AIR DEFENCE OF BRITAIN

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22432, 20 June 1938, Page 9

AIR DEFENCE OF BRITAIN

Warning Signals To Be Distributed MEMORANDUM ISSUED BY HOME OFFICE (BRITISH OFFICIAL WIRELESS.) (Received June 19, 8 p.m.) RUGBY, June 18. The arrangements .made for warnings in the event of air raids are detailed in an Air Raid Precaution Memorandum issued by the Home Office. Advice on the choice of public warning signals is contained in a 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 be distributed to each of these districts as it became threatened in the progress of a raid. The messages would 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,” says the memorandum, “a preliminary caution message is to be sent to the principal officers of local services, and to those responsible for blast furnaces, explosive factories, and other industries where fairly lengthy preparations must be made.” The preliminary caution message would 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 were removed, the preliminary caution message would be washed out by a “cancel caution” message and the public would know nothing about it. If the movement of the raiders supported the belief that a particular district or districts would be attacked, an “action” warning message would be distributed to all on the warning list. This would include local government offices, operators of warning signals, headquarters of divisional police stations, fire brigade headquarters, and certain public utility and industrial undertakings. The delivery of the “action” warning would be timed to give not less than five minutes’ notice of the raiders’ approach. After the raiders had left a district the “action” warning would be cancelled by a “raiders passed” message.

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