A.R.P. IN FRANCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 March 1939, Page 6

A.R.P. IN FRANCE

DUGOUTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. BEING BROUGHT INTO USE AGAIN. A census of caves and underground refuges is being taken in the north and east of Franco as part of antiaircraft precaution':. The number of such caves and underground refuges is extraordinary, but what is also extraordinary is the fact that in affording protectionshould ever the unfortunate occasion arise—they will be fulfilling the purpose for which they were originally constructed. Tvlost of the caves explored date from the early Middle Ages and are equipped with chambers and often with places for hiding cattle. At a time when invasion was frequent every village had its look-out/ who would signal the approach of a wandering band of soldiery. The villagers gathered up their most precious belongings and hurried to the caves, driving their cattle before them. In most cases the entrance to the cave was carefully hidden or so difficult of approach as to be too dangerous to attack. There the villagers would wait until their partisans arrived and the marauders moved on elsewhere. One of the most recent of these ancient refuges has just been discovered at Talmas, not far from Amiens. It consists of a tunnel fifty yards long with a number of chambers each side. Among the most famous of these caverns is the “underground city” of Naours, twelve miles north of Amiens. It attracts thousands of visitors every year. It contains a number of chambers so arranged that their entrances do not face each other, thus ensuring privacy for the families obliged to seek shelter underground. It has a common room where all could meet together, and there are distinct traces that part was used as a chapel, with a niche for the altar. The caves of Naours were well known to the Australian soldiers during the war, as the village was one of the resting places behind the front at Villers-Bretonneux, and on the chalk walls of the caves, almost as fresh as when pencilled twenty years ago, there are hundreds of names of soldiers from Australia, with their regimental numbers and home towns, occasionally a drawing of their regimental badge or a more ambitious effort.