The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, made a significant change when he first entered office to drive culture and tourism: he made all of the museums free (You only pay for special attractions). As a new entrant to the UK culture it is an amazing fringe benefit that we are enjoying thoroughly.

As part of our ‘Go do something cool every weekend’ strategy we went with friends to the Imperial War Museum in London last weekend. What an experience.

Of course, the museum itself is architecturally spectacular and when you walk inside it is overflowing with the modern history of warfare, covering each major war in detail and extending to the very serious topics of genocide and the holocaust.

Two of the most interesting exhibits were the WWI and WWII exhibits which attempted to recreate the feel of the war.

The WWI exhibit has a display called ‘The trench’ where they have recreated what it would have been like to live and fight in a WWI trench. I was struck by the futility of it. You stand in this 8 foot deep trench, meters away from your opponent and then when the HQ sends out the order you climb up and over the edge, running across an open field while machine gun bullets fly. Crazy.

The WWII exhibit has you experience what it was like to live in London during the Battle of Britain. You climb into a air raid shelter and then progressively move through the destruction of London with narration along the way. It truly brought home the price that the British people paid during the way. They suffered through rationing, having their children taken from them (Children were evacuated to the countryside – without their parents to live with strangers. This is covered in depth in The Children’s War exhibit) and destruction that rivaled areas of Europe. ‘The Blitz’ (Sustained bombing of England in preparation for an invasion) started with London being bombed 57 nights in a row and during a short 9 month period more than 1M buildings were destroyed or damaged. As we walked through the exhibit, it left us with a clear view of what many people suffered during WWII with buildings in tatters and life torn asunder.

While standing at one display we had the good fortune to engage with a man who remembers the war through the lens of a child. While they were tough times, he also remembered how exciting it was, standing outside his house watching the fighters and bombers overhead. He told us the story of the night that a unarmed British trainer sacrificed itself by crashing into a German bomber rather than let it get past. The next day he and his mate ran to the crash site and were able to salvage a piece of the tail (The German plane crashed in a field next to his house).

For all of Europe the sacrifice did not end in 1945. I found this note about life after the war particularly interesting:

It was still a period of great austerity. Rationing did not end until 1954 and there were shortages of food and fuel. Even bread, freely available during the war, was now rationed. Although several New Towns were being planned around the country and bomb-damaged housing was gradually being rebuilt, many families were still living in emergency ‘prefab’ homes.

In the end, the whole experience left me with a sense of thankfulness. So many have sacrificed so much to secure the freedom we enjoy today.

This is from the tail of a German fighter who shot down a LOT of Allied bombers. If I remember correctly, he shot down 10 in one night on his most victorious night.

This Jagdpanther tank destroyer is a particularly interesting display, the story is below.

As with most of our museum trips, we did not see it all. Four hours is just not enough time …