{"id":9431,"date":"2018-03-23T09:00:02","date_gmt":"2018-03-23T13:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/snappingtheglobe.com\/?p=9431"},"modified":"2018-03-19T13:35:13","modified_gmt":"2018-03-19T17:35:13","slug":"churchills-hideout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/snappingtheglobe.com\/?p=9431","title":{"rendered":"Churchill’s Hideout"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a9 2018 Snapping the Globe, L.L.C. All rights reserved<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Last week, I saw the movie, “Darkest Hour” and a few week’s before that, “Dunkirk”.\u00a0 History is not my strongest suit, despite my love of museums, but having visited the Churchill War Rooms in London recently, everything that happened during that time frame suddenly made sense to the muddled historic timeline in\u00a0 my head!<\/p>\n

One of the five branches of the Imperial War Museums, the Churchill War Rooms, opened to the public in 1984, includes the Cabinet War Rooms, the historic underground complex that housed the British government center throughout World War II and the Churchill Museum, dedicated to the life of former prime minister Winston Churchill.<\/p>\n

As Hitler threatened the world, Britain began construction on the Cabinet War Rooms, located below the Treasury building in Westminster in 1938.\u00a0 Just before the war broke out in Europe, operations were moved in and remained throughout the Second World War until the surrender of Japan.<\/p>\n

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The Churchill War Rooms offer a self guided tour through each of the areas used by British intelligence and more importantly, the prime minister of the time, Winston Churchill.<\/p>\n

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\"\"Watching the movie, it was quite thrilling to see the Map Room, which was used continually by the officers of the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force who produced a daily intelligence summary for the King, Prime Minister and the military Chiefs of Staff.\u00a0 The other room I recognized was the Cabinet Room, from which Churchill visited in 1940 and famously declared, “This is the room from which I will direct the war.”\u00a0 And that he did.\u00a0 115 Cabinet meetings, in all, were held in the Cabinet War Rooms.<\/p>\n

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Map Room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Cabinet Room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The facility included living and sleeping areas for the staff, bedrooms for the military officers and senior ministers and rooms for the typists and telephone switchboard operators.\u00a0 The prime minister also spent much of his time below ground working, despite the fact that the rooms were not entirely immune to the bombing raids that continually rained devastation upon the city.<\/p>\n

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Living and Sleeping Quarters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Churchill’s office\/bedroom<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Also interesting to observe were the Transatlantic Telephone Room and Churchill’s office-bedroom, both preserved much as they were left.\u00a0 Noticing a small sign which instructed visitors to walk to the end of one of the hallways, it\u00a0 also gave instructions to check out a doorway on the left.\u00a0 Though it only appeared to be the entrance to a bathroom, there wasn’t much else to clue anyone in as to its importance.\u00a0 As I entered the next room, one of the volunteers, asked me if I had noticed the doorway.\u00a0 Since I didn’t seem to know anything about it, he proceeded to tell me about a scene in the movie to watch for when Winston Churchill retired to what appeared to be a restroom.\u00a0 A glass wall, around the corner, offered a glimpse into the pseudo bathroom…it was actually a small room outfitted with a SIGSALY code-scrambling encrypted telephone connected directly with the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.\u00a0 This modest space offered the prime minister privacy and a direct line to speak with American President Roosevelt.<\/p>\n

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The other major part of the exhibit was the Churchill Museum.\u00a0 A large detailed space, it offered a look into Churchill’s life from his birth, to his military career,\u00a0 his political career and finally retirement.<\/p>\n

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Whether you are a fan of the two-time prime minister or a history buff, the Churchill War Rooms does not cease to please.\u00a0 Take a couple of hours and head on over to the place in London that made a huge impact on World War II.<\/p>\n

For more pictures, check out Facebook, Snapping the Globe and Instagram, @snappingtheglobe.<\/p>\n

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Churchill War Rooms<\/strong><\/p>\n