WW2 arrives: day 1 on the home front, Sep 3rd 1939

contributed by Mary Elton

Britain's response to its responsibility to Poland, the actual day that Britain declared war on Germany, is etched in my memory. Even though I was only 10 years old, I felt and remembered the emotion of everyone around me. It was the 3rd September 1939, two days after Hitler invaded Poland, and my family was on holiday in Torquay. All the hotel guests were clustered round the wireless, as radios were then called, waiting for news.

Then at 11.15 Neville Chamberlain announced:

This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11.00 a.m. that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.

Everyone was stunned. I realised afterwards that the adults were remembering the First World War with its horrendous loss of life and depravations. So there was no sense of bravado at all, just glumness.

When afternoon came, people went down to the beach and filled sandbags. I have no idea where they got the empty bags from, but certainly the country had been making contingency plans for war for some time.

When it was time for my family to go back home after the holiday we had to drive through village after village because there were no motorways then - and there was despondency everywhere.

contributed by Geoff Copus, personal experience

Unusually for a Sunday morning we were at my grandparents' house in Orpington, Kent when we listened to Mr Chamberlain's dismal tones as he told us that we were at war with Germany. Kent was of course in the front line, so when, almost immediately the sirens sounded, it was very frightening indeed. They were like an undulating wailing moan. It turned out to be a false alarm on that occasion - just a sign of things to come.

contributed by Peter Bradford, personal experience

My parents were visiting my grandfather's house in Kent when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made his historic radio broadcast announcing Britain's declaration of war against Nazi Germany. After listening to the distressing news, they decided to get a breath of fresh air and take a walk through the leafy Kentish lanes, pushing me in my pram. Not ten minutes had passed when the local air raid siren sounded. A local woman called my family into her cottage where we all waited until the all-clear sounded its even-toned wail. There had been no sign of a raid, but I can only imagine how daunting the experience must have been. They later found out that sirens had wailed across most of the Home Counties that day thanks to an unidentified, friendly aircraft crossing the South Coast.