MALAYA AIR RAIDS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 134, 9 June 1942, Page 3

MALAYA AIR RAIDS

MOSTLY LIGHT BOMBS

DANGER FROM GLASS

Much authoritative information about the effect of Japanese air attacks on buildings and people in Singapore and elsewhere in Malaya is contained in a letter written by one of the former leading architects of Singapore, now in- - Australia, and forwarded, for "its value as a guide to New Zealand, to engineering officials in Wellington. The air attacks described were made mainly with ligtu bombs, compared with the immensely heavy bombs now being used by British aircraft upon Germany and vice versa, and incendiary attack, as he saw it, was made with what appeared to be oil bombs, not thermitemagnesium (though the spreading fire must be fought in the same way, whatever the incendiary agent). The information is considerably more detailed than earlier information available to those concerned in civil defence in this city.

The following are some of the main points:— The writer is Mr. G. G. Boutcher. who had a wide practice in Singapore and elsewhere in Malaya. High explosive bombs used by the Japanese 1 at Penang were about 701b and on Singapore 2001b. A 701b H.E. bomb from six to eight thousand feet penetrated a 6in reinforced concrete slab and slightly damaged the slab below He considered that anyone on the ground floor of even a three-storeyed building with reinforced concrete roof and flooring was safe from a direct hit from light bombs. He saw no evidence of collapse or penetration of good-quality 9in brick walls from near misses, say, 10yds away. Machine-gun! bullets penetrated tiled and iron roofs, but not even poor-quality brick walls. One could learn to judge when to take shelter from bombers, but it was quite impossible to dodge machinegunning. He never saw machinegunning from planes higher than 1000 feet and generally it was from 500 feet and lower,'and "they were over the house tops and on you before you knew they were there." DANGER FROM GLASS. Mr. Butcher states: "All glass must be removed from buildings, including doors, windows, inside partitions, show cases, pictures, mirrors, electric light fittings (bulbs do not matter)." Wire-netting, strips of paper, linen, cellophane, etc., he considers not effect- ! ive, and he thinks it far better to make part of a residence, shop, office, factory, or i other building blast- and splinter-proof than to build a shelter, "if a building is fairly substantially built with, nine-inch brick walls it ;s only necessary to remove all glass from that part of the building you intend using as a shelter and put bunding inside or outside all openings in | external walls."

Mr. Butcher also gives a considerable amount of technical detail as to construction of strengthening and protection of window spaces, doorways, etc. He places particular emphasis upon the removal of glass from buildings because of the large number of casualties caused by flying glass, many of them fatal.