As anniversaries go, 70 is nothing special. We normally go a bit wild for 50, 60 and 75, while leaving 70 unrecognised. But when the event's big enough, remembering 70 is only right and proper. And the beginning ofWorld War Two is about as big as big events get.
These are the first words you hear as you enter the Outbreak 1939 exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, and they continue to echo in a loop as you progress around the room. I always find this radio broadcast unerringly chilling - the moment at which our country finally grasped the inevitable and commited itself to uncertain years of mass slaughter. Hearing the words repeated over and over doesn't dampen their effect.
The Prime Minister's declaration of war was sent around the world, and the first part of the exhibition shows how. Coded telegrams to ships at sea, neatly typewritten letters on Government paper, and a series of newspaper headlines bracing the civilian population for attack. Everybody knew what was coming - the blackout had started two days previously, and thousands of evacuees had already started their journeys to relative safety in the English countryside. A short film shows various preparations being made to ready our civil defences, including the construction of bomb shelters and lots of fiddling with sandbags. All absolutely no use if a bomb hit you directly, but greatly increasing your chances of reaching peacetime intact if it fell further away.
For some Britons, Sunday 3rd September 1939 was already scheduled to be a momentous day. The exhibition recounts one baptism and one wedding that took place that morning, the guests rushing home to their bomb shelters when the sirens sounded shortly before noon. Out in the Atlantic that same evening, the cruise ship SSAthenia was mistakenly torpedoed by a German U-Boat uncertain of the new rules of wartime engagement. More than 100 passengers and crew lost their lives, half of these when a lifeboat accidentally reversed into the ship's propellor, and so the war's casualty list started to grow. A display case tells the story of the incident, along with tales from the (mostly Canadian or American) survivors.
But the autumn of 1939 saw only the 'phoney war', before Hitler turned his might to battle and bombardment, and civilians faced greater risk from pitch-black road accidents than from any foreign incursion. Many chose to enlist in the armed forces, with little idea when, or even whether, they might be coming home. Another screen shows clips of films from the time, including propaganda shorts and morale-rousing musicals. It's enlightening to watch Gracie Fields as "Shipyard Sally", setting off to London to save the jobs of Clydebank dockers, singing the much-loved "Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye". The song I always thought was about waving troops off to war is instead set on a Glasgow station platform amid much grinning and cavorting.
Outbreak 1939 isn't a particularly large exhibition, and there's more here for adults than for children, but it's evocative enough of a turning point in our nation's history. The really chilling experience is in the extensive Holocaust exhibition upstairs, which really drives home why this six year conflict was so completely necessary. And I found it a sobering thought that if a similar war kicked off today, 70 years later, this might not only be the first day of hostilities, but also the last.
These are the first words you hear as you enter the Outbreak 1939 exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, and they continue to echo in a loop as you progress around the room. I always find this radio broadcast unerringly chilling - the moment at which our country finally grasped the inevitable and commited itself to uncertain years of mass slaughter. Hearing the words repeated over and over doesn't dampen their effect.
