Churchill's Bunker: The Cabinet War Rooms and the Culture of Secrecy in Wartime London

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Still, there was opulence here, after a fashion. “Bunkers and shelters were off-rations during the war,” says Holloway. A much higher class of food was to be enjoyed here than by civilians above ground. The REC was the same company behind Britain’s many grand railway hotels, and the staff here were able to dine on crystal dining ware and wash at Royal Doulton sinks. The second and last War Cabinet meeting took place in 1941, where a review of the Australian war effort was presented by the Australian premier Robert Menzies. Churchill was not in attendance due to a bronchial cold, so instead the meeting was chaired by Clement Atlee, the Lord Privy Seal. AOC Archaeology took laser scans of the bunker, producing computer models of its location in the forest. Construction of the Cabinet War Rooms, located beneath the Treasury building in the Whitehall area of Westminster, began in 1938. They became fully operational on 27 August 1939, a week before Britain declared war on Germany. The War Rooms remained in operation throughout the Second World War, before being abandoned in August 1945 after the surrender of Japan. Researchers from Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) unearthed one of these long-overlooked bunkers while conducting tree felling operations last month, according to a press release.

Paging through Secrets of Churchill’s War Rooms, what is striking about the underground bunker is the level of improvisation that went into its creation and evolution. The decision of which maps would go into the Map Room, for example, was just made by some government worker who was told that there was going to be a war room and that it would need maps. When he asked his commanding officer what maps he should acquire, “The guy just said, 'well, your guess is as good as mine,'” says Asbury. Staff lived and worked down here, working shifts of up to 12 hours, often overnight, perhaps only surfacing for air in the upper world every ten to 14 days. Grimy baths and toilets are what remains of the washroom facilities, while soot obscures the patterned wallpaper in the executive sleeping quarters.The Churchill War Rooms is a museum in London and one of the five branches of the Imperial War Museum. The museum comprises the Cabinet War Rooms, a historic underground complex that housed a British government command centre throughout the Second World War, and the Churchill Museum, a biographical museum exploring the life of British statesman Winston Churchill. Work began in the summer of 1938 to turn some basement storage rooms far under the Treasury into what was then called the Central War Room, which comprised at first little more than a map room and a meeting area. It was particularly convenient for MPs since it was situated almost halfway between No 10 and the Houses of Parliament. During the Munich crisis of September 1938, the rooms were kept fully staffed in case war broke out, but they did not become fully operational until a week before the war started the following year. What had only really started out as a "temporary" expedient until some custom-built bunker was created elsewhere wound up servicing Britain's senior strategists for the next six years. In the event of invasion, auxiliary soldiers had an estimated life expectancy of just 10 to 14 days—in part, perhaps, because the bunkers were not as hidden as their inhabitants would have liked. On several occasions, courting couples strolling through the woods stumbled upon the men’s hideouts, forcing them to relocate. Deep under Whitehall lies a labyrinth of offices, map rooms and sleeping quarters whose very existence was kept a mortal secret from the Nazis. For this was where Churchill's war cabinet and military chiefs met to plan the strategy that was eventually to bring victory over Hitler in the Second World War. Restored today to exactly the condition they were left in at the end of the war in August 1945, the Cabinet War Rooms are a powerfully evocative time capsule. Military historian Richard Holmes has written a superb book that explains their central role in Britain's finest hour.

With nearly two dozen history books to his credit, Holmes has no trouble delivering an opinionated, thoroughly entertaining account that follows the hyperactive Churchill, his family, servants, staff, advisors, cabinet and generals as they troop in and out of the bunker, various London command centers, country estates and world capitals while fighting World War II.

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On 21 October 1939, the first cabinet meeting took place there, under the then prime minister Neville Chamberlain. No one much liked having to meet underground, especially as no one seems to have stopped smoking when down there, but with the Phoney War likely soon to break out into a full-scale land conflict, everyone recognised the necessity of being prepared for the worst. Soon after Churchill became prime minister in May 1940, he made a special visit and announced: "This is the room from which I'll direct the war." The Down Street and Euston tours run on selected dates between January 15 and February 13, 2022, while the Moorgate and Aldwych tours will take place on selected dates between March 2 and 27, 2022. Within a month, crews had cleared, reinforced, soundproofed and installed communications in several of what became the Cabinet War Rooms. By the war’s outbreak, dozens of rooms were functional, fitted with air conditioning, independent water and lighting, medical facilities and sleeping quarters. The Office of Works considered the arrangements temporary, and the budget for expansion was tight. Inhabitants paid the price. The rooms were chilly, damp and poorly ventilated. In an era when almost everyone smoked, tobacco fumes mingled with cooking odors and smells from the primitive toilets. a b c Finch, Cressida (Summer 2009). "A short history of the Cabinet War Rooms 1945-1984" (PDF). Despatches: The Magazine of the Friends of the Imperial War Museum. London: Imperial War Museum: 18–22 . Retrieved 25 April 2012. [ permanent dead link] Churchill's office-bedroom, open from 27 July 1940, [24] included BBC broadcasting equipment; Churchill made four wartime broadcasts from the Cabinet War Rooms, the first being on 11 September 1940. [25] Although the office room was also fitted out as a bedroom, Churchill rarely slept underground, [26] preferring to sleep at 10 Downing Street or the No.10 Annexe, a flat in the New Public Offices directly above the Cabinet War Rooms. [27] His daughter Mary Soames often slept in the bedroom allocated to Mrs Churchill. [28]

While the better known Churchill War Rooms, a British government command center throughout the war, is open to the public as part of the Imperial War Museum, tours of Down Street are a much more infrequent delight. Visits made in 2011 to visitor attractions in membership with ALVA". Association of Leading Visitor Attractions . Retrieved 25 April 2012. As ultimate authority lay with the civilian government the Cabinet, or a smaller War Cabinet, would require close access to senior military figures. This implied accommodation close to the armed forces' Central War Room. [11] In May 1939 it was decided that the Cabinet would be housed within the Central War Room. [6] In August 1939, with war imminent and protected government facilities in the suburbs not yet ready, the War Rooms became operational on 27 August 1939, only days before the invasion of Poland on 1 September, and Britain's declaration of war on Germany on 3 September. [4] Wartime use [ edit ]Work to convert the basement of the New Public Offices began, under the supervision of Ismay and Sir Leslie Hollis, in June 1938. [8] The work included installing communications and broadcasting equipment, soundproofing, ventilation and reinforcement. [9] Because the War Rooms are below the level of the River Thames, flood doors and pumps were installed to prevent flooding. [10] Meanwhile, by the summer of 1938 the War Office, Admiralty and Air Ministry had developed the concept of a Central War Room that would facilitate discussion and decision-making between the Chiefs of Staff of the armed forces. Churchill’s war cabinet met in the bunker 115 times during the course of the war, discussing everything from Dunkirk to the Battle of Britain to Stalingrad. The staff kept the bunker operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week, until August 16, 1945, two days after Japan publically announced its unconditional surrender. Only then did the lights in the Map Room Annex—where all of the intelligence came in to Churchill’s military advisers—turn off for the first time in six years. The other Hidden London tours which are restarting for the first time since March 2020 are of the disused stations and tunnels at Euston, Moorgate and Aldwych, all of which have their own unique character and histories.

A lonely playing card on the floor of Churchill undeground bunker. Find out more on underground bunkers. Imperial War Museum (2010). "History of the Cabinet War Rooms: Constructing the war Rooms". Churchill War Rooms. Archived from the original on 6 August 2010 . Retrieved 17 April 2013. However, after seven years of disuse, explains Holloway, “All of the things that made it not viable as a station made it absolutely perfect for secret bunkers during the Second World War.” a b Hansard 6 December 1978; 'War Room, Storey’s Gate HC Deb 6 December 1978 vol 959 cc681-2W' Hansard 1803-2005. Accessed 18 March 2009.On 15 August 1945, Japan surrendered, bringing an end to the war. The following day, the lights in the Map Room were simply turned off and the staff vacated their offices. Several were cleared and used for other purposes, but the Cabinet Room, Map Room, Transatlantic Telephone Room and Churchill's bedroom were preserved for their historic value. [31] Most of these bunkers’ specific locations are lost to history, as the men who built them signed the Official Secrets Act, which prohibited them from talking about their assignments for decades. CNN Travel got a preview of the experience, ahead of a new batch of London Transport Museum’s Hidden London tours going on sale on December 3.