011.
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This is almost the only scholarly treatment of the blackout. The article provides a useful comparison of the nature and function of the blackout provisions in Britain and Germany, and the way in which regulations were enforced under two very different political systems.
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The Leaders and the Led

Despite the importance attached to the Battle of Britain and the legend of the “Few,” there are almost no scholarly treatments of the aircrew on either side of the conflict, though there exists a wealth of popular history focused on the “Few,” much of it utilizing oral testimony from survivors. Recorded interviews and/or transcripts are available at several museum sites in Britain, including the Imperial War Museum and the Royal Air Force Museum. The best introduction to the culture surrounding the “Few” during the war is Francis 2011, a book that also examines the popular perception of bomber crew. For the Canadian participants in air campaigns in Britain, details can be found in English 1996, one of the best histories of air crew, focusing as well on training and morale. On the participation of other nationalities there is good detail in Brown 2000. The physical damage inflicted on air crew who survived a crash or a burning aircraft is explored in Mayhew 2004, a book centered on the surgical innovations carried out to restore pilot faces badly damaged by fire. The leaders during the Battle and the Blitz are less well served. There is very little written about the air force officer corps or the high command on either side. Leadership relies chiefly on biographies of some of the key individuals involved. On the German side, Overy 2012 studies Goering’s leadership of the air force as one element of a more general biography. For British commanders, the two books Orange 1984 and Orange 2008 provide close study of the role of Sir Hugh Dowding (b. 1882–d. 1970), Commander-in-Chief Fighter, Command, and Sir Keith Park (b. 1892–d. 1975), commander of 11 Group during the Battle. The retirement of Dowding under difficult circumstances is covered in Haslam 1981. The part played by Prime Minister Winston Churchill during 1940 and 1941 is effectively portrayed in Toye 2013, which explores Churchill’s speeches during the war and the popular reaction to them. The period of the Battle and the Blitz is the most important part of the book and the period in which Churchill immortalized the concept of the “Few.”

Brown, Alan. Airmen in Exile: The Allied Air Forces in the Second World War. Stroud, UK: Sutton, 2000.
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An important survey of the non-British crews who participated in the RAF’s wartime effort and in the Battle of Britain in particular, showing the problems associated with accepting and integrating foreign airmen.
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English, Allan. The Cream of the Crop: Canadian Aircrew 1939–1945. Montreal: McGill University Press, 1996.
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A detailed account of the selection, training, and operational experience of Canadian aircrew who took part in the air battles in Europe. The book explores the question of force morale, one of the few academic contributions to the psychology of combat in the air war.
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Francis, Martin. The Flyer: British Culture and the Royal Air Force. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
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A wide-ranging and original analysis of the image and cultural appeal of the airman in wartime Britain. Much of the focus is on the fighter pilot, with a useful discussion of the way the iconic “few” were constructed culturally for a public eager for heroes.
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Haslam, E. B. “How Lord Dowding Came to Leave Fighter Command.” Journal of Strategic Studies 1981 (1981): 175–186.
DOI: 10.1080/01402398108437075Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A detailed study of the efforts made by Dowding’s critics to force his retirement before and during the Battle of Britain. This is a reasonably balanced account of an issue that has generated a great deal of partisan debate.
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Mayhew, E. P. The Reconstruction of Warriors: Archibald McIndoe, the Royal Air Force and the Guinea Pig Club. London: Greenhill, 2004.
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A pioneering study of the remarkable efforts made to use vanguard medical science to help seriously injured airmen, particularly those exposed to fire in the Hurricane fighter, by repairing facial damage and other disfiguring injuries.
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Orange, Vincent. Park. London: Methuen, 1984.
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The best account of Air Vice Marshal Keith Park’s contribution to winning the Battle of Britain as commander of 11 Group. The book explains the tactical changes promoted by Park and his insistence on using fighters in small groups rather than massed wings.
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Orange, Vincent. Dowding of Fighter Command: Victor of the Battle of Britain. London: Grub Street, 2008.
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The standard biography of the commander who formed Fighter Command in 1936 and led it through to the end of the Battle of Britain. The Battle is covered in three chapters of the biography and the final crisis and dismissal of Dowding in a fourth.
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Overy, Richard. Goering: Hitler’s Iron Knight. 2d ed. London: I. B. Tauris, 2012.
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A reissue of a book originally published in 1984, the biography looks at the whole of Goering’s career. A chapter focuses on his command of the air force and assesses the weaknesses of his leadership.
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Toye, Richard. The Roar of the Lion: The Untold Story of Churchill’s World War II Speeches. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
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An original and important contribution on the role of Churchill’s rhetoric in the war and the public perception of the speeches. This is particularly useful for forming a critical judgment on the effect Churchill had for maintaining home morale during the Battle and the Blitz.
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The Social History of the Blitz

More has been written on the social response to bombing than on any other aspect of the offensive against Britain. This fact can be explained by the emphasis at the time and since on the claim that firm resolve and social collaboration epitomized the British reaction. The reality of life in Britain during the Blitz has been deconstructed since the 1990s to show a more fractured and ambiguous social response to being bombed. The Blitz features centrally in two books that examine from a critical standpoint the claims about class and civic solidarity for the whole war period. Rose 2003 looks at issues of national identity, civic responsibility, and gender, while Field 2011 examines the impact of the war on working-class identity and class interests. Both show that simple wartime images of British society do not stand up to scrutiny. Beaven and Griffiths 1999 argues that the pattern of prewar working-class culture, rather than the effects of class collaboration, helped urban communities to survive. The impact of the bombing on wartime production is explored by Jones 2006 in terms of the efforts to discipline and persuade industrial workers to accept wartime conditions and the response of working-class communities to the effort. The effort to deconstruct the “myth” of the Blitz has also provoked a more strident literature, exposing an allegedly dark side to the Blitz story. Gray 2009 examines the wartime phenomenon of looting, while Hylton 2001 suggests that the popular image of British society under the bombs has been constructed deliberately to obscure a much harsher and less memorable reality. One of the key elements of the “myth” concerns civilian evacuation, and this topic is treated critically in Crosby 1986. Another aspect is the image of stoicism in the face of air attack. Bell 2009 instead sees fear as a pervasive response to being bombed and examines the culture of fear in London during the war.

Beaven, Brad, and John Griffiths. “The Blitz, Civilian Morale and the City: Mass Observation and Working-Class Culture in Britain, 1940–41.” Urban History 26 (1999): 71–88.
DOI: 10.1017/S0963926899000152Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An important study showing that working-class communities during the Blitz were capable of drawing on prewar cultural traditions to support popular strategies for coping with the effects of bombing.
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Bell, Amy. “Landscapes of Fear: Wartime London, 1939–1945.” Journal of British Studies 48 (2009): 153–175.
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One of the first assessments of the Blitz to emphasize the psychological cost to a population of pervasive fear, in contrast to the conventional argument about stoic resolve in the face of wartime threats.
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Crosby, Travis. The Impact of Civilian Evacuation in the Second World War. London: Routledge, 1986.
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A standard history of the wartime program of evacuation in Britain and of the social tensions provoked by close contact between urban and rural or small-town communities, the book also looks at the effects on education and family life.
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Field, Geoffrey. Blood, Sweat and Toil: Remaking the British Working Class, 1939–1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199604111.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An indispensable book on the British working classes under the impact of total war. The sections on 1940–1941 explore the claims about class cooperation and solidarity to show that the impact of bombing was also shaped by class realities and social geography.
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Gray, Todd. Looting in Wartime Britain. Exeter, UK: Mint, 2009.
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An honest assessment of the criminal side of the Blitz, the book explores the different forms and geographical spread of looting as a wartime problem. This information can be seen as a useful corrective to the standard Blitz narrative.
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Hylton, Samuel. Their Darkest Hour: The Hidden History of the Blitz. Stroud, UK: Sutton, 2001.
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A polemical account of the social and political history of the Blitz era in Britain, the book sets out to undermine the established “myth” by focusing on the bad faith of the government and the evidence of social conflict, crime, and selfish individualism provoked by the bombing.
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Jones, Helen. British Civilians in the Front Line: Air Raids, Productivity and Wartime Culture, 1939–1945. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2006.
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This is an important and original study of the way in which bombing affected the factory working classes, and of the efforts made by the government, trade unions, and managers to find ways to maintain production while ameliorating the worst consequences of wartime disruption.
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Rose, Sonya. Which People’s War? National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain, 1939–1945. Oxford: Oxford University press, 2003.
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The most important book to date on the social reality of Britain during wartime and of the issues raised by imposing a national wartime identity on a divided society and across gender differences. The book includes extensive discussion of the early years of war when the Blitz brought these issues sharply into focus.
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Propaganda, Culture, and Public Opinion

One of the principal concerns of the British government as it anticipated and then experienced the Blitz was the extent to which British society would cope with the challenge of being bombed. The aim was to monitor opinion in order to work out which issues needed to be addressed and to mount propaganda campaigns to maintain war willingness and limit the room for counterarguments. McLaine 1979 is the best introduction to the way in which the Ministry of Information met the challenges of maintaining “morale,” while Campion 2009 provides a detailed account of the efforts to use the Battle of Britain to support the propaganda image of wartime Britain. Bombing in reality had rather different effects from those expected. Jones, et al. shows that the expectation that bombing would produce an epidemic of psychiatric casualties was not borne out by events, while Holman 2012 argues that bombing provoked a widespread desire for retaliation rather than any identification with the propaganda of “we can take it.” The extent to which the culture of steadfastness suited government interests is explored in Aldgate and Richards 1994 in its study of film, while Hewison 1977 and Wasson 2010 explore the effects of the war, and of bombing in particular, on poets, writers, and artists. The propaganda effort not only was directed at the home front but also had important international implications. In Seib 2007 there is an original study of the way American opinion was recruited for the British war effort by exporting news across the Atlantic of British society under the bombs.

Aldgate, Anthony, and Jeffrey Richards. Britain Can Take It: The British Cinema in the Second World War. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994.
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A pioneering and detailed study of the way in which cinema reflected, created, or embellished the popular image of British resistance and steadfastness. It is a useful guide to popular reaction to film and on the role of the state in monitoring cinematic output.
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Campion, Garry. The Good Fight: Battle of Britain Propaganda and the Few. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2009.
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A thorough account of all aspects of the British wartime propaganda effort in relation to the Battle of Britain, from film to literary representations. The book also includes the effort to export the propaganda to potential friends and allies.
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Hewison, Robert. Under Siege: Literary Life in London, 1939–1945. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977.
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An original account of the literary elite in London during the war, with considerable attention to the way writers reacted to the threat of invasion and the impact of bombing during 1940–1941 and were able to communicate this experience to their public.
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Holman, Brett. “‘Bomb Back and Bomb Hard:’ Debating Reprisals during the Blitz.” Australian Journal of Politics and History 58 (2012): 394–407.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8497.2012.01643.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An important article arguing that most of the British population not only accepted the need to bomb Germany but also welcomed it as an indication that they were “giving it” rather than just “taking it.”
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Jones, Edgar, Robin Woolven, and Simon Wessely. “Civilian Morale during the Second World War: Responses to Air Raids Re-examined.” Social History of Medicine 17 (2004): 463–479.
DOI: 10.1093/shm/17.3.463Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Based on a range of contemporary literature by psychologists and psychiatrists, this important article argues that the fear that bombing would provoke widespread mental crisis was completely misplaced, and that psychiatric cases in hospitals actually declined during the Blitz.
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McLaine, I. Ministry of Morale: Home Front Morale and the Ministry of Information in World War II. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1979.
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The standard history of the ministry responsible for coordinating the entire propaganda effort and the conduct of political warfare. The book includes extensive discussion of the problems faced in trying to gauge the popular mood during the period of the Battle and the Blitz.
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Seib, Philip. Broadcasts from the Blitz: How Edward R. Murrow Helped Lead America into War. Washington, DC: Potomac, 2007.
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An original study of the way in which one American journalist and broadcaster was able to use the material supplied by the British side, as well as his own experiences, to paint a sympathetic picture of British endurance for the American public.
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Wasson, Sara. Urban Gothic of the Second World War: Dark London. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2010.
DOI: 10.1057/9780230274891Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A very original approach to the culture surrounding the impact of bombing in Britain, using the work of artists, writers, and poets (in particular Mervyn Peake [b. 1911–d. 1968]) to show how they used the ruins and the blackout to capture a “Gothic” reconfiguration of bombed London.
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City Reconstruction

The impact of the Blitz was not temporary. During the war and immediate postwar years, the urban destruction made necessary concerted plans to reconstruct damaged areas, or to build entirely new urban zones. The best general introduction to the program in Britain is Bullock 2002, while the broader context of European building following bomb destruction can be found in Diefendorf 1990. Much of the damage was irreversible, as the detailed account of the loss of cultural heritage in Lambourne 2001 makes clear. There were many problems to confront in city rebuilding, and the idea that a brave new world could be built on the damaged landscape was undermined by the reality of commercial pressure, legal arguments over property rights, and the necessity to provide new housing as quickly and cheaply as possible. The gap between ideal urban planning and reality is explored in Tiratsoo 1999 and Essex and Brayshay 2008. There were wide regional differences, dictated by economic circumstances or by the degree of bomb damage. The best local studies can be found in Mack and Humphries 1985, which examines London during the war and postwar period, and the comparison in Hasegawa 1992 of the experience of three cities other than London. Much of the research on urban planning and rebuilding conducted by social scientists in the 1940s and 1950s found that cities were remarkably resilient units and that despite the bombing, economic activity and population size recovered very quickly. The best of these early studies is Iklé 1958, which looks at cities in Britain, Germany, and Japan. While the geography of cities was changed with greater decentralization, their function and social character changed very little.

Bullock, Nicholas. Building the Post-War World: Modern Architecture and Reconstruction in Britain. London: Routledge, 2002.
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This important book is the standard history of British urban reconstruction in the ten years following the end of the war. It focuses on wartime planning and the extent to which ideas of modern building were realized or not in the rebuilding programs both during and after the end of the war. Extensive and valuable illustration throughout.
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Diefendorf, Jeffrey, ed. Rebuilding Europe’s Bombed Cities. London: Macmillan, 1990.
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An important collection of essays covering the main countries where urban destruction was substantial as a result of bombing, but also looking at Soviet bloc city construction. The contributors come from a variety of professional backgrounds, historians but also town planners and architects.
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Essex, Stephen, and Mark Brayshay. “Boldness Diminished? The Post-War Battle to Replan a Bomb-Damaged Provincial City.” Urban History 35 (2008): 437–461.
DOI: 10.1017/S0963926808005725Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A useful analysis of the plans to rebuild Plymouth, one of most heavily bombed cities, as a test case in seeing whether the postwar planning ideal was lost in the reality imposed by government and economic circumstances. Should be read as a counterpoint to Tiratsoo 1999.
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Hasegawa, Junichi. Replanning the Blitzed City Centre: A Comparative Study of Bristol, Coventry and Southampton 1941–1950. London: Open University Press, 1992.
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An indispensable study of the reconstruction in the three cities hit heavily by wartime bombing where a balance had to be struck between economic realities and the desire to create an identifiably modern new city center.
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Iklé, Fred. The Social Impact of Bomb Destruction. Norman: Oklahoma University Press, 1958.
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The best of the postwar studies about the impact of bomb destruction, the book focuses particularly on Hamburg and Tokyo, but also includes useful material on London and the aftereffects of bombing on city function.
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Lambourne, Nicola. War Damage in Western Europe: The Destruction of Historic Monuments during the Second World War. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001.
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The standard study of the effects of bombing (and other forms of wartime destruction) on the cultural heritage of Western Europe. The book deals widely with efforts to protect monuments and the actual extent of the damage. British monuments form a modest part of the discussion.
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Mack, Joanna, and Steve Humphries. London at War: The Making of Modern London 1939–1945. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1985.
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A very useful account of the effects of wartime, and bombing in particular, on London and the planned and actual program of reconstruction. The book benefits from extensive and useful photographic and cartographic images.
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Tiratsoo, N. “The Reconstruction of Blitzed British Cities, 1945–55: Myths and Realities.” Contemporary British History 14 (1999): 27–44.
DOI: 10.1080/13619460008581570Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An indispensable introduction to the history of reconstruction as a tension between imagined new communities, with welfare amenities and new facilities, and the fate of these plans in the face of economic restrictions and the urgent need for cheap housing.
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The “Myth” of 1940

The Battle of Britain and the Blitz between them have formed an important part of the public historical memory of World War II. They form an essential part of what has been called the “myth of 1940.” The core elements in the “myth” are rooted in historical reality, but the historical culture surrounding the “Few” and the “Blitz spirit” has become a symbolic reference point and a source of national identity, a view first articulated in Calder 1991. The best introduction to the way the public history of the period has evolved since 1940 can be found in Smith 2000, while the broader context of British memory of the war with its central motif of solid resilience can be found in Connelly 2004. A broader frame of reference can also be found in Wilms and Rasch 2006, which explores the cultural representation of the air war across all former theaters of the conflict. The variety of ways in which the central “myths” have been imagined and recast are explored in MacKenzie 2007. The extent to which the memory of the period has been articulated by those who actually experienced it forms the subject matter of two important studies of London during the Blitz, by Bell 2008 and Freedman 1999, both books based on a range of ego-documents, oral testimony, and archives. The repudiation of the conventional postwar narrative of 1940 has attracted a good deal of less reputable writing. The best of the attempts to redefine the nature of the British wartime experience in 1940 can be found in Ponting 1990, though this book is self-consciously revisionist and polemical. Much of the better historical literature cited in this bibliography accepts that the reality of 1940–1941 in Britain could not be identical with the cultural stereotype produced since 1945, but needs to be understood from a variety of perspectives and with proper historical detachment.

Bell, Amy. London Was Ours: Diaries and Memoirs of the Blitz. London: I. B. Tauris, 2008.
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A valuable assessment of the many ego-documents that were produced by ordinary Londoners during the Blitz and since as a means to understand the variety of ways in which the Blitz was experienced and subsequently articulated. Can be read in conjunction with Freedman 1999.
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Calder, Angus. The Myth of the Blitz. London: Jonathan Cape, 1991.
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This is an indispensable book for understanding the tension that exists between public memory of defining historical events and the historical reality. While accepting that the history is certainly not all myth, the book provides the tools for thinking critically about the way in which it has conventionally been presented. Can be read as a complement to Ponting 1990 with some caution.
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Connelly, Mark. We Can Take It! Britain and the Memory of the Second World War. Harlow, UK: Longman, 2004.
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To be read in conjunction with Calder 1991 and cautiously with Ponting 1990, this is an original and important contribution to understanding the construction of a particular view of the British wartime experience and the way in which that construction has been used to serve popular wartime memory, exemplified by the Blitz experience.
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Freedman, Jean. Whistling in the Dark: Memory and Culture in Wartime London. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1999.
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A book that complements Bell 2008 in its construction of popular memory of wartime London more broadly, using a very similar set of sources to show the interplay between the propaganda image and efforts of ordinary people to mimic it.
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MacKenzie, S. P. The Battle of Britain on Screen: “The Few” in British Film and Television Drama. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748623891.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A very useful study of the way the Battle narrative and the myths that surround it have been reflected in or altered by the way film and television have portrayed it, the book uses two wartime and five postwar films as examples of the genre.
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Ponting, Clive. 1940: Myth and Reality. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1990.
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A sustained polemic against the received wisdom of the British war effort in 1940, to be read in cautious conjunction with Calder 1991 and Connelly 2004. The book emphasizes the extent to which it suited Churchill’s government to misrepresent the course of what was in effect a series of failures.
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Smith, Malcolm. Britain and 1940. History, Myth and Popular Memory. London: Routledge, 2000.
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The standard account of the way the year 1940 has been used as a reference point for British identity both during the war and since, and an original contribution to the issue of how public history is constructed and communicated.
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Wilms, Wilfried, and William Rasch, eds. Bombs Away! Representing the Air War over Europe and Japan. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006.
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A wide-ranging collection of essays on various aspects of the memory culture surrounding the air war, with a particular focus on Germany and German culture, but including essays on Britain during the Blitz. The book is useful as a guide to the methodological approaches used to understand memory culture.