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

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The war had barely ended when nostalgia for Britain’s finest hour occasioned an avalanche of requests to visit the bunker; only a favored minority was granted informal tours. The government ultimately set aside money to restore the complex, under the auspices of the Imperial War Museum. The Cabinet War Rooms opened to the public in 1984. Its success prompted the opening of the adjoining Churchill Museum [http://cwr.iwm.org.uk] in 2005. It took two more years, after the Nazis had taken over Czechoslovakia and annexed Austria, for the idea of an emergency headquarters to be approved. Finally, in May, 1938, construction began in earnest to create a safe space to house the heads of the military; the structure became fully operational on August 27, 1939, one week before Britain and France declared war on Germany. Within the next year, Baldwin’s successor, Neville Chamberlain, resigned as prime minister, and Churchill found himself suddenly at the seat of British power. When he walked through his War Rooms for the first time as prime minister in 1940, the country was bracing itself for total war, and the Battle of Britain was just weeks away. 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. 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]

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. Waite, Richard (8 June 2012). "Clash opens new Churchill War Rooms entrance". Architects' Journal . Retrieved 19 June 2012.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] The bunker consists of some forty rooms on two floors, with the most notable being the cabinet room with seating for up to 30 people, and a large map room. Image Credit : Markus Milligan

The Rooms were opened to the public by Mrs Thatcher on 4 April 1984 in a ceremony attended by Churchill family members and former Cabinet War Rooms staff. At first the Rooms were administered by the museum on behalf of Department for the Environment; in 1989 responsibility was transferred to the Imperial War Museum. [35] [36] When war was declared in 1939, Down Street was converted in a matter of days into the new headquarters of the Railway Executive Committee. The REC acted as an intermediary between the War Office and Britain’s rail companies and would be crucial to the movement of troops, horses and equipment in the fight ahead.

Kennedy, Maev (9 April 2003) The Guardian Restored underground apartments opened to public. Accessed 28 July 2009. New Churchill War Rooms entrance will reference military hardware, Jacob Epstein and Henry Moore". culture24.org.uk. 25 May 2012 . Retrieved 19 June 2012. 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. A celebrated military historian, Holmes is the author of the best-selling and widely acclaimed Tommy and Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket. His dozen other books include Dusty Warriors, Sahib, The Western Front, The Little Field Marshal: Sir John French, The Road to Sedan, Firing Line, The Second World War in Photographs and Fatal Avenue: A Traveller’s History of Northern France and Flanders (also published by Pimlico). 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.