Peace on earth and goodwill to men... excepting perhaps the enemy

From increasing food rations and singing carols to playing Royal Christmas broadcasts, citizens and soldiers did their best to spread festive cheer during the Second World War... no matter how desperate their situation

- By Phil Craig

ON Christmas Day 1943, HMS Belfast was steaming far north of Norway, her crew alert to danger.

The cruiser was on Arctic convoy duty but also part of a secret plan to draw the mighty German battleship Scharnhorst into a Royal Navy trap.

As the sailors sang carols and prepared to eat a supposedly "special festive dinner" of bully-beef and boiled potato, they listened to the voice of King George VI live over the ship's Tannoy, and Lieutenant Peter BrookeSmith experienced an overwhelming feeling of comfort and connection.

"Although the wind drowned much of it, the homely words that we heard, as we sat huddled up in our 'goon skins' and balaclavas, brought us closer to our families, especially as we knew that they too would be listening to that same voice at home." On Boxing Day, Scharnhorst was sighted and Belfast, her crew fortified by an extra Christmas rum ration, played a hugely important and heroic role in her destruction.

On the other side of the world, in the desolate copper mining camp of Kinkaseki in Formosa (now Taiwan), prisoners of war forced to work as slave labourers couldn't hear their King's comforting words, but they found support and solidarity where they could, finding time to sing and pray together - and share precious memories of home.

Their inspirational Canadian doctor, Major Ben Wheeler, wrote in his diary about the Christmas his family would be having in distant Alberta: "I tried to picture the tree I know Nell must have for the boys, and what presents I would like to give them all. Christmas dinner too.