PRECAUTIONARY MEASURE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22579, 8 December 1938, Page 10

PRECAUTIONARY MEASURE

POSSIBILITY OF GAS ATTACKS CLASSES TO RECEIVE TRAINING INSTRUCTION TO BE GIVEN IN CHRISTCHURCH At the suggestion of the Minister for Internal Affairs (the Hon. W. E. Parry), Christchurch, with other centres throughout the Dominion, will form classes to receive instruction in dealing with possible gas attacks. The first class, which was arxanged at a meeting yesterday afternoon.of representatives of local bodies and the Defence Department, will be held early in the new year. While the liability of New Zealand to attack from the air, in which gas would play a part, was not’considered by delegates to the meeting as being very definite, they agreed that measures should be taken to ensure that some people in each community should have the knowledge of how to deal with a gas attack in the event of one being experienced. Major H. M. Foster, N.Z.S.C., Area Staff Officer at Christchurch, who convened the meeting, said that the possibility of a gas attack was considered to be confined to an occasional light raid by aircraft carried by naval vessels or armed merchantmen, which might use high explosives, incendiary, or gas bombs. No forms of cloud gas could be used and the likelihood of attack in the Dominion was very limited. The First Class The first class will consist of six police officers, four fire brigadesmen, three City Council employees, two employees each from the Hospital Board (first aid) and the Lyttelton Harbour Board, and one each from the Christchurch Drainage Board and the Lyttelton and Sumner boroughs. The trainees will devote two hours on three mornings of the week to receiving the instruction. Other classes will probably be organised later, some of them in the evenings for such organisations as the St. John Ambulance and the Legion of Frontiersmen and others. Major Foster said that the object was to instruct a number of civilian employees in anti-gas methods so that they in turn could instruct others and could also act as key persons in the event of an emergency. The training would consist of about 24 hours’ instruction given in the city and practical work in a gas chamber which would be erected in some open space well away from dwellings. After a gas attack, the services required would be the police for picketing the affected area, municipal staffs for the decontamination of the area, fire brigades for the suppression of fires, and firstaid officers to deal with casualties. Major Foster added that the Territorial Forces received anti-gas training, but it was considered advisable for civilians to have some knowledge in the case of an emergency.

Mr J. Si Barnett (Deputy-Mayor), who presided, said that he thought all were agreed that preparations in the nature of training people so that they could meet an emergency were essential. When the value of the training was known, he thought there would be many volunteers to undertake it in their own time.

“The immediate thing is for us to secure the necessary knowledge of what to do and then hope for the best,” said Mr A. R. Galbraith (City Engineer), who added that if Christchurch was to suffer seriously from gas attacks the best thing would be for citizens to dig themselves about 50 feet underground under the Cashmere Hills.

In further discussion, methods of dealing with an attack were mentioned, but it was agreed that the danger of any serious gas attacks was fairly remote in New Zealand.