Keeping London moving in wartime

In both the First and Second World Wars, London was at the heart of two huge war efforts. The city needed a functioning transport network, yet this had to be achieved with fewer vehicles, an altered workforce and with bombs raining from the sky.

In both world wars, staff and passengers quickly became used to the realities of wartime. London Transport helped organise mass civilian evacuations during the Second World War and both world wars involved living with nightly blackout conditions. The London Underground continued to run while also providing shelter from air raids. Bus routes, stations and garages were regularly disrupted and damaged by bombing. While doing their jobs in the Second World War, 426 staff were killed and nearly 3,000 injured.

London’s transport shared wartime messaging and tried to boost morale through its posters, displayed throughout the city. Ultimately, it was the actions of its people, day to day, that kept the city moving.

As the Second World War became increasingly likely, the British government organised an evacuation scheme. Vulnerable civilians including children, expectant mothers, disabled and elderly people were moved away from city centres to avoid anticipated air raids.

In August and September 1939, around 1.25 million people left London. Most were moved by London Transport vehicles to mainline railway stations for onward travel to more rural locations. While some later returned, major periods of air raids during the Blitz in 1940-41 and by German V-weapons in 1944-45 led to renewed evacuation.

At night in both world wars a blackout was imposed in London to try to avoid giving German aircraft easy targets or means of navigation. Staff and passengers alike had to contend with the hazards of working and travelling in the darkness. Transport staff often used small lamps in vehicle interiors, with passengers encouraged to carry torches and to use white clothing or handkerchiefs to make themselves more visible to drivers in the gloom. Posters were often issued to reiterate this advice.

In both world wars, London’s transport staff had to work amid the dangers of air raids, as well as repair the damage. These pieces of cable and troughing were damaged during a bomber raid at Minories Junction, near Aldgate, on 13 June 1917. The raid was the most devastating in Britain during the First World War, with 162 people killed and 426 injured. Workmen attend to some of the resulting damage in this photo.

With air raids more extensive in the Second World War, working on and using the London transport network became yet more hazardous. But transport continued despite the casualties and bomb damage.

While working on London’s transport network in wartime, some members of staff paid the ultimate price. In a First World War Zeppelin airship raid on 8 September 1915, two London buses were hit, with one of the destroyed vehicles shown in this photo postcard. Charles Tarrant and Charles Rogers, a driver and conductor on one of the buses, were both killed.

During the Second World War, Elmers End bus garage suffered a direct hit from a V1 flying bomb on 18 July 1944. The blast killed 10 staff. The damage is shown in this photo, with 39 vehicles destroyed. Yet service resumed the following day.

Wartime stretched both people and resources to the limit. With many of London’s transport staff away with the armed forces, others – including thousands of women – took their place. Those staff also often had to take on additional roles. In the Second World War some men in London Transport’s reserved occupations, or those too young or old for the regular forces, served in the Home Guard, an armed citizen militia set up in 1940.

With materials in short supply, people had to preserve resources. This applied to London’s transport network and its staff, as well as wider society. For example, fewer and smaller London Transport posters were produced in the Second World War due to paper rationing. This ‘Less paper more food’ staff notice was itself printed on the back of an old map.

In the First World War, the Underground’s posters were used to encourage recruitment to the armed forces and relay information on the war’s progress. But there were also posters that continued to promote the network, including this bizarre Warbis brothers design from 1915, which urged commuters to almost forget the war and go on a rural jaunt.

By the Second World War, the focus was clearer. London Transport posters seamlessly echoed government messaging, as well as emphasising practical advice and travel etiquette. James Fitton’s ‘Linking home and factory’ poster from 1943 emphasised London Transport’s key role in keeping the workers supporting the war effort moving. Despite the many challenges of wartime, London’s transport services did keep the city running.

The stories and objects presented here can be seen in the ‘Keeping London Moving’ section within the London’s transport at war gallery at the Museum.