Storey’s Gate – the Cabinet War Rooms

An author’s perspective on the journey to complete the book

My first visit to the Cabinet War Rooms (Storeys Gate) was in 1997 and provided a pleasant surprise. I was used to seeing decision making environments, and command and control systems, being an IT professional. Wandering around the museum, I could see this was a 1940 time capsule but with a twist. It was everything we were looking to create in the business world – a sophisticated decision making environment.

My interest was peaked and further research took me along the path to RAF Bentley Priory and Uxbridge (RAF Fighter Command and Group Headquarters). These both illuminated their strategic purpose, and the level of integration for passing information with Storeys Gate. This was a complex integrated solution and for that a transformation project was required.

My second visit in 2008 was exciting to say the least. I now had the research and understood the history of the location, and Churchill's story (from May to October 1940). The location became the centre to Churchill's world, his headquarters and decision making environment. It housed the central core of government and a unique military information centre.

I also had a better appreciation of the bigger picture and how this integrated with all the other centres which made up this adaptive enterprise. These included RAF Fighter Command at Bentley Priory and its Group Stations like Uxbridge, Bletchley Park, and other Command Centres for the military.

The 'sand bagged' entrance to the Cabinet War Rooms (Storeys Gate) is practically hidden away, and is located beneath the Office of Works building in the Whitehall area of Westminster, very close to Downing Street (home of the Prime Minister at Number 10) and Parliament. It faced St James's Park and Horseguards Road on one side and Great George Street on the other. A steel framed structure was important as it offered better protection than the older Whitehall buildings

RAF strategist had painted a grim picture of the UK under attack in the first week of a war, with 600 tons of bombs falling on London, causing 200,000 casualties. The Prime Minister and Cabinet had to be evacuated with the administrative machinery. This would require the adaption of basement offices and burrowing deep tunnel shelters in central London and the north-west suburbs.

The Spanish Civil War showed the way for the bombing of undefended cities (practised somewhat during the First World War) and causing civilian deaths. There was a fear that cities, like London with a population of 8m (largest city in the world), would be the targets of bombing. This troubled successive British governments in the 1920s and 1930s.

As the spectre of war increased, the question became how the Prime Minister, Cabinet and military command structures could be protected in a war. The construction of the facilities began in June 1938, accelerated by the events of the Munich crisis. The basement was engineered as a bunker where the roof was reinforced with a layer of concrete, at least one to three metres thick, referred to as the slab. Initially, most planners saw it as temporary, the construction was done under the auspices of Major-General Sir Hastings Ismay. It was the strongest structure of any in Whitehall.

The rooms became fully operational on 27 August 1939, a week before the German invasion of Poland and Britain's declaration of war on September the 3^rd. However, the temporary plan was shelved as the bunker served the government and military for the next six years. Chamberlain rarely visited the rooms, Churchill succeeded Chamberlain on 10th May 1940 and quickly made his presence felt.

The site covered three acres (12,000 m²) and housed a staff of up to 528 people, with facilities including a canteen, hospital, shooting range and dormitories. It contained a BBC outside broadcast studio, mechanical ventilation system, gas filtration system and 6 lifts.

The Cabinet War Room is one of the most important rooms in the central shelter. The centrepiece of the War Rooms is the Cabinet Room itself, where Churchill's War Cabinet met. The design of the Cabinet War Room included a U-shaped table for the coalition of ministers and a rectangular table for the chiefs of staff. As Minister of Defense responsible for directing the war, Churchill occupied the large seat at the center of the room, with a world map behind him, as shown in the figure.

Churchill embedded into the War Cabinet, the military arms or chiefs of staff, the military leaders or subject matter experts, to take part in all cabinet meetings. In this way, he could build a close relationship between senior military and political figures through daily contact, which is important in a total war.

The Defence Committee Churchill's principal instrument for conducting the war frequently used the room. Churchill, who retired very late, called meetings during the evening bombing raids of 1940 and closed these after midnight. Cabinet meetings could start and finish at any time of the day or night.

Few people were aware of the Cabinet War Rooms and access to these rooms was highly restricted. A detachment of ten retired Royal Marines acted as guards and were organized to the duties of general orderlies.

The Cabinet War Room was also a real-time decision-making environment at the most senior levels. It had a close relationship to the Map Room, both for inputs and outputs. The basis for decision-making is good, reliable intelligence, and the Map Room acted as an executive dashboard in providing real-time synthesized information and key performance indicators.

Cabinet war room overview

The Map Room is located nearby to the Cabinet War Room is still in the same condition as when it was abandoned, with the original maps still on the walls and telephones lining the desks.Access to the Map Room was strictly controlled. The room was operated by the three arms of the military, who closely work in conjunction (a first in British history). The Map Room provided Churchill a snapshot of the war, as shown in the figure.

Access to the Map Room was strictly controlled. The walls were pasted with large-scale maps of the world and all major theaters of war. The changing fronts were updated by officers in real time, closely following key events like enemy movements and battles, as shown in the figure.

Traditionally, the armed forces of the UK had evolved independently, without much need to interface with each other, jockeying for resources, and even had their own lexicons. The Royal Navy considered itself unique and was reluctant to closely cooperate or share resources with the British Army or its junior partner the Royal Air Force. Churchill forced the issue, and the Map Room housed senior officers from all three arms to closely collaborate in joint operations.

Once decisions were made in the Cabinet War Room, these had to be turned into actions through orders passed to the Map Room. The Map Room was a collaborative environment run by intelligence officers from the three military arms, or the "arms and legs" of the chief of staff.

The Map Room was also a communication hub with links to their various command headquarters through the colored telephones in the center of the room, the "dawn chorus," as shown in the figures above.

The Map Room cascaded actions to a vast network of linked hierarchical military commands. Decisions made in the Cabinet War Room could be turned into actions in a matter of minutes, hence, the ability to respond to incoming events, a first in rapid military response at such a strategic level. The figure shows officers collaborating and reacting to orders passed to them.

The Map Room provided an indicator model to the war, a wealth of information on the order of battle, troop movements, enemy positions (equivalent to competitive intelligence today), and industrial production capacity were all important inputs for decision-making.

For example, not only was the brewing air battle over Britain tracked but also so were other theatres like the Battle of the Atlantic, or the war in the Middle East and Africa. Using nothing more sophisticated than drawing pins and bits of colored wool fronts were carefully tracked, as shown in the figure.
In taking an elevated view information flowed bi-laterally between the Cabinet War Room and Map Room, as shown in the figure.

The map room was effectively a real-time executive dashboard used for decision-making. It had to present different types of indicators and content; the former was of particular importance. Indicators were carefully selected to provide early warning of a challenging situation or a specific event, based on trigger thresholds, so timely, proactive decisions could be made, e.g., the availability of fighters and pilots was critical in battle situations, as shown in the figures below. The pilot losses were more critical. Operational staff carefully prepared statistical reports.

In May 1940, Churchill's mission goals were very clear in that he needed a snapshot of the war, a macro view of battle situations. This had to be done in real time - an executive dashboard in today's world. The critical success factors for this were related to the use, at a tactical level, of intelligence to preserve critical resources. Operational data that was readily available included production or manufacturing output, stock levels on fuel and ammunition, and resource losses.

Storey's Gate needed meaningful real-time indicators. These were varied and included fighter indicators from Bentley Priory and the Air Ministry like the availability of fighters and stockpiles of fuel, to the supply-chain for fighter production from Whitehall, and the enemy order of battle indicators from Bletchley Park and other theatres of war.

The maps displaying indicators had to be incisive and intuitive so visitors could rapidly absorb and grasp these to understand decisions and their repercussions. A broad spectrum of varied indicators was used from the supply chain and industrial production to stockpiles of fuel.

Storey's Gate was a unique military information centre at the heart of the British war machine. The three most important rooms, or functions, in the complex were the Cabinet War Room, the Map Room, and Winston Churchill's room. Churchill slept, dined, consulted his advisers and maps, wrote his speeches and broadcast them.
Churchill spoke from a transatlantic telephone room, disguised as a private loo, to President Roosevelt.

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