Winston’s War Rooms and the sweet smell of democracy

Limited ventilation and perpetually occupied rooms left a distinctive staleness in the air, compounded by the constant fog of cigarette and cigar smoke. This wasn’t Givenchy, but it was the authentic aroma of democracy under threat.

The Breezer - the joyride for a curious mind: A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me discovering historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. Add to that updates relating to the podcast, a touch of humour and a dash of "lots more". 10th August 2025.

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Happy Sunday!
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Last week's extensive coverage of Japan's 80th anniversary commemorations of the atomic bombings was hard to miss - Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, followed by Nagasaki three days later.

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The initial impacts killed up to an estimated 110,000 people, mainly civilians. A similar number died by the end of the year from injuries, burns and radiation sickness.

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The survivors are known as hibakusha*, literally ‘persons affected by the explosion’. As of March this year, the number of certified hibakusha has fallen below 100,000 for the first time, with an average age of 86. These are the last living witnesses to humanity’s first use of nuclear weapons in warfare.

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As with Holocaust survivors, we are rapidly losing these vital witnesses and their irreplaceable first-hand accounts.

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Tsutomu Yamaguchi would never have forgotten his first-hand experience that week. He was working in Hiroshima on 6 August, survived the first bomb, then travelled home to Nagasaki to recuperate. Who said lightning doesn’t strike twice? Tsutomu was the only certified person to survive both bombings.

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Whatever your view on the ethics of these missions, they unquestionably forced Emperor Hirohito to announce Japan’s surrender a week later, 80 years ago on Friday, 15 August 1945. The official ceremony took place two weeks later on 2nd September.

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World War II was over.

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*Hibakusha also includes unborn children, those who entered the city such as rescue and relief workers, and those effected by the wider exposure to radiation.

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Six years earlier and 6,000 miles further east, the British had opened the Cabinet War Rooms in London. It was a only matter of a few days before Hitler invaded Poland on 1 September 1939.

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The facility lay within 150 metres of the back door to No. 10 Downing Street, residence of the British Prime Minister.

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The Cabinet War Rooms would be the central command centre of the British war effort for the entirety of the war.

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Construction in the basement of today’s HM Treasury building began in 1938. However, the original structure wasn’t designed as an underground fortress.
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It was only when The Blitz started raining incendiary bombs and parachute mines on London that the authorities realised the timber structure wasn’t fit for purpose.

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In December 1940, a reinforced concrete slab up to three metres thick, supported by steel girders, was installed above the War Rooms. The work had to be carried out in total secrecy - no sense signalling to the enemy what lay beneath.

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Anything larger than a 500-pound bomb would have still torn through the concrete and silenced the heartbeat of British intelligence, so secrecy remained the best defence.

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For 2,181 consecutive days and nights, electric light bulbs illuminated the dark, windowless rooms and corridors. Reminiscent of life in the Arctic Circle in winter, this was a virtual twilight world where darkness never fell.

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Throughout those six years, the War Rooms hummed with activity around the clock. At any one time, 500 people created an ’untidy, clattering bustle’. Generals, admirals, typists, cooks, switchboard operators and cleaners scurried along the corridors like mice in a maze.

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Limited ventilation and perpetually occupied rooms left a distinctive staleness in the air, compounded by the constant fog of cigarette and cigar smoke. This wasn’t Givenchy, but it was the authentic aroma of democracy under threat.

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Below the War Rooms in the sub-basement was The Dock; the spartan living quarters where staff could sleep overnight rather than risk the journey home through the gauntlet of inevitable air raids.

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In The Dock, ceilings were oppressively low, ventilation was even worse than the floor above and the perfume of chemical toilets permeated the confined space.

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Winston Churchill had provisioned a bedroom in the War Rooms. Against advice, he seldom slept there, preferring the sanctuary of his own bedroom at Downing Street.

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However, Churchill did spent many hours underground in the War Rooms, mainly in the Map Room. If the War Rooms as a whole represented the nervous system of British Intelligence, then the Map Room was its brain.

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Maps covered every wall, studded with coloured pins marking ship convoys and the positions of Allied and enemy forces. Coloured string traced supply routes and ship movements across the oceans.
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Staff worked in shifts to keep the pins and string up to date. As Churchill paced up and down the room - cigar firmly clenched between his teeth, wearing silk pyjamas, a dressing gown or his famously unstylish one-piece jumpsuit - the operators tracked the ebbs and flows of the greatest conflict in history.

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The failed British Expeditionary Force in the Battle of France, the subsequent evacuation at Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the menace of the U-boats in the Atlantic, the Battle of Stalingrad and, of course, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were all vicariously experienced through the diligent operators as they reshuffled the pins and string on the maps in response to updates from allied intelligence networks across the globe.
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Out of Curiosity

One of the more whimsical, thoroughly British touches in the War Rooms was the weather sign that kept staff informed about conditions above ground - essential intelligence for people who might not see daylight for days.
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The common meteorological updates included ‘Fine & Warm’, ‘Rain’, ’Snow’ or ‘Frosty’.
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During air raids, the sign was set to ‘Windy’.

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Almost as soon as the Japanese surrendered, War Rooms staff were immediately stood down.
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Eighty years ago on Saturday, 16 August 1945, the lights to the Cabinet War Rooms were switched off. Wing Commander John Seymour Heagerty RAF, the last Camp Commandant, took one final walk through the building, pausing at each room to turn off each bank of lights.
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There was no ceremony, no special witnesses. Nonetheless, this was a profound moment when, symbolically, the British war machine stopped thinking, the moment when peace descended on the world.
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​For the first time in six years, the Cabinet War Rooms were once again in darkness.

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​The British nerve centre throughout the war remained untouched for nearly four decades. In fact, even in the early 1980s, most people were unaware it even existed.
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In 1984, the Imperial War Museum opened the War Rooms to the public; a time capsule unsealed, a snapshot of the day it was abandoned some forty years earlier. What a privilege that must have been for the museum staff!
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Today the Churchill War Rooms are still open for business. This is one of my favourite historical sites to visit in London.
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Thankfully, the distinctive wartime aromas have long since dissipated, but the Map Room, cramped offices, spartan bedrooms and once-frantic corridors remain frozen in time - a perfectly preserved window into Britain’s darkest and finest hour.
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Amusingly, Wing Commander Heagerty’s rationed sugar cubes were found in his desk drawer, presumably left behind in the hurried departure. These preserved, crystalline treasures are now on display in the Map Room.
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I think the most striking experience of the visit comes in the first moment. Having descended into the basement, you immediately find yourself in the iconic War Cabinet Room, where Churchill once declared...

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The tables are laid out in square formation with five seats at the far end; four for War Cabinet Ministers such as Clement Attlee and Anthony Eden, with Churchill’s seat taking pride of place in the centre.
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It is a breathtaking scene, a true historical moment in time. The clocks are poignantly set to 4:58, signifying two minutes before the first ever war meeting in the room on 15 October 1940.
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Everything else is laid out exactly as it was left on 16 August 1945.

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Dates with History

Tuesday…

By 1607, the Puritans of the village of Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, were convinced that the Church of England was beyond reform. They exiled to Holland and remained there for over ten years.
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By 5 August 1620, they had mustered sufficient funds and recruited enough potential English colonialists who sought a better life in a new world. On that day, two ships, Mayflower and Speedwell, set sail for America from Southampton.
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The trip may never have made it beyond English shores. The Speedwell sprang a leak even before she had left sight of the English coastline, 405 years ago this Tuesday, 12 August 1620. Both ships put into Dartmouth seeking repairs for the Speedwell.
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After further leaks sprung on the vessel a week later, both ships turned back to Plymouth, Devon. The expedition leaders and ship captains decided that the Speedwell was unseaworthy and she was abandoned.
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​The Mayflower finally set sail from Plymouth on 6 September 1620, heavily laden with both groups of passengers.

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The Pilgrims first arrived at Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, but would eventually settle in Plymouth - the first permanent European settlers.
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The month-long delay reportedly caused the death of half the colonists that winter, as they arrived in America in November with no time to prepare for the harsh conditions.
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If the Speedwell hadn’t sprung a leak, perhaps today the picturesque coastal town of Plymouth, Massachusetts, might be know as Southampton?

Out of curiosity...​
The Speedwell was sold to new owners, repaired, and completed many successful voyages over the next 15 years until 1635.
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This outcome fuelled persistent rumours that Captain Reynolds had sabotaged the Speedwell in 1620 to avoid the journey.
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Ironically, the ship’s final voyage was a return trip from Southampton to Virginia - the trip that she was denied back in 1920.
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By contrast, the Mayflower had been left to rot on the River Thames at Rotherhithe after she returned to England, being sold for scrap in 1624.

Twenty-five years ago this Tuesday, 12 August 2000, the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk suffered a catastrophic explosion while participating in naval exercises in the Barents Sea.
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​All 118 crew members died in what became one of the worst peacetime naval disasters in history.
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​The tragedy began when a faulty torpedo exploded in the submarine’s forward compartment, triggering a massive secondary blast that tore through the vessel’s hull and sent it plummeting 354 feet to the seabed.
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At the time, the UK Royal Navy’s Submarine Rescue Team was one of the best-equipped in the world. They had offered their services to help save the trapped crew and travelled to the Barents Sea. At the last moment, the Russians refused access to the site.
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In 2023, I spoke with Mark Taylor, one of the Royal Navy submarine crew on that trip. Mark relived the poignant story for the podcast. Access Denied: The Kursk Submarine Rescue Story​

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Wednesday…

Florence Nightingale was destined for a typical life of Victorian privilege when she was born in 1820. However, the young lady had other ideas.
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Florence took up her first nursing post in 1853. When she heard of the appalling conditions facing wounded British soldiers in Crimean War hospitals in 1854, she made her way with a team of 38 nurses to the British military hospital at Scutari, near Constantinople, then part of the Ottoman Empire.
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The reality Florence uncovered was shocking: more soldiers were dying from hospital-acquired diseases and infections than from their battle injuries.
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She implemented new sanitation protocols, improved ventilation and introduced hygiene practices that had not been previously considered. Mortality rates dropped significantly.
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By the time Florence died 115 years ago this Wednesday, 13 August 1910, she had transformed nursing from a ‘disreputable occupation for drunken, immoral women’ into the respected profession it is today.
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Florence’s pioneering use of statistical analysis to pressure authorities into implementing hospital sanitary reforms led to her election to the Royal Statistical Society in 1858.
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But perhaps Florence’s most lasting legacy was her impact on the wounded soldiers at Scutari in 1854. They nicknamed her The Lady with the Lamp for her tireless vigils and reassuring care during the long nights of the Crimean War.

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Talk to me...

I receive some wonderful feedback from readers who add colour to the historical snippets that I publish. If you have any thoughts to add to some of today’s topics, or from previous weeks, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me an email at steve@battingthebreeze.com.

Question of the Week

In the summer of 1980, Poland was struggling under economic hardship and political repression, just as it had throughout the communist era that began in 1947. Government-authorised food price increases triggered spontaneous strikes over a six-week period.
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The communist government started arresting those most committed to ‘free trade unions’. When Anna Walentynowicz, a popular forklift operator, was dismissed from the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk alongside other workers suspected of underground activities, tensions finally boiled over.
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Possibly the most significant labour strike in Eastern European history began 45 years ago this Thursday, 14 August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard. Although their main demands were met after three days, the women of the shipyard, including Anna Walentynowicz, remained on strike in solidarity with other establishments across the region.

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By 21 August, this regional action had spread into a general strike throughout Poland. Nine days later, the withering Polish communist regime was forced to sign the Gdańsk Agreement, granting a range of human rights and freedoms to the Polish people. From this victory emerged a single national trade union: Solidarnosc (Solidarity).
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Among the shipyard workers on strike on 14 August was an electrician who had been fired from his job two years earlier for involvement in previous labour protests.
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Despite being banned from the shipyard, he climbed over the fence to join the striking workers. He became head of the strike committee and quickly emerged as Solidarnosc’s natural leader.
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What was his name?

And Finally…

When Jules Léotard was born in Toulouse in 1838, France was still nursing a Napoleonic hangover. The restored Bourbon monarchy had been unceremoniously booted out again.
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Cue Louis-Phillipe, a sort of monarchy-lite. He was known as the Citizen King, walking a tightrope between the royalists who thought him frightfully common and the republicans who thought him insufferably royal.
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Jules was walking his own tightrope as a young adult; one that his father had constructed for him over their home-made swimming pool.
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The neighbours gasped each day as Jules hurled himself between ropes and bars 10 feet off ground level, the pool his only safety net.
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Despite this early obsession with acrobatics, Jules was expecting to lead a quite different career, behind a desk as a lawyer. However, having passed his law exams at the age of 18, he was finding the world of torts and testaments a bit predictable.
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​A career in the circus beckoned after all.
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​It’s Paris 1859. Napoleon III is ruling the Second French Empire and Jules has joined the Cirque Napoleon. He had devised a performance not yet seen - the first flying trapeze routine.
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However, Jules had a problem. The standard attire for circus gymnasts was a loose-fitting shirt and baggy trousers. While these garments preserved a performer’s modesty, for a high-risk, high-wire performance, they were potentially fatal fashion choices.
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Imagine flying through the air, eyes locked on a swinging bar hurtling towards you, arms outstretched, when, at the critical moment, your shirt billows up and engulfs your head. The outcome would be decidedly less graceful than intended.
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​Jules had some thinking to do.​
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While Charles Darwin was publishing On the Origin of Species and the Industrial Revolution was transforming people’s lives, Jules was planning a revolution of his own.
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He would ditch the flapping outfits and design his own. With the help of a seamstress (another anonymous pioneering woman lost in the footnotes of history), Jules created a knitted, skin-tight, one-piece costume allowing complete freedom of movement except for in the critical areas.
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​The 'Leotard’ had arrived.
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​The costume was as revolutionary as it was scandalous. On that first night in November 1859, the crowd craned their necks to look high up into the circus canopy. They gasped at the athletic prowess, the daring, and the masculine contours that required little imagination. The Parisian press scrambled for adjectives.

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Had this been Victorian Britain, Jules may have been locked up. But this was France, where matters of the flesh were viewed with the same appreciation as matters of state.
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Jules Leotard was a success, as was Jules’ leotard. The Parisians were hooked. He became the toast of Europe, travelling to Vienna, London, Berlin and beyond.
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In fact, Jules’ performances and pioneering fashion would continue to dazzle audiences for another eleven years.
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Sadly, his high-flying career was cut short at the tender age of 32. Like many others at the time, Jules died from Cholera or Smallpox, 155 years ago this Saturday, 16 August 1870.
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Both diseases were the grim reapers of the age, thriving in crowded cities where sewer systems and vaccines were still works in progress.
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Jules’ leap into the unknown had landed him a peculiar form of immortality - one wrapped in tight-fitting knitted wool.
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Not only did the flying trapeze act become a staple of modern circus performances, but his costumes were adopted by fellow acrobats, dancers and gymnasts - and still are today.

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Thank you for joining me. Have a great week!

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Steve

HOST & CHIEF STORY HUNTER

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P:S: Incidentally, I am always keen to receive your feedback to help me continuously improve this newsletter and the podcast. Just hit reply to this email and...... let it rip! I respond to every email that I receive.

Question of the week… answer

The inspirational leader of Solidarnosc was Lech Wałęsa.

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Wałęsa soon became an international symbol of peaceful resistance to communist rule. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983. After the fall of communism in 1898, Wałęsa served as President of the new democratic Poland from 1990-1995.
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Today, the Polish icon and former President is still an active public figure, living in Gdańsk. He is 81 years old.

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