INDESTRUCTIBLE LONDON

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 August 1939, Page 3

INDESTRUCTIBLE LONDON

PROTECTING WORLD’S GREATEST PORT. London is now an indestructible port, thanks to the scheme of control and protection evolved by the Port of London Authority, it is claimed.by Mr V 7. L. Wrightson, chairman of the Authority’s River Committee. “We are prepared," he says, “to carry on whatever may happen." The Authority has allocated the sum of £250,000 for air raid protection to men working the docks system. All vital points have been protected and over 3i miles of trenches are available for refuge from blast and splinters. Over 30,000 workers are being safeguarded in the Port of London Authority’s own dock area, while owners of wharves and warehouses for 30 or 40 miles on each bank of the Thames have arranged for similar protection for their own staffs. Moorings have been placed for about 78 ships in the lower reaches of the Thames. The small craft organisations, with some 10,000 barges and tugs capable of handling 1,000,000 tons of cargo, have been organised into a pool, and should any one dock system be put out of action, all these resources would be at the service of the port. Arrangements have also been made for evacuating essential foodstuffs and dangerous goods.