For 75 years, active duty members of the British Army served as stewards at Wimbledon, the annual tennis “championships” held at the legendary All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club. Since 1946, uniformed men and women from the Royal Army, Air Force and Navy have volunteered for this two-week summer event by taking tickets, directing visitors to their seats and bringing water to overheated fans.
The friendly military presence at Wimbledon is reminiscent of much scarier times during WWII. In preparation for Germany’s infamous ‘Blitz’ bombings on London, the grounds of the 150-year-old British tennis club have been turned into a civil defense camp and the historic Wimbledon center court has even been converted. hit directly by a German 500-pound bomb.
UK prepares for war
During the 1930s Britain attempted to avert another costly war with Germany through the ultimately failed foreign policy known as “Appeasement.” On September 1, 1939, Adolf Hitler entered Poland, knowing full well that Great Britain and France would stand in solidarity with the Poles. For the second time in just over 20 years, Europe was at war.
Air power had evolved considerably since World War I and Britain was preparing for the German bombings of London. As early as 1935, the British Home Office created the Civil Air Raid Precautions (ARP) to help protect British citizens during bombing raids. In 1941, the ARP was renamed the Civil Defense Service.
Wimbledon enlisted for civil defense
The entire nation rallied around the war effort and the All England Club was no different, said sports journalist Richard Evans, author of The history of tennis and a former play-by-play commentator at Wimbledon for BBC Radio.
“The whole country was completely on a war footing,” says Evans. “Wimbledon had this incredible complex of spaces and facilities, and people took it for granted that it would be used for war.”
The ARP moved quickly to turn the Wimbledon grounds into a working farm to provide war rations to civilians and soldiers. One of the club’s large parking lots was dug out for planting rows of vegetables, and another was loaded with wooden enclosures housing pigs, horses, chickens, geese, ducks and rabbits.
One of Wimbledon’s vast parking lots was filled with wooden pens housing pigs, horses, chickens, geese, ducks and rabbits, as pictured here in April 1942.
John Eggit / Fox Photos / Hulton Archive / Getty Images
“The courts were left alone,” says Evans, referring to the well-maintained grass tennis courts at Wimbledon. “Nobody grew anything on the courts, but the parking lots were turned into miniature farmland.”
Young troops from the London Welsh Regiment and the London Irish Regiment requisitioned the grassy hall outside Center Court for marching and parade exercises.
“If you walked out of the main entrance, you would see soldiers doing their exercises,” says Evans.
German bomb rips center court
The Borough of Wimbledon, home to the All England Club since the 1870s, is just 10 miles from London Bridge. And during World War II, Wimbledon was also home to a machine gun factory, a spark plug factory, and several anti-aircraft batteries. That is, it was on Hitler’s radar.
“Wimbledon definitely had some interesting targets for the LuftwaffeEvans says.
More than 1,000 bombs fell in the Wimbledon district during six years of German air raids, killing 150 civilians, injuring more than 1,000 and leaving countless thousands homeless.
On the night of October 11, 1940, five of these massive bombs landed on the grounds of the All England Club. Incredibly, no one was killed or injured. Two of the 500-pound projectiles exploded on the club’s golf course, one crashed into a driveway and another tore a tool shed.
But the fifth and final bomb directly hit the legendary center court, home of the Wimbledon final, destroying part of the roof and leaving a crater with 1,200 seats.
“They didn’t have the money or the time to fix it, so they fixed it,” Evans says. “It wasn’t until 1949 that Center Court got immaculate and returned to what it should have been.”
With Germany defeated, the game continues
British tennis player DW Butler in action on June 24, 1946 against D. Scharenguivel on center court during the first tennis championships at Wimbledon after the end of World War II.
JA Hampton / Thematic News Agency / Getty Images
In June 1945, just one month after Germany’s surrender to Allied forces, the very first tennis competition since 1939 was held at the All England Club. These weren’t the official championships – these resumed in 1946 – but it was a sign that Britain, and its cherished sporting tradition, had survived.
The players in this 1945 tournament were drawn from the armed forces and included Dan Maskell, the very first tennis pro employed by the All England Club and a Royal Air Force squadron leader. Five thousand spectators came to watch the action, despite the damaged stand.
Evans adds that after his professional career Dan Maskell became a famous Wimbledon commentator for the BBC, claiming he was “known as ‘the voice of Wimbledon'”.
