A Little More from Lilliput

Reclining Figures sketched by Henry Moore at Liverpool Street (author's collection)

Regular readers will hopefully remember the March 2016 edition of this blog in which we looked at the wartime anthology of the pocket sized magazine, Lilliput and in particular a report on the work of 'Mickey the Midget', a shelter warden in East London. As there was an extremely positive reaction to this post and there are many more articles in the book to choose from, it seems a good idea to re-visit the magazine and the subject of life in wartime London.

Perhaps one of the most iconic images of life in the capital during the Blitz is that of shelterers in the London Underground, who at first endured conditions that were, to say the least, primative but who eventually, with the aid of some forceful individuals similar in outlook to Mickey Davis, managed to improve conditions out of all recognition and formed meaningful communities in their own right.

Despite the experiences of the First World War, when the public was permitted to use the London Underground as a means of sheltering from the Zeppelin and Gotha raids of 1915-18, by the time of the Munich Crisis of 1938, the British Government had decided not to allow the British public the use of the Tubes during any future conflict, for fear of encouraging a "Troglodyte" or "Deep Shelter Mentality." This was one of the many examples of pre-war Governments underestimating the common sense of the British people, who it was wrongly assumed, would take to the shelters at the first hint of an air raid and remain there, never to surface in order to perform their normal duties in wartime industry. In reality, the majority of people had no desire to remain underground indefinitely and merely wanted to do the sensible thing and take shelter until such time as the bombers had passed before getting with their lives as normally as possible.

This was still the official position when the bombing of London started on 'Black Saturday' 7th September 1940, although the new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill had already begun to press the Home Secretary, Sir John Anderson to open the Underground system to the public for sheltering purposes. At first Anderson resisted, supposedly fearful that large scale use of the Tubes would paralyse the system and he would only release the Aldwych-Holborn Branch for this use. For the remainder of the Underground system, posters with the following message were on prominent display across the network:

"THE TUBE STATIONS ARE REQUIRED FOR TRAFFIC PURPOSES AND THE TUBE STATIONS ARE NOT AVAILABLE AS AIR RAID SHELTERS."

Despite this seemingly unequivocal message, the lack of deep shelters in London and indeed across the country was a contentious issue and elements from the political Left continued to push for the Tubes to be opened up, at the very least pending the construction of purpose built deep level shelters. In the event, it wasn't the Communist Party, Labour Party or any other political faction that caused the Government into a change of heart, it was the sheer force of numbers of normal civilians who invaded the network on 'Black Saturday' who used the simple expedient of buying a ticket and then choosing not to travel. There was nothing in London Transport's regulations that said that passengers buying a ticket had to travel, so when people began to simply remain on the platforms, there was little the authorities could do but to acquiesce. People Power had won the day and the Government, to it's credit, did the sensible thing and began to hastily make improvements to make the system more habitable.

Shelterer at Aldwych Station sketched by Tom Purvis (author's collection)

However, these improvements took time to implement and when the American author Negley Farson visited Aldwych Station in early September 1940, he recorded a picture of somewhat primitive conditions where people were trying to make the best of things:

"One night, about six o'clock, I stood in the Strand with the long line of shelterers waiting to go down the famous Aldwych Tube. It was very much in the newspapers at the time. Nearly everyone (except those who were occupying it) believed it had just been opened as a public shelter. The Press, unwittingly, was giving the impression that great things were being done. As a matter of fact, when the authorities were complacently accepting all the ballyhoo about opening it as a shelter, it had been packed almost to capacity for over three weeks.

The first person in line was a girl, twenty years old, holding an eighteen month old baby in her arms. She told me later that she was expecting again in January. She had been standing there for an hour and a half. The next seventy people in line had of course, been standing there for slightly shorter periods. And there were more people piling up behind them while I was waiting to go down with them. She bared her gums and laughed, saying 'Maybe I'll faint. I did yesterday. Then there was an air raid and they had to let us down.'

The collapsible steel gates of the Tube were locked. They were not supposed to be opened until 6:15 but this evening an Underground worker came along and let the crowd down shortly before six. We descended 132 steps. The people scampered about the platform below to find their favourite places. This girl carried her baby to the far end and spread out a blanket. Then, from somewhere, she produced two sheets of corrugated cardboard - the thick packing case stuff. She placed her baby of top of it, 'So that he won't get damp' she said simply.

I asked her where she lived and she said in Vauxhall. She had to wait half an hour to get a bus here tonight 'And this morning I had to wait two hours before I could get one home.' 

'Bleedin bus conductors' blew out a heavy woman who was planting a family down beside us. 'Know what they said to us this morning? Ya, 'We'll take you' he says 'but we won't take your ------- bundles!'

Well it was quite a scene for a dark, damp, smelly tube - with an open 'Gent's' latrine staring you straight in the face. Lest I be accused of painting the picture, this was the Aldwych Tube; the position of the bucket latrine, used by the men, was some ten feet from the stone steps of the platform - and I'll take a chance and swear on it that there will be plenty of witnesses to come forward and swear that the only veil that covered it from public view at that date was two torn strips of burlap - with a jagged, unclosable gap between them of at least eighteen inches from top to bottom. As the light-weight woman put it, 'We has a free public view - stalls. Ha ha.'

Shelterers on Aldwych Station in the early days (author's collection)

Things did improve gradually; by December 1940 the tracks had been boarded over and rows of bunk beds installed. Chemical toilets were added as was a better ventilation system. Arrangements were made with Charing Cross Hospital for nurses to visit the shelter and later a proper First Aid Post was installed. Other stations followed suit and shelter life began to become more bearable.

Another part of the network used as a shelter was the as yet unopened extension to the Central Line east of Liverpool Street. Again, at first conditions were appalling and when the artist Henry Moore visited the shelter soon after its opening, he found hundreds of what were to become his trademark 'reclining figures' seemingly stretching for miles ahead. To him, the inhabitants had been "sleeping and suffering for hundreds of years."

As well as Henry Moore, the Lilliput wartime anthology, as you would expect, contains several other articles written about shelters and the experiences of shelterers, written by authors such as Ritchie Calder, Julian Huxley, Quentin Reynolds and Margery Sharp. The latter piece tells of how the Tubes were also a good place for a young lady (or gentleman for that matter) to meet someone of the opposite sex!

The articles also tell of how the Tube shelterers, despite being drawn from a multitude of social, racial and political groups, in other words, London in microcosm, formed enduring communities and how the various Shelter Committees even produced news sheets, such as the Subway Companion, The Swiss Cottager, The Holborn Shelter News, The Belsize Park Tube Magazine, The Goodge Street Siren and The Station Searchlight, which was the journal of the Oval Station shelterers. The first edition of the Swiss Cottager welcomed readers thus:

"Greetings to our nightly companions, our temporary cave dwellers (surely a gentle dig at the Government's initial 'Troglodtyes' injunction), our sleeping companions, somnambulists, snorers, chatterers and all who inhabit the Swiss Cottage Station of the Bakerloo Line nightly from dusk until dawn."

Children can sleep anywhere! (author's collection)

The purpose of these newsletters, apart from engendering a community spirit, was to assist in the self-governing nature of these shelters, to share information, to provide hints and appeals for cleanliness and hygiene and to provide some relief from the nightly drudgery of sheltering by providing humorous articles and cartoons.

In spite of the lull in the bombing from May 1941 until late 1943, the Tubes remained available and the onset of the 'Little Blitz' and the V-Weapons campaigns ensured another upsurge in the numbers using them as well as the new, purpose built, deep-level shelters and the continuation of the V-2 Rocket campaign on London (the last one fell on 27th March 1945) meant that the Tube Stations were in use almost right until the end of the War in Europe. The highest number of shelterers using the Tube had been recorded on 27th September 1940, when some 177,000 were recorded as having taken refuge from the bombs but even on VE Night, there were still over 12,000 people using the Tubes, although the majority of these were homeless who had been bombed out and would be given temporary accommodation, ironically some in the Deep Level Shelters until such time as more permanent arrangements could be made.

The Tube Stations themselves quickly reverted to a more peacetime guise, with the first bunks being removed on 12th April 1945 and the last (at South Wimbledon Station) on 31st May 1945.

Printed Sources:

Bomber's Moon - Negley Farson, Victor Gollanz Ltd 1941

Lilliput Goes to War - Edited by Kay Webb, Hutchinson 1985

London Transport at War - Almark Publishing, 1974

The Shelter of the Tubes - Capital Transport, 2001

Footprints of the Blitz (3)

In the previous article of this series, we continued our look at surviving shelters and shelter signs. This time, we will take a look at some more of these surviving remnants of London's wartime past that can still be seen, provided that one knows where to look of course. As before, all of these images are the property of the author and may not be reproduced without my express written permission.

Temporary Shelter

First up, we see an example of a temporary shelter designed for use by one or at most, two people for short periods of time when working in exposed areas. This particular example is to be found in the London Transport Museum Depot at Acton and was discovered in undergrowth at Hainault Underground Depot in Essex, which had been used by the United States Army Transportation Department during the war in the run-up to the invasion of Europe. London Transport used these temporary shelters extensively for their members of staff and they were often to be seen in the booking halls of underground stations so that staff on duty could take cover in an emergency without having to leave their posts. They were made of fairly thick guage steel and would have provided protection against anything other than a direct hit but would also have been extremely uncomfortable for anyone even of average build.

The next photograph is of some shelters that have recently been unearthed by building works adjacent to Hayes & Harlington Station in Middlesex. I have note been able to examine these shelters too closely as they are now in the middle of a construction site but they appear to be quite substantial affairs possibly for the use of railway workers at the time. It is quite possible that these shelters will disappear once building works get underway and another small piece of London's wartime heritage will be gone for ever.

Hayes & Harlington Station

Another shelter possibly intended for railway staff can still be found adjacent to Bromley South Station in Kent. This shelter is also difficult to reach as it is on railway land  behind a solid looking fence but is of a concrete construction and capable of holding twenty or so people in reasonable safety.

Bromley South Station

For our next look at surviving shelters, we take a look at one of the once ubiquitous Anderson Shelters which could be found in the garden of almost every house in the country with a garden large enough to accommodate one. Nowadays, the effects of the passage of time on these largely steel structures has ensured that most of these once widely seen shelters have now disappeared from view.  These Anderson Shelters, named after Sir John Anderson, the minister responsible for Air Raid Precautions in 1938, were of a galvanised steel construction, largely of corrugated sheets six feet high, bolted together and then buried four feet beneath the surface, leaving only the top portion protruding above the ground, which was then designed to be covered with a minimum of fifteen inches of soil, so as to provide a measure of protection from shrapnel and blast. These shelters could accomodate a typical family of four people and were issued free of charge to those householders who earned less than £5 per week and for those who earned more than this figure, they could be purchased outright for £7. Despite their seeminly flimsy construction, these shelters were extremely efficient at absorbing blast and there was many a family who survived some very close shaves who had reason to be grateful for their Anderson Shelter. Today, one of these shelters survives in the garden of a house located in Stockwell, south London and the owner has made an effort to keep the shelter in something approaching it's original condition. This pleasant urban garden is occasionally open to the public during the Open Gardens Weekend event, at which time the owner places bedding inside the shelter to add to it's authenticity. Some photographs are shown below which shows the inside and outside of the shelter.

Anderson Shelter exterior

  

Anderson Shelter interior

To give the reader an idea of the robustness of these shelters, take a look at this archive photo from the Greenwich Heritage Centre that shows the damage caused by a V-1 explosion in Burney Street, Greenwich on 27th June 1944. Despite the terrible damage to the properties which no human being could have survived, the ruined gardens reveal several Anderson Shelters, battered but unbowed. The occupants of these shelters would have survived the experience, no doubt shaken but still in one piece.

The aftermath in Burney Street (Greenwich Heritage Centre)

One type of shelter that can still be seen in the centre of London are the Deep Level Shelters, which were built as a response to the experiences learned during the First Blitz of 1940-41 and were designed to shelter vast numbers of people in unrivalled safety and comfort. These huge structures were built adjacent to existing Underground stations and were originally planned to be ten in number - five north and five south of Thames. In the event, the shelters at Oval and St Paul's were not proceeded with but the constructions at Belsize Park, Camden Town, Chancery Lane and Goodge Street north of the River and at Clapham Common, Clapham North, Clapham South and Stockwell south of the Thames went ahead. Each of these shelters was designed to accommodate 8,000 people and post-war were intended to be linked to form a new express tube line, which in the event never happened. The shelters were all completed by 1942 and although the worst of the conventional bombing was over by this time, five of them were opened to the public as a result of the 'Terror Weapons' campaign and provided safe accommodation for many thousands of people during this period. The shelter at Goodge Street was used by General Eisenhower and his staff as a safe underground headquarters during the run-up to D-Day in June 1944. These shelters all survive to this day, many in use as archive storage facilities but there are hopes that at least one of them may one day be opened to the public for inspection.

Exterior of Stockwell Deep Level Shelter

Next time, we will take a look at some of the sundry structures and signs from wartime London that can still be seen in their fading glory.

Printed Sources: 

London Transport at War - Charles Graves, London Transport 1974

The Shelter of The Tubes - John Gregg, Capital Transport 2001

The Wartime Underground

A one-man shelter for use at railway depots (author's photo)

As most of our British readers at least will know, this year marks the 150th anniversary of the opening of the London Underground system. In November 2010 this blog examined the role played by the Tube in providing shelter for Londoners from Hitler's bombs during the Blitz and beyond. However, with this impressive anniversary of service in mind, perhaps now is a good time to take a look at the other, perhaps lesser known, but equally vital contributions to the war effort played by the London Transport in general and the Tube in particular.

The first major involvement, both by the Underground and by London's familiar red buses and at that time, equally familiar trams and trolleybuses, was to assist in the Herculean task of evacuating over half a million people, mainly schoolchildren but also expecting mothers, the mentally ill, the elderly and infirm, blind persons and long-term hospital patients from the built up areas of London to the safety of the countryside. Whilst the bulk of this task fell upon the main line railways to fulfill, the Metropolitan Line which in those days ran out to Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire certainly played a full part in moving thousands of children away from central London. Even more surprising was the part played by London's buses in this mass movement; the red double deckers undertook journies as far afield as Oxford, Cambridge, Northampton, Eastbourne and Weston super Mare - a far cry from their usual routes.

This massive task over, London's road and rail transport could concentrate on the vital task of moving millions of Londoners to their war work, as well as the more mundane but equally vital role of helping Londoners and later the thousands of visiting servicemen and women to enjoy their much reduced leisure time in the capital. Services, especially in the suburbs, finished much earlier than we are accustomed to today. This was partially due to the blackout; people did not want to get caught away from home in a bombing raid if they could help it. Another reason was that people worked incredibly long hours and simply did not have the time, energy or inclination to go out very often. In central London, things were slightly different, especially slightly later in the war when visiting servicemen of all nationalities flooded into the capital whilst on leave.

Handley Page Halifax Mk III (RAF photo)

Behind the scenes however, the London Underground was involved in the War Effort in ways that people could not imagine. Before the outbreak of war, London Transport was involved in a massive works programme of extending the tube network, some of which was incomplete and had to be placed on hold 'for the duration' as the commonly used phrase of the time went. Some, like the extension of the Central Line eastwards from Liverpool Street to Epping and Hainault, resumed with the coming of peace and are familiar to us today but others, like the planned extensions of the Northern Line to Elstree and Bushey, proved to be stillborn - the freeze on new housing due to the imposition of the Green Belt rendered this scheme obsolete and it was never completed. Much of the infrastructure was already in place and it was part of this abortive extension to the network that was to make a massive impact on the British war effort.

A depot for the extra trains required on the Northern Line extension had already been built on what would today be called a 'green field' site in Aldenham, Hertfordshire and it was here as well as at a new purpose built factory at nearby Leavesden that London Transport's Underground staff were to be involved in a venture completely alien to them - that of aircraft production. Staff were drawn from the various engineering departments - Underground and Road - and they were given inductions at the Handley Page company to get them accustomed to the industry, although as engineers, these people soon understood what was required and in May 1941, the first Halifax bomber built by London Aircraft Productions, as the new company was called, rolled off the production line. Over seven hundred would follow, the last being handed over in April 1945. Looking ahead to peacetime, the jig built production techniques learned by London Transport's engineers in aircraft production would prove vital in the production of the 'RT', London's first standardised, mass produced bus, of which nearly seven thousand were built. Moving ahead even further, the experience gained in working with aluminium was crucial in the design and production of the iconic Routemaster bus and moving further ahead still, the new Bomber Command memorial in Green Park, features an aluminium roof made from salvaged aluminium from a Canadian Halifax bomber, shot down in Belgium in 1944. A fitting memorial not only to the 55,573 Allied airmen lost whilst serving with Bomber Command but also to the men and women of London Aircraft Productions.

Bomber Command Memorial showing the reclaimed roof (author's photo)

Another piece of London Underground land, not then in use but today used regularly by thousands of unknowing passengers, are the tunnels of the Central Line extension between Leytonstone and Gants Hill; nearly five miles of tunnel, which although physically complete on the outbreak of war, had yet to be opened for public use. This subterranean world was to see a remarkable transformation into a improvised, bomb proof factory, managed by the Plessey Company, manufacturing aircraft components. It was an amazing set-up, complete with miniature railway for transporting the components, three stations at Wanstead, Redbridge and Gants Hill for the employees to enter and exit the works, as well as cloakrooms, first aid facilities, a canteen and mess rooms capable of serving sixteen hundred people all being fitted into this confined space.

Apart from these temporary wartime expedients, London Transport's regular bus, train and train overhaul works were adapted for war work. In peacetime, London's underground trains were overhauled at Acton Works but in wartime, in addition to a greatly reduced train overhaul programme, Acton turned it's expertise to all manner of new disciplines, such as overhauling Sherman tanks, constructing bodies for ambulances and breakdown lorries, repairing engines and generators for naval landing craft and converting Sherman tanks to 'Duplex Drive' - i.e. able to operate amphibiously in upto ten feet of water and which proved invaluable during the Normandy landings. Acton also converted tube trains into 'Refreshment Specials' in order to feed the shelterers in the tube and undertook much work in repairing trains damaged by the Blitz, including one carriage that was rebuilt using two undamaged halves of severely damaged carriages being welded together to form a 'new' undamaged unit. Staying on the rails, London's Tram Overhaul Works at Charlton, being situated close to the Woolwich Arsenal, turned it's hand to producing ammunition and parts for guns.

Sherman Duplex Drive Tank (IWM Photo)

Apart from these 'behind the scenes' works, London Transport's staff also played a part in the front line. As a result of the 1938 Munich Crisis, London Transport had formed a Territorial Army Unit - the 84th (London Transport) Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment and on the outbreak of hostilities, they rallied to the colours and served with distinction in Norway, North Africa and Italy and formed separate batteries from busmen, tram and trolleybus staff as well as railway and engineering staff. London Transport was truly at war.

London's Underground and it's staff performed a myriad of duties during the Second World War but undoubtedly the happiest duty performed was right at the end of the war, when the buses and tube trains played their full part in bringing the children back home. London Transport was at last able to rebuild and resume it's love/hate affair with Londoners. During the dark wartime years, 22,580 members of staff had served in the Armed Forces, Merchant Navy and Civil Defence, whilst some 245 had been killed by enemy air attacks in London in addition to those killed in action whilst serving with the Forces. 

Published Sources:

A History of London Transport - TC Barker & Michael Robbins, George Allen & Unwin 1974

London Transport at War 1939-1945 - Charles Graves, Almark Publishing 1974

The Shelter of The Tubes - John Gregg, Capital Transport 2001

London Transport Carried On

The current cold snap that we are experiencing brings to mind last year's snow which paralysed public transport in London and led to hysterical headlines in some of the tabloids that a few centimetres of snow had achieved what Hermann Goering had failed to do in 1940 - i.e. to stop London's buses!

Taking aside the usual hysteria associated with certain parts of the tabloid press, on this occasion they did have a point, because during the entire period of the Blitz, the Luftwaffe never managed to completely stop London's transport system, although naturally on occasions severe dislocation and disruption did take place.

In 1940, public transport in London was administered and operated by London Transport, a nationalised body responsible for London's buses, tubes, trams and trolleybuses. The suburban railways were run by the so called 'Big Four' railway companies - the Southern, Great Western, London Midland & Scottish and London and Northeastern Railway Companies - although in wartime they were effectively nationalised under the Railway Executive Committee's aegis. For the purposes of this article, we shall concentrate on the services operated by London Transport and how they were affected by enemy action and how they rose to the challenges posed by the war.

The first precautions taken actually came during the Munich Crisis of 1938 when minds were quickly concentrated by the prospect of war and the danger posed by enemy bombing. It was quickly realised that the tube tunnels under the River Thames were vulnerable to bombs and that a single lucky hit on any one of these tunnels could flood half of the Underground system. As a result of this realisation, a network of flood gates was designed and installed at all of the strategically placed tunnels under the Thames and were in place in time for the commencement of the Blitz in September 1940. These gates could be operated manually from each of the actual locations but were more normally controlled from a Central Control Room at Leicester Square Station, from where it was also possible to monitor the state of the tides so that it was not always necessary to close all of the gates when an alert sounded. When the gates were closed during an alert, signals were automatically changed to danger to stop trains being trapped and a replacement bus service was operated wherever possible to link the cross river sections closed off. During the entire war, only one of the under river tunnels was breached by a German bomb and this was a disused tunnel on the Hampstead Branch of the Northern Line at Charing Cross. Fortunately, nothing had been left to chance and this particular tunnel had been sealed with concrete before war was declared.

Despite their depth, even the tubes were not invulnerable to bombing and we have covered the use of London's Tube stations as shelters within a previous article on this blog but suffice to say that Bank, Balham, Bounds Green, Moorgate and Sloane Square Stations were severely damaged with serious loss of life. On many other occasions, stations were near missed and lines were blocked but despite the damage and loss of life, services were always restored, sometimes within hours, sometimes within weeks but even in these extreme cases, alternatives were always available and disruption was kept to a minimum.

All of this seems improbable in today's health and safety obsessed culture, when even a light snowfall can cause all of London's buses to be taken off the road, so perhaps it seems even more improbable to observers seventy years on to note that during Air Raid alerts in 1940, it was left to the bus or tram driver's discretion whether to carry on or not. What would normally happen when the Alert sounded was that the driver would give his passengers the opportunity to disembark but would then normally continue unless the bombing became very adjacent, at which time he would stop at the nearest public shelter to disgorge his passengers until the bombers had passed. Occasionally though, the drivers would heroically press on regardless of the bombing and one of these occasions was reported by Stan Collins, a tram driver who recounted his experiences in his book 'The Wheels Used to Talk To Us.'

"We were at Kennington on the 18s when bang went the sirens, so I stopped the tram and turned around and said 'Ladies and Gentlemen, the sirens are going. Anyone who wants to go down the shelter, there's one just up the road.' One old boy asked me if I was going down the shelter. 'I am not,' I said, 'I am going to fight my way home.' 'Good, the driver's going on, the driver's going on.' he told everyone. He was ever so excited, just like a little schoolboy. Nobody got off, so we tootled along Brixton Road, dropping them off, dropping them off. When I stopped at the bottom of Brixton Hill, the old chap asked me if he could get out of the front door. He wasn't supposed to in the blackout but the tram was still full and he couldn't get through the back, so I opened the air door and let him off the at the front. Just as he's getting off he puts a pound in my hand and says 'There you are driver, this is for a drink and thank you for getting me home.' When we were reversing at the end of the journey, I told Alf (my conductor) and gave him half but Alf told me that the old chap had run around the back and given him a pound as well. They used to be pleased to get home."

Despite this effort, Collins also recounted another occasion when things didn't go quite so smoothly when he was driving a tram during another air raid in the Battersea and Clapham areas.

"I took it very steady. I'd got the wind up, little butterflies in my stomach and very gently we came around the curve (into Cedars Road.) We took it very gently up Cedars Road in case the switches blew out and onto the level. I said to old Alf, 'Thats it, we're in the clear now' but halfway along Long Road, we came up behind a string of trams, about ten of them, right upto Clapham, so we were stuck. There was nothing we could do, we couldn't go back, we'd have to see it out. I could have cried. Anyway, we walked along this line of trams but couldn't see any drivers or conductors until we came to the cafe at the Plough which was open all night. By then it was getting on for 2 a.m. and we were stuck there until the All Clear went at about 5 a.m. that morning."

There were countless similar stories both above and below ground level, some heroic and some more mundane but all of them showed London Transport's workers, both male and female to be truly dedicated towards helping keeping London moving despite the worst that could be thrown at them. London Transport truly carried on.

Published Sources:

London Transport at War 1939-45 - Charles Graves, Almark Publishing 1974
The Wheels Used to Talk To Us - Stan Collins and Terence Cooper, Tallis Publishing 1977
Routes to Recovery - Ken Glazier, Capital Transport, 2000

Is Your Journey Really Necessary?

This was the question asked of all potential travellers during wartime before they set out on their journey. During the Second World War, the British public transport network was hard pressed as never before or since. Whilst the railway network was far larger than that of today, the companies were under manned having lost many men to the fighting services and as the 'Phoney War' period progressed into the Blitz, the network was frequently disrupted by enemy action with railway and tram lines blocked, stations bombed and bus routes diverted or suspended. But our railway and bus companies rose magnificently to the challenge time and time again and in this article, we shall examine one or two examples as to how they coped.

The 'Big Four' railway companies, the Southern Railway, Great Western (GWR), London & North Eastern (LNER) and the London, Midland & Scottish (LMS) together with the London Passenger Transport Board were all effectively nationalised on 1st September 1939 when they were placed under the control of the Railway Executive Committee. In practice, the day to day management of these companies remained under their own control with the Committee basically forming a co-ordination role ensuring that the companies made the greatest possible contribution to the war effort.

The first contribution came on the same day as the formation of the Railway Executive Committee, when the mass evacuation of schoolchildren was put in place. In the space of four days, over half a million people, mainly children but also expectant mothers, the blind, the mentally ill and the disabled were moved out of London. Many of them by double decker buses and Green Line coaches but many more by train. Some were moved only relatively short distances. For example, many Bermondsey schoolchildren were evacuated to Worthing in Sussex, with those from Greenwich and Woolwich being sent to Reigate in Surrey. Some went much further afield to places such as Torquay and Newton Abbot in Devon where life to the children must have seemed strange indeed in comparison to the crowded and noisy streets of London. There was even a scheme to evacuate children to Canada by sea but this was stopped abruptly when one of the evacuation vessels, the 'City of Benares' was torpedoed and sunk with heavy loss of life. This particular method of evacuation falls outside the scope of this article but perhaps we shall return to it at a later opportunity.

The next logistical challenge came in May 1940 with the retreat of the British Expeditionary Force and their French allies to the Channel ports. The German advance had occurred so rapidly that the Allies had fallen back, at times in some disorder to Calais, Boulogne and once these ports had fallen, to Dunkirk. There were also later evacuations from ports further south such as St Nazaire, Brest and Le Havre but it is the evacuation from Dunkirk that has become etched in history.

On 21st May 1940, the Southern Railway's Operations Superintendent had attended a meeting at which he was asked to make provision for the movement of 300,000 troops to be disembarked at various South Coast ports. As a result of this meeting, all four of the railway companies were asked to provide 186 ten coach trains for the purpose of moving these troops. The Southern provided 55 of these trains and all of them were carefully marshalled onto the down lines to the south and southeast of London. The movement of troops began on the 21st May on a modest scale when 24,000 soldiers were moved using the initial 55 special trains but it was on the 27th May that 'Operation Dynamo' as the evacuation was called began in earnest. It was to continue for another nine days and the troop movements involved make truly staggering reading. Instead of day trippers, the station at Margate handled 38,000 soldiers with Ramsgate dealing with 43,000 and Folkestone taking 35,000 troops and 9,000 civilian and other evacuees. However, it was Dover which bore the brunt, despatching an amazing 181,000 soldiers in 327 special trains. All of these trains were stopped alternately at either Headcorn or Paddock Wood where the soldiers were fed, watered and provided with additional clothing. This was a remarkable effort; the Southern Railway had helped to rescue an army.

The fall of France brought London within range of the Luftwaffe's bombers and once the Blitz started, the railway companies and London Transport faced new problems and new dangers in keeping their services running. The use of London Transport's Underground stations as public shelters is now well known but perhaps less well known is the fact that the Government had originally intended that the Tube should not be used for public air raid sheltering purposes at all. In the event, it was sheer common sense on the part of the general public that dictated that they should seek to use the system and faced with overwhelming numbers of Londoners seeking refuge, the authorities could do nothing to stop them. Faced with this situation, the Tubes were quickly adapted as shelters, with 79 stations being used for this purpose as well as disused parts of the system and also extensions that had not yet opened for use. These shelters were equipped with chemical toilets, bunks, medical facilities and canteens and proved very popular with the locals. An early problem and one which showed human low life at its very worst was the appearance of ticket touts, who purchased tickets for the shelters and then tried to sell them on to the genuine shelterers at vastly inflated prices. These people were dealt with harshly when caught but the problem was never fully suppressed. The Tube was not completely immune from bombing - Bounds Green, Trafalgar Square and Balham Stations were all hit with some loss of life - but for the most part the Tubes were safe and secure refuges for Londoners.

Above ground, there were many tales of heroism from railwaymen and women. The night of 10th/11th May 1941 saw the last big raid on London and also the heaviest. At Bricklayers Arms Depot in southeast London, Driver Len Stainer and his Fireman, Jim Foote had just signed on for duty to take the 12.53 am train from Cannon Street to Dartford. En route to Cannon Street, they had stopped their engine at Borough Market Junction in order to clear incendiary bombs from the line before proceeding. If this wasn't enough, they then continued into Cannon Street and arrived just as bombs began to fall on that station. A large fire was started and Driver Stainer and Fireman Foote, together with the crew of another locomotive decided to pull out of the station in an attempt to save their trains from catching fire. As they moved onto the bridge over the River Thames, the men heard the sound of even more bombs coming down and the men instinctively ducked for cover on the footplates of their engines. It transpired that a bomb had struck the boiler of the other crew's engine, turned part of their train over and blasted their own engine. Fortunately, the crew of the other engine were unhurt but in an act of incredible bravery, Len and Jim then tried to extinguish the fire on their own train before being beaten back by the intense heat. Len Stainer then uncoupled his engine from the burning train and pulled back across the bridge to the south side, where the four men watched the station burn until dawn. To quote Len Stainer "It was just as if Hell had been let loose."

Later in the war, although the bombing had diminished, the railways played their part in the invasion of Europe by running troop trains galore and transporting all manner of ammunition and equipment to the Channel ports in preparation for for D-Day. Even after the invasion, locomotives and personnel were sent across the Channel to France to get the ruined French rail network up and running once again.

Even then, it was still not quite all over as the Terror Weapons in the shape of the V-1s and V-2s caused further death and disruption, especially in London and the Southeast but finally victory came in May 1945.

It should be remembered that even on VE Night, there were still over 12,000 people sheltering in London's Tube stations and the Deep Level Shelters but the final happy duty for the beleaguered transport system was to bring home the evacuated schoolchildren from the country back to London. The war was over and a long period of rebuilding and re-equipping was to follow.

Published Sources:

London Transport at War, Charles Graves - LPTB 1947
SR150 The Southern Railway, David St John Thomas & Patrick Whitehouse - David & Charles 1988
The Great Western Railway, Patrick Whitehouse & David St John Thomas - David & Charles 1984
War on the Line, Bernard Darwin - The Southern Railway Company 1946
By Rail to Victory, Norman Crump - The London & North Eastern Railway Company 1947