Through the Storm - Facts

 Like the other books in the series, this novel takes place in Bootle. Bootle is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside, near Liverpool.

Kitty starts working in the Royal Navy Hospital in Seaforth. 

Jimmy Quigley played for Everton in the reserves. Everton Football Club is an English professional association football club based in Liverpool that competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football.

Dominic tells Jimmy that he admires Dixie Dean. William Ralph "Dixie" Dean (22 January 1907 – 1 March 1980) was an English footballer who played as a centre forward. Dean holds the record for the most goals scored in a single season in top-flight English football, with 60. 

In this book it is 1941 - 42. There references to the war in Russia. Odessa and Kharkov fell, and the people in Leningrad starved to death. 

The first time Kitty goes to the cinema with her colleagues is to see Gone with the Wind. Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American epic historical romance film adapted from the 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell. 

Pearl Harbor was attacked and America entered the war. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, just before 8:00 a.m. (local time) on Sunday, December 7, 1941. The United States was a neutral country at the time; the attack led the U.S. to formally enter World War II on the side of the Allies the following day. 

After that, American GIs started to arrive in England. 

In Britain the government brought in a utility clothes scheme. The Utility Clothing Scheme was a programme introduced in the United Kingdom during the Second World War. In response to the shortage of clothing materials and labour due to wartime austerity. 

Corned beef and white flour were banned, and what people got was the national loaf. The National Loaf was a bread made from wholemeal flour with added calcium and vitamins, introduced in Britain during the Second World War by the Federation of Bakers. Introduced in 1942, the loaf  was made from wholemeal flour to combat wartime shortages of white flour and sugar. The loaf was abolished in October 1956.

There was a vote of censure against the Prime Minister, but the MPs voted to oppose it. On July 2, 1942, the motion to censure Sir Winston Churchill is defeated 476 to 25. The motion gained initial support largely in response to British losses in North Africa. However, Churchill displayed his usual oratory prowess in response,

The characters talk about the raids on Cologne and Essen. The first ever 1,000 bomber raid by the RAF was conducted on Cologne on the night of 30/31 May 1942. During World War II, the industrial town of Essen, was a target of Allied strategic bombing. The Krupp steelworks was an important industrial target, Essen was a "primary target" designated for area bombing by the February 1942 British Area bombing directive.

There was a turning point in the war. General Montgomery forced Rommel to retreat in North Africa.