Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2008 | Page 50

life

THE ISLAND AT WAR 1939 - 1945

Put that light out!
-The Civil Defence Service

A great six part feature in which we look at different aspects which
took place on the island from 1939 - 1945. By June Elford

When we remember the air raids on Britain during the Second
World War we are inclined to focus on London, yet Portsmouth
and Southampton and towns on the Isle of Wight, suffered far
more in relation to their size.
This was due partly to the
government’s successful use
of propaganda during the war
when any information about
air raids was heavily censored
in the national and local press
and Ventnor, Shanklin, Ryde,
Newport and Cowes were only
mentioned as South coast
towns.
But Sister Mary Philomena
Buckley’s record of the air
raids on the Island details
how much these towns
suffered. Some of the nuns
at St. Dominic’s Priory in
Carisbrooke were air raid
wardens and Sister Philomena
kept a daily account in her
diaries and on old Christmas
cards of the raids, one entry
reads that by 17 January, 1941,
German planes had dropped
3,000 bombs on the Island.

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The war wasn’t fought
only on battlefields, it was
fought on the Home Front,
a ‘people’s war’. As early
as 1933 the government had
decided that local authorities
should be in charge of Britain’s
Civil Defence Services and
in January 1937 an official
radio broadcast outlined the
government’s plans for the Air
Raid Precautions and appealed
for volunteers. The country
was to be divided into twelve
regions with the Island under
the regional Civil Defence
headquarters at Reading and
with a control centre at County
Hall in Newport.
On 1 January 1938 the
ARP Act came into force
compelling local authorities
to set up wardens, first aid,
emergency ambulance, gas

decontamination and rescue
services and casualty clearing
stations. In addition, they
had to expand the local
fire services by forming an
Auxiliary Fire Service.
Ventnor’s committee for
ARP services swung into
action with a series of lectures
like the sort of casualties
that could be expected
from aerial warfare and the
general principles of first aid.
Meanwhile, the government
advised people to wear their
gas masks for fifteen minutes
a day to get used to them and
recommended that if you had
a beard, “curl it under the chin
and secure it with bobby pins.”
Between 1939 and 1945, most
of the civilian population were
mobilised for the Civil Defence
Services. Full-time personnel

were paid £3 a week for men
(better pay than the men in
the Armed Forces) and £2 for
women but the majority of
ARP workers were part-time
unpaid volunteers expected to
work 48 hours each month.
On 1 September 1939
Germany invaded Poland,
blackout restrictions were
imposed and local ARP
schemes came into operation.
The ARP wardens had to
check that the blackout was
really black and register
everyone living in the sector
they patrolled – how many
people occupied a house
or flat, how many rooms in
the building, did they have
any pets and what shelter
arrangements had they made.
This information would be
vital in an air raid since

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