Over the weekend I made my second trip of the year to the Battle of Britain Bunker in Uxbridge. First and foremost it's a big recommendation from me, on both trips adults and kids all enjoyed it. Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/ex3wDyyA
As you might expect it's the kind of place which teaches you a lot and makes you think. I've decided to share some of those thoughts, in no particular order:
I can't go further without noting that the centrepiece of the bunker tour is essentially a giant, physical data visualisation, continually updated by changing the lights, moving wooden blocks and with a simple-but-smart way to add a time dimension. In the seeming chaos of moving parts, RAF leadership could rapidly read off the information they needed to direct the activities of hundreds of pilots and planes.
Women were at the heart of this. This was indeed an era when they weren't permitted to play the same roles as men. Yet at a time when out of dire need male pilots were thrown into the action with minimal training (and too often failed to survive their first week of active service), members of the WAAF were carefully selected for their ability to take in, process and respond to information arriving continuously in the bunker so that this visualisation of the Battle of Britain stayed no less than 5 minutes out of date. It feels like we should know more of their names.
Lastly, the story told by this bunker is one of near disaster and chance decisions which turned the war. Britain was days or weeks away from losing air supremacy over its own skies, as German raids on our air bases were crippling our defences. This would have paved the way for a planned invasion, readying on the north coast of France. Then, as told by our guide, a German bombing raid lost its bearings in poor conditions and bombed central London instead of the fuel depot further east which was its intended target... Churchill ordered retaliation, against the advice of military leadership... A furious Hitler, who had promised his people that Berlin would see no bombs, ordered a switch from bombing our airfields to our cities - the Blitz. So many civilians died, were injured, and made homeless but this saved us - no longer under direct attack, our defences were recovered and when Germany made their big push they were repelled. Hitler ultimately looked east instead.
I can't do it justice in a short post but if that's whetted your appetite, do check it out. A little bit of hidden history in west London.
