Blitz spirit
New secrets of Churchill’s war bunker
It was the cigars, mostly. Amid the clatter of typewriters, blurting telephone receivers and bustle of the bunkers beneath Westminster, the wreaths of blueish smoke winding their way through the labyrinth of corridors were how staff always knew that Sir Winston Churchill was in attendance.
From these dank basement rooms, formerly used by the Civil Service to store furniture, Churchill and his senior commanders plotted Hitler’s demise. Called simply the War Rooms, and equipped with the latest technology, for six long years they became the nerve centre of the British war effort.
While ensconced in the bunker, Churchill delivered the radio broadcasts that ensured the nation’s spirit was not broken during the Blitz, marshalled the defence of the realm and planned Britain’s own attacks. In the run-up to D-Day in 1944, he engaged in secret telephone discussions with President Roosevelt in a tiny room which staff were told was the prime minister’s personal lavatory.
Unlike Hitler’s Führerbunker – deep below the Reich Chancellery – Churchill’s War Rooms were always hiding in plain sight beneath Whitehall. Indeed, they were only a few feet below ground level; midway through the war Churchill discovered that if a Luftwaffe bomber scored a direct hit, he and his staff would be encased in a tomb of concrete and stone. Which is why he preferred to climb on to the roof of the nearby Treasury to watch the bombs fall.
Since the mid-Eighties, the War Rooms have been declared a national monument and been open to the public, if encased behind glass. But untold stories remain woven into the fabric of this subterranean HQ.
For a new book, The Secrets of Churchill’s War Rooms, the Imperial War Museum, which oversees the site, granted author Jonathan Asbury rare access to hundreds of previously unseen photographs and top secret documents, as well as rooms normally sealed off to the public.
His book sheds new light on life in the bunker, both for the hundreds of people who worked here, and the prime minister who won the war.
“The thing that really struck me is the parallels between Churchill’s character and the War Rooms themselves, and this general idea of improvisation,” says 45-year-old Asbury, who lives in Harrogate. “There was a real can-do attitude and these people were remarkably efficient at getting things done. The people there braving the bombs, and sleeping with the rats and bugs, were an incredible part of this history. And Churchill provided this animating energy for the entire place.”
For his book, Asbury focused on four main rooms that have remained untouched since the war: Churchill’s bedroom and private study, the TransAtlantic telephone room, the Map Room and Cabinet Room. Churchill first strode into the latter in May 1940 and declared: “This is the room from which I’ll direct the war.”
It still bears tiny details from Churchill’s reign. His chair is scratched on the left arm from where his fingernails clawed at the wood. The right arm is gouged in places where Churchill would slam down his signetring hand in anger.
Behind his desk is a giant ashtray where subordinates gathered the cigar butts he had flicked about the room.
Nearby – in a room not much larger than a broom cupboard – was his private line to Roosevelt. One of the letters Asbury uncovered is from a US Signals officer whose job was to set up the calls. In May 1944, Churchill invited him in, offered him a brandy (which he declined) and allowed him to listen in to the first minute of conversation.
“He heard Churchill calling Roosevelt ‘old pal’ and Roosevelt called him ‘Winnie’,” Asbury says. “This was only a week before D-Day and yet they were still so at ease.”
According to Asbury, Churchill resented being forced underground and rarely slept overnight in the room appointed to him (although he made regular use of it for afternoon naps).
There was no running water in the bunker and he was forced to use a bedpan bearing the crest of King George.
Ever the micro-manager, when he discovered the frailty of the bunker to bomb blasts, he ordered that the entire complex be re-cased in concrete. He even invented an official sticker for use underground called “Action This Day”, with which he marked documents of the most pressing need.
None the less, he took great pleasure in showing off the War Rooms to visiting statesmen. In particular, he loved the Map Room, a jumble of wires connected to Bakelite telephones and manned 24 hours a day.
On the wall is a giant map upon which every British convoy was plotted. A chart remains, showing the annual tonnage of British ships lost to German U-Boats – in 1942, 160,000 tons was sunk, but by 1943, thanks to the cracking of the Enigma code, that had fallen to 50,000. Churchill made four key speeches from the War Rooms – three during the opening months of the Blitz in 1940.
The new book also draws on the personal accounts of those who worked in the bunker. Hundreds staffed its 70-odd rooms, among them typist Joy Hunter.
The great-grandmother of eight, now 91 and living in Guildford, was in a team of 12 typing up hourly reports from around the world.
“Any time there was an air raid of any sort, we knew at once where it was and how many casualties,” she says. “We knew when D-Day was going to happen and where all the troops were. It was urgent, highly secret stuff. Once, we had 20 air raid warnings in a day. Whenever I hear sirens it still gives me a shiver.”
Churchill, she recalls, was a regular sight, stalking the corridors in his famous siren suit and constantly puffing on a cigar. “I used to say, ‘Good morning, Mr Churchill.’ Sometimes he would stop and ask how things were going. He always spoke. I think he liked having civilians about him. He must have felt more normal.”
Secrets of Churchill’s War Rooms by Jonathan Asbury is published by The Imperial War Museum on October 31 (£30). To order your copy for £25 plus free p&p, call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk