Uxbridge bunker

After Bentley Priory and an excellent lunch at “The Alpine” we drove 16 km soutwest to reach the bunker and museum in Uxbridge, the home of Fighter Command No.11 Group from 1939 to 1958.

We gathered near two gate-guards for an introduction, before…

…starting the descent…

…making it through the ghostly guard…

…and then further down, down…

…to the centre of the bunker. It was constructed between February and August 1939 and became operational on the 25th August, just nine days before the outbreak of the Second World War. 

The picture above is from “the days” and you will see how almost everything is today standing exactly as it was then.

Being here is amazing and quite emotional. In April 1940 Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park was posted to No.11 Group as its Air Officer Commanding. 

The plotting room with desks for staff just above it and then the control rooms above with curved glass to allow view of the plotting table and all the other information.

We gathered around the table, still with its original map…

…and had a brilliant guide explaining all and everything.

This room is set up and equipped to enable decisions and orders based on all available facts. Here is weather information for all the airfields.

This is the bunker for the 11th group responsible for the defence of the area south-east of London. Similar rooms were used by the other groups. Keith Park had his own ideas on the use of tactics. He sent up his squadrons more or less “one by one” after each other. The effect was of course that the British were outnumbered by the Germans but the effect Park sought was that his tactics made it possible to quickly respond to attacks and also created a continuous flow of new attacks on the Germans.

North of London was the 12th group, led by Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory. His tactics were very different to Parks. Leigh-Mallory wanted to create huge formations of fighters before attacking. In many occasions this took such a long time, the 12th group came too late for battle and Park complained bitterly about how 12th group let him down.

The table is set up like it would have been at 11:30 on 15 September 1940 – today known as the “Battle of Britain Day”. “H” stands for hostile so H04, H06 and H10 are enemies picked up and followed by radar. The red labels tells us that there are 30+, 30+ and 20+ aircraft, in total more than 80. The arrows behind them shows plotting of earlier locations…

…according to this system. It is now 11:30 so the five last plots (blue arrows) were based on observations during the last five minutes, the yellow arrows four minutes before that. It seems radar picked them up nine minutes ago. The next information will move the “H” blocks forward and there will be a red arrow. The arrows also allows for calculation of the speed.

Based on the information orders have been sent out to the fighter squadrons. The yellow labels shows the squadron number. The red label is the number of aircraft and the blue tells the altitude. “Angels 15” is 15,000 ft (4,500 m). The block is placed at the position where the fighters are ordered to position to meet the enemy.

Everything is managed from here where the commanding officers were giving the orders. On this day (15 September 1940) Churchill was visiting and stood here watching the battle develop. In his memoirs Churchill wrote about his visit that day and about the moment at which “all of the bulbs glowed red”, referring to the squadron state boards in the Operations Room and indicating that every No.11 Group squadron was engaged in combat at the same time.

This museum also has a few rooms packed with all kinds of interesting things…

…so arranging a visit to the “Battle of Britain Bunker” will not be a disappointment!