Underground structures of strategic purpose. Underground "military office" Churchill

Good time of day, dear habrazhiteli

I bring to your attention the second article on underground strategic structures. This time it will be about the main underground structure of Great Britain - Churchill's military office.

So let's get started ...

Churchill's bunker - "military office" - by Soviet standards can not be considered a bunker - it is more correct to call it a bomb shelter of the third category. Just a basement floor adapted for the needs of the military headquarters and recessed by only 10 feet (about 3 m). For comparison: Stalin's bunker in Samara goes underground at 37 m.

For the first time, the need for an underground shelter for the head of the British government and his headquarters in London was talked about in the summer of 1938. In the fall, after the Munich crisis, they took practical steps - in other words, they began construction. And a week before England entered the war on the dungeons on King Charles Street, the so-called “map room” (map room) began to operate - a kind of center for studying the military situation in the world. On October 21, 1939, the first meeting of British strategists, chaired by Prime Minister Chamberlain, took place in Churchill's “military office”, then still a minister of the sea.


Plan Bunker Premiere UK Winston Churchill
1 - the current entrance from the street; 2 - office; 3 - the living room of the Prime Minister; 4 - international telephone room; 5 - “card room”; 6 - a room adjacent to it, covered with concrete; 7 - the entrance that operated during the war; 8 - greenhouse; 9 - office space
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Barely becoming the head of government, Churchill realized that the European (as yet) “campaign” was taking a protracted character. Holland surrendered on May 14, 1940, Belgium, on May 24, France capitulated on June 22 ... “From here I will rule the war!” The prime minister decided, referring to the bunker, and from June 1940 settled there, in room 65A, while building his personal office and the bedroom.

They say that Churchill liked to work lying in bed, so that the premier's bed often played the role of a desk. A wooden box for especially important state papers was located above the bed - the prime minister did not part with it, as today the heads of superpowers do not part with “nuclear suitcases”.

The bunker layout resembles the layout of the cabins on the ship: all along the board with a passage in a long corridor, rounded in the "stern" and to the "nose". The modest dwelling of the premiere is adjacent to the holy of holies, the already mentioned room of cards. The steel door leading into it is battened down again in a ship-wedge way. The daily life of the staff is still in full swing: telephones are ringing, teletypes are knocking, steps are heard, voices are heard ... Do not get it literally: just like most British museums, Churchill's bunker is voiced - for the sake of maximum approximation to historical reality. Mannequins, worthy of the collection of Madame Tussauds, dressed in uniforms, very enliven the interior space. Immediately - telephonists and secretaries, dressed in modest dresses of 40s style, are engaged in their important affairs. A naval officer with captain's stripes marks on the map with colored wool threads of the front line: Britain is in danger! Over London, the engines of the bombers are buzzing, the Fau shells are drawing the sky ...

In the midst of the war - at the end of 1941 - the bunker’s commandant noticed a serious danger from the marble staircase that led to the upper floors of the building: if a bomb hit, she would tightly barricade the exit from the “card room”. I had to urgently reconstruct the shelter. The room adjacent to Mar was poured with concrete up to the ceiling, providing for a tunnel passage in it in case of blockage.

Unraveled fears, the darkness of state and military secrets, the tension of collegial thought - as if still hovering in the dark corners of the government dungeon. And when you come out to the surface and hear the rumble of the regular “Boeings” flying over the city, you involuntarily want to pull your head into your shoulders - before that, the howling twilight of the bunker plunges into the atmosphere of an air raid. However, from time to time completely different sounds are heard under the brick arches of a super-secret object: the clinking of glasses, tapping forks on plates, hissing champagne, soft toasts ... The harsh rooms of the underground shelter turn into banquet rooms. In private and for a special fee, here you can celebrate any life event, play a wedding, hold a presentation or briefing, arrange a friendly dinner of the air defense veterans ...

The last combat duty in the "card room" took place on August 15, 1945. A happy accident and the skill of the English anti-aircraft gunners saved Churchill's "military office" from direct shells hits. Now the British keep it carefully and lovingly - like any ancient monument.

If desired, you can read the first article of the cycle: The construction of the rates of Hitler.