Shortly after becoming Prime Minister in May 1940, Winston Churchill visited the Cabinet War Rooms to see for himself what preparations had been made to allow him and his War Cabinet to continue working throughout the expected air raids on London.

It was there, in the underground Cabinet Room which had been prepared for him, that he announced 'This is the room from which I will direct the war'.

The cabinet room was the inner sanctum of British Government, the room used for meetings of the Prime Minister, a select few ministers and advisers of his War Cabinet and his Chiefs of Staff.

The Map Room came into use on the very first day that the Cabinet War Rooms were ready for occupation and never ceased to be the hub of the whole site until VJ Day.
 
Quietly closed down the next day, 16 August 1945, it was left almost exactly as we see it today, every book, map, chart, pin and notice occupying the same position now that they occupied then.

Preparations for the invasion were impossible to conceal and the major priority for the planners was to convince the Germans that the landings would not centre on Normandy

Just prior to D-Day the Enigma messages monitored, confirmed that the German High Command had followed false information that the Allies had stationed an army in Kent and were about to invade the Pas-de-Calais area, thereby forcing the enemy to keep Panzer divisions away from Normandy.

The Allied campaign to focus German anti-invasion preparations on the Pas-de-Calais area was conducted on a number of levels (Operation Bodyguard). The most elaborate was the creation of two ‘phantom’ armies that appeared poised to attack either Pas-de-Calais or Norway. 

While the Germans showed little sign of believing the Norway ruse, the entire military high command and Hitler believed that the allies were poised to strike across the Channel even after the D-Day landings had taken place in Normandy.

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