Questions to ask about the Second World War

Not a history lesson. Questions about what the war was actually like for the person in front of you, asked while there's still someone who can answer firsthand.

Updated 6 October 2026

Every year there are fewer people left who can answer this firsthand rather than at second hand. The war ran from 1939 to 1945, which means the youngest people who lived through any of it as an adult are approaching a hundred, and the youngest who remember it as a child at all are into their nineties. This isn't a page for Remembrance Sunday specifically — see the National Service page for that angle — it's for the longer, bigger thing National Service came after.

Who this actually applies to

The war itself ran from the UK's declaration on 3 September 1939 to Japan's surrender on 15 August 1945 (VJ Day — the UK's official date; VE Day, for Europe, was 8 May). To have a real childhood memory of the worst of it — the Blitz, running 7 September 1940 to 16 May 1941 — someone needs to have been born before about 1936, making them 90 or older this year. To have done war work themselves, as an adult — the Land Army, a factory, the WVS, the forces — they needed to be grown up by 1945, so born in about 1927 or earlier, making them 98 or older. Younger than that, what they have is what they were told by their own parents, which is a different, still worthwhile question — and a different page: if it's National Service specifically (1949 to 1960, after the war, for men only), that page covers it, with its own, younger cut-off.

The facts, briefly

	The facts
When it was	3 September 1939 (UK declares war) to 15 August 1945 (VJ Day, the UK's date).
Evacuation	Nearly 1.5 million people moved out of English cities alone in the first four days of September 1939, mostly children. Many came straight home again: by February 1940, 87% of the evacuated women and 44% of the children had gone back. A second wave followed in 1940; the scheme didn't formally close until 7 September 1944.
The Blitz	7 September 1940 to 16 May 1941 — about eight months, and far more than London. Liverpool, Hull, Birmingham, Coventry, Manchester, Sheffield, Bristol, Cardiff, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Southampton, Swansea, Sunderland, Belfast and Glasgow were all bombed too.
Rationing	Food rationing began 8 January 1940 with bacon, butter and sugar. It didn't fully end until 4 July 1954, when meat came off ration — more than nine years after the war itself ended.
War work	The Women's Land Army, re-formed in July 1939, had over 80,000 members by 1944 and wasn't disbanded until 30 November 1950. The WVS (founded May 1938) ran canteens and rest centres through the Blitz and lost 241 of its own members.

Checked 6 October 2026 against Wikipedia's articles on the UK's declaration of war, VE and VJ Day, Operation Pied Piper, the Blitz, UK rationing, the Women's Land Army and the Royal Voluntary Service (formerly the WVS).

What to actually ask

The same rule as every other page like this: specific beats general. "What was the war like?" gets a shrug, or a line they've given fifty times before. "What did you actually do, day to day?" gets the detail nobody's asked for in years.

Evacuation and childhood

01Were you evacuated, or did your family take someone in? What do you remember about that first day?
02If you went away, who looked after you, and were they kind to you?
03Did you come home quickly, or were you away for years?
04What did you miss most while you were away — or, if someone else's child came to you, what do you remember about them?

The Blitz and the blackout

01Did bombs fall anywhere near where you lived? What happened that night?
02Where did your family go when the sirens went — a cupboard under the stairs, an Anderson shelter, the Underground?
03What was it actually like, walking about in the blackout?
04Did you lose anyone, or a home, or know someone who did?

Making do

01What was rationed that you missed most?
02Did your family grow or keep anything to get round it — a vegetable patch, hens, a pig club?
03What's the first thing you remember being able to buy freely again, once it finally ended?

If they did the work themselves

01Did you do war work — the Land Army, a factory, firewatching, the WVS, the forces? What were you actually doing, day to day?
02Who did you work alongside, and did you stay in touch with any of them afterwards?
03What did you think when it finally ended — whichever day was yours, VE or VJ?

“Was there a bomb site, an old shelter or a row of prefabs still standing where you grew up? What did you make of it as children?”
— One of the 52 weekly questions, quoted from the bank itself

That one's really about growing up in the war's aftermath rather than the war itself — the same generation, a different angle on the same years. StoryPrompt emails one question like these a week, for a year, and the answers collect into a typeset book you can download at any point. If the war is the thing you actually want on record, asking it directly today works just as well without buying anything — the free 100-question list has the fuller set, and how to record your parents' life story covers what to do with the answer once you've got it.

One question a week, for a year — £25

Written for a British life, including the years most lists skip over entirely.

See what £25 includes