UK Cold War: A history of coldwar sites around the UK

RAF Uxbridge

HEADQUARTERS NO 11 GROUP (FIGHTER) GROUP OPERATIONS ROOM

Headquarters No 11 Group, Fighter Command, was responsible for the air defence of London and the Southeast of England during WWII. The operations room at Uxbridge exists today as it did on 15 September 1940, the day it was visited by Winston Churchill to witness the conduct of the Battle of Britain. The operations room also played a major role during the D-Day landings. The room, actually a series of rooms, featured in the film "Battle of Britain" and in TV productions such as "The Winds of War" and BBC documentaries "War Walks" and "Science at War".

Visitors can see the plotting room which houses the large table map displaying both friendly and hostile plots together with the illuminated tote board showing the readiness state and deployment of the individual fighter squadrons. The plotting room is overlooked by glass fronted control rooms which house an interesting display of memorabilia including models, weapons, uniforms, photographs, documents, prints and other wartime artifacts.

There is also a briefing room where visitors are normally shown achieve film footage via a large screen monitor. Cameras are permitted in the operations room and the memorial sited adjacent to the building entrance.

The Battle of Britain war memorial to the right of the entrance.

This is the main entrance to the bunker, once you get to the bottom of the few steps you then turn ninety degrees to the right before going through the main gas tight door and the security entrance.

Front view

Rear view

The Bunker was built between 1936 and 1939 in time for the start of World War Two. The hole was dug then four layers of ash felt were laid in before the bunker was built. When you are sitting in the plotting room there is 60 ft of soil above you so the bunker is quite deep for a war time bunker. Because the bunker was built before the invention of nuclear weapons the bunker is only gas tight and there is not blast doors.

Internally the bunker was well thought out, there are two plant rooms, one on the upper floor near the entrance and the second one on the lower floor near the emergency exist, these rooms are identical and all the equipment is in good condition and still works. Normally these are powered by mains electricity but in the event of this being cut off there is a back up generator outside in a block house close to the entrance. The generator is one of three built for the base and the bunker was linked to all three. The original plan was for four generators but only three were built and today only one survives.

The generator is the original one built between 1936 and 1939, and it still works today and was run up for us during our visit, before the millennium bug worries it was realised that this was the only back up generator on the base.