air raid shelters

• Air raid shelters


  Structures built to protect people from bombing during World War II
• Government supplied most people, especially those living in cities, with air raid shelters
• Anderson shelter


  • First shelter, 400,000 distributed
  • Designed to protect people against falling bricks if houses were bombed
• Building an Anderson shelter

  1. Dig a hole

  2. Put earth on top
• Concrete shelters with curved roofs


  • Used in areas where Anderson shelters could not be used
• Anderson shelters


  • Unpopular as people would have to go outside
• Morrison shelters (1941)


  • More popular as they were steel cages that would fit under a dining table (2 adults and 2 small children)
• Many people had no shelters (those living in flats/city centre)
• What people without shelters did

  • Lived with friends
  • Moved to ground floor
  • Built safe rooms in basements
• Use of underground stations as shelters

  1. When bombing became serious (1940) people forced their way in

  2. Government tried to stop but then gave in

  3. Bethnal Green = first station opened

  4. Children queued to claim a patch for their family

  5. Latecomers slept in passageways or stairs

  6. After 10:30pm electricity to lines were switched off and adults slept on the lines
• Became a social event and unified Londoners
• Voluntary services provided hot drinks
• 60% of Londoners however stayed in their own homes during the Blitz