Colin Philpott - Secret Wartime Britain: Hidden Places that Helped Win the Second World War

Production line inside the Avro factory near Leeds where 4,500 Avro-Astons and 695 Lancasters, as well as other planes, were produced during the war. (Leeds Library and Information Services)

So, this is a story about both places and people and this book sets out to do two things. It seeks to provide an overview of the largely secret places in Second World War Britain and to tell some of their individual stories. Why were they needed? Why were the particular locations chosen? What were the problems and challenges of getting them built or adapted for war use? Who were the people who worked there and the people who conceived, planned and organised these places?

In telling this story, I am not aiming to be encyclopaedic there are simply too many places. However, I will try to cover all the main categories of places under the following headings factories; command centres; spying and listening bases; broadcasting and propaganda locations; a section on dummy and decoy sites and D-Day deceptions designed to confuse German bombers and intelligence; a chapter on retreats and reserves, including places used by the British Resistance and the stores for the nations art treasures; interrogation and detention centres, including a look at how people who gave away secrets were punished and finally, a visit to the places where Britain researched and made the deadliest of weapons. Within each category, I have attempted to give examples of places rather than try to list them all and, where possible, I have tried to find people associated with the locations and to hear their stories.

The second objective of this book is to examine the secrecy which, to a greater or lesser extent, surrounded these places, most of which, incidentally, were not buried beneath ground. How secret were these locations? How, and indeed, whether the secrecy was maintained? How much did the Germans know? Why does it appear that these places did remain largely hidden from view either literally or metaphorically? And, perhaps most importantly, why was it that ordinary people did apparently respond positively to the Careless Talk Costs Lives message and kept quiet about what they did a silence which many maintained long after victory had been achieved, and which some even took to their graves? Was it the threat of punishment? Was it the effectiveness of propaganda? Was it the fact that mid-twentieth century Britain was still a very hierarchical and deferential society? Was it simply perhaps the case that people knew that they were engaged in an existential struggle?

This is a story which, of course, has to be set in a wider context. Firstly, the military context of the position Britain and her allies found themselves in when attempts to avert war failed in 1939. The popular view is that Britain was ill-prepared to face the well-organised military might of Germany. The traditional narrative tells us that Britain was the plucky underdog who survived against the odds until the Americans were finally persuaded to join the fight. Recently, this view has come under scrutiny from revisionist historians who have argued that Britain was better prepared than often thought, and the Germans less so. Nevertheless, it was undoubtedly the case that, certainly for the first three or four years of the war, arguably longer, victory was by no means assured. After the retreat of British forces from the beaches of Dunkirk, and during the relentless German bombardment of British cities during 1940 and 1941, the outlook was pretty bleak. Against this backdrop, it would not perhaps be surprising that the vast majority of Britons pulled together, part of which included, to use the slang of the time, Keeping Mum about things which might benefit the enemy.