Murder in WW2 London

Summary

History Extra Podcast Episode Summary: "Murder in WW2 London"

Release Date: January 27, 2025
Host: Immediate Media
Guest: Professor Amy Helen Bell, Author of Undercover Cover of Darkness: Murder in Blackout London*

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1. Introduction

In the gripping episode titled "Murder in WW2 London," the History Extra podcast delves into the shadowed streets of wartime London, exploring a series of heinous crimes that unfolded amidst the chaos of the Blitz. Hosted by Immediate Media and featuring Professor Amy Helen Bell, the discussion unveils how the Second World War's tumultuous backdrop provided fertile ground for serial killers and violent crimes, challenging the widely held notion of unwavering Blitz spirit.

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2. The Atmosphere in London at the Outbreak of War (01:45 - 03:15)

Professor Bell sets the stage by transporting listeners to September 1939, the onset of World War II. She describes London as a city enveloped in "intense anxiety and fear," even before the war was officially declared. The implementation of blackouts, the evacuation of children, and the pervasive uncertainty created an environment of "unbearable tension."

"It was a period of a lot of changes and intense anxiety... unbearable tension would be how I would characterize that period." — Professor Amy Helen Bell (02:30)

The early days were marked by fear of imminent bombing, influenced by recent events like the Spanish Civil War. The false alarm siren that sounded shortly after the declaration of war only amplified the populace's terror, as the anticipated German bombings did not materialize immediately, leading to prolonged periods of stress without immediate release.

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3. Impact of Blackouts and Evacuations on Communities (03:15 - 05:12)

As the war progressed, the Blitz began in September 1940, bringing actual bombings that killed approximately 43,000 people across Britain. However, alongside the aerial assaults, a darker menace emerged: a surge in violent crimes and serial killings that exploited the chaotic wartime conditions.

Professor Bell discusses heart-wrenching cases of "mercy killings" where individuals, overwhelmed by fear and separation from loved ones, took their own lives alongside their children. One poignant example involves Pamela and Lily Wright, where Lily, an 11-year-old girl, succumbed to anxiety over her father's enforced absence, leading to a tragic double-fatality gas incident.

"It's a very tragic story... she was so worried about the Germans coming." — Professor Amy Helen Bell (04:45)

These acts underscored the severe emotional toll the war took on families, compounded by the inability to openly express fear and grief due to societal expectations of resilience.

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4. Mercy Killings and Emotional Struggles (05:12 - 06:16)

The repression of emotions during the war led to extreme actions. Professor Bell highlights instances where individuals, unable to cope with fear and separation, turned to violence against those they loved. One such case involved an ARP rescue worker in the East End who strangled his mother to spare her from the despair of not reaching a shelter in time.

"There's a sense that within the trial themselves, the victims are really there just as objects... they cease to be people." — Professor Amy Helen Bell (05:30)

These stories reveal how the psychological strain of wartime life could distort familial bonds, resulting in tragic outcomes fueled by suppressed emotions.

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5. The Blitz and Shifts in Public Mindset (06:16 - 07:29)

With the commencement of the Blitz, Londoners experienced both relief and heightened tension. On one hand, there was solace in collective courage as bombings directly impacted their lives. On the other, the physical devastation of the city—filled with shelters, ruins, and strangers—created opportunities for illicit activities and crimes.

Professor Bell notes that the breakdown of social structures during the Blitz allowed criminal elements to flourish, taking advantage of the darkness and destruction to conceal their activities.

"What we see in the first period of the war is this anxiety and fear coming out, often against the people that you love the most." — Professor Amy Helen Bell (06:50)

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6. Challenges Faced by Police During Wartime (07:29 - 09:07)

Law enforcement during WWII grappled with unprecedented challenges. The police force was severely understaffed, declining from 4,000 officers in 1939 to half that number by 1945 due to conscription and enlistment. Efforts to bolster the force through war reserve policemen provided some relief, but the workload remained overwhelming.

Professor Bell explains that the police prioritized cases with definitive evidence of foul play, often sidelining missing person reports due to the sheer number of casualties and uncertainties of war times.

"They really focus primarily on cases in which they really believe there has been foul play." — Professor Amy Helen Bell (08:30)

This shift meant that many crimes, especially those involving disappearances without clear evidence, went unresolved.

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7. Serial Killers in London During WWII (09:07 - 14:58)

Amidst the war's chaos, London became a hunting ground for serial killers who exploited the disrupted societal norms and infrastructure.

Gordon Cummins: The Blackout Ripper (09:27 - 11:13)

Gordon Cummins, known posthumously as the "Blackout Ripper," was one of three serial killers active in London during the war. Cummins, a respected aircraftsman with no prior history of violence, embarked on a killing spree in 1942, targeting women under the cover of darkness.

Professor Bell details how Cummins leveraged his military uniform to gain trust, making it difficult for authorities to trace him until a lucky escape by Greta Haywood led to his identification through forensic evidence tied to his belongings.

"It's okay to use that term when women weren't really being killed, just their clothes being slashed... not during the war when women are actually being murdered." — Professor Amy Helen Bell (10:45)

John Christie: The Notorious Murderer (12:35 - 14:58)

Another infamous criminal, John Christie, operated during and after the war, murdering numerous women in his Notting Hill flat. Utilizing his role as a wartime special constable, Christie concealed his crimes effectively, hiding bodies in bomb sites and under the cover of night.

Professor Bell discusses Christie's tactical use of empty air raid shelters and densely populated areas to commit and hide his murders, a method that allowed him to evade capture until years later.

"It's a way to garner trust during wartime that other occupations maybe would not have." — Professor Amy Helen Bell (10:57)

These serial killers highlight how wartime London's unique conditions facilitated criminal endeavors that might not have been possible in peacetime.

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8. Influx of Foreign Troops and Racial Violence (14:58 - 25:03)

The war brought a significant influx of foreign troops to London, including African American soldiers, Jamaican airmen, and servicemen from various Allied nations. This demographic shift led to increased racial tensions and violent crimes rooted in prejudice.

Philip Berry Case (21:15 - 25:03)

One notable case involves Philip Berry, who in 1945 fatally shot a drunken Dutch merchant seaman, Pervin, after enduring racist abuse. Despite initial adversity in the courtroom, changing racial attitudes began to influence legal outcomes, leading to Berry's sentence being commuted from death to life imprisonment.

"He wasn't going to put up with that abuse." — Professor Amy Helen Bell (24:15)

This case exemplifies the evolving recognition of racism as a provoking factor in violent crimes, reflecting broader societal changes during and after the war.

Rise in Racially Motivated Crimes

Professor Bell underscores that racial violence was not an isolated phenomenon. Multiple incidents of racist abuse and subsequent retaliatory violence plagued London, fueled by the presence of diverse military personnel and the stresses of war.

"There is a lot of unsolved murders as well that take place... small pockets of places where nobody's watching." — Professor Amy Helen Bell (15:36)

These tensions mirrored the complexities of a multicultural metropolis under siege, where different cultural groups intersected in high-stress environments.

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9. Media Representation of Crimes During the War (17:23 - 19:01)

The British media during WWII adhered to strict guidelines, refraining from sensationalizing crimes to maintain public morale. Detailed coverage of violent acts, especially those involving sexual assault, was limited to prevent fostering fear.

Professor Bell notes that the press focused on broader war narratives, often allowing individual crimes to "surface and disappear" quickly unless they involved foreign servicemen from allied nations, who were granted even less media attention.

"It's not considered respectful in the context of this atmosphere of math death to focus too much on one crime." — Professor Amy Helen Bell (17:23)

This restrained reporting style contributed to many wartime crimes remaining obscure or unresolved in the public consciousness.

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10. Post-War Violence and Its Aftermath (27:48 - 28:04)

The end of the war did not immediately alleviate the violence in London. The immediate post-war period, up to about 1948, was marked by heightened tensions due to demobilization, stringent rationing, and the reintegration of soldiers—some of whom returned with weapons, contributing to a spike in violent crimes.

Professor Bell observes that by the 1950s, the situation began to normalize, but the legacy of wartime criminal patterns persisted, with domestic murders and racially motivated offenses continuing to affect the city's fabric.

"The much more insular domestic murder... continues to the present." — Professor Amy Helen Bell (28:04)

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11. Lessons from Wartime Violence (29:19 - 30:04)

Reflecting on the era, Professor Bell emphasizes the importance of compassion and understanding when examining historical violence. She advocates for viewing violent acts within their context, acknowledging the extraordinary pressures and fear that influenced human behavior during the war.

"See violence not as something that's monstrous and an aberration, but it's a very human response to an extraordinary situation." — Professor Amy Helen Bell (29:19)

This perspective encourages a more nuanced interpretation of history, recognizing the complex motivations behind criminal actions in crisis periods.

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12. Conclusion

The episode "Murder in WW2 London" offers a profound exploration of how the Second World War's upheaval and psychological strain on Londoners created an environment where violent crimes could thrive. Through Professor Amy Helen Bell's insightful analysis, listeners gain a deeper understanding of the interplay between societal stressors and criminal behavior, challenging simplified narratives of wartime resilience. The discussion not only sheds light on lesser-known aspects of London's wartime history but also invites reflection on the enduring impact of war on urban life and human psychology.

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This episode was produced by Jack Bateman. For more fascinating historical stories and expert conversations, subscribe to the History Extra podcast, brought to you by the team behind BBC History Magazine.

Transcript

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[Podcast Host]

Welcome to the History Extra podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. In September 1940, German planes began raining bombs on British cities, causing death and destruction on a scale never before seen. But in the capital, the Blitz wasn't the only threat to people's safety. In today's episode, John Baucram talks to Professor Amy Helen Bell about London's Second World War crime wave, exploring dark moments that challenge the cosy idea of Blitz spirit and revealing how serial killers such as Gordon Cummings and John Christie exploited the chaos of war to carry out their heinous acts.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

So, Amy, your new book takes us back to London during the Second World War, the time of the Blitz, of blackouts and of fear. Before we get going, Amy, I just wondered whether you could take us back to the beginning of the conflict, to the outbreak in 1939. What was the atmosphere like on the streets during those early days?

[Voiceover/Announcer]

I think it's hard for us to imagine it now because there aren't a lot of images or recordings. It was a world of intense anxiety and fear. The streets were blacked out, really, even before war was declared. They were in darkness at night. People were forbidden to shine lights. The children were being evacuated, they were evacuated two days before war was declared from London. So people knew their families were being torn apart. It was a period of a lot of changes and intense anxiety. Because of the example of the Spanish Civil War, people in Britain thought that they would be bombed immediately. So as soon as the declaration of war came over on the radio at 11am, they expected the bombs to come. And there was actually a false alarm air raid siren that came about 40 minutes later and people were terrified. They thought it was the German bombers coming already. And in some ways the fact that the Germans didn't come. And so it was this long period of tension in the phony war that really ratcheted up that anxiety. And people had time to think and they had time to miss their children. And of course, there's all the bureaucracy of war and there's conscription waiting to be conscripted because the men didn't volunteer the way they did in World War I. So it was a time of real fear and anxiety and paperwork for a lot of people without any of the release of something happening. So unbearable tension would be how I would characterize that period.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

Yeah, it's about a year, isn't it, before the Blitz actually begins in September 1940. And there are a couple of examples early in the book where you talk about tragically mercy killings involving children. Could you elaborate on those?

[Voiceover/Announcer]

Well, one of the most difficult emotional experiences of the war was people being separated from their children. And that was true whether they were natural children or there's a case of a nurse who was like a nanny to a five year old girl that was about to be separated from her, that her family was moving to America and so she gassed herself and the child together. Probably the case in which there's the most detail, because it did go to a criminal trial at that of Pamela and Lily Wright. So Lily was about 11 years old during the first year of the war. And she had been evacuated at the beginning, but her mother missed her too much and so she'd been brought back. And as the war news and this fear of this impending invasion filtered through her mother, Lily got very upset and anxious and didn't want Pamela to go to school. She didn't want to go outside and play. And then one day when the father went to work, he came home and Pamela had been gassed and Lily tried to gas herself as well. And at first she denied it. And so there was a long criminal investigation about how this had actually happened. Could it have been an accident? What had happened? And then dramatically during the trial, she broke down and admitted it. And her husband was full of compassion for her on the stand, saying that it was her own mental illness. She was so worried about the Germans coming. But really, truly a tragic story. And as far as I know, Lily, they stayed married into the 60s, I think, when the husband died, but she never had any more children. And there isn't a lot of detail about the family because there was no one, no next generation to pass the stories on.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

Yeah. Unbelievably heartbreaking case. Do you think that was also brought about by the fact that people couldn't really articulate their feelings and there was this idea of showing resolve and resilience.

[Voiceover/Announcer]

Absolutely. And whenever those feelings are repressed, they come out in various ways. And I talk in other work that I'VE done about the physical symptoms of fear that people write in their diaries about being nauseous or their hair falling out or because they couldn't express these feelings. But the other way they come out is through these acts of violence. And that's really what we see in the first period of the war, is this anxiety and fear coming out, often against the people that you love the most. So there's another case, once the Blitz begins, of a rescue worker, an ARP rescue worker who. Who strangles his mother in the East End because she can't get to the shelter on time. And he's so worried about her going up and down the stairs, he wants to put her out of her misery. And it's stories like that that are so heartbreaking and really a response to that emotional tension as well as the social circumstances of the war.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

And as you said there, Amy, the Blitz does begin in 1940. The bombs do come, and some 43,000 people are killed across the whole of Britain. How does that change people's mindsets when it actually happens?

[Voiceover/Announcer]

I think in a way, it's somewhat of a relief because people were not just afraid of the bombs coming, they were afraid of how they were going to react. And the government was also afraid of how people would react. They thought there'd be mass panics and people would run and leave the city and leave their jobs, and that didn't happen. And so I think when people were facing the bombs, that most of them were kind of heartened by the fact that they were able to face them with courage. But then once the bombing started, the physical structure of this city starts to break down. So people are in the shelters, their homes are unprotected, the shelters are full of strangers at night in the dark. So there are crimes taking place there. And then you have, once the Blitz is over, even during it, the creation of these bomb sites, these vast ruins in the darkness, it become the setting for a lot of illicit activity, various kind of clandestine behavior, and also places where murders take place and murderers hide the bodies.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

And before we get into the details of some of those specific crimes, I just wondered what the situation was like with the police themselves. I mean, are they as committed to solving these crimes when there's so much other stuff going on around them?

[Voiceover/Announcer]

Well, it was very hard to be a policeman during the Second World War, and that's partly because there were all these new crimes that were invented. So they had to police the blackout, they had to police rationing offenses, they had to police looting, and they were helped by civil defense, the air raid wardens that were on the ground. But they were under strength in 1939. And as the war goes on, more of them leave to join the forces. Goes from about 4,000 policemen down to forces cut in lease by half by 1945. And so they try to shore it up by having war reserve policemen, who are civilian policemen doing some of the duties. But it's still a lot of work. And so what I've found in most of these investigations is that if there's definitive evidence of foul play, they will investigate and they'll throw everything at it. But if it's a missing person, it's much harder for them to do. They don't want to do it because of course there are hundreds and thousands of people missing during the war. And so they'll ask the person reporting it to contact the police concealer if they think the person's gone to Scotland to contact the forces there, or just to wait and see or to check the casualty lists. And so they're really focusing primarily on cases in which they really believe there has been foul play. So in which a body has been found, essentially.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

Now, one of the figures who looms particularly large in your book and in histories of the period is the serial killer Gordon Cummins, who's sometimes called the Blackout Ripper. Now, we can return to talk about the issue of that name in a moment. But how does he operate and how does he exploit the disruption of war?

[Voiceover/Announcer]

Gordon Combes is a really interesting figure, and he's one of three serial killers operating in London during the war. And they're all kind of start up their careers at the same time within a couple years of each other. But Gordon Cummins is someone who. There was no hint of violence in his past. He was in the raf, he was an aircraftsman, he was fairly well respected by his peers. He was happily married. There had been some thievery and he'd been fired from some jobs in the past, but there was no hint of a violent side to him. And then in 1942, while he was stationed in London, he went essentially on a violent killing spree that every night he went out killing women over the period of a week. And police of course, had no clues. So until he attacked Greta Haywood, who escaped, that someone intervened while he was strangling her in a blacked out doorway. John Shine was just passing by and called out to him and stopped. And then Gordon dropped his air mask and his duffel bag and he was traced through the serial numbers on those things. Otherwise he could have gone on for months, really, and not been caught. And that is the irony of having so many servicemen in the Capitol that you can use your uniform as the perfect screen to hide behind, because there were so many men in uniform, they'd be impossible to trace.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

Yeah. So there was that sense of anonymity as well, then I.

[Voiceover/Announcer]

In an automatic respect. So that people thought that when he's chatting up these women, that he's a. He's a handsome guy, he's in uniform, he can't be that bad. So it's a way to garner trust during wartime that other occupations maybe would not have.

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[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

Yeah, and on top of that, as you kind of alluded to, you've got the physical destruction of the capital as well. You've got bomb sites, you've got a lot of rubble around places that people aren't necessarily going all the time. He exploits the use of empty air raid shelters, isn't he as well? Can you tell us a bit more about that?

[Voiceover/Announcer]

Well, yes, his first victim that we know of, he suspected in earlier killings that remain unsolved in 1941, but was of a woman named Evelyn Hamilton who was just passing through London for one night. So she was staying in a hotel near Bloomsbury and she had gone for dinner, waiting to catch her train the next morning. And on her way home, she must have been attacked. It's not really clear what happened, but her body was found the next morning in disarray inside this empty air raid shelter and her purse was missing and her clothing was disarranged. And there were absolutely no clues because she didn't know anyone in London. Nobody knew her. And it wasn't really clear, other than robbery, what the motive could have been.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

Another key figure, as well as Gordon Cummins, is John Christie, and listeners may have heard of him as well. If you've seen the film 10 Rillington Place, he's the serial killer played famously by Richard Attenborough. And Christie murders numerous women at his flat in Notting Hill, doesn't he? And he conceals their bodies. His last murder, I think, takes place in 1953, but he begins during the war.

[Voiceover/Announcer]

He begins during the war. And like Cummins, he's able to use this kind of wartime authority to mask his nefarious intentions. So he, although he actually does have a criminal record for violence, for theft, he's been in prison, he's able to sign on as a wartime special constable. So he's got a uniform. A uniform or an armband. He's got a beat that he's walking around his neighborhood. So he's able to have local knowledge and he knows all the local women. And so his first victim is. Actually, I talk about her a lot in the book, Ruth first. She is someone who's very vulnerable. She's a refugee from Austria, she has no family, she's young. At the time that she meets Christy, she's already been pregnant and given up a baby for adoption. She's unemployed and according to him, they meet in a cafe and she immediately falls in love with him and follows him around and wants him to marry her, which is probably not true. He probably enticed her to his home by offering her free medical care or by offering her money, which is a way that we know that he enticed some of his later victims. And his wife was away and because he knew the streets and because of the blackout, he was able to bring her to his home where he claimed to have sex with her and then kill her during the act. And then he buried her in the backyard again at night. No one can see. It's a very densely populated area in Notting Hill, but no one can see you at night. And nobody questioned where she had gone. Her landlady reported her missing because she hadn't paid her rent, but she didn't have any other friends. And by the time she's discovered in 1953, nobody remembers her. She just disappears. She's only identified because she has European.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

Dental work and, you know, because of the war. Is there a sense that there are fewer prying eyes, that neighbours aren't twitching their curtains so much that allows this sort of thing to happen?

[Voiceover/Announcer]

Absolutely. And especially if you look at. There's a lot of unsolved murders as well that take place, and those almost always take place either in a flat or that no one could. The neighbors didn't see or hear anyone going in and out, or a lot of them take place in air raid shelters or bomb sites. There's Maple Church that's found in a bombed out building in 1941. There's no clue to what really happened to her or who she was there with. So There is a sense that there were all these pockets of places where nobody's watching. And especially for people like Ruth, who aren't really known, they can very easily fall through the cracks.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

Now, Amy, you know, listeners will probably be able to gauge. A lot of the case studies in this book concern women and girls. And then, as now, women and girls still are disproportionately affected by violent crime. And there's also a tendency for people to be quite crass and voyeuristic in the way we write about women in that way. As a historian, did you feel the duty to tell the bigger picture in the book and try and humanise the victims a bit more?

[Voiceover/Announcer]

Absolutely. And in my research, I found that's even something that is written about at the time. So the judge in one of the cases in which the husband kills his wife and covers it up, and he's trying to pretend that she is, or not pretend, but he's trying to claim that she was unfaithful and she was going to pubs and et cetera. And the judge says, well, we don't know. We don't know if she's as black as she was painted. Like she's not here to answer these. And there is a sense that within the trial themselves, the victims are really there just as objects, so they're there as bodies. Especially in cases where there's a lot of forensic investigation, they cease to be people and people with friends and family who knew them. So one of the advantages that I found of going back to. To the police files and then taking that and looking at the wider genealogical picture that you can do very easily now through Ancestry.com and through tracing relatives and tracing images, is to find out more about the victims in life and to find out what happened to their families and what happened to their children and what were they like and what are the circumstances in their lives that led them to be at that place during the war that made them vulnerable.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

Were the tabloids as insensitive as they would be during peacetime? Are there some really awful accounts?

[Voiceover/Announcer]

Well, British tabloids were not as insensitive as they were later. So there were still very strict rules about, for instance, the kind of photographs that could be shown or the kind of details that could be shared. And so they still would never print a crime scene photograph that was forbidden. So they would talk a little bit about details of the crime, but they wouldn't report too much on forensic detail or details of sexual assault. They might say that someone had been interfered with or that they'd been mutilated, but not the details that you would see even 10 years later. I think also that there wasn't a lot of that. The press would interview neighbors, but it wasn't considered respectful in the context of this atmosphere of math death to focus too much on one crime. And there are certain crimes that are not reported at all. So in cases that bodies are found and then nothing further happens, they disappear out of view. So they kind of surface and then disappear quite quickly in the news cycle. And that's also true in cases, especially true in cases where it's a serviceman from another country, this community of the. Of course, there are so many foreign soldiers in London. So there was a case earlier in the war, I talk about where a Canadian soldier shoots a barman during a botched robbery. So that's kind of reported on, but it would be considered bad form to put too much emphasis on this foreign soldier of an Allied nation who's out committing crimes or cases in which there's American servicemen, I'd say they're given even less attention than those by British servicemen or by British men.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

And it's interesting you mentioned that, because that brings me on neatly into the next part of this discussion, really, which is to say that there is another side to this story, isn't there? You've got the serial killers like Gordon Cummins and John Christie and the domestic crimes we've talked about, but there is this influx of foreign troops in the capital. There's also a rise in drinking and partying and reckless behavior. So, yes, with that Canadian soldier, was that quite a common occurrence, do you think?

[Voiceover/Announcer]

I think in the case of botched robberies, those kind of increase as the war goes on. So what happens, I think, after America enters the war in 1941, is that the atmosphere changes, at least for a while, and there's a kind of a release of tension, that victory seems within reach, not eventually for the British. And then. Plus, you have all these exciting American soldiers coming in and they have money and they want to see the sights. And they set up Rainbow Corner and the pubs and the dance halls are all full. And you also have an influx of Jamaican airmen who are being recruited after 1942. And so the capital changes dramatically again in that second half of the war. There's a lot more excitement and danger, and at the same time, there's a lot more fights and brawls that end in death and botched robberies. And there's more deserters. In the capital, there's at least 15,000 deserters. Of various Allied nations in London by the end of the war. So there's all these unknown quantities in this party atmosphere that could lead and did lead often to deadly violence, but also to a lot of fun.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

Yeah. So do you think people were living each day like it was their last then when there's so much death and destruction going on, who cares what happens?

[Voiceover/Announcer]

I think if you're young and you have no children and you're in London during the war, I think it would be a very different experience than parents or older people or that for some it was a real time of excitement and danger and that that was the very dangerous aspects of the Capitol itself or what needed so far.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

And Amy, you alluded to the fact that there are a lot of African American troops coming into the capital, a lot of Commonwealth troops as well. Do we then see a rise in racial violence and crimes related to race?

[Voiceover/Announcer]

Yes, absolutely. And I think we see that both casually and we do see that. There are two cases that I talk about where racial hatred is really the motivation behind the fights that end in violence. But of course there are many, many more cases. So one case I talk about at length is really interesting, and it's the trial of Philip Berry. So this was late in the war with 1945, and by this time the lights had gone on just a little bit. So it was during the dim out and people could kind of see at night. So there's a group of people in the Tottenham Court Road that all want sandwiches at a tea stall and cups of tea. And there's a really drunk Dutch merchant seaman who's being really obnoxious and he wants to get into a fight. And apparently he had done this several nights in a row. And he starts abusing this African American soldier who's there with a woman, Herman Carter Robinson, and he's calling in names and then he physically assaults him. And no one comes to his defense except for the stall holder comes out and defends him. And then Carter walked down the street and then Pervine assaults him again. What's also interesting is that while this is happening, there's a white American soldier that's just watching the whole thing. And he's following along and watching the fight as they move down the street and clearly enjoying the spectacle. So the stall holder, Fred White, comes out again and he defends Carter Robinson, who eventually just walks away. He's able to walk away and he goes down to his billet. But at the time, during this kind of fraka, Pervin is still shouting and he's still shouting these horrible racist things. And another man comes from around the corner, looks into space, perween shouts racist abuse at him and this man pulls out a gun and shoots him three times and he falls down dead pretty instantly. So Fred White goes to call the police, but by that time no one has known where the shooter has gone. And it causes a lot of anxiety about who this person was. At first they think that it's the same man, Herman Carter Robinson, who's come back and then says no, this person is much shorter. So they eventually trace down Philip Barry and he kind of denies at all he pleads alibi that he was actually in the Colored Colonial Club at the time. But according to the police that one of the motivations that he gives in the car as they're maybe questioning or maybe not, is that he was standing up to this racist abuse. He says I'm not an ex, I'm a man. No man is born X I'm a man. And so he wasn't going to put up with that abuse. And so even though he is found guilty and sentenced to death, he is later reprieved and his sentence is commuted to life imprisonment. Partly because of these changing racial attitudes that the Home Secretary felt that the racist abuse was actually provocation enough to mitigate Barry Schmutingaman's self defense.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

Yeah, I think you describe it as provocative prejudice.

[Podcast Host]

Yes.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

And that is quite a shift. Then you feel that that would not have been an excuse beforehand.

[Voiceover/Announcer]

Well, it's partly down to Constantine Leary, the famous cricketer. So he actually took a hotelier, a hotel manager to court for calling him the N word in public and refusing him a room. And was actually, it was a very public case, very painful for him and his wife. But he brought it forward and was awarded damages because of that. And that really his courage really brought this idea of racist language and racist abuse out into the forefront. I think that was 1941 or 42, so a couple years before this. And you can see that attitude trickling down through how racism and racist abuse is being treated in the courts.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

That's really fascinating because stories such as this aren't particularly well known today. They're not particularly written about. And Amy, you've done lots of research into World War II crime as a whole in trying to build a picture of victims lives through genealogical research for instance. Do you think that there is a shift in the way people are writing about true crime overall?

[Voiceover/Announcer]

Yes, I do and I think it's a real difference in availability of sources. So when you're looking at earlier, what materials people had earlier. They might have the crime files when they were opened, and they had the memoirs of famous detectives. And that's pretty much it. But now we live in a world in which people from victims, families, or anyone can access and create information. It's much more broad and diffuse. And there's a real change in who we see as the authority and whose stories we want to trace. And I actually wrote a book last year about my own family's involvement in a crime, an infamous crime in Canada in the 1970s. And putting my own kind of vulnerable history and unsavory history out in the public really gave me an awareness of how sensitively we must look at not only just the victim's lives, but the lives of all the families involved, of how horrible it must have been to be in the public spotlight and how respectful you have to treat not only the memories of people, but people who may still be living and the descendants.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

Of people today, of course. And if we return to quite Gordon Cummings, who we talked about earlier, he's known as the Blackout Ripper. That feels like a very insensitive term. It's almost lauding him as some kind of superhero. And in fact, I think you say that term didn't actually come into use until the 1990s.

[Voiceover/Announcer]

Yes, it was Ben Cutmore, who runs a crime podcast called Dark Histories, and he actually pointed that out, saying he had gone through all the newspaper databases and the Blackout Ripper was somebody else. So it was someone who was just slashing women's clothes in 1939. And they called that person the Blackout Ripper. And then the name was essentially taken. So it wasn't something that was written by the time, I think partly because it would inspire fear. So it's okay to use that term when women weren't really being killed, just their clothes being slashed. But you couldn't really use the term Blackout Ripper during the war when women are actually being murdered and their bodies quite seriously mutilated, because then it would build that sense of fear and darkness that was not acceptable during the war. So it's really not until much later when we have the rise of true crime in the 90s and the expansion of more and more Jack the Ripper Ripperology that you see that link being made.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

And finally, Amy, the war comes to an end in 1945. The trauma doesn't go away. Do you think that the situation in London was worse in the 1950s in that immediate post war period than it had been during the conflict itself, I.

[Voiceover/Announcer]

Think it was worse in the immediate post war, really, up till about 1948, because that's when you have the process of demobilization. You've got the most stringent rationing, you've got the problems of family reunification. Plus you have all these soldiers coming home with their own guns or looted guns, and you see a big spike in violence, especially in 1946, early 1947, I would say by the 50s, it settles down again and there's more semblance of peace. But in terms even of police investigations or the way crimes were investigated or even committed, there's that shift to more murders being committed by strangers in London that never goes away. And so the much more insular domestic murder that you see in the beginning of the war as the main focus, that after the war becomes while and still continues the wartime pattern of being random, of being focused on robbery or lust, or there's more of what we would consider to be a more modern aspect of violence or racial hatred continues to be a motivation really into the present.

[Professor Amy Helen Bell]

And are there any lessons we can take away from looking back at wartime violence?

[Voiceover/Announcer]

I think the lesson that we can take away or that I've taken away from looking back on wartime violence is to have compassion for people in the past, even people who perpetrate violence or maybe do nothing while they witness violence. That everyone at that time especially, was caught up in such a maelstrom of feelings and events and an atmosphere of fear that it's quite easy doing criminal history to be very judgmental and dismissive of people. But my hope is that we can look back with understanding on people's motivations of the past and see violence not as something that's monstrous and an aberration, but it's a very human response to an extraordinary situation.

[Podcast Host]

That was Amy Helen Bell, professor of History at Huron University College in Ontario. Amy's new book, Undercover Cover of Darkness, Murder in Blackout London, is out now. Thanks for listening. This podcast was produced by Jack Bateman.