Churchill War Rooms

The museums in London can keep you busy weekend after weekend, I've been to a bunch (the National Portrait Gallery and Tate Modern are two of my favorites), and last weekend we went to the Churchill War Rooms.  The War Rooms are where Churchill ran his operations during WWII.  

It is an underground bunker (with little protection, it turns out, most likely would not have survived a direct hit); it's located under the Treasury building in Westminster (the public entry now is the little door on the right).  

Construction of the war rooms began in 1938, and they became operational in August 1939, shortly after the outbreak of war in Europe.  

Interestingly enough, after the surrender of Japan in August 1945 and the end of the war, the rooms were abandoned - they turned off the lights and left everything as it was.  Maps on walls, papers and pens on desks.  It is still there today.  

Here is the room where the cabinet meetings took place, exactly as it was during the war (save the mannequin they added in the background):

Everything is original - the papers, pens, maps, lights, everything.  The chair in the back of the room with the rounded top was Churchill's chair.  

The maps had thousands of pins and thousands upon thousands of little pin holes where they tracked the progression of the war:

Chart tracking bombings:

Because of the food rations in Europe during the war, having a bit of sugar for your tea was a luxury.  If you had some, you hid it and kept it to yourself.  When they opened up the room in the picture above and were looking through the desks, they found a few cubes of sugar still there, wrapped in an envelope and hidden away.  Somebody was so excited to get out of there and go home that they left their stash!

Churchill's underground bedroom (with a trusty cigar ashtray on the bedside table):

He actually preferred to go back to 10 Downing Street at night and sleep there, only using his underground bedroom a few times.  He didn't mind the risk of walking home.  In fact, when air raids were being carried out over London, he would often go upstairs and watch.  

Churchill walking through the rubble after an air raid:

From inside the bunker:

The war rooms were equipped with a state-of-the-art telegraph room with a hotline phone to Roosevelt:  

The door and outside of this room was fashioned to look like a bathroom - complete with an "occupied/vacant" switch.  People, even those with the clearance to be in the war rooms to begin with, were told that it was a private bathroom only for Churchill.  I guess it worked to keep others out!

Attached to the war rooms is a museum dedicated to Churchill and his life.  This was a pretty cool place, with lots of multimedia presentations to keep anybody who's inclined interested for hours on end.  Stephen is standing in front of a long light table that came equipped with touch screens on the sides.  The table was one big "filing cabinet" and you could use the touch screen to access thousands of digital files about any given day/month during Churchill's life.  

The hallway leading to the (obligatory) gift shop had replicas of old WWII-era posters.  This one made me laugh out loud:

Ah, dumb blonde secret spies, they are always ruining the best cocktail parties!  

I also liked this one:  

Walking back home through St James's Park with the London Eye in the background: