Air-raid shelter
Air raid shelters are structures for the protection of the civil population as well as military personnel against enemy attacks from the air.
The characteristics of the structures serving as air raid shelters in World War Two
Air raid shelters were built specifically to serve as protection against enemy air raids. However, pre-existing edifices designed for other functions, such as underground stations (tube or subway stations), tunnels, or cellars in houses, basements in larger establishments, and railway arches, were also utilised. These structures, being below ground or almost so, and being especially strengthened to support the weight of the buildings above them, were therefore particularly suitable to safeguard people during air raids.
Cellars
Cellars in Continental Europe have always been much more important than they have in the United Kingdom, and especially in Germany almost all houses and apartment blocks have been and are still being built with cellars. For this reason, air-raid precautions during World War II in Germany could be much more readily organised by the authorities than it was possible to do so in the UK. All that was necessary was to ascertain that cellars were being prepared to accommodate all the residents of a building; that all the cellar hatch and window protections were in place; access to the cellars was safe in the event of an air raid; once inside, the occupants were secure for any incidents other than direct hits during the air raid; and that the means of escape in case of a real emergency were easily available.
It should nevertheless be emphasized that the inadequacies of the cellars and basements became only too apparent in the so-called firestorms during the incendiary attacks on the larger German inner cities, especially those of Hamburg and Dresden.
When burning buildings and appartment blocks above them collapsed in the raging winds (that could reach well over 800° C), the occupants often became trapped in these basement shelters that had become overcrowded after arrivals of inhabitants from other buildings rendered unsafe through earlier attacks.
It was then that of the occupants who died, between 60 and 80 per cent perished from heat-stroke or carbon monoxide poisoning, rather than by the fire itself.
Cellars in the UK
Cellars in the UK, however, were mainly included only in larger houses, and in houses built up to the period of World War I, after which detached and semi-detached properties were constructed without cellars, usually for reasons of avoiding the higher costs the building of cellars entailed. Since house building had increased vastly between the wars, the lack of cellars in these recent housing developments was to become a major problem in the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) programmes in the UK during World War II.
Alternatives had to be found speedily once it became clear that air raids were being contemplated by Germany as a means of demoralising the population and disrupting supply lines in Britain.
First recommendations included that members of the household should remain in the so-called under-the-stairs space, the triangular spandrel section between the string of the stairs and the wall, during the air raid.
Later, materials were being supplied to householders by the authorities, to construct street communal shelters and so-called Morrison and Anderson shelters.
Street communal shelter
In the United Kingdom, it was being recognized early that public shelters in open spaces, especially near streets, were urgently needed for pedestrians and drivers and passengers in passing vehicles, etc. The programme of building street communal shelters commenced in March 1940, the government supplying the materials, and being the moving force behind the scheme, and private builders executing the work under the supervision of surveyors. These shelters consisted of 14-in brick walls and one-foot thick reinforced concrete roofs, similarly to, but much larger than, the private shelters in backyards and gardens being introduced slightly later. The communal shelters were usually intended to accommodate about fifty persons, and were divided into various sections by interior walls with openings connecting the different sections. Sections were normally furnished with six bunks.
The construction work then went on rapidly, until the resources of concrete and bricks began to be depleted due to the excessive demand placed on them so suddenly. Also at around the same time rumours of accidents started to circulate, such as on one occasion people being drowned due to a burst main filling up the shelter with water. It was then that these shelters began to become highly unpopular, and shortly afterwards householders were being encouraged to build or have built private shelters on their properties, or within their houses, with materials being supplied by the government.
Anderson shelter
The Anderson shelter was designed in 1938 by William Paterson and Oscar Carl Kerrison in response to a request from the Home Office and is named after Sir John Anderson, then Home Secretary and so responsible for air-raid precautions early in World War II.
Anderson shelters were designed to accommodate up to six people. The main principle of protection was based on curved and straight galvanised corrugated steel panels. Six curved panels were bolted together at the top, so forming the main body of the shelter, three straight sheets on either side, and two more straight panels were fixed to each end, one containing the door - a total of fourteen panels. A small drainage sump was often incorporated in the floor to collect rainwater seeping into the shelter. The shelters were 6ft (1.8m) high, 4ft 6in (1.4m) wide, and 6ft 6in (2m) long. They were buried 4ft (1.2m) deep in the soil and then covered with a minimum of 15in (0.4m) of soil above the roof. The earth banks could be planted with vegetables and flowers, that at times could be quite an appealing sight and in this way would become the subject of competitions of the best-planted shelter among householders in the neighbourhood. The internal fitting out of the shelter was left to the owner and so there was wide variations in comfort.
Anderson shelters were issued free to all householders who earned less than £250 a year, and those with a higher income were charged £7. 150,000 shelters of this type were distributed from February 1939 to the outbreak of war. During the war a further 2.1 million were erected.
Morrison shelter
Morrison shelters, officially termed Table (Morrison) Indoor Shelters, were named after Herbert Morrison, the Minister of Home Security at the time. It was the result of the realisation that due to the lack of house cellars it was necessary to develop an effective type of indoor shelter.
The shelters came in assembly kits, to be bolted together inside the home. They were approximately 6 ft 6in (2m) long, 4ft (1.2m) wide and 2ft 6in (0.75m) high, had a solid 1/8in steel plate table top, welded wire mesh sides, and a metal lath mattress- type floor. Altogether it had 359 parts and had 3 tools supplied with the pack. Structurally it was designed to absorb the impact of debris falling on the top of the shelter. The sides could be removed to permit it being used as a table.
5oo,ooo Morrisons had been distributed by the end of 1941, with a further 100,000 being added in 1943 to prepare the population for the expected German V-1 (doodlebug) attacks.
Hochbunker
Hochbunker(s), or "high-rise" bunkers, were a peculiarly German type of construction, designed to relieve the pressure German authorities were facing to accommodate additional numbers of the population in high-density housing areas, as well as pedestrians on the streets during air raids. In contrast to any other shelters these buildings were indeed considered completely bomb-proof. They also had the advantage of being built upward - much more cheaply - than downward by excavation. There were no equivalents of hochbunkers in the cities of the Allies countries.
Hochbunkers consisted usually of large concrete blocks above ground of thicknesses between 1m and 1,50m, huge lintels above doorways and openings, and they often had a constant interior temperature of 7 to 10° C., thus being perfectly suitable for laboratory utilization during and after the war. They had been designated to protect people, administrative centres, important archives and works of art.
Their structures took many forms, square blocks, but also lower and longer rectangular shapes, straight towers of a square plan rising to great heights, as well as round tower-like edifices, even pyramidal constructions. Some of the circular towers contained helical floors that gradually curved their way upward within the circular walls. Many if these structures may still be seen to this day. They have been converted into offices, storage space, and some have even been adopted for hotels, hospitals and schools, as well as many other peacetime purposes. The cost of demolishing these edifices after the war would have been enormous, as the attempts at breaking up one of the socalled six Flak-Towers of Vienna proved, hochbunkers which during the war had anti-aircraft batteries at their top platforms. Only a crack could be achieved in one of the walls, before the attempt had to be abandoned.
Brick-built shelter
Brick-built shelters with reinforced concrete roofs were often constructed in backyards and gardens in the UK. The author of this article still had this type of shelter at the back of his house, a 12-inch thick solid reinforced concrete plate 8ft by 6ft resting on four brick walls plus door surrounding the shelter. The rear wall of the shelter was entirely embedded in the steeply rising hill garden, the two side walls were half-covered by the scarp and only the front was wholly free-standing.
Railway arches and subways (underpasses)
Railway arches and subways, too, were being utilised in the Uk for air raid protection at all times during World War II.
Railway arches were the deep curved structures of brick or concrete, built into the vertical sidewalls of railway lines, originally intended for commercial depots, etc., and which were covered with wooden or brick screen- or curtain-walls, thus providing a considerable amount of protection against air raids provided, of course, that railway lines were not the prime target of the attack at the particular time. Each arch could accommodate anything from 60 to 150 or so persons, although fewer during the night when sleeping areas had to be provided.
Subways (so-called in British usage to denote underpasses) were actual thoroughfares also in the shape of arches, normally allowing passage underneath railway lines
Other constructions
Military air raid shelters included blast pens at airfields for the security of aircrews and aircraft maintenance personnel away from the main airbase buildings.
It should be noted, however, that few shelters could have been considered ultimately safe in a case of a direct bomb-hit. Nevertheless, German authorities laid claim to hochbunkers being totally bomb-proof.
See also
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