The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945

The question of deep shelters had been a political issue even before the war when the communist scientist J. B. S. Haldane launched a campaign in 1937 to get adequate protection for the urban working class.⁹¹ After the outbreak of war the British far left, and particularly the Communist Party, faced the problem that they opposed what Moscow had declared to be an imperialist war. Leading Marxists were expelled from the Labour Party, including the radical lawyer Denis Pritt, and the Home Office and Ministry of Information closely monitored left-wing activity. For the radical left the shelter issue became a way of avoiding the accusation of unpatriotic behaviour and turning the tables on the government. In the late summer of 1940 the People’s Vigilance movement was set up by Pritt and other Communists with a manifesto that called, among other things, for ‘Adequate protection from air raids’.⁹² In January 1941, the same month that the Communist Daily Worker was banned, the movement launched the People’s Convention to try to mobilize popular demands for accountable government and a programme of what were now called Haldane shelters, as well as financial compensation for the threatened urban communities. But by the summer of 1941 the movement began to peter out; political activity of all kinds was difficult to sustain under persistent air attack and official pressure not to undermine the political truce established between the main parties in 1940, while the German invasion of the Soviet Union turned Communists overnight into enthusiasts for the war effort.⁹³

In the end the onset of heavy and persistent bombing in London in September forced the government’s hand. On 7 September, the first day and night of heavy bombing in London, several thousand Londoners bought tickets for the Underground and stayed put in the stations and tunnels. Over the following weeks the numbers increased to a level that neither the police nor local London Transport officials could control. At first they blamed ‘husky men, foreigners and Jews’, but it soon became clear that there were plenty of what police reporters later chose to call ‘Aryans’.⁹⁴ The official position, already decided before the war, was not to open the Underground rail system for use as shelter because the priority was for traffic through the capital. On 21 September Churchill asked Anderson why the ban could not be lifted and received the reply that in the absence of any means of preventing access except military force, he had agreed to allow shelterers onto platforms at night. Not every station could easily be used, but the decision soon led to a regular influx of Londoners every night, sleeping on station floors, escalators and platforms, with the minimum of comfort. In September over 120,000 used these new deep shelters; as the bombing declined over the winter the number hovered around 65,000.⁹⁵ This was a small fraction of the population that needed shelter, but the occupation of the Underground highlighted the widespread public disquiet over the lack of safety, and at the same time highlighted the poor conditions and limited welfare available to the mainly working-class communities seeking shelter. Investigations were carried out in Underground stations to monitor their levels of comfort and hygiene. The lower platforms at South Kensington were found to house around 1,500 people, mostly women packed closely together; there were no beds but a mass of dirty bedding and litter, ventilation was poor, there was no hot or cold water supply, no canteen and no effective first aid.⁹⁶ Other stations revealed the same improvised and insanitary conditions.