CWR – Underground

I am using WWII and the technologies that were developed during the war to help students understand computer science. We are focusing on all the amazing accomplishments the people of the UK did during this time. So many of their great accomplishments were never recognized due to the fact that things were classified after the war. It has really only been in the last 20-30 years that the truth of the many technologies developed here are finally seeing the light of day.

To help kick this section of the class off we spent one evening watching the movie “The Imitation Game”. I invited the other students who are not taking my class, and we had a very good turnout. Most students had not seen the movie. Afterwards I explain to them that what they had just seen was not exactly a documentary and I went through and filled in the facts from the fiction, but it is still a great movie.

In another week we are going to visit Winston Churchill War Rooms, CWR. To be better prepared for this I decided I wanted to visit the rooms first and so Becky and I signed up for a guided tour of the war rooms, it was absolutely the right decision. The tour begins each day before the war rooms are open to the general public and most of the tour is just the small group you are with learning amazing things from the guide.

Both Becky and I had no idea how many people worked underground for the six years of the WWII. The rooms were actually prepared before the declaration of war and then were expanded significantly during the war. We also did not realize that many people would live in the rooms for days and weeks at a time. The war rooms went operational 1 week before the first bombs dropped on London. The bombings continued for 57 days straight, but the rooms continued to operate as the secret hub of military operations till V-J day in 1945.

In the pictures it shows just how tight the space was. At the height of operations there were over 500 people who lived and worked in the war rooms. Churchill did not live underground, but he would spend time down there, have meetings, some meals, and only a few times did he actually sleep there. Approximately a half dozen German bombs fell and exploded within half a block of the public works building that was the building that was above ground over the war rooms. (The now Treasury Building is shown as the building at the top of this blog post. )

There is also a Winston Churchill Museum as part of the war rooms and it was so wonderful to learn so much about this amazing man that is loved by so many in the UK. It has also been very interesting to read so much about WWII from the British perspective. It should be to no one’s surprise that the US is talked about very little in the museums.

In the end, Becky and I spent almost 5 hours down in the war rooms. Afterwards we realized how close were to Buckingham Palace and so we walked over there. In St. James Park across the street from the place, we came across the pictured pelicans. Pelicans were first brought to the park in 1664 by a Russian ambassador.

From Buckingham Palace we decided to take our time and just walk through Hyde and Kensington Gardens parks. We of course stopped along the way to have coffee/tea break, but it was a great day.

The evening ended with the students on the 4th floor of the building cooking dinner for everyone else at the Daniel House. The room was filled with great food and fellowship. We are so enjoying getting to know and fellowship with these students.