The UK is at risk of wiping World War II from memory as new research reveals 37% of Brits have no idea when this pivotal period in history happened and a third (32%) admit they don’t know Sir Winston Churchill was Prime Minister during the conflict. The study, commissioned by SEGA Europe Limited to mark the launch of Company of Heroes 3 found an alarming discrepancy between what Brits think they know about World War II and reality, despite half (48%) believing it is important to have knowledge of the event that shaped the country they live in today. More than two out of five (44%) Brits describe themselves as knowledgeable about the events of World War II, compared to just a tenth (9%) who admit they’re ‘clueless’.
Barely half (53%) of Brits know that it was Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939 that started the conflict, which ultimately led to an estimated 35 to 60 million casualties globally. One in 10 (10%) 18-24-year-olds believe it was the Battle of Britain that lit the touchpaper of war across Europe, and 7% of Gen-Z think it was D-day on the beaches of Normandy. Meanwhile, two out of five (38%) Brits aren’t sure which countries went on to emerge victorious from World War II.
The research found that some of the biggest world-defining moments could soon be resigned to the history books. Two out of five (40%) Brits are oblivious to what The Blitz was, unaware it was a German bombing campaign against the UK which occurred in 1940 and 1941, and almost a third (30%) have no idea an atomic bomb led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
