A letter revealing how Churchill thought the Cabinet War Rooms were not bomb-proof. Picture © IWM
Exhibition: Undercover – Life in Churchill's Bunker, Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms, London, August 27 2009 – August 2010
Previously unseen personal accounts painting a vivid picture of daily life in Churchill's wartime London bunker are to be revealed in a forthcoming exhibition at the Cabinet War Rooms.
Undercover: Life in Churchill's Bunker opens on August 27 2009 at the wartime location – now one of London's most evocative museums beneath Whitehall – and will draw on documents, letters, personal memories and artefacts to recreate the tense and sometimes humorous atmosphere inside Churchill's secret headquarters.
Created in 1938, the Cabinet War Rooms were originally the storage areas of the Office of Works Building, but were soon pressed into service as the country's operational nerve centre.
By August 27 1939, a week before the invasion of Poland, the rooms were fully operational. They remained the central shelter for government and military strategists for six years.
Winston Churchill with Captain Richard Pim, RNVR in the Prime Minister's Map room in the Cabinet War Rooms Annexe. Picture © IWM
The documents reveal the arrangement was not initially to Churchill's liking, as the inspirational leader quickly realised the converted basement would not save the occupants if it took a direct hit from a Luftwaffe bomb.
A previously unseen letter written by Office of Works Permanent Secretary Patrick Duff registers Churchill's complaint that the War Rooms were not "bomb-proof" and that the War Cabinet had "sold [him] a pup".
They were sentiments echoed less directly by other workers in the underground complex. Wendy Wallace remembers the contradictory disposition of feeling safe but vulnerable in the War Rooms. "You…didn't even know the raid was on but one bomb would have knocked us to smithereens," she recalls.
Soldiers constructing a protective sandbag pillbox outside the building (Spring 1940). Picture © IWM
"After the first few weeks I always slept in my bed and let fate take control," remembers intelligence official Elizabeth Norman. "Somehow under very bad conditions we remained remarkably healthy on very little, very poor food, living and working deep underground by artificial light and [with] no chance of real exercise.”
The exhibition also illustrates the lofty presence and personality of Churchill in the underground bunker didn't leave him above self-reproach and humour. Muriel Cooper, who worked in the key points Intelligence branch in the War Rooms between 1939 and 1944, remembers how "Churchill would say 'don't take anything seriously, it's nothing personal’...there was huge tension in his presence, but he always apologised for being brisk."
A spoof memo from a secretary urgently requests stockings and other "essential supplies", while pencil doodles by Chief of Defence staff show his deft skill in capturing colleagues at overseas conferences.
(Above) Royal Marines guarding the entrance to the Cabinet War Rooms and its Annexe. The slightly open door to the left was the main wartime entrance to the Cabinet War Rooms. Picture © IWM
"The juxtaposition of often very ordinary preoccupations in the midst of utmost tension is striking," says Phil Reed, Director of the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms.
"The camaraderie of co-workers is clear, not to mention the unshakeable importance of glamour among the secretaries and typists. The subjects of the exhibition are a direct link to Churchill and enjoyed a significant and particular relationship with him."
Beyond the documents, visitors will also be able to glimpse a series of overtly mundane but suggestive personal objects ranging from chemical toilets, door signs and noiseless typewriters to gasmasks, portable sunlamps and despatch boxes. Accompanied by the memories, they promise to effectively evoke the day-to-day nature of life in the Rooms.
Open 9.30am-6pm (last admission one hour before close.) Tickets £12.95/£10.40 (free for children aged 15 and under). Call 020 7930 6961 or book online.
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