Carnage at the King David

July 22. A time-bomb destroyed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, headquarters of British forces in Palestine.

Britain got the job of governing Palestine after liberating the land from the Turks in 1918. It was a thankless task with both Arabs and Jews demanding the land. Despite pressure from the United States, Britain refuses to allow Jews from Europe, including many liberated from concentration camps, to flood into the Holy Land and create more instability.

It led to heartbreaking scenes as men, women and children who had survived the worst that Hitler could do were turned back by the boatload. Jewish terrorists began a savage guerilla war against their British rulers.

One of the most ruthless was the Stern Gang, believed responsible for the King David Hotel outrage. It was a well-planned attack. Explosives packed into milk churns were left in the hotel's basement kitchens. The building collapsed like a pack of cards, killing dozens of solders and civilians. Barely a year later, Britain announced that it would pull out of Palestine as soon as possible, whether or not the Jews and Arabs had reached agreement.

February 8. Bananas arrived in Britain for the first time since 1939 amidst great excitement. Considered luxury items, they could not be imported during the war which meant a whole generation of children had never seen an orange or banana. Some tried to eat them skin and all.

The day before, the Food Minister told the Commons rationing would have to return to near wartime levels because of a worldwide food shortage. The amount of wheat in bread was to be reduced, butter and marge rations cut while wartime meat, poultry and egg allocations remained the same. The main problem was the need to feed 30 million Germans whose agricultural industry had been destroyed in the bombing. The ministry issued a range of dietary advice, including a recipe for squirrel pie.

May 3. Pelsall Sanatorium would be closed for a month to allow the overworked nursing staff to take a holiday, an inquiry by Walsall's Medical Officer concluded. But the staff situation at Goscote Isolation Hospital was so bad, it could face permanent closure. Patients at Pelsall would return home for a short period while the staff took a break, said Dr J.A.M Clark. Luckily, he added, he had never known a time when there had been so little infectious disease about. "And it is a very good thing," he stressed. "The staff position is the same at nearly every hospital in the town and the public are going to be taught a severe lesson if they won't allow their daughters to go in for nursing - it is a very serious position."

May 11. It was announced judges would sit through the summer recess to help clear the 50,000 service divorces still outstanding in the courts. The alarming increase in divorce was considered a major social problem. In 1945 there were 25,000 cases, two and a half times the number for 1938. It was clear many relationships had not stood the test of long enforced separations, finding themselves virtual strangers by the end of the war.

More of a problem - about 70 per cent of the current backlog - was adultery, indicating many of those left behind had found new partners. A few months later in the Lords, the Archbishop of Canterbury condemned the three-minute civil marriage ceremony for its "startling brevity".

September 30. The Nuremburg trials reached their climax as 12 leading Nazis were sentenced to death including Ribbentrop, Goering and Hitler's deputy Bormann. Rudolph Hess was sentenced to life imprisonment. Only 10, however, were executed in the prison gymnasium two weeks later. Bormann was believed dead and had been sentenced in his absence while Goering cheated the hangman by committing suicide with a cyanide pill a few hours before. Some looked haggard, others nervous. Some reaffirmed their support for the Nazi cause, a couple called for peace between nations.