RAID WARNINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 143, 20 June 1938, Page 7

RAID WARNINGS.

ELABORATE SCHEME. British Precautions Cover Entire Country. . CONFIDENTIAL MESSAGES. ' e British Official Wireless. RUGBY, June 19. Arrangements made for warnings in the event of air rafds are detailed in an Air Raid Precaution Memorandum issued by the Home Office. Advice on the choice of public warning signals is contained in the book. For the purpose of the scheme the country is divided into more than 100 separate warning districts, and it is proposed that a warning message should he distributed to each of these districts as 'it becomes threatened in the progress 'of a raid. Messages will be distributed over the General Post Office telephone to individuals named *in prearranged lists.

When it appears possible that a certain district or districts may be raided a “preliminary caution” message is to be sent to the principal officers of the local services,and to those responsible for blast furnaces, explosives factories and other industries where fairly lengthy preparations must be made. The “preliminary caution” message will be entirely confidential in character in order to avoid unnecessary public alarm and dislocation of industrial activity if the raid should not materialise. If the threat of attack is removed the . “preliminary caution” message will be "washed out” by a “cancel caution” message, and the public will know nothing about it. If the movement of raiders supports the belief that a particular district or districts is to be attacked an “action warning” message will be distributed to all on the warning list. This will include the local government offices, operators ’of warning signals, headquarters and divisional police stations, fire brigade headquarters and certain public utility and industrial undertakings. The delivery of the “action warning” will be timed to give not less than five minutes’ notice of the raiders’ approach. After the raiders have left the district the “action warning” will be cancelled “raiders passed” message.

The four messages involved will be communicated on the telephone by code colours.