LIGHTS AS USUAL

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 168, 18 July 1941, Page 8

LIGHTS AS USUAL

IN SINGAPORE!

BLACKOUT WHEN NEEDED

(0.C.) WELLINGTON, Thursday.

"Malaya and New Zealand have approached the problem of emeigency lighting restrictions from almost opposite directions. New Zealand is acting under regulations which impose a partial restriction — streets, traffic, businesses and homes —night after night, presumably for the duration of the war. Singapore carries on night activities as before the war. with full street, business, home, and traffic lighting, but with frequent exercises and rehearsals which have taught the people to plunge the city and environs into darkness at minutes' notice," said Mr. C. M. Coltart, for the past two years president of the Automobile Association of Malaya, in an interview.

"The basic difference in attitude to A.R.P. organisation between the two countries appears to be that while New Zealand has adopted continuous half-measures which continuously affect the life of the people, Malaya has instituted by way of practice "full measures "intervals, so that during the periods between exercises the life of the community continues in a perfectly normal manner. Except, then, during the exercises, Singapore at night is the Singapore of before the war."

To bring home to the 750.000 people of Singapore, of whom a very large proportion was coloured and illiterate, what was required was a vastly more difficult matter than to reach the people of New Zealand, he said, hut by publicity through the Press, the radio, handbills in half a dozen languages, and by direction of police, wardens and assistants, the cosmopolitan population was reached and the way was ready for the first exercise.

Wide Warning System "The foundation of the system." he emphasised, "is the effectiveness and completeness of the warning, patrol and enforcement systems. Singapore has a great many sirens anil warning devices; the warnings are also broadcast; police, wardens, first section, and others in the emergency system spread the warning through areas and on roadways beyond range of sirens, and. with the military, see that the signals are immediately obeyed."

The Singapore exercises were in two stages—the brownout and the blackout. Brownout—a term invented by a local newspaper man that hit the nail right on the head— meant no street lighting all motor lighting (head and side lights) and traffic guidance lights masked, and all buildings to have their lights so damped or shielded that no direct rays could be visible from outside. The blackout meant that no light whatever should be visible from any building: all private vehicles extinguished lights, pulled to the roadside and waited for the all clear. Only vehicles on service. A.K.P. and emergency duties, carrying masked green lights, were then permitted to move. Blackouts as a rule lasted about 30 minutes; brownouts might extend over three successive nights.

The first exercise, a brownout, was carried out 18 months ago. Singapore was tokl the hour of that first practice, and was told what to do; aircraft flew over the city observing the result, as they did on each trial night. Later exercises superimposed the complete blackout upon the brownout at surprise hours, a progressively greater degree of observance being aimed at and secured. Objectors and deliberate offenders were proceeded against, and the Courts upheld the wardens in their demands for compliance. Fines of up to 200 dollars had been imposed.

Realistic Rehearsals

With the blackout exercises, wide A.R.P. rehearsals, with realistic effects, were introduced, in fire fighting. rescue, first-aid, and metrical, transport, so that voluntary workers, a very large proportion" of whom were natives and Chinese, gained training under the extreme difficulties of complete blackout. "Singapore is the heart of the Empire's Eastern and Pacific defences,'' said Mr. Coltart. "Civil preparedness there is a very live necessity, and the Malayan Government has been advised that the most effective plan of preparedness is to maintain the city's normal life as far as possible, but with a practised plan for an immediate great reduction of lighting—the brownout—and a complete blackout on the sounding of a further warning. "Because of the effectiveness of the series of exercises there are verv few who cannot understand what is expected; there is little arguing over fine points as to what is permitted here and what is not allowed there. Night exercises, even at the necessarily frequent intervals during the months of introduction, interfere less with the normal activities of a big city than do continuing partial restrictions and half measures. They give a sense of the importance and difficulties of the full blackout which partial and ineffective measures do not and cannot: and without training under full blackout conditions. A.R.P., or EPS organisations cannot pretend to reach a worthwhile efficiency to meet emergency."