AUCKLAND WARNED

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 285, 31 August 1942, Page 6

AUCKLAND WARNED

Need For Better Raid Shelters

Dominion Special Service.

AUCKLAND, August 28.

If waterlogged trenches are to be taken as the measure of Auckland’s preparedness against attack from the air, the city is in a serious plight, according to Dr. N. Gowland, Toronto, Canada, who went to England before the war, and had experience of some of the worst air raids there, including the two big attacks on Coventry. Dr. Gowland, who is accompanied by his wife, arrived recently in New Zealand to take up an appointment at the Otago Medical School. Dr. Gowland said that, when the first great Coventry raid took place, many of the shelters contained accumulated seepage, and during a ten-hour attack those taking refuge in them for days on end were exposing themselves to many kinds of illnesses, apart from discomfort.

Home shelters, urged Dr. Gowland, should bo kept habitable in every season. A large number of those made in England and Scotland had been fitted with folding bunks and other simple contrivances to alleviate discomfort, and such measures were well worth while. First-aid kit, a vacuum flask, adequate fresh water storage, and a “panic bag” containing valuable documents and underwear, as well as food, were essential. If for any reason it was impossible to use the shelter, householders would find the safest place in a house under the stairs or under a table. For three days after the first Coventry bombing, doctors were busy in the factories inoculating workers against typhoid fever. The damaging of the water and drainage systems always made outbreaks of typhoid and diphtheria a. potential aftermath of a raid, and there was no reason why citizens should not prepare themselves against such a contingency by voluntary inoculation.

Decentralization of hospitals, and provision of ambulance buses, replacing seats with stretchers, for the rapid evacuation of wounded, was recommended, but the chief way in which people could help one another was by all having a knowledge of first aid.