Civil Defence

Civil Defence

Civil defence during WW2 is covered on the Leicester in WW2 website. After the end of war relations with the USSR deteriorated and, as the 'Cold War' progressed, the need for civil defence grew. In 1949 the government created the Civil Defence Corps (CDC) and by the end of 1950 it had recruited over 1,300 men and women in Leicestershire and over 300 in Leicester. In addition to this, the wartime Home Guard was re-formed in 1952 (it had been disbanded in 1945). The Leicester CDC had its own magazine, 'The Siren', and there were numerous social events as well as civil defence training. These measures were mainly aimed at combating the effects of a nuclear attack. Thousands of people across the country were involved with plans and exercises aimed at maintaining civil organisation after such an assault.[1]

Various exercises were held locally to test procedures and organisation. 'Exercise Redwing' in May 1954 was followed by another exercise in June and then the largest of all, 'Exercise Integrate', was held in October when six counties combined for an exercise based in Leicester that involved several thousand people and 100 vehicles. Operation 'Tin Hat' took place in Hinckley in 1956 and assumed radiation from a nearby nuclear blast was passing through the town. However, the only practical use of the CDC was when Leicestershire members helped with the severe east coast floods of 1953. The Leicester Mercury reported that nearly 200 people - mainly from the British Legion and the Civil Defence Corps - went to Sutton-on-Sea to help shovel sand out of flooded houses.

The first atomic bomb was exploded in 1945. Britain tested its first atomic bomb in 1952 and its first hydrogen bomb in 1957. In 1958 the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) started. In 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis seemed to bring the world to the brink of a nuclear war.

Roger Blackmore had just arrived in Leicester in 1962 as a student and recalls reactions to the Cuban crisis: "We had protests, I mean protests in the marketplace, a feeling that it was unnecessary to have reached such a point. And that our world leaders owed us better than that. And then, of course, it eased, the crisis eased. But there was a lot of real panic. It affected, in the student body, everybody, everybody in the student body. It may not have been the same in all walks of life, but certainly among students, it was the most memorable event of my period as a student, three years. 

"I very much remember the protests we had in the marketplace. I think we had others as well. Almost certainly I spoke of it as one of the Liberal representatives, people of all parties, young people, particularly young people. That was, to them, the old politics. Remember, it was dominated by old men, Adenauer, de Gaulle, Macmillan. You know, these were people who make Jeremy Corbyn look a mere callow youth. I remember ringing my parents and suggesting they got my sister away from wherever she was in London, back down to Devon. They suggested there was no need to panic. I don't know what my father actually thought of it. Never really discussed it after that." 

"I've seen the films about creating a little air raid shelter in your house. Do you remember ever taking any notice of what you were supposed to do in the event of a nuclear bomb falling?" 

"Oh, we regarded that as pretty crazy, the idea that somehow you could build a shelter. You almost implied in your thing there that you've got film of me building a shelter in my garden. It sounded like that. So any listener to this, I did not build a shelter. I was pretty incompetent at building shelters of any kind, I think. The Ministry of Defence was ridiculed for its role in civil defence on the grounds that you could protect yourself from a nuclear war by... blocking up a few windows. It just was, people were very cynical about it." 

June Dawson's husband David was interested in joining the Civil Defence. Booklets featuring pictures such as that at the bottom of the page were used to explain what Civil Defence was to potential recruits such as David. As June recalls, a missing chimney brush reappeared just at the wrong moment:

Fall out shelters and secret command posts were established in both the city and the county (a secret no longer, the City of Leicester's is at City Hall on Charles Street), but eventually, the threat of nuclear attack became less likely and the CDC was disbanded in 1968.

Further reading - 'Postwar Leicester' by Ben Beazley (2006), chapter 7.
Further reading - 'Coldwar Leicestershire' by Neil Adcock covers the 1980s onwards.

Link to You Tube playlist about National Service and Civil Defence, which includes the video below - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3Rnsga7PXcvuX83PevCxY372VxWYPMzQ

References

[1] The main source for this information is 'Postwar Leicester' by Ben Beazley, chapter 6, and various press clippings in the Civil Defence Corps scrapbooks at the Record Office.