Churchill's underground bunker full tour, secret room included
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- Опубліковано 18 лис 2022
- A private WC that people thought was Churchill's bathroom included instead a high-tech telephone boot to call the US Presidents during the war (Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Harry S. Truman). Go here to check it out: 12:30
During the Second World War, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his cabinet went underground to continue meeting and planning the war effort. A maze of tiny bunker rooms still sits beneath what is now the Treasury building.
Inside what everyone believed was Churchill’s private toilet was a custom-encrypted telephone (provided by Bell labs called SIGSALY or Green Hornet) that connected the prime minister directly to the US president, wrapping their voices in white noise (only the receiver knew the frequency in order to decode it and get a clear voice).
The Cabinet War Rooms became fully operational on 27 August 1939, a week before Britain declared war on Germany, but Churchill wasn’t interested in going underground until Germany’s Blitz bombing offensive began in September 1940.
Once 10 Downing Street was bombed, he convinced even his cook (whose kitchen was hit) to go below ground. “Churchill’s War Cabinet met here 115 times, most often during the Blitz and the later German V-weapon offensive,” explains the Imperial War Rooms website.
“The Cabinet War Rooms were in use 24 hours a day until 16 August 1945, when the lights were turned off in the Map Room for the first time in six years.”
The rooms have been preserved or reconstructed with such fidelity that it's rumored Tom Cruise will be moving in to prepare for the next filming of Mission: Impossible.
Churchill War Rooms: www.iwm.org.uk/visits/churchi...
On *faircompanies: faircompanies.com/videos/thin... - Навчання та стиль
As a bricklayer, my dad worked on Churchill’s bunker during the war. My mum told me this about 15 years ago. (She turns 100 in two weeks.) My dad died in 1961 at age 42 from asbestosis. He was also tasked with rebuilding those bombed during the blitz.
Oh, you have a family connection to this amazing place! I visited the bunker around ten years ago, it is truly fascinating!.
SIGSALY, the computer system that scrambled communications between Roosevelt and Churchill, was a massive technological breakthrough. It was the first time pulse code modulation was used to transmit audio data, a fundamental technology that’s still in use today on CDs and streaming audio over the Internet. The computer was massive and housed offsite in the basement of the nearby Selfridges department store.
After the war, it was discovered that the Nazis had intercepted SIGSALY signals, and couldn’t determine what they were. They thought it might be some kind of telegraph. They had no idea it was a voice communication system or how to decode it.
Thanks. Fascinating.
The woman giving this tour is fantastic. She’s so good at describing what we are seeing and she seems very excited and happy to do it. Really cool. Thank you!
Visited Churchill's War Rooms this summer. Very interesting. However, I also visited Western Approaches in Liverpool. That operation which ran the Battle of the Atlantic against the U-boats was basically shuttered in 1945 and not reopened until the 80s or 90s. Lots of stuff, still on desks where people left it when the war ended.
Wow!
Scary that the "bomb shelter" was just a basement. Thank you for sharing.
Honestly with the technology of the day it might have been all that was needed 🤷.
@@Jeromeeb Bank and Sloane Square shallow sub-surface underground stations had direct hits and suffered total destruction, with much loss of life.
Kirsten, this is incredible. Thank you.
This was fascinating. And what an awesome tour guide.
Yes she’s quite attractive
Fascinating video. As a Brit living in Canada, I often think that as a generation, we owe our lives to Churchill. I know he is often vilified by many, but I know a lot of us wouldn't be here without his sheer grit and determination to guide the British people out of that war.
He was definitely the right guy .. at the right time.
What would Churchill have thought of your present day prime minister ? He would have probably said lets forget it, their going to to give up their freedom anyway.
@@phil6506 Don't know about that, but He would most definitely think you where a featherbrained, ignoramus individual.
Lol as the dead Bengalis.
@@andriandrason1318 Typical lefty, too low an intellect to put forward an intelligent reply, just attack on a personal level.
This video is a good historical tour of the WW2 secret inner works. This was such a terrific place for working against the war with Germany and Hitler. I was very surprised by all of the well placed rooms. The meeting rooms, the radio room, and each of the specialized areas for working. It was probably not a nice place for sleeping or rest. Thank you for this wonderful tour.
I goita say that the movie nailed it perfectly
It is amazing to obsserve the similarities and differences between this and the Fuhrer bunker. I also am curious as to what the detectives role was for Churchill.
What a brilliant tour , but the guide makes it . Very informative and well spoken . Thanks
Lovely work Kirsten. I wonder how many people these days know that Churchill held an American passport. and citizenship. His Mother was American. He was definitely the man for the job at the right time.
Sorry but he held only one passport and that of the United Kingdom. His mother was indeed American and he could have claimed US nationality through her but never did. He travelled during the war on a diplomatic passport or sometimes a false one to fool spies although he was so recognisable it's had to see how he could be mistaken for someone else.
Thank you for this. I won't ever get to London to see this incredible piece of history in person so I am thankful for your efforts.
What a delightful surprise! Thank You so much Kirsten I appreciate you so much! I am a Churchill nut Loved the old guy he was relentless. I've read and watched most every book and movie about him. Thanks for this rare treat!
Have you read, "Churchill: Struggle for Survival" by Charles Moran his doctor. It is wonderful and tells you so much more and at then end your admiration for him will increase 100 fold.
@@henrygingold6549 Thank You Henry!
One of the most fascinating places I had the pleasure to visit when in the UK, so great to see the War Rooms again. Thanks for taking us through them!
Churchill, I want to see his steak dinners, win bottles and cigar ash tray. 😂. Fascinating
Interesting.
Love History.
We have a Churchill museum and part of the Berlin Wall that came down, here in Fulton, Missouri. Also, the church that was bombed, was transported here and reassembled. It is beautiful.
Churchill gave a speech here.
Located on the Westminster college campus.
* comprises three elements: the Church of St Mary Aldermanbury, the museum itself, and the Breakthrough sculpture.
That was really interesting.. Thanks Kirsten - cool that you were taken into areas that the average member of the public wouldn't be invited. Very cool. Thaks for sharing and I am looking forward to your next video!! 👍🙂
I had visited Churchill’s War Rooms summer of 1984 when it opened as a small self guided museum. Fun to revisit via your YT channel, as it has really expanded in size. Fascinating place!! Thank you!!
The tour guide is so eloquent in her descriptions of the underground war rooms. Amazing what the United Kingdom had to go thru. Can't imagine having to live with bombs going off here in the States. What a fight against evil.
My husband was a war baby and the shock from a bomb falling near by blew his cot into a cupboard and the door shut behind him.
You will find that the entire United Kingdom, including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland went through this war too. Not just England. 😡
@@andrewjones-productions I'm sorry, i meant United Kingdom, I get my countries mixed up over there, so i corrected it😵💫
Iraqi's or a number of countries subject to Western bombs and evil BS can imagine it easily
@@capmarketer5038 Oh please 🙄
Thanks for this! I visited the war rooms as a teenager in the 2000s but I didn't get to see a couple of the areas as closely as you did and didn't have a guide, so this was great!
This was very interesting. Both my parents survived the blitz. Many sad and somber stories were told. Lest we forget.
This history is a reminder how much "high tech' can change in 70+ years. What a world the next 70 years might bring (if we survive it) is probably beyond our wildest dreams and imagination. Thanks for this - it was so interesting!
@@jackdotblue agreed
I visited this place in 2008 and they have done a lot of great work on making it even better! So many magnificent updates! I hope to return some day soon!
I loved learning about this. Thank you for filming and for the tour.
I very much liked this and hope you will do more tours/videos of other historical buildings/locations.
18:58 The reason the phones didn't have dials is not because they were a "direct line" it is because when you picked up the phone it went to an operator that routed the call to where ever you told her to
Yes our phone at home was on a manual exchange, no dial we picked up the handset and waited for the operator to say ‘number please’ same with the red public telephone kiosks.
You are correct that back then, calls were routed through operators and as a result the phones didn't need or have dials. However, telephones like this with no dials were also used for direct-line connections - where the phone only connected to one other distant phone - effectively an intercom. Picking up the phone at one end would cause the phone at the other end to ring, and the receiving party would pick up. It is more likely in this instance that these phones were used for direct-line applications given the nature of the place they are in, as well as the fact that there are multiple phones - if calls were being routed through an operator you would only need one phone.
this is a public museum i highly recommend visiting. i met people there who survived the Blitz. my dad served in the pacific as a radio man whom i learned from to have a healthy respect for WWII & the British war effort. the guide mentions the Enigma Code which was made into the Benedict Cumberbatch movie about Alan Turing. when France fell & the US had not entered the war, Britain was all alone against Germany & did everything they could w/ the resources they had to more than survive. the politics were not pretty. probably as many arguments as we have now in congress on how to solve issues. the pressure of knowing that the decisions you make meant life & death for your own citizens.
If you believe that,,,
Thank you for sharing this. I had no idea this existed. The person whom gave the tour was a wonderful guide.
My parents & I got to visit Churchill’s Bunker in 2007 on our last day of our European vacation
It was amazing to see all of that stuff & see what it was like during WW2 in the UK, we admire Winston Churchill very much
We love history
It was a treat
Absolutely fabulous! I love nearly all of your videos, this is a bit of a departure from the norm but wonderfully done. What an extraordinary time with an extraordinary leader. Thank you!
Fascinating! Thank you for such great coverage.
HIGHLY recommend this if you're looking for something cool to do in London. Thanks for taking us behind the scenes, I didn't notice a lot of this stuff when I was there because it was a self-guided walk through. Great tour!
Awesome video as always. Loved the way you ended the video with "frozen in time", just perfect
That was an incredible tour! Thank you so much for taking us there.
There is no toilet in the alleged toilet of Churchill, so he had to use another one. I don't think this would have been unnoticed.
That was a marvelous tour! Thank you for it!
Fascinating, Thank You and Thank the lady who was the guide for such a wonderful look back at one of the most critical times in history.
Lovely tour of the War Rooms, The guide was tremendous, although she didn't mention the significance of the 'windy' weather slide, (7:20) which was only used when air-raids were in progress upstairs. British humour at its best, :)
This was fascinating! Thank you so much for sharing this.
Great episode. History is also important. Especially nowadays. I heard about Churchill's Bunker, but I never seen it before. The tour guide was very knowledgeable in her historical facts.
What a brilliant post. Thanks for the amazing tour! I'd love to visit one day.
We were able to visit the bunker in 2017. It’s simply amazing. As soon as the war was over in Europe, they closed shop so to speak and left everything as it was. My kids were in middle school and high school at the time. Both were able to use the experience they had in world history when they had to write an essay on the Battle of Britain.
One of the most fascinating docs I’ve seen on YT! Well done!!
You have done it again, Amazing video.
Love the efficiency of the entire place. Everything packed in just one tiny bunker. Really shows how Brits were very practical back then.
@@jackdotblue hmmm…
They converted a basement
Like we knew how to build a bunker in WW2
We weren’t being bombed
The gravy sauce burning and the kitchen burning down it created a lot of smoke
Wonderful! Thank you so much for the tour!
Wow! Kristen, you really get around and you have outdone yourself on this one... 👍
This is a really great tour of the bunker. Very informative, fascinating in fact. Thank you
I've seen a video of some of this but this video is well documented. This guide is awesomely knowledgeable. I actually appreciate her telling all the stories and not being asked too many questions. It kinda would make it Moreno hectic to follow. So I appreciate it. I do like questions lol but I live in the United States so I just enjoy her talking. She's very intriguing.
As a Brit with a huge passion and interest in all matters relating to WWII, particularly the history of the RAF, I find this stuff fascinating!
I have always wanted to work or be a curator in an historic place such as this. I did apply some years ago to volunteer at Duxford Air Museum.. Excellent video.
Dear Kristen, I love all of your videos and explorations, but honestly this was fascinating. I'm going to watch it again.
This was an extremely interesting mini-documentary...could have watched and listened for hours about this. Thank you for sharing with us.
This was lovely! Thank you.
Thank you for that tour. I have not made it to London but when I do I will visit this place for sure.
Thanks for posting and sharing. Very interesting to hear about this building.
Fantastic, what a wonderful video, thank you!
Thank you for sharing this! Very interesting!
Wow! What fascinating history. Showing the actual historical area where non of us watching your video right now could imagine how and where managing a war happened. Thank you for this video. I thoroughly enjoyed it. ❤️ Mary Hall from the USA. I would certainly welcome more videos like this one.
I think it is fantastic they have preserved this for younger people to see keep up the good work with the videos much appreciated from me a military buff👍😉
Thanks for the video, cool stuff.
Amazing video! Thank you for sharing!
Excuse the pun, but am blown away by the stunning walkthrough narrated by the very , highly intelligent attractive woman. The detailed explanation she gave is the best I’ve ever seen on UA-cam. Absolutely wasted talent. She should have her own TV show.
Agreed.
"attractive" is not necessary, she is doing her job not a photoshoot for a fashion book.
@@TheMangazixy Not necessary but it doesn't hurt. WACKA WACKA 😀
I visited the Secret Wartime Tunnels at Dover Castle in 2019, and - WOW! So much history! I was blown away! Churchill's personal bunker looks just as fascinating! Thanks for posting!
This reminded me of Definbunker, it's a bunker build near Ottawa for the cold war. The war room, the old maps, the disconcerting separation from time and weather is fascinating. The Definbunker was built later 50~ so they have an early example of a computer and the style was very atomic 50s. Really neat and thank you for sharing. If I ever get to go to the UK, I'd love to check it out. If any of you are in Ottawa Canada, you should visit Definbunker, it is huge and super cool.
Londres, quelle magnifique ville et un très beau pays. J'économise mes sous et je compte bien aller y faire un séjour. C'est mon souhait. J'adore l'Angleterre. Merci pour la visite.
What an amazing tour. Thank You
Thanks for an amazing tour. Not sure if the guide is one of the regular guides, but she is very good.
Great tour of historicsl event. Thank you.
How absolutely interesting. The mannequins are downright creepy images! Kudos for voyaging down there to document all of this for us.
Wow! Great video. Fasinating stuff, learnt a lot. Plus the woman giving the tour and explaing the history was great!!
Been there. It was a fun tour. Well worth your time.
That was really really interesting to see that place. It's hard to imagine the stress and anxiety that everyone must have felt while working there.
Wow, I can’t begin to imagine what it was like for folks in Europe and the U.K. during the 2nd World War. I’ve read some real horror stories of how bad it sometimes got for ordinary people in the civilian air raid shelters. That “bunker” looks positively luxurious by comparison. The tour guide is outstanding too.
A lot of people got really creative with their shelters. My grandparents whose shelter was in the basement of a large tenement, managed to get the hold of some old bus/coach seats and painted the walls gloss green. They also used spare carpets from other house and also had the lighting from the building too with Tilley lamp and candle back up. The also had primus stoves for heat. Of course, they never knew if they were going be able get out and this was reinforced by the fact that after one night of the Blitz they emerged to discover that a landmine (parachute mine) had fallen around the corner and most of the street was gone together with 200 people. The only survivors were a mother, her baby and the family dog. He toddler was dead without a single mark on him.
Fantastic video. Thank you so much.
Great video!
More like this Kirsten! Fab!!!
Last year I had a chance to visit the room at the Château Frontenac in Quebec City were Churchill and Eisenhower held two strategy talks during the war hosted by Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King (he did not participated in the meetings, though.)
At the time, to make sure that no information would be leaked, all the hotel rooms were left unoccupied except for the Prime minister/ President and their entourage.
"Quebec Conference, either of two Anglo-American conferences held in the city of Quebec during World War II. The first (August 11-24, 1943), code-named Quadrant, was held to discuss plans for the forthcoming Allied invasions of Italy and France and was attended by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Differences between U.S. and British strategists about the coordination of the Italian campaign with Operation Overlord (the planned Normandy Invasion) were not resolved and had to be settled at meetings in Moscow, Tehrān, and Cairo later that year. Roosevelt and Churchill met again at Quebec the following year-the Octagon Conference, September 11-16, 1944. The decision made there to advance against Germany on two western fronts, instead of pursuing a concerted drive on Berlin, was criticized in the postwar period because it allowed the Soviet army to take possession of the German capital. This second Quebec Conference also resulted in a revised timetable to invade the Philippines, thus resulting in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944 and the subsequent struggle for Okinawa in late spring 1945."
Amazing thanks for showing us these places.
What a great video, fascinating! That's now on my to do list for this summer! Thanks guys!
I have seen this with my family. Wonderful site to see. Great video. Thank you. RS. Canada
Great video! Thank you.
¡Great video, thank you for sharing!
Very interesting. Thank you.
Very fascinating. I had just been in London right before this video was published. Now I know what I must try to see next time.
Wow, the places that you find. Thanks.
I have been a longtime subscriber. Love your work.
Amazing history, great video.
I'm glad they had Tea Pots in every room... 🫖
I wonder what the original entrance looked like, and how people got in and out without being noticed.
Entertaining and educational video. Tour guide shares so much interesting and fun information. Thank you for sharing..
I've been on this tour, and if you are in London, it is well worth taking the time.
6:00 Cigar smoke! Beautiful, I recon I could work in that all day and love it.
Great video and thank you.
PS, Oh how I miss a good cigar but you need an oilwell to afford one these days.
Ok, that was WAY cool.
Thanks!
Thank you for this most informative video. So much information. Well done to the tour guide. Greetings from Canada.
I agree that Kate was a great tour guide. She was able to relay her knowledge in such a personable way. It was a fun morning.
That was great!! The presenter was amazing!!
Outstanding video
Almost as good as being there. Thanks for sharing.
Gorgeous tour guide.
That's a cool bunker. Thanks for the great video.