Abstract
The Second World War was an armed conflict of ideological components that not only mobilized strategic and technological considerations, but also developed propaganda and information as new weapons of war. Influencing public opinion became a prominent objective of the warring powers, who devoted special attention to the development of multiple and diverse propaganda campaigns. The allied nations mobilized a multitude of organizations, departments and sections that had the objective of controlling communication, guiding the thinking of the audiences and favouring the cause of the United Nations. Allied Communication to the Public during the Second World War – edited by Simon Eliot and Marc Wiggam – is an excellent contribution to existing historiography, analysing the use of Allied communication, censorship and propaganda in different theatres of war from the Home Front, allied countries and enemy territories, to neutral states, the Empire and the Middle East.
The volume has its origins in a conference held by the ‘Publishing and Communication History of the Ministry of Information 1939-46’ research project – funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and undertaken by the Institute of English Studies at the University of London. It is made up of 12 contributions that analyse the role of Allied communication through multiple agencies and channels, such as war bulletins, films, broadcasts, rumours and journalistic articles. The prestigious historian David Welch provides the foreword to the publication, giving an excellent description of the role of propaganda in history. The editors offer a powerful introduction that emphasizes the importance of wartime communication, the role played by the British Ministry of Information (MoI) in particular, and the various propaganda channels employed during the Second World War. Henry Irving (Leeds Becket University) opens the chapters with a description of MoI operations within the British government, revising the restructuring of the MoI under the direction of Brendan Bracken from July 1941. Victoria Carolan (University of Greenwich) describes the role played by the National Savings Committee (NSC), through a novel contribution that reveals how the British government appealed to the public to invest in the war through a sense of duty. Stephen Thompson (University of London) analyses a different and a lesser-known organization, the Army Bureau of Current Affairs (ABCA), which had the objective of explaining to British soldiers what they were fighting for and keeping up their morale. Alice Byrne (Aix-Marseille University) explores the characteristics, components and themes of the war bulletins Britain To-Day, Bulletins from Britain and Britain. Joseph Clark (Simon Fraser University) considers race as a prominent element of the Allied films Negro soldier and Teamwork, revealing an idealized projection of African American soldiers in the U.S. armed forces.
Richard Fine (Virginia Commonwealth University) explores the official censorship campaigns implemented by the United States and Britain, revealing the fight of Allied war correspondents to achieve journalistic freedom in political matters. James Wald (Hampshire College) analyses the news coverage and censorship campaigns surrounding an episode of anti-Semitism amongst Polish forces based in Britain. Wald examines how this incident reflected not just different views on the issue but also fundamentally different attitudes towards wartime information and public debate. Stephanie Seul (University of Bremen) and Emily Oliver (University of Warwick) examine the role played by BBC broadcasts during the war. While Seul reflects on how the BBC referenced the Holocaust, Oliver reveals how the British broadcasts used satire to convince the Germans that Britain had their best interests at heart despite the bombings. Christopher Bannister (University of Manchester) gives an overview of the difficulties, themes and printed channels of British propaganda in Iberia, especially considering the importance of Catholicism and anti-communism in Spain. Stefanie Wichhart (Niagara University) and Chandrika Kaul (University of St Andrews) reveal the role of Allied communications in lesser-known war scenarios. Wichhart examines the work of the travel writer Freya Stark in developing the Brotherhood of Freedom, a MoI-sponsored organization that aimed to implement oral propaganda campaigns in Egypt, Iraq and the Palestine Mandate; while Kaul analyses British imperial broadcasting, considering the BBC service to India and the impact of Allied communication on the Indian political scene.
The volume offers an excellent review of the impact and dimensions of Allied communication during the Second World War, considering different propaganda agencies, multiple campaigns, varied war scenarios, and diverse propaganda channels. Allied Communication to the Public during the Second World War analyses the role played by wartime censorship, the impact of racism and anti-Semitism on mass media, the politicization of radio, cinema, and press, as well as the instrumentalization of printed bulletins and rumours.