All language subtitles for Museum.Secrets.S02E04.Inside.the.Imperial.War.Museum.London.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-TEPES

- [Narrator] London, a city
of tradition and innovation.

And at its heart, a war museum

with secrets dark and strange.

A tortured spy.

A gun silenced by science.

A nuclear nightmare.

And the near-death experience
of Winston Churchill.

Secrets hidden in plain sight

inside the Imperial War Museum.

(dramatic instrumental music)

Down a garden path
guarded by naval artillery

is London's Imperial War Museum.

Dedicated to the history of Britain at war

from World War I to the present.

Since the museum was founded in 1917

its collection has grown to
more than half a million objects

exhibited in five
locations across England.

Here in the shadow of
the parliament buildings

there is a branch of the museum

that is completely below street level.

Why would anyone build
a museum underground?

In 1940 Adolf Hitler threatened
England with invasion.

British forces were vastly outnumbered.

Britain's best asset
was her prime minister,

Winston Churchill.

He was a brilliant strategist
and morale booster,

and Hitler knew it.

Hitler targeted Churchill
for assassination,

and when his warplanes
pounded London in the Blitz

Number 10 Downing Street
became an unsafe place

for Churchill to live.

(munitions whistling and booming)

And that brings us back here.

The museum called the Churchill War Rooms

was originally an underground bunker.

During World War two its
location was top secret.

- I think the thing that really
hits you when you're here

is that this was such a secret location

right in the heart of London,

where there's crowds of
people passing nearby

within a stone's throw quite literally

of the core of government in war,

and they wouldn't have known it existed.

They wouldn't have
known anything about it.

- [Narrator] At the foot of
these stairs we'll discover

how the British people ensured the safety

of their irreplaceable leader.

It's a secret that's stranger
than you might think.

Here we enter a wartime
nerve center, frozen in time.

These strategic maps are
the ones Churchill used.

This phone is the one he used to speak

to Air Defense Command.

And this was a favorite
brand of Cuban cigar.

Around this table as
bombs rained down above

Churchill met with his Chiefs of Staff.

- Invasion could happen any day.

He's faced with his Chiefs
of Staff, bang opposite him,

who to him never seemed to be doing things

quite as he wanted them to be done.

They never seemed to be
doing them fast enough.

And this is Churchill's chair.

You can see on it where

Churchill basically banged it constantly

with his signet ring on his right hand.

And then this side incredibly scratched it

with his fingernails to
the point it really made

an indentation in the woodwork.

Can hear and feel the
bombs dropping outside.

It would be an intense time,

and you know that you're
absolutely up against it,

you're with your backs to the walls.

- [Narrator] After late-night meetings,

Winston's staff urged him
to sleep in this room.

But he hated hiding from Hitler in a hole.

He complained that the
bunker had a bad smell

and he chafed at his staff's insistence

that his bodyguard sleep down here too.

- Churchill was a man who was
a very reluctant subterranean

if you like, and it was only really

the extreme of the bombing
raids that drove him down here.

(air raid sirens blaring)

- [Narrator] As the nightly
bombing raids got ever bigger

Churchill's staff worried the
bunker wouldn't protect him.

Engineers designed reinforcements

hidden in the existing structure
of the building overhead.

- Here you can see where they
put the slab in for his area

to make sure he was protected at least.

Has anybody ever estimated
how much concrete is in there

in tonnage terms.

- [Hugh] A lot.

- [Narrator] But no bunker
can protect a leader

who won't stay inside.

(explosion blasting)

Often after heavy raids Churchill wanted

a street level view of the devastation.

And he wanted to be with his
people in their darkest hours.

In photographs like these
you will often see this man

lurking in the shadows.

This is Churchill's 24/7 bodyguard,

Inspector Walter Thompson.

He had a tough assignment,

and not just because of Nazi assassins.

- The trouble with Churchill
was he probably had

very little concept of personal danger,

he was a huge risk-taker.

Now you can imagine trying
to protect someone like that.

It's almost like having a dog

that constantly runs off the leash.

- [Narrator] When Inspector
Thompson was sleeping

Churchill would sometimes
slip out of the bunker alone

for some fresh air in St. James's Park.

This kind of risky behavior
gave his bodyguard nightmares.

As German bombs got bigger,

Churchill's engineers had nightmares too.

(planes wailing)
(bombs whistling)

- [Phil] Do you think it would
have withstood a direct hit

for a 500-pounder?

- Generally, anything
bigger than a 500-pound bomb

was going to devastate.

The shock transmitted
through to anybody inside

would have been fatal.

(bombs whistling)

- [Narrator] Cause of death
would have been asphyxiation

as the shockwave sucked
out all the oxygen.

During the worst air raids
Churchill had the option

to descend to a deeper, safer level.

To take refuge behind airtight doors.

- Can tell we're in the sub-basement

'cause there's not much room.

- Absolutely, yeah, the mind your head

is everywhere down here isn't it?

- It's a steel frame.

Steel door with a rubber
seal around the edge.

The steel sheet is roughly 10-mil thick.

That's gonna stop quite a lot.

- Yeah.

- [Narrator] But instead
of descending here

Churchill often went the other way.

In an air raid there is no
place less safe than the roof,

but that is where Churchill wanted to go.

- This is where Churchill used to come

to get his overview of what
was going on in London.

He could see the whole
of the city from here.

The good Inspector
Thompson would have made

every effort he could to
stop Churchill coming up here

and being in such danger,
in such harm's way,

but he couldn't stop him,
and he was Prime Minister,

and he was Churchill.

You know, he did things
I change the locks.

He tried to get Mrs.
Churchill to persuade him,

to stop him and everything, and
nobody could stop Churchill,

nothing could.

From up here you can have the impression

that the whole city was on
fire and see the flames.

You could smell the smoke.

The planes probably would have attacked

from that vantage point over
there because they'd be coming

basically straight at him.

And they'd be bombing strategic points

like the power station over there.

And he'd see all that from up here.

This is where he really got a sense

of what it was about in a way.

This is where he'd quietly
contemplate it all,

puffing on a cigar, sipping on a whiskey,

and wondering how long it would be

before it was all over probably.

- [Narrator] On May 10th,
1941 the last Nazi bomb

fell on London.

The Blitz was over.

And soon Britain and her allies
would go on the offensive.

In the struggle that followed,

Churchill's bold strategies
often helped win the day.

He prevailed because
he took risks in battle

just as he did in his own life.

And as for the secret
of ensuring the safety

of an irreplaceable leader,
perhaps it simply can't be done.

Because those who play
it safe don't win wars.

Next on Museum Secrets,

what it takes to stay cool at
Mach 1 over enemy territory.

An hour's drive north of London

near the sleepy village of Duxford

is the largest branch of
the Imperial War Museum

Within a complex of many buildings

is the world's most
beautiful airplane hangar.

Inside history hangs suspended in the air.

From this World War I SPAD fighter

to this Tornado jet,

these planes are here
because they went to war

and came back in one piece

along with the pilots who flew them.

What does it take to fly
into battle and survive?

That's a museum secret.

- Ah Shifty, it's a long time
since we've seen one of these.

- Oh, I know.

- [Les] It really brings back
memories doesn't it I suppose.

- [Narrator] Les Hendry
and Simon "Shifty" Young

know Tornado jets better than anyone.

- I haven't been up close to a Tornado

for best part of 10 to 12 years,

and instantly I know exactly
what to check, where to look.

- It's exactly the same.
- It's just exactly the same.

- [Narrator] Today they don't
look much like warriors,

but in January, 1991,
Les was a senior engineer

and Shifty a top gun pilot

with orders to travel to Saudi Arabia

and prepare for battle.

Several months before, Iraqi
dictator Saddam Hussein

had invaded Kuwait,

laying claim to the
country's rich oil fields.

A United Nations coalition
prepared to counterattack.

US and British forces
assembled on land and sea

determined to drive Saddam out of Kuwait.

The Tornado squadron was tasked
with a dangerous mission:

destroy Iraq's largest airfield

to prevent Saddam's fighters
from taking to the air.

They'd be going in
while Iraqi air defenses

were still intact.

- We were going into the unknown,

and there was a tension there
but nobody talked about it.

- [Narrator] The weapon chosen
for the attack was the JP233,

a heavy cluster bomb specifically designed

to destroy runways.

- These things were very
smart, they would blast a hole

through very thick runway concrete

and then create an explosion
underneath the concrete

to heave it upwards.

Very difficult to repair
when concrete heaves upwards.

- [Narrator] Delivering
these bombs would require

a sturdy jet that could fly fast and low

over the enemy airfield.

Based on its proven abilities,

strategists decided the Tornado

was the best plane for the job.

It could fly 650 miles an hour

as low as 150 feet above the ground.

(jet engines roaring)

In the early hours of January 17th, 1991

eight Tornadoes from Les
and Shifty's squadron

idled on a desert
tarmac, ready for battle.

- Leading up to the take-off was very much

just like a normal training
night, but with an edge.

And that edge was, you know,
that we were going to do

a combat for real.

(jet engines roaring)

- [Narrator] Shifty's Tornado
squadron was a small part

of a much larger armada.

- It's an image that will stay with me

for as long as I live.

There were just thousands
of aircraft in the sky

at the same time, all orchestrated

like a huge great big ballet.

- [Narrator] As the Tornado
squadron reached Iraqi airspace

they dropped below radar range.

- Now I'd be a liar to
say there wouldn't be

an element of fear, but you're just doing

what you've been trained to do,

fly low, fly on time, fly accurately.

And now, I have to be honest here,

now the tension really is in
the cockpit and I can feel it,

my navigator could feel it.

And then we delivered the weapons.

(munitions blasting)

It was almost like having a huge spotlight

suddenly lit up underneath the aircraft.

I'm only at about 160, 180 feet.

I can see the ground very
clearly, I can see the runway has,

I can even see people very very clearly.

(bombs rumbling)

The next thing I remember is the noise

and the vibration on the aircraft.

And it just suddenly pitches up,

and you suddenly find yourself

I'm not at 200 feet
above the runway anymore

I'm actually at 1500
feet over an airfield,

they have missiles they're
firing, I don't want to be here.

And bluntly it's about
survival, it's about making sure

you and your aircraft and your navigator

do the right thing, survive.

By the time we're flying back
at about five in the morning

the sun is beginning to
emerge on the horizon,

it was a nice sunrise.

- [Narrator] Saddam's
runways were destroyed.

The squadron had accomplished its mission.

- There's lots of
handshakes, pats on the back.

Shifty's a big hugger so
there was hugs going on

and it was just good to get
the eight of them back safely.

- [Narrator] So what does
it take to fly into battle

and survive?

- Yeah, fear is there,

but when you're delivering the
weapons you have a job to do.

That concentrates the mind,
pushes those fear things out.

You can't simulate it,
you can't practice for it,

you can't even mentally prepare for it,

it just happens and you deal with it.

- [Narrator] And as for the sturdy Tornado

that brought them back alive,

these top guns are not afraid
to show a little appreciation.

Next on Museum Secrets,

how a beautiful spy
withstood Nazi torture.

- [Woman] Oh.

- [Narrator] The Imperial War Museum

is filled with heavy metal

and tales of men of steel.

And then there's this.

- Almost all visitors will
stop and look at these objects

because they're not the kind of things

you would immediately associate

with the Imperial War Museum.

- [Narrator] But as we'll see,

these dolls have every right to be here.

The reason why is a museum secret.

In the summer of 1941,

World War II was entering its third year.

France had been occupied by
Germany since June of 1940.

Allied forces were desperate to reclaim

the critical French coastline

and launch an invasion from the sea.

Between May and August of that year

more than 400 special British agents

were sent into occupied France.

Their mission was to encourage
and facilitate espionage,

sabotage, and reconnaissance
behind enemy lines.

To support these efforts,

the British Admiralty
asked the public to send in

any snapshots they might
have of the French coast.

A French housewife living in
London was sure she could help.

Odette Sansom sent in photos
from her childhood in France.

But she sent them to the
War Office by mistake.

When War Office intelligence
officers saw Odette's letter

they immediately realized
she would be perfect

for espionage in France.

She'd spent her childhood there.

She knew the language and the landscape.

When Odette was asked to become a spy

she decided to take on the mission.

- Her mother was still living in France,

her father had been killed in 1918,

towards the end of the First World War,

she'd been brought up in the expectation

that the Germans would come
again, and her time would come

when she would have to do
the right thing by France.

(suspenseful instrumental music)

- [Narrator] Agent Odette was
equipped with basic training,

a gun, and a cyanide pill.

She wasn't equipped to say goodbye.

- It was an incredibly
difficult decision for Odette

to leave her three young
daughters behind in the UK.

She put them in a boarding
school, she wrote lots of letters

which could be posted regular
intervals, she set it all up,

and then she went away.

- [Narrator] In November 1942,

Odette arrived in occupied France.

Operating under the codename Lise,

Odette's mission was the courier messages

to and from the French Resistance.

Six months into her
mission Odette was betrayed

by a double agent and
arrested by the Gestapo.

- When she's going to be
interrogated by the Gestapo

for the first time, she
goes into the office,

where most people would
be absolutely terrified,

and there's no doubt she was frightened.

She walks in tall,
holding her head up high.

It is not aggressive,
it's just very determined

that when she comes across
these agents of evil

she's gonna beat them.

The Gestapo wanted the names
of resistance fighters.

Odette refused to answer.

They bared her back and
applied a red-hot iron.

- When they were applying the heat,

what she said is they made a mistake

because they faced me with the window,

and so when the pain was coming
she looked out of the window

and focused on the leaves in the trees

and the movement and the greenery.

And what she did is she
projected out of her mind

a sense of the episodes in
life that kept her happy.

- [Narrator] The interrogators
pulled out her toenails

one by one.

- What she actually
said about that is that

she left Britain with a broken heart.

She'd left behind everybody she loved,

and from then on it was just
a case of physical pain,

and she could deal with that.

- [Narrator] As a member
of a forced labor detail,

Odette was ordered to mend Nazi uniforms.

But she refused.

Instead she began to sew something else.

- So she was effectively
rubbing the nose of the Germans

in the fact that she was doing
what she wanted on her terms

when she wanted to do it.

I think it's very possible
that her separation

from her own children
was part of the reason

why she wanted to make
something for children.

- [Narrator] Throughout her ordeal

Odette steadfastly refused to
reveal any names or secrets.

Fed up with her refusal to cooperate

the Nazis sent her to
Ravensbruck concentration camp.

Even here Odette endured.

Later when asked why she
didn't take her cyanide pill

Odette said she couldn't give up on living

as long as there was the smallest chance

of seeing her children again.

But on May 1st, 1945, when
a guard ordered Odette

out of her cell at gunpoint
she was sure her life was over.

What Odette didn't know

was that the Nazis were
on the verge of defeat.

The camp commandant was
hoping to trade Odette

for lenient treatment for himself.

But Odette exposed the
commandant to the Americans

and demanded his arrest.

In a final act of defiance

she ordered him to surrender his gun.

- Even at that point,
starving, bedraggled,

she is so superior that Fritz
Suhren picks up his pistol

and gives it to her.

There is this small little woman

who triumphs over this agent of evil.

- [Narrator] Free at last
Odette returned to England

to reunite with her children.

- How did it feel, you
were away from the children

for so long, Mrs. Sansom.

- Oh, heaven, this is almost
impossible to explain.

Only a mother would understand.

- [Narrator] Eventually her
dolls returned to England too,

displayed with pride by
the Imperial War Museum

in a room filled with Britain's
highest medals of valor.

This one's a George Cross.

Odette was the first woman to receive it.

- And she always was quite clear

that the George Cross which she received

was not really for her, it
was for all of the women

who went as agents undercover,
and she was simply the person

who lived to take the
recognition for all of them.

- [Narrator] Odette wasn't made of steel

but she had iron in her soul.

Next on Museum Secrets,

how a scientific soldier
silenced the kaiser's big guns.

The Imperial War Museum was not founded

during an era of peace

but in the midst of a tumultuous conflict.

The year was 1917,

the bloodiest year of the First World War.

Britain and her allies were
locked in a fierce struggle

with Germany that would
claim millions of lives.

Today, in a graveyard in Duxford,

a few of the English war dead lie buried

not far from the museum
that displays the weapon

that may have taken their lives,

the German FK 16.

- Despite what we might
imagine about the Great War,

the big killer in the conflict
is not the machine gun,

it certainly isn't the
rifle, it's not grenades,

it's this, it's the artillery.

People are mortally terrified of artillery

because unlike a bullet,
normally a single wound,

shell fragmentation could
simply tear men to pieces.

(artillery shells whistling and booming)

And what I've got here
is the standard shell

of the Great War.

Millions of these were fired
by the 18-pounder field gun.

(explosions blasting)

This is gonna send out
over 360 metallic balls

capable of piercing, well flesh and blood.

(munitions exploding)

- [Narrator] Worse yet,
the FK 16 could fire

five rounds a minute

and strike from as far
away as 10 kilometers.

- This field represents an
area behind the allied lines.

If you can imagine that
over that hill there

are the German gun positions,

somewhere in the middle
distance is going to be

no-man's land with it's
trenches on both sides,

and we're the area where
actually you'd have

British guns and positions.

- [Narrator] The German
guns were invisible

behind their lines.

Until the way could be found
to pinpoint and destroy them,

Allied infantry would be cut down,

and the war could not be won.

Spotting planes were sometimes sent

to locate German batteries,

but planes were vulnerable to enemy fire.

And the traditional method
of spotting artillery by eye

was ineffective in bad weather,

or when German guns were far away.

As an experiment allied engineers

began exploring a new idea.

They attempted to use the sound of a gun

to calculate its position.

- That allows you to then
direct your artillery

onto the enemy.

You don't see them, all
you've got be able to do

is hear them and do the calculations.

- [Narrator] But the
battlefield was a noisy place.

No existing microphone
could isolate the sound

of a single gun.

The Allies were going to need
an entirely new technology

to pinpoint and destroy the
deadly German artillery.

To hunt for the secret, the British army

turned to a 25-year-old
soldier named Lawrence Bragg,

the youngest person to win
the Nobel Prize in Physics.

To demonstrate Bragg's work in the field

we've assembled some of the items he used,

and we're going to get
some help from scientist

William Van der Kloot.

- So what I've done Bill,

is I've brought these things along.

- Lovely.
- I thought that was

the most important bit.

- [Bill] Well, certainly.

- Okay, rum jar complete
with the wire on top,

which is useful.

Some nice period cable, a loaner.

And then vitally important
bit of equipment,

the mallet for knocking the stakes in.

I mean, I think they
use an ammunition box,

but I'm using a ration box.

- [Bill] Good.

- [Narrator] Bragg chose these objects

because of an inspiration that came to him

in an unlikely location.

He noticed that when German
artillery boomed in the distance

his bottom would elevate
slightly off the seat.

He realized that on the noisy battlefield

only the biggest guns
create this kind of jarring,

subsonic shockwave.

Bragg shared his discovery
with a member of his team,

Corporal William Tucker.

Tucker decided to try to
build a shockwave detector.

Tucker connected a rum
jar, some thin wire,

and a recording device.

The idea is that when a big gun fires,

the shockwave causes a gust of air

to move over the top of the rum jar,

sending an impulse to the recording device

where the precise time of
the impulse is registered.

The crude shockwave detector worked.

- It's the movement of
air that's doing it,

it's the hot wire Tucker microphone.

- Got it, got it.

You're in charge of staples--

- [Narrator] Bragg refined the device

by replacing the rum jar
with an ammunition box.

- Well should we just make
our holes in the box then

in that case, and get those in place.

That's through.

Okay, that's good.

Okay that's gone through.

Okay, is that right, Bill?
- Yes, perfect.

- And then the lid goes back on again

because we're now using
the whole wire, aren't we?

- Right.
- As I think, if I hold this--

- [Narrator] This second
generation shockwave detector

worked even better than the first.

- [Andy] Okay, we should have an exposed--

- [Narrator] But Bragg
knew one shockwave detector

would not be enough.

To triangulate on the German guns,

he built several detectors,

placed them at equal distances apart

and connected them by a long run of wire

to the shockwave recorder.

Would this system perform
with the accuracy required

to pinpoint the location
of German artillery?

The answer would come on a
battlefield in Amiens, France

on the morning of August 8th, 1918.

Fog rolled in, preventing the Allies

from pinpointing German artillery by eye.

But the fog was not all bad news.

The heavy mist meant that
the Germans couldn't see

what the Allies were up to either.

If they had they might have wondered

why some soldiers were stringing wire.

As allied infantry go over the top,

and German artillery
fires to cut them down,

Bragg's men turn on the
shockwave detectors.

From each German gun, a
shockwave radiates outward,

striking each detector at
a slightly different time.

The impulses are sent through the wires

to the shockwave recorder,

which registers the time
differences precisely.

Using a complex formula devised by Bragg

his men use the time differences

to triangulate the positions
of the German guns.

If they are even a fraction out,

the allied gunners will miss their targets

and the German guns will
slaughter the advancing infantry.

But as the coordinates are
relayed to the allied gunners,

and they fire toward the German lines,

one by one the German guns fall silent.

Allied forces advance with
surprisingly little resistance

right past the smoking
wreckage of German artillery.

- The Battle of a Amiens
is the beginning of the end

for the German army.

For the next hundred days,
the next three months,

the German army is on the back foot,

retreating and retreating
and retreating and retreating

until the 11th of November.

(men cheering)

What sound ranging does is it brings about

a whole era of technology,
science applied to warfare.

In the future you can now
kill opponents you can't see.

This is an amazingly
leap forward in warfare.

- [Narrator] Lawrence
Bragg and William Tucker

had changed the nature of war forever.

Up next, the secret of
hiding in plain sight.

Inside the Imperial War Museum

are some of history's
most powerful weapons.

Often victory goes to the
side with the biggest guns.

But sometimes wars are won
by cunning and deception.

In this building, not
accessible to the public,

are some of the sneakiest
weapons ever made.

In each box is an attempt to
discover an elusive secret:

how to make a soldier invisible.

- Well this is a
hand-improvised sniper's robe,

of the sort used by the British
army in the First World War.

And it comprises of a
cotton loose-fitting robe,

a button-over hood and mask,

with apertures to the
mouth and to the eyes.

And improvised and hand-painted
by the soldier that wore it.

Even on the quietest of
days, 18 men of any battalion

could be taken out of action by snipers.

So they were very very effective.

In this case he's actually
sewn some organic material,

as well as over-painted it

very much to his own design and taste.

This is a remarkable and unique object

in the museum's collection,
these are extremely rare.

(dramatic instrumental music)

- [Narrator] After World War I,

the German army provided
camouflage for all its troops,

using science to mimic nature.

- The fellows that designed
and developed it were artists

so they looked at the
plane tree for example,

they looked at the tree bark.

And when you look at some
German uniforms of that period

you can see that kind of influence.

You can see how that design developed.

- [Narrator] Since World War
II, the changing patterns

reveal how conflict zones
have moved around the globe.

From snowy Russia to
the jungles of Vietnam

to the deserts of the Middle East.

- Well camouflage itself goes
back many many centuries,

back to primeval days.

When man was hunting for food
he had to act like an animal

so that he stalk his prey to eat.

- [Narrator] Though any of
these patterns might prevent

the hunter from becoming the hunted,

none provide complete invisibility.

And so designers keep trying new ideas.

- I've got to say one of
my all-time favorites,

it's lasted 40 years.

The scientific advancement
of this is that it had

this almost dazzle effect to
the eyes and to the brain.

This caused confusion
which is another element

of camouflage and concealment:
confusion, deception.

- [Narrator] But recently
even this cunning camouflage

has become obsolete.

To see why, we've come to a
British army science facility

where Lieutenant Colonel Toby Evans

is testing an updated version.

- Afghanistan is what really
concentrated our mind on this

because people were
operating from pure desert

into the green zone and
back again in one patrol

and clearly there's no way
you can change your clothing

in the middle of a patrol.

- [Narrator] Evans hopes the army's new

multi-terrain pattern
will solve this problem.

- What we're looking for
here today is two soldiers,

one wearing the old
woodland pattern camouflage

that we used to issue as standard
in this part of the world,

and one wearing the new
multi-terrain patterned camouflage

that you can see me wearing here.

- [Narrator] Two soldiers
are hidden in this field.

One in the old camouflage, one in the new.

So far so good.

Neither can be seen.

- Okay guys, if you stand up.

The woodland camouflage
only blends in well

to its own background, it goes very dark

if you see it in any distance,

and the eye is drawn to areas of shadow.

The multi-terrain pattern has some high

and some low contrast, which
causes the eye to bounce off it

as being there's nothing
for me to look at there,

it's not a threat.

- [Narrator] But even the new camouflage

won't provide protection

if a soldier can't wear
it in extreme heat.

- Three, two, one.

Okay, yeah?

- [Narrator] Scientists
use this enviro-chamber

to simulate the 40-degree
temperatures of the Middle East.

Evans and research scientist Rene Nevola

monitor the soldier's
heart rate and condition.

- So over all we can see how
hot this person's getting,

how hard they're working,
whether they're comfortable,

and what the effects
of that clothing system

actually is on him.

- If we don't know what
this is going to do

to the guy's thermal
burden then could end up

with more people going
down with heat exhaustion.

- [Narrator] And even normal body heat

could make this soldier's
body visible to an enemy

equipped for thermal imaging goggles.

So new uniforms are impregnated
with anti-infrared dye.

But even that would not be
enough to camouflage the soldier

on today's battlefield.

- Every soldier now carries a radio,

so that's giving away a signal,

every soldier probably
has a GPS attached to him,

so that's constantly
signaling to a satellite.

The real challenge in the next 10 years

is going to be to mask
all that sort of signals.

So we have to make sure
that all camouflage

that we are working on is camouflage

not only in the visible spectrum
but in the near-infrared,

and in every other spectrum
that is likely to become

a problem in the foreseeable future.

- We've seen predator that
ability to make the person

or the garments, or the
weapon system, the vehicle,

maybe the aircraft or even a battleship,

to make those invisible,

I'm sure that's just around the corner.

But from a curatorial
point of view that'll be

an absolute nightmare because
how would I ever find it?

Next on Museum Secrets, a very
British nuclear nightmare.

(bomb roaring)

The Imperial War Museum
exhibits many weapons

designed to strike fear into
the hearts of the enemy.

But there is one that stands alone

above all the others as it
creates its mushroom cloud.

(bomb blast roaring and rumbling)

The atomic bomb dropped on Japan in 1945

ushered in a terrifying nuclear age.

At first only the USA had the bomb.

Then Britain and the Soviet
Union joined the club,

and that's when the world went mad.

As in M-A-D for mutual
assured destruction.

Weapons like this were kept
ready for instant launch

on both sides of the Iron Curtain,

poised to level cities

and spread clouds of poisonous radiation.

Britain's armed forces stood
ready in radar installations,

bombers, and submarines.

(air raid siren blaring)

Civilians practiced running for shelter

when they heard the air-raid siren.

And then there's this
man, Neville Cullingford.

By day Neville worked in an office,

but he had another secret job

as a civil defense volunteer
in the Royal Observer Corps.

Until recently his Cold
War mission was classified.

It was part of Britain's
secret civil defense plan.

Few knew the plan existed

until Freedom of Information
legislation forced its release

years after the Cold War ended.

Why the civil defense plan was hidden

from the British people is
our final museum secret.

- I would get a phone call from my,

it would be the group
commandant in my case,

to man up the group, and then
it would be my responsibility

to alert my four chief observers

who were in charge of the
four posts that I managed.

- [Narrator] After alerting
others Neville would race here,

one of many secret bunkers
scattered throughout Britain.

- And it was quite exciting times,

and that's sort of
thing as well, you know,

because it was something that
none of my work colleagues

knew anything about, I just
said that if I disappear

out the door I shan't say where I'm going

and you may not see me for a while.

- [Narrator] Descending
six meters underground,

Neville and his fellow volunteers

prepared their bunker for war.

- They get it totally ready
and then they would be informed

by a codeword whether it was real,

you know, there really was
a nuclear attack on way,

or whether in fact it was an exercise.

- [Narrator] Today Neville
has returned to a bunker

in the company of historian Matthew Grant,

one of few people who has studied

the recently declassified
civil defense plan.

- There would have been
a dozen or more of these

around the country.

The Royal Observer Core
were part of a wider network

where they could monitor
radioactive fallout

and warn people if that was coming.

Yeah, right, yes.

Yeah, yeah of course, that's right, yes.

Yes indeed, yeah that's (mumbles).

- [Narrator] Matthew
hopes Neville can show him

exactly how the fallout warning
system was supposed to work.

- [Neville] Equipment we had in the post

basically was the bomb power indicator.

- [Matthew] And what would it
mean if you saw it flash up

to 20 on the scale, what would that mean?

- Well it could mean that a nuclear weapon

has been detonated.

- So that dial shooting up
would be the first indicator

that there was, been an
attack on the country,

for you in your bunker.

- It would indeed be, yes.

- [Narrator] 60 seconds
after the first shockwave,

a volunteer was expected to go outside

to assess the radiation.

- [Matthew] So now we're
at the top of this bunker,

what's this white cylinder here?

- Right, that's a ground zero indicator.

Right, so he would unscrew the lid,

and this you can see there
are four pinhole cameras.

Each of those corresponds
with a cardinal compass point

and against each cardinal compass point

there is a photosensitive paper
in each of these cassettes.

Number one observer would
take them each in turn

and for instance in this
one the size of the spot

would tell you how
powerful the weapon was.

- [Narrator] Atomic explosions
that touch the ground

cause radioactive fallout.

A spot low on the paper would
indicate that an explosion

had touched the ground and
radiation was on its way.

That would be Neville's
cue to fire warning flares.

If he had not already succumbed

to acute radiation poisoning.

(man groaning)

- The whole system was very fragile

and it was always very debatable

whether it would have worked.

- [Narrator] The civil
defense plan predicted

that nuclear war would kill

nearly half of Britain's population

and cause a complete societal collapse

but the British people were
told something quite different.

Government films told the
British people they would survive

if they employed the same
pluck and determination

that had helped them survive the Blitz.

- Would have been a big
part of saving lives

in the Second World War.

The problem is, is that
defending Britain from attack

by the Luftwaffe and defending
it from nuclear weapons

was very different.

- [Narrator] In government
films this kind of real

nuclear blast footage was never shown.

(explosion booming)

The long-term effects of
radiation weren't shown either.

- [Man] The radiation is
at its greatest intensity

during the first two days,

but the danger decreases
rapidly as time passes.

- They downplayed the extent of radiation,

sometimes they downplayed
the nature of the blast,

to make people feel that it
was less dangerous than it was.

- [Narrator] Neville
is well aware of this,

but he still believes that
all civil defense efforts

were vital.

- In some people's view it
may not have been adequate

or necessary but we were
doing something practical,

something we thought was important.

- [Narrator] It was hoped
that having a defense plan

would prevent scenes like this.

(people shouting)

- One of their fears was
that if people panicked,

what this might actually do
was encourage the Russians

to press harder, which might
actually end up causing the war

that the people who were
panicking wanted to avert.

- [Man] Finally, this is the All Clear.

It means that there is no
further threat of air attack

or fallout, and that you can
leave your place of shelter.

- It was a facade.

And yes, they lied.

But they lied for what they
thought were grander motives

that were designed to ensure that

British security was maintained

in the face of a menacing enemy.

- [Narrator] And so
the final secret may be

that lying to an entire nation

is sometimes the right thing to do.

Perhaps when faced with
the madness of nuclear war

we just can't handle the truth.

(explosion roaring and crashing)

(quick dramatic music)

This vast museum bears witness
to the power of a nation

and its greatest sorrows.

For every secret we reveal,
far more must remain unspoken.

Soaring high above our heads,

buried deep beneath the ground,

hidden in plain sight,

inside the Imperial War Museum.

(gate squeaking and clattering)

(dramatic instrumental music)