London's forgotten network of massive underground air-raid shelfters being found...

I was one of them in London during the Blitz. Much of my learning occurred in a school shelter.

One night Mum decided we wouldn't go to the shelter. It was wiped out by bombs.

On several occasions I slept on hard bunks on an Underground platform.

On other occasions in Anderson or Morrison shelters.

I was chased down a road by a doodle bug flying bomb. Well that's what I thought it was doing. A couple of Hurricanes were trying to tip its wings so as to crash it into the Commons. Must be the only time an 8yr old went supersonic at near ground level. I got home 800m away before the bomb passed me.

There were many other near misses; incendiaries, mines, shrapnel, unexploded bombs.

Finally one of the flying bombs blew up in mid air near our home. We lost everything, and were evacuated into the countryside near Wisbech.

Many years later after we migrated to Australia I was still being machine gunned by enemy aircraft in my nightmares.

I'm 80 yrs young this year and living in New Zealand, but to this day Fire sirens still freak me out .
 
I was one of them in London during the Blitz. Much of my learning occurred in a school shelter.

One night Mum decided we wouldn't go to the shelter. It was wiped out by bombs.

On several occasions I slept on hard bunks on an Underground platform.

On other occasions in Anderson or Morrison shelters.

I was chased down a road by a doodle bug flying bomb. Well that's what I thought it was doing. A couple of Hurricanes were trying to tip its wings so as to crash it into the Commons. Must be the only time an 8yr old went supersonic at near ground level. I got home 800m away before the bomb passed me.

There were many other near misses; incendiaries, mines, shrapnel, unexploded bombs.

Finally one of the flying bombs blew up in mid air near our home. We lost everything, and were evacuated into the countryside near Wisbech.

Many years later after we migrated to Australia I was still being machine gunned by enemy aircraft in my nightmares.

I'm 80 yrs young this year and living in New Zealand, but to this day Fire sirens still freak me out .

Wow, I just missed all that, being born in 1947. My friend's dad was a Hurricane pilot, flew a bunch of missions and then later in life he was flying for St Johns Ambulance, hit an unmarked tower of some kind and was killed. Have you seen the film "Hope and Glory"? It takes a light-hearted look at that period in history. You might like it.
When you say Commons I hope you don't mean "House of............".
My cousin who now lives in Perth is your age, he lived in Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, and watched the fleet leave for D-Day.
It all seems very exciting and glamourous now, but it must have been quite awful at the time.

Mick
 
The governments building of the 'proper' shelter tunnels may well have been forced by the fact that, despite initially being banned from using the Underground stations as shelters the public took matters into their own hands and used them anyway :) !

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-raid_shelter#Underground_.28tube.29_stations

and there is a bit more of interest here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_deep-level_shelters

Chris M

And this one.....

www.subbrit.org.uk
It's called Subterranea Britannica. Superb photos by Nick Catford, undoubtedly the best photographer of this kind of thing.

Mick
 
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These are interesting side stories and long before I was born - I'm a young'in here at 54 going on 55. :)

Ian is my dad's age and my dad remembers family going over to fight in the war. His uncle worked as a spy against the Nazis for the US Gov't, and later against the Communists.

John
 
You're title is a bit misleading John, as these shelters are fairly well known over here and still have uses today. It is perhaps a pity that after the war there were insufficient funds to carry out the idea of using them as a basis for underground express tubes (shades of the Metropolitan District Express Line of the early 20th century which started at South Kensington but got abandoned and nobody appears to know how far the tunnelling got before it was abandoned).
 
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