Book Review: Secrets of Churchill’s War Rooms

I received this book from a family member who was cleaning out some old books and thought it looked interesting. During WWII, Winston Churchill and his government often used underground bunkers to run the country and this book is the story of how those war rooms came to be, what they were like, and how they were used.

Oftentimes I get wrapped up in broad history, which is very high-level and typically covers vast swaths of time or sweeping events. Sometimes it’s nice to dive into something extremely niche and go deep. This book is probably 70% pictures of the various war rooms with descriptions of what they were used for, but there’s also a few dozen pages of narrative to bring the reader into the larger context of the war. This specific book was generated by the organization which runs the war room museum in London, which was opened up to the world under Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as prime minister in the 1980s. It seems like something you’d find in the gift shop, but is nonetheless interesting to peruse and read.

Winston Churchill can seem like a monolith of a man when you only listen to his speeches, but when you go behind-the-scenes you find a man with his own worries, regrets, ambitions, and so on. This book actually had a good amount of context from those who worked in the war rooms with Churchill and saw him every day. Hearing their stories and seeing it in pictures as you read along is a very effective way to feel as though you know the man just a little bit better. Beyond talk of Churchill himself, there were stories of how men and women interacted and lived in the war rooms during and after the Blitz. Although there are a lot of similarities to books I’ve read about the home front in the United States, the British had and have more decorum and sense of position than us Americans have, for better or worse.

I would recommend this book to Churchill fans and WWII buffs who already have a good grasp of the events of WWII but are looking for a niche deep dive.

Rating: 4.5 / 5 (It was more picture-oriented, which is fine, but I could have used some more historical narrative built into it)

Find Secrets of Churchill’s War Rooms on Amazon.

For another WWII book, check out Ghosts of Honolulu by Mark Harmon.