The Tower of London and the Second World War

Prisoners of war at the Tower

The Tower Prisoner of War Collection Centre was set up on 3 September 1939 to house prisoners of war for interrogation before they were sent to prison camps.

Wounded prisoners were placed in the Old Hospital Block, south of the Fusilier Museum. Other prisoners stayed in the New Armouries, where the current visitor café stands, and the Main Guard (later destroyed in an air raid), on the lawn in front of the White Tower.

The centre eventually moved to north London, as the Tower ran out of space to detain a large number of prisoners.

The Tower of London Moat becomes an allotment

Everyone was expected to 'do his or her bit' to help the war effort, as food and other essentials were limited. The Tower of London was no exception. Located in the historic Borough of Tower Hamlets, the Tower joined the East End in following the government’s advice to grow vegetables.

The Tower Moat became an allotment where residents, including Yeoman Warders, planted crops. The Moat had been used to grow vegetables and graze livestock before, as early as the 1890s.

The Moat continues to benefit communities around the Tower. In 2022, it was transformed into a biodiverse landscape to mark the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.

The Blitz in London

The British Government enforced a blackout from 1 September 1939 in expectation of a German civilian bombing campaign.

At first, the Tower struggled to maintain a total blackout, with light escaping through the fortress’s arrow slits. This was rectified by the electrician who on alert would cut off power to the entire Tower.

From 7 September 1940 to 10 May 1941, London and then the rest of the United Kingdom experienced nightly aerial bombardment in what came to be known as the 'Blitz'. The East End of London became a strategic target for the German bombers in a plan to destroy the docks and warehouses that lined the Thames.

Bomb damage at the Tower

While the only German bomb to fall on the Tower during the First World War landed in the Moat, the aerial bombardment of the Second World War caused significant damage.

On 23 September, high explosive bombs destroyed a large section of the Mint as well as the north section of the Old Hospital Block. The Blitz caused significant damage across the fortress, including to the Moat, the Main Guard and Tower Wharf. Many direct hits also disrupted gas, water, and electricity supplies for the Tower’s residents.

Tragically, some of these raids cost those stationed and living in the Tower their lives. For example, a bomb struck the fortress on 5 October 1940, blowing apart the massive North Bastion and narrowly missing the White Tower.

Yeoman Warder Samuel Reeves and 70-year-old Lily Frances Lunn, who lived with her family in the North Bastion, were killed.

Evacuation of Tower residents

No shelters were dug at the Tower, though some basements were reinforced and used as refuge during air raids. On 10 October, the Yeoman Warders were advised to evacuate their families to the countryside. The Tower continued to face aerial bombardment until the end of the Blitz in May 1941.

Rudolf Hess and the Tower of London

During the Second World War, the Tower again became a prison for high-status prisoners.

The most high-profile of these was Rudolph Hess, deputy Führer of the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler’s right-hand man.

On 10 May 1941 Rudolf Hess flew from an airfield in Augsburg, Bavaria on a solo flight to Scotland. He bailed out from his plane and parachuted into a field outside Glasgow.

Hess’ motive for this mission remains one of the great unresolved mysteries of the Second World War. Some suggest Hess intended, with or without Hitler's permission, to negotiate a peace between Germany and the United Kingdom. Others believe he was lured to Britain by the British Secret Intelligence Service.

Hess imprisoned in the Tower

Hess was captured and taken to the King's House at the Tower of London on 17 May 1941, where many prisoners had been interrogated, including Guy Fawkes.

Lodged under the tightest security, he was questioned for four days until he was removed from the Tower. He spent the rest of the war as a prisoner at Mytchett Place, Surrey.

At the Nuremburg Trials of 1946, Hess was sentenced to life imprisonment in Spandau, west Berlin, where he remained until his death in 1987, aged 93.

Hess was the last state prisoner to be held at the Tower.

Josef Jakobs: The last spy to be executed at the Tower

Josef Jakobs was the only spy to be executed at the Tower during the Second World War. He was also the last person to be sentenced to death inside the Tower’s walls.

Jakobs was conscripted into the German army during the First World War, where he was shot in the chest on duty. He recovered and worked as a dentist. When the Nazi Party rose to power, he sold black market passports to Jewish people fleeing the country. He was eventually arrested by the Gestapo in 1938.

After two years, Jakobs was released in exchange for his services as a spy in England. Like many spies in the First World War, Jakobs was not suited for espionage, but the government needed agents for risky missions.

Jakobs allegedly confided to a friend that he planned to help the British Intelligence so that he could secure safe passage to America.

Jakobs' capture in England

Jakobs was captured on 1 February 1941 by two farmworkers after he was injured whilst parachuting into England.

He claimed he had arrived from Hamburg and wasn’t part of the war, but he was found with a wireless transmitter, a small torch with a flashing device and a map that marked the nearby positions of the RAF aerodrome in Upwood Village and the satellite airfield in Warboys Village.

Jakobs' execution at the Tower

While awaiting his fate, he wrote to his wife, Margarete, ‘Dear, best wife, thousands and thousands of times over, thank you for all the good you have done for me.’

He ended the letter with ‘Aufweidersehn’, meaning ‘until we see each other again’.

Jakobs was executed on 15 August 1941 in the miniature rifle range, the same location Carl Hans Lody and eight other spies were executed during the First World War. With his last words, Jakobs told the ‘Tommies’ to ‘shoot straight’.

He was buried in an unmarked grave in St Mary’s Roman Catholic Cemetery in north-west London.