Reuniting after their adventures emulating farming in the Victorian era, historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn turn back the clock to run Manor Farm in Hampshire as it would have been during WWII. The team begin by reclaiming badlands to grow new crops and learn about Auxiliary Units, a resistance force trained to use guerrilla tactics against German invasion.

The team tackle the conditions faced by British farmers in 1940, when the full impact of rationing took hold and when Britain faced the onslaught of Nazi bombing in the Blitz. Ruth experiences rationing in the kitchen, as food became strictly limited, and explores the temptations of the black market. Confronted with reduced supplies of feed for the animals, Alex and Peter try to make “silage.”

In late 1940, Britain’s cities were heavily bombed, resulting in three million city dwellers fleeing to the countryside. To make outbuildings habitable as refugee shelters, Alex and Peter resort to the age-old craft of making tiles by hand. Ruth gets involved in the work of the Royal Observer Corps, who often enlisted farmers in the work of spotting enemy planes.

Ruth, Peter, and Alex face a WWII-style government inspection. The consequences of failure could be dire: more than 2,000 farmers deemed not productive enough were thrown off their farms during the war. The inspector tells them to grow and to get their milking operation up and running, and so they grapple with a new tractor and a milking machine, as part of a mechanization trend.

Moving forward to 1942, when Hitler’s U-boats bombarded British ships and slashed imports, the team confront shortages of wood, fuel, and animal feed. Ruth travels to the New Forest and discovers how women known as Lumber Jills were drafted to fell trees. Alex experiences the conditions faced by the Bevin Boys—conscripts who were sent to coal mines instead of the armed forces.

This week the team tackle the conditions faced by British farmers in 1943, when things were so bad, the government feared a crisis. Renewed shortages of animal feed mean Alex and Peter resort to producing a hay crop from grass in the churchyard. Ruth enlists eager children to collect herbs that were desperately needed by the pharmaceutical industry to make medicines during the war.