For an insight into daily life in WW2, Rodney Foster’s ‘The Real Dad’s Army’ takes some beating, the more so because it is set on the Kent coast and more subject to warlike activities than further inland. Its great merit is that it is a contemporary account and not dependant on memories many years old.
Even so, much of it is still an account of his interpretation of incidents which, with wartime conditions and the primitive communication of the times preventing verification, may not be quite accurate. It is my belief that the more hectic the action the less reliable are accounts of it, so apart from indisputable incidents such as “bombs fell on Xyz Street last night”, it is best regarded as an account of attitudes of the times.
However, another merit is that, where appropriate, he usually qualifies his writing with “I hear that….” or “So-and-so says….” and does not present doubtful stories as fact. Thus we are left with a fascinating account of the uncontroversial events of everyday life written at the time of their occurrence – all the more so because it happened almost within sight of the enemy. They still went shopping and had social events, his wife still ran a Girl Guide unit, and so on.
Also interesting are the mid-war entries about the conduct of the war – how we were leaving Russia to do all the fighting, that our defeats in the Middle East and Far East were a disgrace, how our armies should be landing in Europe. That accords with my own memories of graffiti stating “Start the 2nd front now”. It was never that the enemy was fighting well, but always that our leaders were incompetent!
The following article on the subject of army commanders appeared in the ‘Daily Mirror’ in March 1942:
“[All they need to be chosen is to] be brass-buttoned boneheads, socially prejudiced, arrogant and fussy. A tendency to heart disease, apoplexy, diabetes and high blood pressure is desirable in the highest posts”. Was the editor taken out and shot? No – he received a warning from the Home Secretary that, if they hindered the war effort, further articles of that sort might result in the paper being banned!
Yet even Rodney Foster’s private diary entries would have had dire consequences elsewhere in Europe, had they been discovered.