Editing Bethnal Green tube station (section)

===Wartime disaster===
<!-- This section is linked from [[Anti-aircraft warfare]] -->
The unfinished station at Bethnal Green was requisitioned in 1940 at the onset of the first Blitz and administration was assigned to the local authority, the [[Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green]], under the supervision of the "Regional Commissioners", the generic name for the London [[Civil Defence Service]]. Heavy air raids began in October and thousands of people took shelter there, often remaining overnight. Use of the shelter dwindled in 1941 as the air forces of [[Nazi Germany|Germany]] and [[Kingdom of Italy|Italy]] were redirected away from the United Kingdom and against the [[Soviet Union]]. A relative lull occurred although the number of shelterers rose again when retaliatory bombing in response to [[Royal Air Force]] raids was expected.

On 3 March 1943, the British media reported a heavy RAF [[Bombing of Berlin in World War II#1940 to 1943|raid on Berlin on the night of 1–2 March]]. With retaliatory bombing expected, the [[airstrike|air-raid]] [[Civil defence siren|Civil Defence siren]] sounded at 8:17&nbsp;p.m., beginning a large and orderly flow of people down the blacked-out staircase from the street. A middle-aged woman and a child fell over, three steps up from the base, and others fell around her, tangled in an immovable mass which grew, as they struggled, to nearly 300 people. Some got free but 173, most of them women and children, were crushed and [[crush syndrome|asphyxiated]] and about 60 others were taken to hospital. An [[Air Raid Warden]]'s report, written at 5:30 a.m. on 4 March, described the event as "Panic ... apparently caused by a person falling & bringing would-be shelterers to the ground. Death by asphyxiation in the subsequent stampede was the main cause of the fatalities".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Robinson |first1=A. J. |last2=Chesshyre |first2=D. H. B. |author2-link=Hubert Chesshyre |year=1986 |title=The Green: A History of the Heart of Bethnal Green and the Legend of the Blind Beggar |edition=2nd |location=London |publisher=London Borough of Tower Hamlets |page=4 |isbn=0-902385-13-5}}</ref>

News of the disaster was withheld for 36 hours and reporting of what had happened was censored, giving rise to allegations of a cover-up, although it was in line with existing wartime reporting restrictions. Among the reports which never ran was one filed by Eric Linden of the ''[[Daily Mail]]'', who witnessed the disaster. Information that was provided was sparse.<ref>{{cite news |title=Bethnal Green Tube Disaster |url=http://www.skibbereeneagle.ie/london-wunderground/bethnal-green-tube-disaster |newspaper=Skibbereen Eagle |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190620130925/http://www.skibbereeneagle.ie/london-wunderground/bethnal-green-tube-disaster/ |archive-date=20 June 2019 |url-status=dead |access-date=22 June 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Bethnal Green's Ordeal |url=http://alondoninheritance.com/thebombedcity/bethnal-greens-ordeal-and-the-underground-shelter-disaster |work=A London Inheritance |date=6 May 2018 |access-date=22 June 2019}}</ref>

[[File:Bethnal Green Tube.jpg|thumb|View from southwestern entrance towards St John's]]

Fuller details were eventually released on 20 January 1945, the cause having been "kept a secret for 22 months because the government felt the information might have resulted in the Germans continuing air raids with the intention of causing similar panics".<ref>{{cite news |agency=Associated Press |title=Disaster Said Caused By Panic in Shelter |newspaper=San Bernardino Daily Sun |location=San Bernardino, California |date=21 January 1945 |volume=51 |page=4 }}</ref> When the Prime Minister, [[Winston Churchill]], saw the report on 6 April saying that the cause was public panic during an air raid, he determined that it should be suppressed until the end of hostilities as it would be an "invitation to repeat" to the enemy and also as it contradicted earlier official comments that there was no panic.  [[Home Secretary]] of the day [[Herbert Morrison]] disagreed, and [[Clement Attlee]], [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|MP]] for the nearby [[Limehouse (UK Parliament constituency)|Limehouse constituency]], wanted to prevent rumours that the panic was due to "Jews and/or Fascists".<ref>{{cite book |last=Roberts |first=Andrew |year=2009 |orig-year=2008 |title=Masters and Commanders: The Military Geniuses Who Led the West to Victory in World War II |publisher=Penguin |pages=353, 354 |isbn=978-0-141-02926-9}}</ref>

The results of the official investigation were not released until 1946.<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/homeground/archive/2003/bethnal-green-tube-disaster.shtml ''Bethnal Green – disaster at the tube'', Wednesday 24 September 2003, 19.30 BBC Two] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071213173030/http://www.bbc.co.uk/homeground/archive/2003/bethnal-green-tube-disaster.shtml |date=13 December 2007 }}</ref>{{sfn|Dettman|2010|p=}} At the end of the war, the Minister of Home Security, Herbert Morrison, quoted from a secret report to the effect that there had been a panic, caused by the discharge of Z Battery anti-aircraft rockets fired from nearby [[Victoria Park, Tower Hamlets|Victoria Park]]. During the war, other authorities had disagreed, the Shoreditch Coroner, Mr W. R. H. Heddy, said that there was "nothing to suggest any stampede or panic or anything of the kind".<ref>Nat. Archives MEPO 2/1942</ref> [[John Edward Singleton|Mr Justice Singleton]], summarising his decision in ''Baker v Bethnal Green Corporation'', an action for damages by a bereaved widow, said "there was nothing in the way of rushing or surging" on the staircase.<ref>''The Times'', 19 July 1944.</ref> The [[Master of the Rolls]], [[Wilfred Greene, 1st Baron Greene|Lord Greene]], reviewing the lower court's judgment, said "it was perfectly well known ... that there had been no panic".<ref>''The Times'', 9 December 1944.</ref> Lord Greene also rebuked the Ministry for requiring the hearing to be held in secret. The Baker lawsuit was followed by other claims, resulting in damages of nearly £60,000, the last of which was made in the early 1950s. The secret official report, by a Metropolitan magistrate, [[Laurence Rivers Dunne]], acknowledged that Bethnal Green Council had warned London Civil Defence, in 1941 that the staircase needed a [[crush barrier]] to slow down the crowds but was told that would be a waste of money.<ref>Nat.Archives PREM 4/40/15.</ref>

The crush at Bethnal Green is thought to have been the largest single loss of civilian life in the United Kingdom during the Second World War and the largest loss of life in an incident on the London Underground network. The largest number killed by a wartime bomb was 107 at Wilkinson's Lemonade Factory in [[North Shields]] (1941), though there were many more British civilians killed in single bombing raids.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://northshields173.org |title=Wilkinson's air raid shelter disaster explored |work=northshields173.org |access-date=23 August 2018}}</ref><ref name="bbc_21645163">{{cite news |title=Bethnal Green Tube disaster marked 70 years on |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-21645163 | publisher=[[BBC News]] | date=3 March 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130306014728/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-21645163 | archive-date=6 March 2013 | url-status=live}}</ref>