The Bethnal Green Shelter Disaster

Abstract

During the Second World War there were large-scale fatalities when air raid shelters were hit by bombs. The greatest loss of life in a shelter was at Bethnal Green in the East End of London on 3 March 1943, where 173 people died in a crush on the stairs at the shelter entrance. The causes of this incident have been distorted by post-war press claims that the reasons why it happened were covered up, and panic was the main cause of so many deaths. A recent publication has insinuated that the Government manipulated the inquiry for political reasons. This article evaluates these claims against the available evidence, to demonstrate that such a catastrophic loss of life was far more complicated than suggested. The victims of this disaster deserve to be remembered as unfortunate casualties of war, rather than as being trampled to death by a terrified crowd.

Keywords:

• air raid
• bombing
• civilian fatalities
• London
• Second World War

The only significant attacks on the United Kingdom during the first three months of 1943 were against London. Berlin had not been attacked by Bomber Command since November 1941, but 269 aircraft bombed the city on 16–17 and 17–18 January.¹ It was therefore certain that there would be German reprisals, which started on the night of the second British attack, the first raid on London for eighteen months.² The next attack on London took place on 3–4 March, when ‘the Luftwaffe plumbed new depths of inefficiency’ according to the Official History, as of around one hundred tons of high explosive bombs ‘only twelve tons hit the mark’.³ The Luftwaffe claimed that 117 aircraft took part, the use of three waves suggesting multiple sorties were made by crews to compensate for a shortage of aircraft.⁴ The British estimated that sixty-five aircraft operated, dropping eighty tonnes of bombs, which appears low until the total of 433 bombs is considered.⁵ The Air Ministry Commentary only identified two phases to this attack, ten of the first wave of thirty-five aircraft reaching London, while ‘few’ of the second wave of thirty got as far as the southern suburbs.⁶ Bombs were dropped in twenty boroughs, but while widespread, raiding ‘was not of a heavy nature’ without concentration, although damage occurred to industrial and residential property. Casualties from bombing were relatively small, but this raid was ‘indirectly responsible for a massive loss of life’.⁷ After a woman tripped on the entrance stairs, this quickly blocked the passageway and 173 people were crushed to death at the Bethnal Green shelter in the East End (Many sources erroneously quote the initial estimate of 178).⁸ This was the largest single British civilian ‘fatal incident’ during the Second World War, although no bombs were dropped on Bethnal Green borough during this raid. The causes of this accident have been sensationalised or ignored by some of the historiography, which has provoked controversy and accusations of a cover-up.⁹ A careful study of the available sources demonstrates that different conclusions to the Public Inquiry – that panic in the crowd caused the accident – can be drawn if all of the evidence is considered, including the effects of budget reductions and the manpower shortage in civil defence as a whole.

Since April 1943 when the inquiry report was classified, there have been claims, which have persisted into the twenty-first century, that the reasons for the Bethnal Green accident were suppressed. Journalists have reiterated such accusations of ‘cover up and rumour’, because information about the accident was withheld ‘for two days’, with a seventy-fifth anniversary article asserting the council had ‘repeatedly campaigned for better access but requests have been turned down repeatedly by the Home Office’.¹⁰ The article went on to claim that details ‘remain unclear’ and that the accident ‘was kept secret for years’, and that there was ‘panic’ as ‘the Tube station descended into pandemonium’.¹¹ These allegations continued in 2012, with the publication of a book on the accident by a local journalist, Rick Fountain. This portrays Bethnal Green Council as a hapless victim, having ‘repeatedly tried, to make safe the access to the shelter’, despite ‘complacency and neglect’ by the Government, and blames Herbert Morrison, the Home Secretary, for the cover up. Fountain contends the ‘report was suppressed and glossed over’, because ‘local officials’ had ‘wanted to insert a crush barrier at the mouth of the shelter’. More seriously, he claims that ‘Bethnal Green was the victim of collusion by servants of the crown’, by ignoring a ‘sensible and well-founded recommendation to make safe the entrance to the staircase’.¹²

Few secondary sources contain information on the shelter accident, and the accounts by military historians have been inconsistent. Charles Whiting presents a peculiar scenario with people pushed down the stairs by a surge in the crowd, where their screams caused panic, people struggling ‘to get back up the stairs’, falling ‘like a human avalanche into a quivering heap of bodies below’.¹³ Winston Ramsey describes the crowd surge causing a woman to fall unseen in the darkness, so that within seconds ‘a pile of bodies five or six deep lay crushed together’, while outside ‘there were 150 to 200 people forcing their way in’.¹⁴ There have also been two academic studies that have referenced the causes of the accident. In 2015 Dr Toby Butler edited an oral history of people involved in the disaster and the wider community for the Bethnal Green Memorial Project. While this concentrates on the experiences of the population of Bethnal Green, Butler also describes the causes of the accident, and the controversy surrounding the suppression of the inquiry report, but does not address the validity of the claim that there was a cover up.¹⁵ Similarly, Lucy Noakes highlighted that the cause of the accident was blamed on panic when the real cause was ‘a poorly maintained shelter entrance’, although this conclusion only occupies fifteen lines in a 294 page book.¹⁶ Neither of these sources examines what information was made public at the time, or the subsequent release of additional material. The claims of a cover up require a forensic examination of all the evidence to determine both the circumstances of the accident and the validity of a conspiracy.

The Initial Reporting of the Accident

Press accounts first appeared on 5 March, thirty-six hours after the incident, and since night raids were never reported directly after an attack, but on the following day, this was consistent with normal wartime procedure. Most details were accurately reported; that the fall of a woman had blocked a poorly lit stairwell, with ‘no sign of panic before the accident’. At this early stage the lack of a handrail down the centre of the stairs was highlighted, and that ‘the heavy barrage’ (of anti-aircraft guns) caused ‘a rush of people to the shelter’. The only pertinent fact withheld, consistent with censorship rules, was the actual location, this being described as ‘a London tube shelter’.¹⁷ Elsewhere in the press, it was already being asked ‘whether or not it would be wise to fit the entrances of all large shelters with crush barriers’, and the incident was concurrently reported widely across the country.¹⁸ Officials from the national Civil Defence organisation attended the initial meeting of the Coroner’s Inquiry at Bethnal Green town hall on 4 March, a secret report of which was circulated within the London Home Defence Region the following day. This confirmed the details reported in the press, but also mentioned ‘panic’ at the entrance stairs for the first time. Seven buses had stopped at the entrance just as the alert sounded, causing ‘congestion’ to a population made ‘nervy’ by RAF raids on Berlin and an unfamiliar anti-aircraft barrage. Although during the Blitz large numbers of people had been marshalled into the shelter ‘without mishap’, once the bodies had been removed work began to install two railings dividing the staircase into three.¹⁹ This report also contained a drawing that confirmed the location of casualties on the staircase, showing that all fatalities were confined to the bottom thirteen steps of the first flight of stairs, which contradicts the statements of both Ramsey and newspaper reports which showed the crush extended from the bottom of the staps all the way across to the staircase landing wall. Unlike the Tube stations used as shelters in central London, Bethnal Green was not part of the active transport network. The Central Line extension to Leytonstone in the East End had been completed by the summer of 1939, but no rails were laid and so a floor was added to the tunnels and bunks installed for 5,000 people. Although the station below ground was in place, the start of the war meant it was left in an unfinished condition with no further work carried out.²⁰

By 6 March, there was speculation whether the staircase had been ‘as well lighted’ as it could have been, and the press reported that local authorities were carrying out safety checks on deep shelters, with ‘a new approach’ to the entrance at Bethnal Green already under construction.²¹ It was also announced that everyone ‘who lost their lives or suffered injury are being treated as air-raid casualties’, which gave access to specific assistance, with all victims being entitled to private funerals, rather than the mass graves used earlier in the war.²² On 8 March it was reported that corrugated iron ‘umbrellas’ were being fitted over the entrances at Piccadilly Circus tube station, so that ‘better lighting can be given to the steps leading down to the main hall of the station’.²³ At Bethnal Green a ‘rush-breaker’ had already been installed to ‘compel people to enter slowly from each side’ before entering the staircase.²⁴ A doctor who had worked at the shelter during the Blitz was quoted ‘that the entrance was “most dangerous”, and that the Regional Commissioner and others had been to see the steps’.²⁵ All of this information was passed by the Censor, with only the exact location of the accident still being withheld from the public.

Given the impromptu changes to shelters publicised since the accident, it is unsurprising that the Department of Home Security began inspections across the country. On 12 March all Technical Coordinating Officers were asked to examine the entrances of large public shelters in their regions discreetly, without informing local authorities.²⁶ Originally the requirement was that people caught in the street should be able to take shelter within seven minutes, but during the Blitz much of the population in London spent all of the ‘blackout time’ underground, so that ‘the width of the entrances became of less moment’. By 1943, in ‘the absence of continuous raiding’, people only used shelters during the alert period, making ‘adequate means of control’ at entrances more important. As well as adequate lighting that did not interfere with the blackout, and suitable handrails, there was an emphasis on controlling crowds to prevent ‘undue pressure at bottle-necks’. It was suggested that entrances could be closed by pulling gates across ‘a stout central pillar’ ‘in case of any trouble’.²⁷

The Public and Coroner’s Inquiries

While the Public Inquiry was held in secret due to security concerns, there were no such restrictions for the Coroner’s Inquiry, which ended on 20 March. The stairs were described as ‘very steep, were partly finished and in the “rough”’, although conversely ‘their general condition’ was ‘good’ having only ‘one dim light over the seventh of 19 steps’, with ‘one or two cases of minor accidents’ previously. Once the alert sounded people entered ‘very orderly, and pretty fast’, and there ‘was nothing in the evidence to suggest there was any stampede or panic’. The jury ‘returned a verdict that the victims died from asphyxia due to suffocation, and that the cause was accidental’.²⁸ After the conclusion of the inquiry a local solicitor ‘issued a writ to test the legal liability of the local borough council’ on behalf of a widow, arguing that ‘defects constituted a legal trap for those lawfully using the shelter’.²⁹

Concurrently the public inquiry began on 11 March behind closed doors, by the selected magistrate Laurence Dunne, assisted by a secretary to the inquiry appointed by the Department of Home Security, who prepared a briefing document which Fountain claims ‘shows how the Ministry of Home Security reshaped the official narrative’. This document allegedly explains ‘how “psychological” causes could be attributed to the shelter tragedy’.³⁰ Before the Second World War it was anticipated that any conflict would begin with a ‘knockout blow’ of mass bombing against civilian populations.³¹ The authorities estimated that this could cause hundreds of thousands of casualties, with working-class morale ‘seen as particularly vulnerable to defeatism’.³² The Ministry of Health expected psychiatric casualties to exceed physical ones by three to one, with ‘three to four million cases of acute panic, hysteria and other neurotic conditions in the first six months of the war’. In reality, there was no knockout blow, and when the Blitz eventually began, ‘it was soon apparent that waves of war neurosis were merely figments of the psychologists’ own imagination’.³³ The Home Security briefing document illustrates that the Government were still sensitive to the collapse of civilian morale, but as this was only one of ten listed potential causes, any insinuation of conspiracy is unlikely. As the magistrate was not an expert on civil defence, it is more plausible that the ministry were providing technical expertise to the inquiry, with ‘the absence of a crush barrier giving a “straight run in” documented for the first time’.³⁴ The evidence presented broadly supported what was in the public domain, one witness stating that people were entering the shelter ‘at a level speed without any disorder’.³⁵ The operation of the shelter was scrutinised, with both the Borough Council and local Civil Defence personnel questioned by Dunne about the entrance. The council were concerned that if the shelter was full and ‘the gates were closed it was feared that the hoarding could easily be pulled apart and people could get in through the sides’.³⁶ Civil Defence confirmed that the entrance had been strengthened in late 1941 ‘to prevent overcrowding’, and claimed it ‘was similar to all tube shelters that exist in London’ but then stated inconsistently that the shelter was unique ‘with only one entrance, only used as a shelter, and not as a tube station’. When asked about crush barriers at shelter entrances, Dunne was told this had not been considered.³⁷ The staircase had been ‘in the open air’ throughout the Blitz, requiring ‘a man sweeping at the bottom of the stairs because of puddles’ when it rained.³⁸

The Dunne inquiry ended on 17 March, and the final report comprised twenty pages plus appendices. Dunne concluded that a crowd surge following the discharge of anti-aircraft rockets pushed people down the stairs leading to the fall and subsequent crush. The only reference to ‘panic’ was during the aftermath when the crowd ‘outside the shelter were out of hand and frantic with nervousness, confusion and worry’. The reduction in manpower available to the police since 1941 was noted, as a permanent post at the entrance was no longer possible, and the constable assigned to this duty during an alert had been delayed by dealing with people using torches in the blackout. Manpower shortages had also ‘very adversely affected’ civil defence ‘both in its quality and quantity’ to an extent ‘that efficiency is seriously affected’.³⁹

Dunne divided the causes of the accident into two; psychological and physical. The large size of Bethnal Green meant that people had ‘a marked preference for this type of shelter’, and people not in the immediate area regarded it ‘as a desirable haven’ when it ‘might prove to be a heavy raid’. The population was very aware that heavy raids on Berlin made reprisals likely, and changes in tactics meant ‘the air raid warning might precede the bombs by a very short margin’. Large numbers of children had recently returned to the area, which Dunne identified as both a psychological and physical cause, as parents wanted to get children underground quickly, but their presence ‘retarded the speed of intake into the shelter, and the speed at which people could reach it’. The single entrance to the shelter was considered to be ‘very exceptional in relation to its size’, with the two other entrances, still in use today, sealed off to prevent access. Dunne considered that the dim lighting had ‘increased the chance of a fall on the stairs’ but thought the lack of handrails were of little importance. Dunne believed the absence of a crush barrier, on the other hand, ‘as the main structural defect at the time of the accident’, but that the ‘main and proximate cause was a sudden rush for the entrance by 350–400 people’.⁴⁰

Security Concerns Preventing the Inquiry Publication

The Dunne report put Herbert Morrison, the Home Secretary, in a difficult position, as he had previously committed to publish any conclusions. Instead, a summary White Paper was proposed, ‘modifying the statements in regard to the psychological causes of the disaster’, without providing information ‘to assist the enemy’. In a memorandum to the War Cabinet, he explained such conclusions could prompt ‘the enemy to make further raids on London’, where ‘there are many tube shelters with restricted means of entrance, in the hope of creating a disproportionate disturbance’. Although not documented, the references to the lack of police and wardens due to manpower shortages were also significant ‘security considerations’.⁴¹ The War Cabinet considered that dissatisfaction following the inquiry being held in private meant that if conclusions were not published, ‘it would be generally assumed that there was something to hide’. The publication of the ‘White Paper would give the incident a disproportionate importance, and might encourage the enemy to make further nuisance raids’.⁴² Morrison subsequently made a statement in the House of Commons, stating that ‘the Government felt bound not to publish the conclusions’ of the report, since this ‘would convey information to the enemy’.⁴³ Several MPs raised objections to the decision, envisaging ‘the bad effect on the morale of the people’ if it was suspected the facts had been concealed.⁴⁴ In the event, the Dunne Report remained classified and was not published until 1945.⁴⁵

Part of the Commons debate following the statement absolved the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) of any responsibility for the accident, which prompted Bethnal Green Council to write to Herbert Morrison. They considered the statement about LPTB responsibility would make people assume ‘that neither of the two remaining bodies was specifically exculpated’. The Council was concerned that they would ‘continue to be regarded by many of the inhabitants of the Borough as largely responsible, either directly or indirectly for this terrible disaster’.⁴⁶ The claim for negligence against Bethnal Green Council which had been issued in March 1943 eventually reached the High Court in July 1944. This was also held behind closed doors, but the judgement was given in public. Mr Justice Singleton found for the plaintiff and against the council, and the judgement identified the location of the accident for the first time. According to Singleton, the ‘negligence relied on being that the defendants failed to provide a safe and proper entry to the shelter: that the staircase was dangerous in that the steps were uneven and worn: that there was no handrail in the middle of the stairway: that the light was insufficient’. He concluded the crush was caused ‘by some one, or more than one, tripping or slipping on the unsafe steps, which took place before the firing of guns, nor was there anything in the nature of rushing and surging’. As there was no one on duty at the entrance, ‘those entering did not know that an accident had taken place and continued to hurry forward’. Singleton highlighted that ‘the defendants had been in occupation of the shelter for 2½ years and nothing had been done to the unfinished steps. After the accident changes were made to the steps and the lighting, and central handrails were put in’.⁴⁷ As few people in Bethnal Green would read the law reports in The Times, it is unlikely that anyone associated with the shelter deaths would been aware of this civil action.

Proposed Improvements to the Shelter Entrance by The Council

Given that Fountain maintains Bethnal Green Council was the hapless victim of a cover up and government suppression of the Dunne Report, this verdict does not support his argument. He acknowledges the Singleton judgement, but insists that if Bethnal Green Council ‘had been set free from the steel claw of the official secrets act’ (which behind closed doors would not apply) they could have argued that they ‘had been assiduous in trying to make safe the access to the shelter’.⁴⁸ This comment refers to parts of the Dunne report, not discussed in War Cabinet in April 1943, acknowledging Bethnal Green Council had attempted to improve the shelter entrance back in August 1941.⁴⁹ A comprehensive review of all surviving documentation, however, does not show the actions of the council in such a favourable light. Although the council proposed ‘the removal of the hoarding and the construction of brick wall and piers, re-erecting railings and hanging of gates’ at the shelter entrance costing £88.8.9d, at the same time they were attempting to obtain funds of £110.18.10d for a library in the shelter.⁵⁰ By September 1941 the shelter building programme had been drastically reduced, and Bethnal Green Council probably damaged the credibility of its proposals by not prioritising the entrance improvements. By this time the Blitz was over, and constant night-time occupation of shelters was declining, so funding for a library was unrealistic and unnecessary as the numbers of shelter users dwindled. Civil Defence officials did however inspect the station entrance, and forward the proposals to the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) for consideration, but as the alterations would not form part of the post-war use of the station, no permanent changes were made.⁵¹ With responsibility for the shelter split between three public organisations, agreement on any subject was bound to be difficult, especially since the LPTB was concerned about its liability for injuries at Bethnal Green, and had requested ‘a letter from the London Civil Defence Headquarters absolving the Board from any responsibility arising through the use of these tunnels as shelters’.⁵²

Although a roof was added to shield the stairs after the end of the Blitz and the entrance and gates were strengthened with timber, these ‘improvements’ were the solution to a different problem.⁵³ The purpose of these changes was never to regulate the flow of people into the shelter, but to reinforce the entrance so that it would not collapse when closed off once the shelter was full.⁵⁴ While Fountain considers ‘it unlikely that the concrete steps were unusually worn and dangerous’, a successful claim for damages had been made against the council for an accident at Bethnal Green shelter in November 1940.⁵⁵ A comparison of the specifications for work proposed in 1941 and that actually carried out in 1943 demonstrates how circumstances had changed since winter 1940–41:

1941: Build in English bond brick walls to match existing Ventilator Piers.

Reinstate existing Granite Kerb.

Resite existing railings.

Repair gates, supply and fix special hinges, fixed and hang to piers.⁵⁶

1943: 1. Construct brick surface shelter. Substitute two emergency doors and brick baffle walls for three emergency exits.

2. Construct temporary corrugated baffle, concreted in at present entrance.

4. Improve lighting by means of additional temporary lighting fixture.

5. Make up escalator treads at top and bottom of both escalators.

7. Remove four wooden handrails and replace with steel tubing.

17. Render risers and treads of steps with concrete.

18. Open up 3rd escalator and fix treads.⁵⁷

How Panic in Crowds Can Be Misunderstood

Despite the Singleton judgement rejecting panic as a cause, and the statements of witnesses at the Dunne inquiry, the official history still describes the accident as ‘a grim reminder of the conditions which could ensure if people lost self-control in an air raid’, and events in London during late 2017 illustrate that people under threat can initially appear to be panicking.⁵⁸ People fleeing the Tube train bomb at Parsons Green described ‘lots of shouting and screaming’, and ‘a bit of a crush on the stairs going down to the streets’, with some people ‘pushed over and trampled on’.⁵⁹ After reports of shots being fired in Oxford Circus Tube station, the police reported that ‘passengers fled in to Oxford Circus and Regent Street causing “significant panic”’.⁶⁰ A recent study by psychologists has demonstrated despite what ‘was widely described as “panic”’ there is ‘evidence to suggest people fleeing an alert are entirely reasonable’. Describing such actions as ‘panic’ implies ‘that they are acting irrationally, excessively, and even selfishly’, but this ‘concerns the apparently emotional and uncontrolled actions of a few members of the public’, and ‘the exception all too easily becomes the rule’. Research into similar incidents show that ‘words such as "panic" started to be used even though the actions of many other people suggested a very different picture’, and while people on Oxford Street were ‘running, and many looked scared and upset’, their behaviour was ‘largely proportionate’ and were ‘often helping those who are slowest’. Research has shown that where crowds have a shared group identity, they are more likely to help others, and are ‘less likely to push and shove at potential bottlenecks, such as the bottom of escalators, and they generally got out more quickly’.⁶¹

Reports of crowds being ‘out of hand’ at Bethnal Green was after the fatalities had occurred, so at this stage would have had no effect on the accident. It is most likely that these were people trying to get through the crowd looking for relatives. From the width of the steps, it can be calculated that these could accommodate eight people per step under alert conditions, giving a total of 152 people on the nineteen steps at any one time. From the 5 March report, 173 people were killed, all on the bottom thirteen steps, implying there were eighty people on the other six, so that 253 people were on the stairs as the accident happened. With people descending at two steps a second, once the stairs were blocked it would have taken less than seven seconds for the entrance to be completely full, so allowing two seconds for an overspill at the bottom before a complete blockage, the whole accident would have been over in ten seconds, which agrees with witness reports. From evidence given at the Dunne inquiry, it is clear that the potential risks were never properly considered. A modern risk assessment requires answers to a triple set of questions: what can go wrong? What is the likelihood that it will go wrong? What are the consequences?⁶² At no stage were the relevant questions asked about the Bethnal Green shelter, the council being convinced the risk was a collapse of the entrance if a crowd tried to get into the shelter when it was full, and the need for a crush barrier was never contemplated.

Conclusions

Although a crush barrier would not have prevented the initial fall, it may have mitigated the casualty figures. The way that the shelter operated had changed since the 1940–41 Blitz, when people had arrived before dusk, entering by ticket in a steady stream, under the supervision of the police. Once raids on London resumed in January 1943, the different tactics used by the Luftwaffe gave people very little time to seek shelter. The crush barrier that was noted as being under construction on 8 March had never been considered either by the council or London Civil Defence. There is no evidence of the council ‘having conscientiously striven to make the staircase safer’, as a concurrent proposal to improve the library facilities in the shelter made their priorities unclear and weakened their argument, although a lack of consensus between the three responsible authorities did not help.⁶³ The observations of panic in the crowds attempting to enter the Bethnal Green shelter actually occurred after the accident had taken place, as people searched for missing relatives. The major reason for not publishing the inquiry report was undoubtedly due to the standard wartime policy to deny information to the enemy, especially about police and civil defence numbers. By January 1945, there was no longer any danger of the report being of any use to German forces, and so it was finally published following an announcement in the House of Commons.⁶⁴ The majority of the pertinent information about the accident had been in the public domain since 1943, and a comprehensive review of the evidence does not support the accusation that ‘the dossiers at Kew’ show Herbert Morrison possessed a ‘Machiavellian ruthlessness’.⁶⁵

During the war spending on civil defence decreased, starting with cutbacks to the shelter building programme in 1941.⁶⁶ The manpower reductions to civil defence and police in 1942 had been opposed by Morrison until the entire War Cabinet accepted responsibility for any consequences. By 1943 proposals to withdraw 225,000 men from the building industry meant that proposed repairs on sixty percent of remaining bomb-damaged houses were being reconsidered.⁶⁷ The accident at Bethnal Green prompted the expenditure of £7,000 to improve safety at other shelters, which had increased to £18,661 a year later.⁶⁸ No record survives to describe how much the unfinished shelter steps at Bethnal Green had deteriorated since the shelter had opened in October 1940, but they were considered bad enough to be rendered straight after the accident. Crowd control and shelter organisation declined in a country fighting a war while running out of money and manpower, and these victims should be remembered as unfortunate casualties of those consequences, rather than as being trampled to death by a terrified crowd.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the Society for the History of War (SHoW) for the opportunity to present at the ‘New Voices in the History of War’ Twitter conference on 25 September 2020, where a simplified and unreferenced version of this paper was first delivered.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors

Stephen Moore

Stephen Moore completed his PhD entitled ‘After the Blitz: Luftwaffe Operations over the United Kingdom and the Development of the Defence systems: May 1941 to December 1943’ in 2019 at Newcastle University, when the research for this article was carried out, while also working as a post-graduate teaching assistant. This study examined the continuing operations of the Luftwaffe and challenged the conventional view that subsequent attacks on the UK were insignificant. A version of this analysis will eventually be published by the University Press of Kentucky. Now working outside of academia, he is currently researching a new history of the Battle of Britain, which will draw on different perspectives to present a familiar story in a distinct way.

Notes

1 War Cabinet and Cabinet: Memoranda, Paper No. WP (43) 36, Weekly Résumé (No. 177), 14 to 21 January 1943, The National Archives, Kew (subsequently TNA) CAB 66/33/36, 7.

2 Royal Air Force Air Historical Branch (subsequently AHB) Narratives and Monographs, Air Defence of Great Britain (subsequently ADGB), Vol. V: The Struggle for Air Supremacy, January 1942–May 1945 (194?), TNA AIR 41/49, 193.

3 Basil Collier, The Defence of the UK (London: HMSO, 1957), 314.

4 AHB, ADGB, Vol. V, TNA AIR 41/49, 194–5.

5 Air Ministry, Directorate of Intelligence: Intelligence Reports and Papers, Tabular Record of G.A.F. activity Against the United Kingdom July 1941–Dec. 1944 (1944), May 1943, TNA AIR 40/1645.

6 Air Ministry, Directorate of Intelligence: Intelligence Reports and Papers, Commentary on Gazetteer 1941–43 (1944), TNA AIR 40/1654, 109.

7 Alfred Price, Blitz on Britain 1939–1945 (London: Ian Allan, 1977), 147

8 Ibid. This figure of 173 dead was confirmed by the inquiry report.

9 Ministry of Home Security, Research and Experiments Department, Registered Papers; Air Raid Damage, Region No. 5, London, 3–4 March 1943, TNA HO 192/347, 1–2.

10 Jessica Lack, ‘The hush-hush catastrophe’, Guardian, 15 February 2003, C34; Godfrey Holmes, ‘Bethnal Green Tube disaster: 75 years on’, <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/bethnal-green-tube-disaster-75-years-anniversary-173-victims-second-world-war-nazi-bombing-memorial-a8217306.html>, 3 March 2018.

11 Jerome Taylor, ‘The Blitz tragedy that Churchill erased from history’, Independent, 19 February 2009, 15.

12 Rick Fountain, Mr Morrison’s Conjuring Trick (Bromley: RTFMedia, 2012), 2, 8, 86, 110.

13 Charles Whiting, Britain Under Fire: The Bombing of Britain’s Cities, 1940–45 (Barnsley: Leo Cooper, 1999), 147.

14 Winston G. Ramsey, The Blitz: Then and Now, Vol. 3 (London: Battle of Britain Prints, 1990), 222.

15 Toby Butler (ed), The 1943 Bethnal Green Tube Shelter Disaster: An Oral History (London: University of East London, 2015), 4–11.

16 Lucy Noakes, Dying for the Nation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020), 200.

17 ‘London Shelter Disaster’, The Times, 5 March 1943, 4.

18 ‘A Terrible Tragedy’, Daily Telegraph, 5 March 1943, 1. Areas reporting the accident included Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Yorkshire, Ministry of Home Security, Civil Defence Regions, Headquarters and Regional Files; Region No. 5 (London): Bethnal Green: Tube Shelter Disaster, Newspaper Cuttings, TNA HO 207/518.

19 Ministry of Home Security, Research and Experiments Department, Registered Papers, Air Raid Damage, Region No. 5, Bethnal Green, Panic in Public Shelter, 5 March 1943, TNA HO 192/348, 2–4.

20 Ministry of Home Security, Panic in Public Shelter, TNA HO 192/348, 1.

21 ‘Raid Shelter Disaster’, The Times, 6 March 1943, 5;‘Safety Check on Shelters Begins’, Daily Express, 6 March 1943, 1.

22 ‘Safety Check on Shelters Begins’, Daily Express, 6 March 1943, 1.

23 ‘Big Shelters Overhaul’, Daily Herald, 8 March 1943, 3.

24 F.G. Pringle-White, ‘Shelter: They Did Not Listen’, Daily Mail, 8 March 1943, 3.

25 ‘Mr. Morrison at Scene of Shelter Accident’, The Times, 8 March 1943, 2.

26 Ministry of Home Security, Ministry of Home Security to all Technical Coordinating Officers, 12 March 1943, TNA HO 192/348, 1.

27 Ministry of Home Security, Ministry of Home Security to Technical Coordinating Officers, TNA HO 192/348, 3.

28 ‘Tube Disaster Inquest’, The Times, 20 March 1943, 2.

29 ‘News in Brief’, The Times, 23 March 1943, 2.

30 Fountain, 36.

31 Richard Overy, The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945 (London: Allen Lane, 2013), 49.

32 Dietmar Süss, Death from the Skies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 48.

33 Juliet Gardiner, The Blitz: The British Under Attack (London: HarperPress, 2010), 178–9.

34 Fountain, 38.

35 Metropolitan Police: Office of the Commissioner, Correspondence and Papers, Special Series, Bethnal Green Tube Station Shelter Accident Report, Evidence of Eliza Jones, Globe Road, Bethnal Green, TNA MEPO 3/1942.

36 Metropolitan Police: Bethnal Green Tube Station Shelter Accident Report, Evidence of Watson Strother, Borough Engineer, Bethnal Green Council, TNA MEPO 3/1942.

37 Metropolitan Police: Bethnal Green Tube Station Shelter Accident Report, Evidence of William Joule Kerr, Civil Defence Regional Technical Adviser, TNA MEPO 3/1942.

38 Metropolitan Police: Bethnal Green Tube Station Shelter Accident Report, Evidence of Percy Bridger, Bethnal Green Council, TNA MEPO 3/1942.

39 Metropolitan Police: Report on an Inquiry into the Accident at Bethnal Green Tube Station Shelter, Ministry of Home Security (subsequently Dunne Report), TNA MEPO 3/1942, 6, 9 and 11.

40 Metropolitan Police: Dunne Report, TNA MEPO 3/1942, 12.

41 War Cabinet and Cabinet: Memoranda, Paper No. WP (43) 137, Tube Shelter Inquiry: Report by Mr. Dunne, TNA CAB 66/35/37, 1–2.

42 War Cabinet and Cabinet: Memoranda, Paper No. WM (43) 48, War Cabinet, Conclusions, 5 April 1943, TNA CAB 65/34/2, 191.

43 ‘Shelter Inquiry’, The Times, 9 April 1943, 4.

44 Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 388, 8 April 1943, 786.

45 Butler, The 1943 Bethnal Green Tube Shelter Disaster, 10.

46 Ministry of Home Security: ‘O’ Division, Correspondence and Papers, Bethnal Green Underground Station Shelter Accident, Secretary of State Reports on Inquiry by Mr Lawrence Dunne, Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green to Minister of Home Security, 10 April 1943, TNA HO 205/28, 1–2.

47 ‘Law Report, July 18’, The Times, 19 July 1944, 8.

48 Fountain, 95–6.

49 Metropolitan Police: Dunne Report, TNA MEPO 3/1942, 14.

50 Ministry of Home Security: Civil Defence Regions, Headquarters and Regional Files, Region No. 5 (London): Bethnal Green, Tube Shelter, Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green to London Civil Defence Headquarters, 18 and 20 August 1941, TNA HO 207/997.

51 Ministry of Home Security, Bethnal Green. Tube Station Shelter, 15 September 1941, TNA HO 207/997.

52 Ministry of Home Security, London Passenger Transport Board to London Civil Defence Headquarters, 23 August 1941, TNA HO 207/997.

53 Metropolitan Police: Dunne Report, TNA MEPO 3/1942, 15–16.

54 Ministry of Home Security, Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green to London Civil Defence Headquarters, 30 September 1941, TNA HO 207/997.

55 Fountain, 96; Metropolitan Police, Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green to London Civil Defence Headquarters, 11 September 1941, TNA MEPO 3/1942.

56 Metropolitan Police: Dunne Report, Appendix E, TNA MEPO 3/1942.

57 Ministry of Home Security: Civil Defence Regions, Headquarters and Regional Files, Region No. 5 (London): Bethnal Green, Emergency Entrance to Tube Shelter After the Disaster in March 1943, Specification of Works to be Carried Out, 12 March 1943, TNA HO 207/519.

58 Terence H. O’Brien, Civil Defence (London: HMSO, 1955), 545.

59 Georgia Diebelius, ‘Woman feared she would “die” from being crushed in “stampede” following Parsons Green bomb’, <https://metro.co.uk/2017/09/15/passengers-describe-being-crushed-in-stampede-after-parsons-green-explosion-6930253/>, 15 September 2017.

60 F. Hamilton, ‘Social media blamed for Oxford Street gun panic’, The Times, 25 November 2017, 5.

61 Duncan Walker (ed.), ‘Is it right to say people caught in a terror scare “panic”?’ <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42138437>, 28 November 2017. This article, written by Professor Stephen Reicher and Professor John Drury, was commissioned by the BBC

62 Yacov Y. Haimes, Risk Modeling, Assessment and Management (New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1998), 19.

63 Fountain, 21–2, 141.

64 ‘Shelter Inquiry Report’, The Times, 20 January 1945, 2.

65 Fountain, 139.

66 Prime Minister’s Office: Official Correspondence and Papers, AIR: Air Raid Shelters and Rest Centres, M977/1, Lord President of the Privy Council from the Prime Minister, 17 October 1941, TNA PREM 3/27, 1.

67 Prime Minister’s Office: Official Correspondence and Papers, AIR: German Raids, Repair etc., Houses Repaired by Local Authorities, Minister of Production to the Prime Minister, 19 January 1943, TNA PREM 3/18/1.

68 Ministry of Home Security: ‘O’ Division, Correspondence and Papers, Safety Measures at the Entrances to Tube Shelters; London Passenger Transport Board to Ministry of Home Security, 8 February 1944; TNA HO 205/201.