What was school like during WW2?

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Question:

I want to know if school was any different than it is right now during WW2, if there were any special drills or evacuations, etc!. Thanks!Www@QuestionHome@Com

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

I went to school in Eastbourne, on the south coast of England during WW2!. It is officially listed as the most heavily bombed town on the south coast!.

Attending school was obviously different from after the war!. We had all the normal lessons, but we had many teachers that were past their normal retiring age!. The younger men went into the services, and they pulled a lot of teachers out of retirement!. My first headmaster was actually wounded in the First World War alongside my grandfather on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, June 30th 1916!.

Whenever the air-raid siren sounded it’s undulating wail, the whole school headed for the concrete shelter in the corner of the playground in calm orderly lines and the learning continued in the form of questions about whatever subject we had been learning prior to the siren!. We lads used to pray for raids during math classes because it meant a small diversion!.

We used to collect aluminium for “the war effort!. Old saucepans, frying pans – anything used to be collected and when a truckload was achieved the authorities used to collect it, and it was used for building aircraft!. The Germans used to drop hundreds of meters of foil strips called "window" to put a large amount of metal in the sky - it confused our early and primitive radar into thinking there were a lot of aircraft coming!. So our fighters would take off and go to attack, only to find it a false alarm, and be out of fuel when the main raid attacked elsewhere!. Window was a favourite collection item!. We thought it insane that Mr Hitler would send us all this aluminium for us to turn into aircraft to go and bomb him with!. So even we kids were roped into the war effort!. I remember one particular day “Baggy” Davis and I had tied a rope to a tail section of a downed German fighter aircraft, and with the help of about 6 other lads dragged it about 2 miles to school leaving silver streaks along the road as we went!. We got extra “points” for our houses [teams] for such a large aluminium haul!.

We had strict instructions to knock at the nearest house door if there was a raid on the way to or from school!. You wouldn’t dare tell kids to do that today! We seldom went to the closest though!. News quickly spread through the boys network who always gave you a drink and who cooked the best bread pudding! It was quite common for 3 or 4 kids to turn up at the same houses every time!.

We boys could name all the aircraft, both friendly and the German ones, not only by sight but also by the sound of their engines, and we would be ridiculed by the others if we occasionally got it wrong!.

My dog Rover would always bark a good 2 minutes before the siren went off, consistently - you could depend on it!.
I lived with my maternal grandparents and our house was hit twice!. Once when a bomber crashed into the hill at the front of the house, blew up, and bits came through our downstairs front window and wrecked the sitting room!. The second was far more serious!. An aircraft cannon shell went through the front bedroom window and exploded!. It took off part of the roof and the upper front wall off the house!.

It was pretty much normal for us boys and not particularly scary, because with the value of hindsight, we didn’t fully comprehend the full significance of what was happening at the time!. It was much more scary for the adults really!.

So yes, it WAS different!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

My Granpa said that grades 1-8 were in one room with about twenty students!. The older ones helped the younger ones and the teacher helped everyone!. They began the day with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance and ate a sandwich and and apple for lunch!. In the fall, if they were lucky, the peach orchard would be ripening!. This was in Southeast Tennessee, USA!.
Everyone learned about Hitler's antics and he wanted to help England fight the Nazis, but it was not until Pearl Harbor that he got to join up and fight!.
He was in the Battle of the Bulge surrounded in Belgium and was wounded during that awful winter!.
He lived until 1981, and his schoolteacher was there with him at home when he died of cancer!.
He loved school and talked of his "primer" often to me!.Www@QuestionHome@Com