Wartime Britain

What was life like in Britain during the Second World War (1939–45)? Here we explore rationing, evacuation measures, the Blitz, crime, and the role of women

Alan M Turing and colleagues working on the Ferranti Mark I Computer, 1951.

Second World War

Your guide to Alan Turing: the man, the enigma

Italian prisoners of war being escorted under armed guard to work on a farm, September 1941. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

Second World War

Prisoners of war in Britain during WW2: where were they held?

Soldiers from the Women's Royal Army Corps

Second World War

A brief guide to VE Day

Women queue for potatoes in a greengrocer's shop in London, c1945. (Photo by Ministry of Information Photo Division Photographer/IWM via Getty Images)

Second World War

Saving food, saving lives: rationing in the Second World War

Actress Lily James and actor Michael Huisman looking at each other in a still from the film The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Second World War

Life under Nazi rule: the occupation of the Channel Islands

Staff hard at work at Bletchley Park. The people who worked here did so under conditions of utmost secrecy, and with little idea of how their work slotted into the grand scheme of things. (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)

Second World War

Bletchley Park: Britain’s wartime intelligence factory

Krystyna Skarbeck, also called Christine Granville

Second World War

History hero Michael Morpurgo chooses Krystyna Skarbek (1908–1952)

AFS firemen tackle a blitz fire amidst the rubble surrounding St Paul's Cathedral, London. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

Second World War

Your guide to the Blitz, plus 9 places affected by the bombings

WW2 surrender signed, 2 September 1945

Second World War

How and when did the Second World War end?

VE Day revellers blowing party trumpets

Second World War

In pictures: jubilant VE Day street party celebrations

Expelled Germans leaving Poland's western territories

Second World War

“The war without an end”: what happened in Europe after VE Day?

Crowds in Piccadilly Circus in London celebrate VE Day

Second World War

Countdown to VE Day: the week World War 2 ended in Europe

A woman is carried away on a stretcher following a German bombing raid on London, c1940. (Photo by Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Second World War

The dangers of the Blitz spirit

Sir Nicholas Winton

Second World War

The ‘British Schindler’ who saved 669 children from the Nazis

Franklin D Roosevelt and Sir Winston Churchill

Second World War

Secrets of Churchill’s War Rooms