Larger than life Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the UK from 1940-45 and again 1951-55. Widely regarded as one of the great wartime leaders of the 20th century, he’s the only British PM to win a Nobel Prize in literature and the first person ever to be made an honorary citizen to the US.
Lady Astor, the first woman ever seated at Parliament, had this famous exchange with a testy Churchill.
Churchill rallied the British during World War II. He was the first person knighted by Queen Elizabeth once she was crowned in 1953. My favorite Churchill quote, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
During the Blitz (German for “lightning”) in WWII, the UK was bombed for 31 weeks. London was attacked 71 times. At times, up to 150,000 people took shelter underground, using Tube stations like air raid bunkers. This one is just block from the Parliament building next to Big Ben, which kept a very British stiff upper lip, chiming and keeping perfect time throughout the bombings.
Meanwhile, underground, sandwiched between 10 Downing Street and the Parliament, a top secret bunker now known as the Churchill War Rooms was humming. Typists listened with headphones to morse coded messages, recorded them on noiseless typewriters, and passed along the coded info to high ranking officers who would interpret the news for the Cabinet. Little did they know they were reporting bomb targets, casualties and wartime troop maneuvers.
Work in the War Rooms was brutal. With bombs falling overhead, people sometimes slept in makeshift dorms rather than risk the treacherous walk home through London. Here some of the most brilliant British officers spent their days breathing stale air, working by “day light” lamps (a predecessor to our seasonal affected disorder lamps) to emerge white-faced and blinking for a few hours in the evening.
No personal communication with the outside was permitted once the bunker door closed and locked down. The families of the officers and office workers had no idea their loved ones were in a bunker working directly for Churchill. Switchboard operators had specific instructions as to which calls were routed to white, green, black or the drop-everything-and-answer hot line red phones.
Churchill’s sleeping quarters included a battery operated light in case of power failure, and an ashtray for the ever present cigar. Smoking was constant in the bunker. The labyrinth of passageways and secure rooms was so extensive, workers could go for months at a time without actually seeing Churchill, but they reported frequently smelling the trail of his cigar.
The entrance to 10 Downing Street, still home to the British Prime Minister. Despite the smiles, it is now one of the most heavily guarded buildings in the world. The actual front door cannot be opened from the outside because it has no handle.
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