Lascaris War Rooms

Lascaris War Rooms
Valletta, Malta
Entrance to the War Rooms
Coordinates	35°53′40.19″N 14°30′39.78″E / 35.8944972°N 14.5110500°E / 35.8944972; 14.5110500
Site information
Owner	Government of Malta
Controlled by	Fondazzjoni Wirt Artna
Open to the public	Yes
Condition	Intact
Website	www.lascariswarrooms.com
Site history
Built	1940–1943
In use	1943–1977
Battles/wars	World War II Siege of Malta Allied invasion of Sicily Suez Crisis

World War II

The Lascaris War Rooms are an underground complex of tunnels and chambers in Valletta, Malta that housed the War Headquarters from where the defence of the island was conducted during the Second World War. The rooms were later used by NATO and they are now open to the public as a museum.

The British started work on the secret underground in 1940, during the siege of Malta, when a series of tunnels under the Upper Barrakka Gardens and the Saluting Battery that had been used as slave quarters during the Hospitaller period began to be expanded. The complex was completed in early 1943. The site takes its name from the nearby Lascaris Battery, which was itself named after Giovanni Paolo Lascaris, a Grandmaster who had built a garden on the site later occupied by the battery.

The Lascaris War Rooms contained operations rooms for each of the fighting services, from where both the defence of Malta and other operations in the Mediterranean were coordinated. The Operation Headquarters at Lascaris communicated directly with radar stations around the Maltese islands, and it was equipped with Type X machines. The fleets were led from the Navy Plotting Room, while the Anti-Aircraft Guns Operations Room was responsible for the air defence of the island. In the Coast Defence Room, defensive operations in the case of an amphibious invasion were planned. The Filter Room displayed information received from various places, including the naval station at Auberge de Castille.

Lascaris was the advance Allied HQ from where General Eisenhower and his Supreme Commanders Admiral Cunningham, Field Marshal Montgomery and Air Marshal Tedder directed the Allied invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky) in 1943.