Rare pictures of army life during the Second World War

Three-quarters of a century after was finally won in Europe, they also tell of a time when the country was unprepared and ill-equipped for war, its army outnumbered and still nursing the wounds of the previous conflict. Never again would conscripts or society itself tolerate such a reckless loss of life.

When war came again, only two armoured divisions had been established against Germany’s seven, and there were defeats on almost every front.

Better equipment, more sophisticated training and improved military intelligence helped turn the tide. But above all, this was a people’s war. The mass conscription drive had brought in every fit man between 18 and 41, save for those in reserved occupations, and by war’s end, the army numbered some 2.9m. They were drawn from every walk of life and their achievement, as Churchill acknowledged, was everyone’s.

“This not victory of a party or of any class,” he said in 1945, “it’s a victory of the great British nation as a whole.”

The cost to the country had been huge. In the British Army alone, there had been 300,000 deaths and 376,000 more had been wounded. It is a debt to their generation that will never be repaid.

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