WW2-What did people do in air raid shelters?

Question

please give links as well if you can
if from ww1 and applies to ww2 you can give too

Answer 1

Are you aware that in London many deep Underground station platforms were used for Londoners to sleep in every night during the Blitz? The trains kept running and passengers getting off had to carefully pick their way through the sleeping bodies. Try the website of London's Imperial War Museum

Answer 2

I there UK there were Anderson Shelters, built in peoples gardens with corrogated iron covering. Communal air raid shelters built of brick with reinforced concrete flat tops, usually above ground level but sometimes with earth piled against the outside walls and even on top. In London the underground tube stations were used as air raid shelters.

Answer 3

There were no Air Raid shelters in WW1, aircraft were used almost exclusively for reconnaissance.



Many air raids were at night, so mostly I imagine people would have just tried to sleep whilst waiting for the all-clear. Otherwise, played cards, listened to the radio, chatted and caught up with family and friends and neighbours in the communal shelters.

Answer 4

My dad was a small boy during WW2 and he remembers it being quite cosy; the kettle was brought down to the shelter and the radio and the family would sit and talk and drink tea,play card games and so on. On one occasion his dad put him on the roof of the shelter while they were all going in, because he was running around getting in the way, and then forgot about him. Dad said he had a marvellous time watching all the planes and the gunfire and the bombs dropping (he was about 6 or 7) and never felt scared at all. It wasn't until his gran went to pass him his mug of tea they all realised he wasn't there and went to retrieve him.

My mum, who was two years younger and in the same city, was actually bombed out when their roof took a direct hit; she, her mum and her sisters were unharmed because they were in a cellar-type shelter. Anderson shelters would not survive a direct hit. About the same time, my grandfather's sisters were wiped out by a direct hit to the house; the family had got fed up of sleeping out in the shelter and had gone back in the house.

A terrible time.

Answer 5

Sleep mostly as most raids on Britain were at night.

There was not much activity as most shelters were very small and the communal shelters were usually too crowded.

Answer 6

they sang, told jokes, danced, put on little skits tried to 'smell'

their neighbours as people were sleeping in their clothes and the

toilet facilites were nil. go to bbc radio online and go to channel 4 and you will find a link to the right side of the page called 'what did you do

during the war daddy and mummy' and you can read first hand accounts of what they did in the shelters.

cooked, drank tea, knitted and just prayed they would get out

alive.

Answer 7

they had games

radio

knitting

sleeping (if you could)

talked

what ever they put in the shelters

ate food (if it was stored)

waited for the all clear

some listened for how close the bombs where if they were close they would be prepared when they got out.

Answer 8

Wait for the all clear siren.

Answer 9

chat, knit, sleep, play music. before my time