Britain - and it's Bunkers

Civil defence was never a realistic option as far as the ordinary citizen was concerned, but the government at both National and Local level was intended to survive at least to complete the nuclear response to attack. It was even made compulsory for local authorities to have a protected emergency control facility, in the later stages of the Cold War. Every town in the land had at least one protected facility, often a hardened basement in a council building, sometimes a far more sophisticated structure. There was also a national network of small bunkers, some 1600 in number, for three personnel in each from the Royal Observer Corps, reporting to larger centers for the UK Warning and Monitoring Agency. These were small underground rooms with basic monitoring tools for nuclear explosions and basic radio and telephone communications. There were vast fuel and munitions storage facilities in mines and caves. It could have become a troglodyte society! For all of this huge expense and construction effort, the majority of the population knew nothing of, and cared little about, these things. Probably the universal unspoken fear of living with a loaded gun pointed at our heads made that just too difficult to contemplate. Now it is just history, we are learning how all of this went on unheeded for half a century. A sombre but fascinating peek at what could easily have been.

A picture of the 1954 war room in Cambridge. This above ground structure was built at the same time as the ROTOR bunkers and was later added to at the rear in 1963 (not visible here) and became Regional Seat of Government number 4. It would have governed Eastern England right down into London at one time if the worst had happened. It was being re-furbished as the Cold War ended. It is therefore a real bit of Cold War history, and being above ground with 5 foot thick walls is quite visible too!

David Farrant - 2002.
WW2 & Cold War History in Britain

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