The National Library of Wales was established by Royal Charter on the 19th of March 1907 and works to preserve our country’s heritage and culture for future generations to come. However, during the Second World War this library was an integral part of preserving not just Welsh history but British history as a whole.
During the Blitz, German planes would drop bombs over major cities of Britain to demoralise the British spirit. They would supposedly use the library, based on the west coast of Wales at Aberystwyth, to determine when to fly south and east towards cities like Cardiff, Swansea and London on their bombing runs. Because of this, the National Library was assumed to be safe from attack by the Germans and this supposition gave Britain the chance to protect their history from the oncoming barrage of bombs landing in major cities.
This feels more of a story, however, as two instances provide a valid alternative to this supposed strategy. The first instance is ‘the battle of the beams’ where the Luftwaffe (the German Airforce) would use radio transmissions to accurately pinpoint areas to bomb. They used Lorenz beams, which had much stronger signals than original radio beams, and the two beams would converge once over the target they were aiming for. The German bombers would fly along the beam until they picked up the signal from the other beam and the two intertwined. When a continuous sound was heard coming from the second beam the German bombers knew they were above their designated target.
Another confusing thing for me is why would the Luftwaffe fly all the way to the west coast of Wales to then turn east towards London? Geographically it doesn’t make any sense as, logically, they would be using more fuel to reach the NLW before turning towards London rather than just flying directly to London itself.
Yet the fact remains that the National Library wasn't bombed during WWII and, in a secret cave in the hillside below, it held items from the British Museum, the National Gallery, British universities, the House of Commons, the Royal Society, the LMS railway company and even from a Dutch museum. Works evacuated to the NLW for safe keeping allegedly included the Magna Carta, original works by Shakespeare, Dryden and Milton, and drawings by Michelangelo and da Vinci.
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| Image by permission of NLW/LLGC |
The caves were in use from July 18th 1940 to the end of the war in May 1945, when these historic and important pieces came out from the darkness of the tunnels and were returned to their home locations.
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| Images by permission of NLW/LLGC |
Ahmet Kartal wrote in 2019 how “Overlooking the Atlantic coast of Aberystwyth, after having shepherded priceless masterworks through the Blitz, the library remains a powerful witness to history.”* and after learning how this library on the coast of Wales became a monument in itself of the history of the Second World War its hard to argue with his final conclusion on its importance not only in preserving history over seventy years ago but in making sure that society today is able to witness this history for years to come.
Blog by Michael Bowen
* Wales Online, https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/national-library-secret-tunnels-war-17451332
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/national-library-secret-tunnels-war-17451332
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/nostalgia/remarkable-true-story-how-britains-13447121
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