Disaster on the London Underground

3rd March 1943: A crowd of people desperately seeking shelter in Bethnal Green Tube station are crushed when it appears that an air raid has begun

A scene from 1940, at the height of the Blitz in London, when people were desperate for the relative security of the Underground, despite many discomforts.

A poster advising the public from early in the war. By now few people needed any encouragement to find shelter when the sirens went off.

Although the worst days of the ‘Blitz’ had long since passed, the threat of intermittent bombing remained in Britain and regularly caused death and destruction across the south and east of Britain.

London remained a primary target and the threat of air raids was very real. People were still using the Underground railway stations as safe places to sleep every night.

The news that the RAF had bombed Berlin on the night of the 1st March had heightened the sense that there might be a retaliatory raid. In the East End of London, in Victoria Park, the anti-aircraft gunners were about to test a new system of anti-aircraft rockets.