HOME PAGE 1900 to 1913 1914 to 1918 1919 to 1929 1930 to 1938 1939 to 1945 1946 to 1950 Other sections Never again

1939-45  • The Blitz Generation

Britain on the defensive • Under immediate threat of invasion• 1940

There is a style of photograph which originates during the first years of the war.
The style is so subtle it is only apparent to those of us who are perceptive enough to notice.
Life on the Home Front had not begun to show in the faces of Britain's civilians. Compared with later wartime photos their young faces seem bright optomistic and untroubled.
Yet Britain was in grave peril, she suffered the retreat at Dunkirk 300K troops were rescued from the beach in France. , was fighting the Battle of Britain A long air battle over Southern England and enduring the Blitz German Blitzkrieg = Lightning war bombing of her towns and cities.
They would spend the next next five years of their young lives were spent under war conditions.
Ironically these optomistic young faces belong to the girls who will later provide the factory workers and servicewomen needed to end the war.The boys will become the sailors, soldiers and airmen who fought in the far-east and on the D-day beaches.
It would be their job to finish the war.

• Date stamp on the back of above photograph: March 1940

Date 1940: Age about 16 years old  • Estimate: born 1924 ± 3 years