I have visited this incredible Museum before but never took the opportunity to Photograph It. It amazes me how it lies underneath a building within the very heart of the city but yet remained top secret for years. To think that from here the entire Atlantic U-Boat War was countered. "Walk through hidden rooms and discover the stories locked in the wartime bunker that protected the tactics and secrets of the British Armed Forces plotting to bulwark the Western Approaches and aid the Allied victory. Glimpse the documents and tools the forces used to monitor enemy convoys and inform the British government of their findings whilst keeping their intelligence secret from the enemy, including one of only two surviving wartime phones which had a direct connection to the war cabinet in London. See where commanders and WRNS and WAAF personnel worked every day and night in the Map Room, the nerve centre of the Battle of the Atlantic. Here they monitored convoy routes and vital shipping lines, and pin-pointed enemy locations on a huge map laid across the table; total accuracy was necessary to enable the Royal Navy to contact and destroy the enemy. The Map Room has remained exactly how as it was left when the doors were closed on 15 August 1945." Well worth a visit for just the £6.00 entry fee!.
I haven't been to WA for a few years since I stopped doing a regular 'Battle of the Atlantic' trip to Liverpool when the GCSE syllabus changed. I'm always amazed that it's still open-they never seem to do any maintenance or upgrading of the presentation, which is perhaps part of its charm.
I was there a couple of years ago and it's well worth a visit. Also nearby is the blitz memorial in the grounds of Our Lady and St. Nicholas Church and some plaques dedicated to the sailors of the Arctic convoys. Then right across the street is the Pier Head with many WW2 memorials to sailors from numerous countries. You'll also find the Johnny Walker statue overlooking the Mersey and the Titanic memorial a bit further down the waterfront, all within easy walking distance of Western Approaches. Across the other side of the river is the U-534 exhibit at Woodside Ferry Terminal, with some great views of the city during the ferry ride.
Yes, I used to cover all of that in my Battle of the Atlantic study day for GCSE students, together with the Battle of the Atlantic gallery at the Merseyside Maritime Museum. When I started it, U-534 was housed at the excellent and much-missed Birkenhead Historic Warships Museum.
Those giant maps, some of them a horizontal surface, were SO Cool.! I was always fascinated, as a kid, when i saw them in a movie. Those maps made, whatever was going on, seem VERY Important.! Also.....Western Approach(es)..... always seemed like a GREAT Name for a band, to me.