Having recently emerged from another bunker, I thought I'd give this thread another airing. I only came away with a single smartphone image, which didn't merit a thread of its own.
Today's bunker is the former headquarters of No 11 Group RAF, now known as the Battle of Britain Bunker in Uxbridge. This is the underground control room from which the aerial defence of London and the South East of England was mounted during WWII. The room has been restored to how it looked on 15th September 1940, which was the climax of the Battle of Britain, a day on which about 1,500 aircraft took part in air battles.
Apart from the plastic cover on the plotting table, the room is pretty much as it was in 1940. The map itself is the same one, and you can see (when you're up close) where it became a bit scuffed in the places which saw most action - around Dunkirk, for example. Apart from the map, the most interesting thing in the picture is probably the display of airfields and squadron status on the back wall. This was a central component of the 'Dowding System' - the world's first ground-controlled interception network. Nothing like it existed on the other side, and it was key to the success of the RAF against the Luftwaffe in 1940.
I took this picture from the gallery level in the operations room, from which senior officers would direct operations. Winston Churchill watched from the same position on 15th September 1940, and it was as he left the bunker to get in his car that he first uttered the words, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few". Today's tour guide told us that when we were standing on the very same spot.
Actually, this was my second visit. I last went down into the bunker in about 1977. It had been out of use for about 32 years at that point, and now we're a further 45 years down the tracks, which makes me think that I shouldn't leave it so long next time.
-R
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