National Treasures: Saving The Nation's Art in World War II (Paperback) - Caroline Shenton

The gigantic covert wartime mission led by the men and women of London's museums and galleries to save the nation's priceless heritage.

'Geeks triumph over the forces of darkness: nothing could have given me greater pleasure. Combining an exciting story with scrupulous research, Caroline Shenton has done her unlikely heroes proud' - Lucy Worsley

As Hitler prepared to invade Poland during the sweltering summer of 1939, men and women from across London's museums, galleries and archives formulated ingenious plans to send the nation's highest prized objects to safety. Using stately homes, tube tunnels, slate mines, castles, prisons, stone quarries and even their own homes, a dedicated bunch of unlikely misfits packed up the nation's greatest treasures and, in a race against time, dispatched them throughout the country on a series of top-secret wartime adventures.

National Treasures highlights a moment from our history when an unlikely coalition of mild-mannered civil servants, social oddballs and metropolitan aesthetes became the front line in the heritage war against Hitler. Caroline Shenton shares the interwoven lives of ordinary people who kept calm and carried on in the most extraordinary of circumstances in their efforts to save the Nation's historic identity.

About the Author

Dr Caroline Shenton was Director of the Parliamentary Archives at Westminster, where she worked for eighteen years. Prior to this she was a senior archivist at the National Archives, and she is currently a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Historical Society. Caroline has written for the Guardian, The London Review of Books, and reviewed books for The Spectator.