LONDON’S DEFENCES

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 November 1939, Page 12

LONDON’S DEFENCES

SURPRISE EXERCISES HELD. Now that London’s civil defence workers are at action stations night and day, Admiral Sir Edward Evans (“Evans of the Broke”), one of London’s two civil defence chiefs, has introduced some naval realism into their training, says the London “Daily Telegraph.” Before the war started air-raid wardens, firemen, ambulance workers, and others carried out prearranged exercises as part of their normal training. Now Admiral Evans has evolved a. system of surprise exercises which, he thinks, gives better results than organised rehearsals. Somewhere in the wide area under his control in London and Greater London he selects a particular district and calls upon the local A.R.P. controller, whom he informs that there is an air-raid in the district. With a map he points out where bombs have fallen, where a certain bridge, perhaps, has been destroyed; houses are in flames, and a certain neighbourhood is impregnated with gas.

The controller and his staff at once have to take action as if a genuine alarm had been given.'' By telephone a?.:l :.:csLvHger the whole machinery is put into motion under the watchful eye of the Admiral.

Sir Edward has been carrying out these surprise visits almost every day. One day he will go to Islington, but the time of his visit there is being kept secret. The borough will have a silent air-raid, with few members of the public knowing anything about it, because there will be no sirens, ho bells, and no whistles.