Churchill's Bunker - Hardcover

Professor Richard Holmes was one of Britain's most distinguished historians. He was Professor of Military and Security Studies at Cranfield University and the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, and he presented seven BBC TV series, including War Walks, The Western Front, Wellington and In the Footsteps of Churchill. He was general editor of the Oxford Companion to Military History, and the author of over twenty books. His trilogy on the British soldier across history, Redcoat, Sahib and Tommy, also attracted wide acclaim and several of his books featured in the UK's non-fiction bestseller list. He was President of the British Commission for Military History. He died on 30th April 2011.

A superb book ... Holmes vividly recaptures what it was like to work in Churchill's bunker, the fabulous highs and dispiriting lows ... Holmes has written a book that serves both as a guide to the fascinating Cabinet War Rooms and also as a fitting memorial to the men and women who worked so hard down there over six gruelling years of war. -- Andrew Roberts * Observer * Scholarly but accessible ... [Holmes] keeps things lively and colourful ... with his personal portraiture of Churchill the man, whose penchant for Pol Roger Champagne late-night ramblings and bedside briefings are all there. -- Daniel Bentley * Press Association * A worthy and evocative addition to the ever-growing mountain of Churchilliana. -- Vernon Bogdanor * Financial Times * Intriguing -- Christopher Silvester * Daily Express * Richard Holmes's Churchill's Bunker is a bright and fascinating new book devoted to where and how Churchill often lived and ruled during the first years of the war. Bright, because it illuminates, literally, the underground warren of sunless rooms where Churchill's staff functioned below blackened London streets. Fascinating, because both the origins and the conditions of this subterranean headquarters, as well as Churchill's presence in and absence from it, were not at all simple. -- John Lukacs, author of Five Days in London Loads of people will love this book ... it is imbued with Richard Holmes's passion for the period. -- Margaret Forster A fascinating and invaluable insight into the secret catacombs under Whitehall where Winston Churchill planned British war strategy, spoke to President Roosevelt through scrambler telephone, and broadcast his inspirational messages of defiance to Nazism. -- Andrew Roberts, author of Masters and Commanders With this vivid and compelling combination of grand strategy and human detail Richard Holmes brings to life a very British and surprisingly effective war-time government, and the improvised bunker in which it operated. -- Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman