Churchill typists’ secret mission

THEY worked long hours in a cramped, smoke-filled underground bunker, in fear of Luftwaffe attack.

So in need of a little light relief, Winston Churchill’s War Rooms secretaries concocted a tongue-in-cheek memo ahead of his second visit to the US at the height of the Second World War.

Entitled Operation Desperate, the note, typed on official paper and marked Top Secret, demanded that a Force Commander be urgently dispatched to the US to obtain “vital commodities” – silk stockings, chocolate and cosmetics.

The mission was deemed a “complete success” as a member of staff in Churchill’s party returned home with a stash of all three items, to the typists’ delight.

The memo forms part of a cache of documents released by the Imperial War Museums to provide a glimpse of life in the War Rooms.

They mark the UK release of the film Darkest Hour, which recounts the early days of Churchill’s premiership, and are intended to entice visitors to the historic location.

A museum spokesman said the light-hearted memo gave an insight into the “dreary conditions” endured by Britons during the war.