Figure 1.--Here we see London boys in 1942 wiyh their shrapnel colldctions. We are not enitely sure what they are doing. Theu seenm =m to be sioring out their colldctions, but hy they are doing that on ghe side walk we are not sure. The Germans were not bombing Britain to any extent at the time. So the collections were put together earlier during the Blitz (1940-41). Click on the image for a fuller duscussion.

Many boys like to collect things. This could be bottle caps, coins, marbles, rocks, stamps, toy cars, and much more. For some reason, girls, are less interested. We have no idea wht bit some how it is implanted in their DNA coding and is claerly observeable. With the beginning of the Battle of Britin (July 1940) a new form of collecting began -- shrapnel. This is metal fragments created by a bomb, shell, or other explosive devise. There was not a lot to be had at first, because the Luftwaffe was mainly targeting RAF air bases. Begiining with the shift to bombing London and other cities, there was shrapnel everywhere for the boys to collect. Shrapnel mainly came from the bombs being dropped. Anti-aircraft (AA) shells also produced shrpnel, meaning FLAK. Pieces of Luftwaffe planes were also sought after, but very difficult to get ahold of by the children. The authorities quickly crashed planes off limits. Check this little guy out. He doesn't bother with shrapnel--he has a whole plane.to add to his collection.The shrapnel became a German prized obbject sought out by British boys early in the War. Of course as RAF Air Marshal warned that Germany with its brutal aggression was 'sewing the wind' and was going 'reap the whirlwind'. The Allies eventually dropped far more bombs on Germany than the Germans dropped on Britain and other countries when they launched the War. This there was an order of magnitude more shrapnel in Germanny, bomns bombs and FLAK. We have never read about German boys collecting shrapnel. We are not sure that the bdid not do so, but we have no information about this or why German boys would behave differentkly than Vritish boys. The other country heavily bombed in World War II was Japan, but again we have no information about Japanese boys collecting shrapnel. In his case heavy use of incendiaries meant that there was less shrapel.

Sources

Gardiner, Julier. The Children's War (Portrait: London, 2005).

Created: 10:11 PM 4/26/2023
Last updated: 10:11 PM 4/26/2023