MEANS OF DEFENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 42, 19 February 1935, Page 9

MEANS OF DEFENCE

GAS ATTACKS IN BRITAIN

GOVERNMENT PLANS ISSUED ■'•■■■ \ ■•■■ .' — .'•■-..

; LONDON, February 18.\ The "News-Chronicle": says that the Committee of Imperial Defence will shortly be,issuing to local authorities throughout^ Britain complete plans for the protection of the population in case of gas attacks. . ' ■ .

Seven years of investigation by the anti-gas sub-committee, on which there are leading scientists' and military experts, has resulted in the drawing-up of a book of instructions of Several hundred pages. '

The population will not be equipped with gas masks, as experiments in gasproofing houses have shown that one room can be made gas-proof comparatively simply by chemically saturated curtains over doors and windows. It is also not considered necessary to build vast dug-outs as Germany has, where one dug-out shelters 45,000.

The instructions provide that each local authority will be responsible for its own district, will form an anti-gas committee, enrol all municipal workers and thousands of doctors, firemen, and policemen. The instructions include a ■system of alarms to warn the public of an impending attack; secondly ■ the speedy location of the attack and isolation of the affected area; thirdly, protection of water and food supplies; fourthly, storage and 'protection of anti-gas substances; fifthly, the establishment of' decontamination centres; sixthly, the training of school children and the organisation of special ambulance transport services.