The Cabinet War Rooms [antikvár]

Foreword Shortly after assuming the office of Prime Minister in May 1940, Winston Churchill visited the Cabinet War Rooms to see for himself what preparations had been made to allow him and his War Cabinet to continue working, if, as was widely expected, heavy enemy air raids on London were to make life above ground intolerable. It was there, in the underground Cabinet Room which had been prepared for this eventuality, that he boldly announced to those around him: This is the room from which I will direct the war'. Róbert Crawford (right), Director General ofthe Imperial War Museum and Philip Reed, Curator of the Cabinet War Rooms. That room, in which he took so many momentous decisions during somé of the bleakest days of the war, looks today just as it did then. A Royal Marine orderly silently prepares it for yet another vitai meeting, shifting papers about among the very chairs in which Churchill and the members of his Cabinet spent long hours deliberating and discussing. Its occupants are long since departed, the dense pali of cigar smoke no longer hangs in the air. But, as we walk down the corridor, passing the Prime Minister's suite of offices on our right, the walls still seem to echo to Churchill's footfall and we walk back over fifty years in time. Since 1984 it has been the duty and privilege of the Imperial War Museum to preserve the Cabinet War Rooms and to make them accessible to as wide a public as possible. What was once a secret known to few and open to even fewer, is now open to all. Here the highly charged atmosphere of the most critical days of the Second World War surrounds the visitor and history comes alive. This historic site has hosted visits from statesmen and women from all over the globe, including, in 1995, the President of the USA and the First Lady. Today we extend the same welcome to you to visit the Cabinet War Rooms and I hope that it will be a uniquely enjoyable experience. I hope too that you will follow it with visits to the other branches of the Imperial War Museum - the extensive historical displays at its Lambeth Road headquarters; the last surviving big-gun ship of the Second World War, HMS Belfast; and Duxford Airfield near Cambridge, a former Battle of Britain Royal Air Force base which now houses one of the world's largest collections of military and civil aircraft and incorporates the American Air Museum in Britain. Róbert Crawford Director General Imperial War Museum