Underground Citadels In London

Northern Advocate, 4 January 1946, Page 3

Underground Citadels In London

(Rec. 11.20 a.m.) LONDON, Jan. 3. One of the most closely-kept secrets of the war was revealed today. If London had become a Stalingrad, a subterranean fortress in Horseferry Road, Westminster, would have enabled the War Cabinet, Chiefs of Staff, and their immediate personnel, numbering 2000 to carry on for three weeks without contact with the outside world.

It is the largest of three such underground citadels, the construction of which was begun on strategic sites during Britain’s most critical days of 1940, when she was threatened with invasion. It was sunk to 60ft. below street level on an already excavated site of an old gasometer.

THREE MILES OF CORRIDORS It contains three miles of corridors, and nearly 2000 rooms. The fortress is bomb-proof and poison gas proof, and has its own power plant and Water supply. Radio experts believe that even an atom bomb would not have affected activities inside the citadel’s “crust” of 12ft. of thick steel and concrete. A miniature power station maintains among other services, lighting, ventilation, air-conditioning and cooking.

Although the citadel was never put to full emergency use. it housed for four years and still houses, Government departments. Passers-by walk past the inconspicuous entrances without suspecting its secrets.

A flying-bomb hit the citadel in July, 1944, and merely “scratched” it.