A portrait of the engineer Ramon Perera, an unsung hero, who designed bomb-resistant air raid shelters that saved thousands of lives in Catalonia.
Forced into exile after the war, Perera was summoned to the U.K. to teach British engineers how to build shelters to prepare London for the impending world war, but his advice went unheeded and many civilians paid with their lives.
This documentary special tells the story of Ramon Perera, a Catalan engineer whose air raid shelter program saved thousands of lives in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War. He built 1,400 shelters in record time, despite wartime shortages. His brilliant design stood up to the air-raids, drastically cutting the city's death toll. Perera's work was noticed by European colleagues. One of them was the British Cyril Helsby, who travelled to Barcelona to find out more about the Catalan engineer's remarkable achievement. Nobody was killed in the shelters.
When Spain fell to Fascist forces in mid-1939, Perera - like many other prominent Republicans - fled across the French border. From Perpignan, he wrote to Helsby. Wheels went into motion and a British agent spirited him away to London. With the Second World War looming, Perera's knowledge could prove useful. In 1940, the Luftwaffe rained ruin on Warsaw and Rotterdam as part of Germany's "lightning war". London was next on the list. Progressive voices in Britain defended the Barcelona model of civil defence, but the Conservative Government turned a deaf ear. Instead, the British authorities supplied materials so families could dig their own flimsy back-garden shelters. The official view was that public shelters would make the population "cowardly and lazy" despite overwhelming evidence from Barcelona to the contrary.
Distribution of pre-fabricated Anderson shelters (which could only stop shrapnel - not blast) was a recipe for disaster. The working classes in London had nowhere to build private bomb shelters. A confidential report admitted that not following the "Perera model" was a blunder. Over 40,000 people perished in the London Blitz.
The programme features survivors of the air-raids in Barcelona and London. Their testimony graphically reveals the achievement of Catalonia's civil defence organisation. It also cruelly highlights the British establishment's bungling in preparing the Heart of Empire for the Blitz. Experts interviewed include Paul Preston, the historian, and David Fletcher, a structural engineer. Preston argues: "The (British) government showed disdain for the plight of normal people... the working class". Fletcher is equally scathing: "There's this mythical image of people resisting the London Blitz, but there's little talk about the dead". This timely documentary comes before the events of the period pass out of living memory and into popular myth.
This documentary special tells the story of Ramon Perera, a Catalan engineer whose air raid shelter program saved thousands of lives in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War. He built 1,400 shelters in record time, despite wartime shortages. His brilliant design stood up to the air-raids, drastically cutting the city's death toll. Perera's work was noticed by European colleagues. One of them was the British Cyril Helsby, who travelled to Barcelona to find out more about the Catalan engineer's remarkable achievement. Nobody was killed in the shelters.
When Spain fell to Fascist forces in mid-1939, Perera - like many other prominent Republicans - fled across the French border. From Perpignan, he wrote to Helsby. Wheels went into motion and a British agent spirited him away to London. With the Second World War looming, Perera's knowledge could prove useful. In 1940, the Luftwaffe rained ruin on Warsaw and Rotterdam as part of Germany's "lightning war". London was next on the list. Progressive voices in Britain defended the Barcelona model of civil defence, but the Conservative Government turned a deaf ear. Instead, the British authorities supplied materials so families could dig their own flimsy back-garden shelters. The official view was that public shelters would make the population "cowardly and lazy" despite overwhelming evidence from Barcelona to the contrary.
Distribution of pre-fabricated Anderson shelters (which could only stop shrapnel - not blast) was a recipe for disaster. The working classes in London had nowhere to build private bomb shelters. A confidential report admitted that not following the "Perera model" was a blunder. Over 40,000 people perished in the London Blitz.
The programme features survivors of the air-raids in Barcelona and London. Their testimony graphically reveals the achievement of Catalonia's civil defence organisation. It also cruelly highlights the British establishment's bungling in preparing the Heart of Empire for the Blitz. Experts interviewed include Paul Preston, the historian, and David Fletcher, a structural engineer. Preston argues: "The (British) government showed disdain for the plight of normal people... the working class". Fletcher is equally scathing: "There's this mythical image of people resisting the London Blitz, but there's little talk about the dead". This timely documentary comes before the events of the period pass out of living memory and into popular myth.
