In July 1940, on four consecutive Monday evenings, the mayoress, Mrs. B. T. Horwood and a committee of ladies, entertained wounded soldiers, first to tea, then to a concert at the Hippodrome.

In 1940, after the formation of the Mayor of Dudley’s Spitfire Fund on the 23rd August, Dudley raised a large sum of money to help to finance the building of Spitfires. A fundraising committee was formed to plan the activities which included house to house collections, competitions, auctions and a week of events from the 7th to the 14th October, ending with an all-star concert at the Hippodrome, starring Flanagan and Allan. During the week of activities, a captured German Messerschmitt was displayed in the council house courtyard. Visitors could sit in the cockpit in return for six pence, which went towards the fundraising. At the end of the week, a total of £7,400 had been raised, which would pay for one and a half Spitfires.

From 1940 there were more air raids. The German bombers dropped high explosive devices and incendiary bombs that could quickly start a fierce fire. People were encouraged to volunteer as fire watchers, which were trained by the air raid wardens. Employees in factories were also asked to become fire watchers. By the end of the year, this became compulsory.

Damage to the stonework on St. Thomas's Church after a nearby bomb exploded on the 7th September, 1940.

Bomb damage on the Grace Mary Estate, Tividale. In November 1940.

The Duke of Kent, inspecting the Home Guard in Dudley Market Place, on the 19th December, 1940.

Two British Restaurants opened in Dudley. The restaurants were established by the Ministry of Food and known as communal feeding centres. By 1943 there were over 2,000 British Restaurants which offered affordable, nutritionally balanced meals, to help people to supplement the meagre food rations. They were staffed by volunteers from the Women’s Volunteer Service and allowed people to eat-out, or take food away to eat at home.

Salvage campaigns were introduced in 1941, in which scrap metal was collected, including wrought iron railings which were taken down to be used as scrap. Large amounts of waste paper were also collected. In 1942, Dudley collected 126 tons.

Ernest Bevin introduced conscription for women in 1941. Anyone between the ages of 18 and 50 who had no children under the age of 14 was required to do work of national importance. This included joining the Women's Royal Naval Service, the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service, the Land Army, working on war work in factories, or joining the nursing services. Nurseries were established to help women with childcare and in 1943 school meals were introduced for children.

On the 26th February, 1942, the king and queen inspected around 2,000 civil defence personnel at Dudley cricket ground. Around 10,000 people came to watch the event. During the early 1940s, both Dudley Girls’ High School and Dudley Grammar School sent children to harvest camps to help with the harvest, during the shortage of labour.

There was a shortage of coal miners and so between December 1943 and March 1948, young British men were conscripted to work in the coal mines. They were known as 'Bevin boys'.

During 1942, more air raid shelters were built at Dudley to improve the civil defence facilities. There were severe shortages and so people were asked to use less water and take fewer baths, clothes were rationed, newspapers were restricted to four pages and petrol was only available for essential use.

After the defeat of the Luftwaffe, the air raids ended. Dudley had 358 air raid alerts, but only a small number of bombs were dropped. One of them landed near St. Thomas’s Church, on the 7th September, 1940, destroying the Three Swans public house, on the opposite side of High Street (number 177). Some slight damage from the explosion can still be seen today in the church’s stonework. There was one fatality in Dudley, a Mrs. George Marlow.

In January 1944, Rab Butler’s Education Act promised free secondary education for all.

After the D-Day invasion of Europe in 1944, civil defence duties were reduced, the local Home Guard disbanded at St. Thomas’s Church on the 3rd December, the blackout ended and the streets were again lit at night. The war in Europe ended on the 8th May, 1945 and was declared at an end when Japan formally surrendered on the 2nd September. There were massive celebrations, street parties and Churchill dissolved parliament. Many changes would soon follow with the landslide victory of the Labour Party and the introduction of increased nationalisation and the creation of the welfare state.

A VE Day street party that was held in Lowe Avenue, Darlaston. Courtesy of Mavis Young.

Like many of the local factories in the early 1940s, the Co-Operative Wholesale Society (CWS) warehouse in Hall Street, which supplied many local Co-Op stores, had its own fire brigade. The CWS National Works Fire Brigade competed in the National Fire Service annual competitions and on the 8th July, 1944 won the Dudley divisional competition at the Revo Sports Centre. Amazingly the fire brigade’s room at the factory, now occupied by the Alan Nuttall Partnership, was rediscovered in 2016, still in its original condition with the old uniforms, gas masks, canvas hoses and fire pump trailer, with 'CWS DUDLEY' lettered in gold on the front.