World War II In Colour - Homefront (DVD)

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This DVD is part of the History Channel World War II in Colour. It is the story (shown in colour) of how the people of the USA and Britain coped on the homefront, whilst the service personnel of both countries were away fighting against the Axis countries in what must have seemed like the four corners of the globe.

The Atlantic, the Pacific, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the far East, Australasia, and so forth.

The first chapter of the DVD is entitled "making do."

Because the programme was created for the American audience, it begins not at the start of the homefront in Britain, but with the homefront in America, which was basically created only when Pearl Harbour was attacked by the Japanese. Suddenly, America new what it was like to face a relentless enemy who seemed implacable and incapable of showing any mercy.

There was a real fear amongst government circles that, with nothing between the crushed remnants of the American Pacific Fleet and the Western coast of the United States of America, that there was really nothing to stop a Japanese invasion of America. Something needed to be done. The American public (particularly those living on or near the West Coast) needed to be, if not galvanised into action, certainly warned about the possibility of a Japanese assault on the Continental United States of America.

In May 1941, president Roosevelt established a National Office of civil Defence. CD workers would help to prepare ordinary American families for the eventualities that war on American soil might bring.

Many of the CD workers were considered unfit for military service and, like one of the people interviewed for the programme, Thomas A. Scott, who was classified 4F (one of the lowest grade of fitness (if not the lowest) recognised by the American government, due to a circulatory condition in his legs, explained that he felt so keen the need to do his duty during a time of war, that he volunteered to become an Air Raid Warden.

Their mission was to protect the homefront. He pointed out that during World War 1, they had only needed to be concerned about submarines. But during World War 2, they had to concern themselves with the possibility of attacks by airplanes on Philadelphia.

Incidentally, rationing was introduced in America, something that I had not previously been aware of. Potatoes, apparently, totally disappeared in some parts of the USA, and macaroni was used as a substitute in some recipes. And, of course, there were the Victory Gardens, which were the US equivalent of Dig for Victory Gardens in Britain. Victory Gardens produced 40% of the available vegetables during the war. There were other shortages, including that of petrol. Sorry, Gasoline! There were also scrap drives, too.

The programme also emphasised the use of propaganda to push home the message that everyone needed to work together to fight against the menace of the Axis forces of Germany, Italy and Japan. It also showed how women joined the war effort of the homefront by taking up essential war work It also referred to the "bitter blessing" of war, which instantly wiped out unemployment, which had stood at 18% only two years previously.

How was this war effort funded? In part, by the sale of war bonds to the general public. It is possible that you might have seen an old film shown on TV, made during World War 2, which had a message at the end of the last reel: "Help the war effort! Buy war bonds! Available in the lobby of this movie theatre, now!"

The programme then pointed out that Britain was not as fortunate as America. It was not isolated by thousands of miles of ocean. It was, intoned narrator, Pete Coyote, "that besieged island nation".

The programme then went back in time to 1939, and examined the government preparations for the war, which everyone in government knew was then inevitable. It showed the evacuation of thousands of children into the British countryside.

The programme then showed how the government reacted when war was declared. Identity Cards and gasmasks. It as made a criminal offence to be found not carrying both of these item whilst in public. Whilst one of the reasons for carrying ID cards was to help stop saboteurs. And the other? To aid the identification of civilians killed during the bombing raids that the government knew would be inevitable.

The programme details how the Control of Employment Order compelled every able bodied man and woman to either join the armed forces or to work in a war related occupation. It worked very well. Within two years 91 % of single women and nearly 80% of married women were employed in jobs that were related in some way to the war effort. My grandmother and my aunt were both employed in war related work in Birmingham, where the family lived.

The government also launched the Local Volunteer Defence Force (later the Home Guard) which my grandfather joined (he was a veteran of the trenches of World War 1) and my father. My father because he had been rejected by the Army, Navy and the Air force, due to his very poor eyesight.

The programme pointed out that rationing was much harsher in Britain than in America. The colour footage of the Blitz is particularly moving.

It also made the point that the British Women's Services Auxiliaries. And further pointed out that unlike their American counterparts, the British women (or English women, as the programme calls them) actually took part in combat related work, manning anti-aircraft batteries, searchlights and barrage balloons.

The film also touches on the problems caused by the 1,000,000 + US service personnel and the problems that this caused. The American government printed special booklets warning them how to behave. "Never criticise the King" was one piece of useful advice.

The programme then changed tack, and showed how European civilians had suffered. It included colour footage from 1930s Germany. And some examples of the evil propaganda films used by the Nazis during that time.

The programme then gave a rapid run through of how Germany and German civilians coped with the turning tide of World War II, when the German war machine crumbled, collapsed and fell.

American combat cameramen filmed the death camps (these films are shown in the programme) and the narrator (with a hint of a sneer in his voice) pointed out that "German civilians professed ignorance of the camps frightful work". (Incidentally, I knew a woman who, as a young girl, had been a very lowly placed civil servant in the Reichstag. She told me that she had had no idea of the existence of the death camps. And I have no reason to doubt her word.)

Allied troops forced German civilians to look at the camps and to dig graves there.

The film then mentioned, but glossed over, somewhat, the atrocious treatment meted out by the US government against its own civilians who had Japanese ancestors. And their imprisonment in concentration camps in conditions of extreme hardship. Under armed guards.

There are no extras. It should cost around a tenner, though check with Ciao for latest prices.
A minor problem with some of the accents of the readers in the programme was that they sounded a little too "Central Casting." If there were British or German or whatever, perhaps they had spent too many years struggling to make it in Hollywood.

As an aside, I think Pete Coyote, the narator started in Alias Smith and Jones, a hit Western series of some years ago.