Anderson Shelter

[davegreenly]

The Anderson Shelter in the latest on-line magazine loooks good, but is about as useful as a chocolate fireguard!

 

Although correctly 50% buried into the ground, it should then have been covered with a thick layer of earth to provide

 

protection. As modelled the corrugated iron sheets are less than useless. Sorry about this but I spent many hours in one

 

of these during the Merseyside blitz!

[Matloughe]

I quite like the Anderson shelter in the Modelling Inspiration; I would like to see your version of one.

 

Regardless of if it is covered with dirt or not a direct hit on a shelter wouldn't save you either - from what my limited history studies at school tell me the dirt and corrugated Iron are simply to protect the occupants from flying debris & schrapnel. It could be a case the shelter has been uncovered - I can't remember if the scene modelled is post war. But regardless its fantastic IMHO.

 

Cheers,

~ Gary

[LNERGE]

A friend bought an Anderson shelter a couple of years ago. We went to Dagenham to collect it. The chap selling it pointed out several more in nearby gardens still in use as sheds etc and thus could feature in a modern image layout. None were buried however but i have seen a wartime cartoon with vegetables growing on top...

[BernardTPM]

I've seen a part excavated Anderson shelter in a garden (during the 1960s, possibly into the early '70s, when I was a child) as there was one at my Grans in Woodford. The earth, layed on thick enough, was there to stop the shrapnal and stuff, but post-war that wasn't a consideration. I would guess either they were less damp unburied or perhaps it was so they could be tarred/painted to make them last longer.

[petethemole]

Some were dug out of their holes after the war and re-used as sheds. Also, after 1945 the surplus kits of parts were sold off, mainly as sheds. They often appeared with the front and back bricked up, with a door of course, and were not unusual in back gardens and allotments in the '50s and 60s.

Pete

[Guest oldlugger]

http://miliblog.co.uk/?category_name=staffordshire-regiment-museum-april-09

[davegreenly]

http://miliblog.co.u...museum-april-09

Thanks for your note regarding the Anderson Shelters at the museum at Lichfield. I really must get down there, especially as

I served with the South Staffords in the early '50s! I recall they were very damp - I imagine most of them were below the water-table!

I remember my Dad scrounging timber from bomb-damaged houses to build duck-boards for the floor of ours, plus a set of bunks.

[PhilJ W]

There is one preserved on the Dunton Plotlands Museum.

[dana]

here's info on other british bomb shelters during ww2 from wikipedia .

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-raid_shelter#Morrison_shelter

[Happy Hippo]

When I was digging trenches on Sennybridge/Salisbury plain etc it was stressed to us that when you built a sleeping bay off a trench, it should have a minimum of 18" of packed soil over the top which was claimed to give protection from a direct hit by a mortar bomb or from a very near miss by a larger artillery shell. In the case of the Anderson Shelter, the more overhead protection the better. My grandfather who had served in the trenches during WWI, not only dug his in, but also built a substantial blast wall protecting the entrance to the shelter as well. During the blitz, both their house and the gaworks behind were hit, but the stick managed to straddle the Anderson shelter!

 

However. I would suggest that the direct hit by a freefalling 500kg bomb delivered courtesy of the Luftwaffe, would ensure that not only was the shelter flattened, but that the whole garden would have been remodelled as well.

 

Regards

 

Richard

[Tim Hale]

The Anderson Shelter in the latest on-line magazine loooks good, but is about as useful as a chocolate fireguard!

 

Although correctly 50% buried into the ground, it should then have been covered with a thick layer of earth to provide

 

protection. As modelled the corrugated iron sheets are less than useless. Sorry about this but I spent many hours in one

 

of these during the Merseyside blitz!

 

I too, would like to see whether your efforts are any better. Coincidently, a quick Google of Anderson shelter images will reveal a wide approach to the use of the shelter whether covered or not. The example below appears to be covered by nothing more than the turf cut during the initial excavation.

 

 

 

[Fat Controller]

The one in our garden in the North-East was done to about these standards as well, only they chucked rocks around it, instead of soil. I suspect that, as in so many other cases, it was as much about making people feel they were doing something useful as anything else (the 'Salvage' drive was another instance of this).

To be honest, even the brick and concrete shelters wouldn't have had much of a chance against a direct hit- the one in our school yard had a foot-thick concrete slab on top of a thick brick wall. Even as a primary-school kid, I realised this was less substantial than the myriad pill boxes and gun emplacements around the coast.

[Chris g]

This has brought back some memories.

 

As a kid, well after the war, I remember one in our garden in North Wales, (although not too far away by Heinkel from Liverpool), was above ground and not covered in earth. I do remember a damp smell so it may have been slightly sunken into the ground with some kind of sump.

 

I assume it was up to each household or groups of households to set their shelter up.

 

There were two brickbuilt shelters with concrete tops less than half a mile away.

 

For the shelter to last as long as it did the materials / galvanising mut have been good.

 

I remember my mum saying they used it during the bombing of Liverpool, but that's about all I can remember.

 

Thanks for bringing this back to mind

 

Chris G