Secret Casualties of World War Two: Uncovering the Civilian Deaths from Friendly Fire
For most of WW2 a rain of steel fell upon Britain’s cities, principally London. Most of it came not from German bombs but from fragments and sometimes unexploded rounds of the anti-aircraft shells fired at the bombers. In some lighter air raids the casualties from ‘friendly fire’ exceeded the casualties inflicted by the enemy.
Simon Webb acknowledges that this was well known at the time, but he argues that it has been air-brushed out of subsequent histories as inconsistent with the heroic legend of British resistance in WW2. ‘Collateral damage’ and ‘friendly fire’ are unfortunate features of every war, and there is always an incentive for those in charge to play them down, but very little of what Webb describes was ever truly secret, nor has it been forgotten. There are still many of us left who remember the war.
Even so, this is an interesting book about an aspect of the war which is seldom discussed. Besides the collateral damage from anti-aircraft fire, Webb describes the crowd control disaster at Bethnal Green and other wartime incidents.
