The Isle of Dogs During World War II

By Mick Lemmerman

This book combines personal narratives with unique photos and historical records to create a comprehensive and moving story of life for civilians on the Isle of Dogs during World War II.For most of its history, the Isle of Dogs was largely uninhabited, but with the start of construction of West India Docks in 1802, industry and housing started to spread down the west side of the Island. William Cubitt's development of the east side of the Island in the 1840s and the arrival of Millwall Docks in the 1860s completed the basic picture. A picture that would not change fundamentally for many decades, until 1939 when it became one of the stages of a global war. The Luftwaffe had been flying reconnaissance flights over London and the rest of Britain for years before the war, and had marked targets - such as power stations, docks and gas works - in a set of aerial photos. London was divided into different target areas, and the easiest for bomber pilots to recognize from the air was the one enclosed by a distinctive U-shaped loop in the Thames: the Isle of Dogs. Covering a large part of the Island, and key targets, were the West India Docks and Millwall Docks. Bombing at the time was not accurate enough to avoid surrounding areas, but the Nazi chiefs told themselves that this was an acceptable inevitability and, besides, it would support their strategy of destroying trade, industry and communications if people's ability to live and work normally were also disrupted. After all, how can the docks operate without dockers? Living right up against the dock and factory walls didn't just mean that Islanders were close to an important target, it also meant they were a target.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1507746113
• ISBN13: 9781507746110
• Release Date: August 2015
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.5" x 6.0"