Air raid shelter

 ( Home Front During World War Ii ) 

Railway arches were deep, curved structures of brick or concrete, set into the vertical sidewalls of railway lines, which had been intended originally for commercial depots, etc. The arches were covered usually with wooden or brick screen-wall- or curtain walls, thus giving a considerable amount of protection against air raidsprovided, of course, that railway lines were not the prime target of the attack at the particular time and so being more likely to suffer from direct hits. Each arch could accommodate anything from around 60 to 150 people. However, fewer people could find shelter at night as sleeping areas for the occupants took up more of the space availablea limitation applying to any other type of shelter as well. Subways were actual thoroughfares also in the shape of arches, normally allowing Transit passage underneath railway lines.

None of these concerns had been borne out by experience during the bombing raids of the First World War, when eighty specially adapted tube stations had been pressed into use, but in a highly controversial decision in January 1924, Anderson, then chairman of the Air Raid Precautions Committee of Imperial Defence, had ruled out the tube station shelter option in any future conflict.

Following the intensive bombing of London on 7 September 1940 and the overnight raids of 7/8 September, there was considerable pressure to change the policy but, even following a review on 17 September, the government stood firm. On 19 September, William Mabane, parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Home Security, urged the public not to leave their Anderson shelters for public shelters, saying it deprived others of shelter. "We're going to improve the amenities in existing shelters", he promised. "We're setting about providing better lighting and better accommodation for sleeping and better sanitary arrangements." The Ministries of Home Security and Transport jointly issued an "urgent appeal", telling the public "to refrain from using Tube stations as air-raid shelters except in the case of urgent necessity".

Over the night of 19/20 September, thousands of Londoners took matters in their own hands. They had flocked to the Tubes for shelter, at some stations, they began to arrive as early as with bedding and bags of food to sustain them for the night. By the time the evening rush hour was in progress, they had already staked their "pitches" on the platforms. The Police did not intervene and some station managers, on their own initiative, provided additional toilet facilities. Transport Minister John Reith, and the chairman of London Transport, Lord Ashfield, inspected Holborn tube station to see for themselves.

The government realised that it could not contain this popular revolt. On 21 September, it abruptly changed policy, removing its objections to the use of tube stations. In what it called part of its "deep shelter extension policy", it decided to close the short section of Piccadilly line from Holborn to Aldwych, and convert different sections for specific wartime use, including a public air raid shelter at Aldwych. Floodgates were installed at various points to protect the network should bombs breach the tunnels under the Thames, or large water mains in the vicinity of stations. Seventy-nine stations were fitted with bunks for 22,000 people, supplied with first aid facilities and equipped with chemical toilets. 124 canteens opened in all parts of the tube system. Shelter marshals were appointed, whose function it was to keep order, give first aid and assist in case of the flooding of the tunnels.

Businesses (for example Plessey) were allowed to use the Underground stations and unopened tunnels; government offices were installed in others and the anti-aircraft centre for London used a station as its headquarters. Tube stations and tunnels were still vulnerable to a direct hit and on 14 October 1940, a bomb penetrated the road and tunnel at Balham tube station, blew up the water mains and sewage pipes, and killed 66 people. At Bank station, a direct hit caused a crater of on 11 January 1941; the road above the station collapsed and killed 56 occupants. The highest death toll was caused by an incident at the unfinished Bethnal Green tube station on 8 March 1943, when 1,500 people entered the station. The crowd suddenly surged forward upon hearing the unfamiliar sound of a new type of anti-aircraft rocket being launched nearby. Someone stumbled on the stairs, and the crowd pushing on, were falling on top of one another, and 173 people were crushed to death in the disaster.

The London Underground system was considered one of the safest means of protecting relatively many people in a high-density area of the capital. An estimated 170,000 people sheltered in the tunnels and stations during the war. Although not a great number in comparison to the population of the capital, it almost certainly saved the lives of the people who probably would have had to find alternative, less secure means of protection.[2] Artists and photographers such as Henry Moore and Bill Brandt were employed as war artists to document life in London's shelters during the war.

The Victoria tunnels at Newcastle upon Tyne, for example, completed as long ago as 1842, and used for transporting coal from the collieries to the river Tyne, had been closed in 1860 and remained so until 1939. In places the tunnels were deep, the tunnels, stretching in parts beneath the city of Newcastle, were converted to air raid shelters with a capacity for 9,000 people. Tunnels linked to landing stages built on the River Irwell in Manchester at the end of the nineteenth century were also used as air-raid shelters.

The medieval labyrinth of tunnels beneath Dover Castle had been built originally as part of the defensive system of the approaches to England, extended over the centuries and further excavated and reinforced during the world wars, until it was capable of accommodating large parts of the secret defence systems protecting the British Isles. On 26 May 1940, it became the headquarters under Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay of Operation Dynamo, from which the rescue and evacuation of up to 338,000 troops from France was directed.

In Stockport, south of Manchester, four sets of underground air raid shelter tunnels for civilian use were dug into the red sandstone on which the town centre stands. Preparation started in September 1938 and the first set of shelters was opened on 28 October 1939. (Stockport was not bombed until 11 October 1940.) The smallest of the tunnel shelters could accommodate 2,000 people and the largest 3,850 (subsequently expanded to take up to 6,500 people.) The largest of the Stockport Air Raid Shelters are open to the public as part of the town's museum service.

In southeast London, residents made use of the Chislehurst Caves beneath Chislehurst, a network of caves which have existed since the Middle Ages for the mining of chalk and flint.

The construction work then went on rapidly, until the resources of concrete and bricks began to be depleted due to the excessive demand placed on them so suddenly. Also, the performance of the early street shelters was a serious blow to public confidence. Their walls were shaken down either by earth shock or blast, and the concrete roofs then fell onto the helpless occupants, and this was there for all to see. At around the same time rumours of accidents started to circulate, such as on one occasion people being drowned due to a burst main filling up the shelter with water. Although much improved designs were being introduced whose performance had been demonstrated in explosion trials, communal shelters became highly unpopular, and shortly afterwards householders were being encouraged to build or have built private shelters on their properties, or within their houses, with materials being supplied by the government.

Anderson shelters were designed to accommodate up to six people. The main principle of protection was based on curved and straight galvanised corrugated steel panels. Six curved panels were bolted together at the top, so forming the main body of the shelter, three straight sheets on either side, and two more straight panels were fixed to each end, one containing the door—a total of fourteen panels. A small drainage sump was often incorporated in the floor to collect rainwater seeping into the shelter.

The shelters were high, wide, and long. When installed underground, they were buried deep in the soil and then covered with a minimum of of soil above the roof. When they were buried outside, the earth banks could be planted with vegetables and flowers, that at times could be quite an appealing sight and in this way would become the subject of competitions of the best-planted shelter among householders in the neighbourhood. The internal fitting out of the shelter was left to the owner and so there were wide variations in comfort.

Anderson shelters were issued free to all householders who earned less than £5 a week (equivalent to £ in , when adjusted for inflation). Those with a higher income were charged £7 (£ in ) for their shelter. One and a half million shelters of this type were distributed between February 1939 and the outbreak of war. During the war a further 2.1million were erected.Lawrence James. Warrior Race: A History of the British at War (2003) p. 623. Large numbers were manufactured at John Summers & Sons ironworks at Shotton on Deeside with production peaking at 50,000 units per week.

The Anderson shelters performed well under blast and ground shock, because they had good connectivity and ductility, which meant that they could absorb a great deal of energy through plastic deformation without falling apart. (This was in marked contrast to other trench shelters which used concrete for the sides and roof, which were inherently unstable when disturbed by the effects of an explosionif the roof slab lifted, the walls fell in under the static earth pressure; if the walls were pushed in, the roof would be unsupported at one edge and would fall.) However, when the pattern of all-night alerts became established, it was realised that in winter Anderson shelters installed outside were cold damp holes in the ground and often flooded in wet weather, and so their occupancy factor would be poor. This led to the development of the indoor Morrison shelter.

At the end of the war in Europe, households who had received an Anderson shelter were expected to remove their shelters and local authorities began the task of reclaiming the corrugated iron. Householders who wished to keep their Anderson shelter (or more likely the valuable metal) could pay a nominal fee.

Because of the large number made and their robustness, many Anderson shelters still survive. Many were dug up after the war and converted into storage sheds for use in gardens and allotments.

The shelter was provided free to households whose combined income was less than £400 per year (equivalent to £ in ).

Head of the Engineering Department at Cambridge University, Professor John Baker (later Lord Baker) presented an undergraduate lecture on the principles of design of the shelter as an introduction to his theory of plastic design of structures, which can be summarised as follows:

Half a million Morrison shelters had been distributed by the end of 1941, with a further 100,000 being added in 1943 to prepare the population for the expected German V-1 flying bomb (doodlebug) attacks.

In one examination of 44 severely damaged houses it was found that 3 people had been killed, 13 seriously injured, and 16 slightly injured out of a total of 136 people who had occupied Morrison shelters; thus 120 out of 136 escaped from severely bomb-damaged houses without serious injury. Furthermore, it was discovered that the fatalities had occurred in a house which had suffered a direct hit, and some of the severely injured were in shelters sited incorrectly within the houses.

In July 1950, the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors made an award of £3,000 (£) to Baker for his design of the Morrison shelter.

In 1981, the British government would issue a series of Domestic Nuclear Shelters publications to complement the earlier Protect and Survive pamphlet. One of the shelters depicted in Domestic Nuclear Shelters, the Type 2 indoor shelter, was mostly identical to the Morrison shelter, and the assembly instructions were essentially the same as those contained in the 1941 How to Put Up Your Morrison 'Table' Shelter pamphlet.

• K, a small shelter for a small apartment house.
• S1, a usual shelter for apartment house.
• S3, lightweight shelter in solid rock or heavyweight shelter of ferroconcrete.
• S6, large shelters in solid rock that must be able to withstand a pressure wave.

All shelters must have:

• an electric and hand-operated air-conditioning system, which can protect from biological and chemical weapons and radioactive particles.
• a radiometer
• dry toilets
• a fixed-line telephone interface
• a spare exit
• water tanks
• a first aid kit

After the war, most of these shelters were either abandoned or demolished along with the apartment buildings they were built in. Public shelters were covered to make way for the modern street network. The last public inspection of the remaining shelters was performed in the 70s. Nowadays very few state built shelters remain intact, although hardened cellars still remain in the basements of most buildings in the older districts of Thessaloniki and Athens.