Churchill's Bunker : The Secret Headquarters at the Heart of Britain's Victory

'This is the room from which I will direct the war,' Churchill declared, shortly after becoming Prime Minister in 1940. It was from these cramped confines that Churchill turned a seemingly inevitable defeat at the hands of the Nazis into a famous victory. Built in 1938 as a temporary refuge in case of air raid attack, this secret bunker became a second home to Churchill - and to large numbers of military personnel and civil servants whose work until now has been largely unsung. Drawing on a fascinating range of original material, including newly available first-hand accounts of the people who lived there, Holmes reveals how and why the bunker and its war machine developed; how the inhabitants' lives were transformed; and how their work led to victory. Elegant and illuminating, __Churchill's Bunker__ is a unique exploration of one of the most important sites in British history. This is the room from which I will direct the war, ' Churchill declared, shortly after becoming Prime Minister in 1940. And he did just that, as the distinguished Churchill biographer Richard Holmes explains in the first history of the Cabinet War Rooms. It was from these cramped, uncongenial confines that Churchill turned a seemingly inevitable defeat at the hands of the Nazis into a famous victory. Yet he was not working deep in a distant forest or hidden in a walled-off suburb: he was in the very heart of the capital, within sight of Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament. Built in 1 An exploration of one of the important sites in British history, Churchill's bunker. Drawing on a range of material, including first-hand accounts of the people who lived there, it reveals how and why the bunker and its war machine developed; how the inhabitants' lives were transformed; and, how their work led to victory over Nazis. It was from the secret, cramped confines of the Cabinet War Rooms, that Winston Churchill turned a seemingly inevitable defeat at the hands of the Nazis into a famous victory. Now, for the first time, the history of the bunker, and daily life inside it, is revealed