AGAINST AIR RAIDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 December 1938, Page 7

AGAINST AIR RAIDS

SHELTER & OTHER PLANS IN BRITAIN PREPARATIONS AGAINST GAS WELL ADVANCED. SIR "JOHN ANDERSON’S SURVEY. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.40 a.m.) RUGBY, December 22. Government plans for the provision of air raid shelters for the civilian population were disclosed in the House of Commons by Sir John Anderson, who stated that the Government would undertake the responsibility of accumulating equipment at a cost of £20,000,000, mainly for providing a special type of steel shelters. • \ Sir John Anderson remarked that preparation against gas were more advanced than other aspects of air raid precautions and were ahead of those of all other countries. If the risk of gas attack seemed less than it did, it might be due to the thoroughness of these preparations. Preparations against the incendiary bomb and the high explosive bomb must now be brought to the same state. In regard to the former, a plan had been worked out for augmenting fire services in an emergency and recruitment and the training of personnel and provision of the equipment required were being pressed forward.

A practical shelter policy, offering protection against the danger of the high explosive bomb, must satisfy three conditions. Firstly, in areas vulnerable to attack, protection must be given in or near the home of residents or their places of employment. Secondly, shelters proof against a direct hit were not practicable. Apart from the difficulties and delays involved in any extensive scheme for deep bomb-proof shelters, he did not think the public was prepared to adapt the whole of civilisation so as to compel a large proportion of the population to live and maintain their productive capacity in a troglodyte existence underground. What they must provide was adequate protection against splinter and blast and the fall of debris. Thirdly, protection for everybody at the public expense could not be provided. All who could afford to do so would be expected to arrange for their own protection, but the Government would see that all necessary advice and guidance were available. Legislation after the Christmas recess would impose certain obligations on trade and industry to protect employees while at work. For those overtaken by an air raid in the streets, communal shelters would be available, either in trenches or in other forms of shelter to be provided by local authorities. He instanced, in this connection, the strengthening of large basements in warehouses and offices and the provision of underground car parks.