RUSSIA AT WAR EFFICIENCY IN AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23545, 24 January 1942, Page 6

RUSSIA AT WAR EFFICIENCY IN AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS

(By a Special Correspondent of

KUIBISHEV, January 12. Excellence of the Russian A.R.P. training even here, 600 miles behind the front, was shown in rehearsals today. , „ . When Germany attacked Russia Britain sent an A.R.P. expert to Moscow to help to plan the civil defences When he returned he was reported as saying; “There is nothing we can tell them. They know as much as we do. This was a high tribute from one of the A.R.P. leaders of a country which had built up an organisation born of many months of hard experience and the horrors of bombing. X wondered at the time, but I understand now, because if the organisation can be so complete as I found it here I appreciate how good it must be in the capital, where the basic organisation on which the A.R.P. structure was built must have been much more advanced before the war.

To-day’s rehearsals made the arrangements of any but the largest provincial towns in England look absurd even after their harsh experiences. I believe there is little to choose between the officially controlled British and Russian services, which are ' almost parallel in design. But in preparing individuals to care for themselves and help to care for their neighbours the Russians have something to teach even the “bomb-experienced” British.

They do it by compelling groups of families in a limited number of dwellings to combine as an organisation and learn how to look after themselves. Thus the main organisation is relieved of the care of detail and given the breathing-space so essential when, at the height of a raid, they have a thousand major problems to occupy them. IJere is what I saw at a typical rehearsal, carried out with disturbing realism. An alarm sounded apd people rushed to (he posts which had been assigned to them and for which they had been specially trained. There were fire-fighters and first-aid, decontamination. repair, and security squads. They were all equipped for their tasks. They were under the control of a commandant selected from the families taking part and considered to have leadership qualities. A Woman Leader In this case the commandant was a woman whose 17-year-old son was head of the fire-fighters, a member of which was his grandmother. Within three minutes of the “alert” leaders of each squad reported personally to the commandant and every one was at a post. From then on the commandant directed operations through a messenger service of specially trained small boys.

the "Sydney Morning Herald.”)

Everybody displayed the precision of a much-drilled soldier. The first “bomb” was supposed to contain gas. A decontamination squad looking like ogres in their overalls and gas masks rushed forward. The victim was a child. Hurriedly they moved him to the head of a stairway leading to an underground treatment station manned, by a collection of “mothers of tO ,r T type, who moved as surely about their business as any nurse. “Phosgene,” snapped a member of the decontamination squad, who handed over the “victim” to stretcherbearers. “Phosgene,” snapped the stretcher-bearer to' the nurse who received the patient. “Phosgene,” she snapped to her assistants, who automatically gave the treatment required by the “victim." The next “victim" was a boy with burns. If he had really had them he could not have emitted more dismal howls—he flung himself heart and soul into his part. And no hospital anywhere could have given him better preliminary treatment.

Unusual Pincers

Meanwhile, the fire-fighters, repair and security squads went about their own business, flinging incendiary bombs from roofs to the snow—incidentally, using an unusual type of pincers, which I have never seen used elsewhere— flinging sand on incipient fires, assisting people from damaged buildings, and caring for possessions, the extent of which in each apartment was clearly marked on the door. Among the groups I visited I saw the same efficiency, and in one found a high official of the military academy taking orders from his wife, who was commander of his section. “I am not fit to give orders if I* cannot take them,” he said. Their daughter—an extremely pretty girl in her fire-fighting rig—could climb a ladder faster than anybody I have ever seen —male or female—and seemed to enjoy it. Every member of these squads had undergone an intensive practical training course in the particular field of his or her activity. The leader of the first-aid squad, for instance, had had 80 hours’ training on successive days, apart from her normal training activities. The rank and file had done a 24 hours’ continuous course in a practical atmosphere. This applies, broadly, to other squads, all of whose members seemed to be as knowledgeable as the individuals actively taking part in A.R.P. in London. The broad structure of the organisation, in the same way as in Britain, was built up on the principle of local areas, municipalities, regions, and a group of regions, with a supreme control. Within this organisation are paid forces, with Town Soviets, as the keynote of the fabric, from which the complete design has been woven.