| Elephant and Castle London Underground Station Shelter. People sleeping on the crowded platform of Elephant and Castle tube station while taking shelter from German air raids during the London Blitz. Photo by Bill Brandt (May 2, 1904 – December 20, 1983). Brandt wrote, “In 1939, at the beginning of the war, I was back in London photographing the blackout. The darkened town, lit only by moonlight, looked more beautiful than before or since.” Bill Brandt met Tom Hopkinson (April 19, 1905 – June 20, 1990), then assistant editor of Weekly Illustrated, in 1936. Hopkinson, later knighted for services to journalism, became Brandt’s editor at Lilliput and Picture Post. He described Brandt in a profile published in Lilliput in 1942 as having “a voice as loud as a moth and the gentlest manner to be found outside a nunnery.” Brandt would propose picture stories for both magazines and often sequence his photo-essays, sometimes also contributing text. The blackout photographs, probably Brandt’s own idea, were made during the “Phoney War” period, after war had been declared but before serious hostilities between Britain and Germany had begun, plus a 2nd set in 1942. After the London Blitz began, Brandt was commissioned to record bomb shelters by the Ministry of Information. His photographs were sent to Washington as part of the British government’s attempt to bring the US into the war on the allied side. Editor Cyril Connolly (September 10, 1903 – November 26, 1974) published Brandt’s shelter photographs in Horizon in February 1942. In 1966 Connolly wrote that ‘“Elephant and Castle 0345 Hours” eternalizes, for me, the dreamlike monotony of wartime London.” Brandt himself recalled “the long alley of intermingled bodies, with the hot, smelly air and continual murmur of snores.” | |
| Image Filename | wwii2129.jpg |
| Image Size | 302.78 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 1267 x 1700 |
| Photographer | Bill Brandt |
| Photographer Title | Weekly Illustrated |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | November 11, 1940 |
| Location | |
| City | London |
| State or Province | London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Archive | Imperial War Museum |
| Record Number | D 1568 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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