Throughout the 1930s Gowers and his colleagues had also been involved in preparing for possible war, and invasion. From 1935 onwards he combined his frustrating work with the coal industry with civil defence planning, attached to the Department for the Co-ordination of Defence. John Anderson was given control of civil defence planning in 1938 and set up a network of civil defence regions.Peden, G C. "Anderson, John, first Viscount Waverley (1882–1958)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 online edition, January 2008, retrieved 3 April 2014 Euan Wallace MP was appointed head of London Region, but ill-health forced him to retire in 1940.Scott, pp. 101 and 114–116 Gowers, his deputy, became Senior Regional Commissioner for Civil Defence in London, running civil defence through the Blitz from a concrete bunker underneath the Natural History Museum, with Harold Scott and Edward "Teddy" Evans as his deputies.Scott, pp. 108 and 114
