CIVILIAN COURAGE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 263, 4 October 1940, Page 7

CIVILIAN COURAGE.

WORK OF A.R.P. SQUADS

LIVES IN THEIR HANDS

(British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Oct. 2. Tlio story of what “tough jobs” mean for the Bridlington A.R.P. rescue squads was told in a broadcast bv Mr 'jLiiomas Aldorson, of Leeds, ohe of the first recipients of the George Cross. “About our worst time,” he said, “was when two-stoi'ey buildings got a direct hit. We were called out and found them in ruins. Planes were still about and bombs were crumping in the distance. We searched around and found the basement door partly uncovered in one house. The walls were still standing and it did not look very safe, but we started at- that basement door and we cleared it. Nothing was too small to move, and 1 passed bits of brick, plaster and wood back along a chain of men till we managed to get inside. •

“The ground floor joists had collapsed and were jambed between the basement wall and the. floor, and this had given protection to four people ill tbe corner. There was a big farmhouse table in the middle of the floor. It had partly collapsed and was half supporting, the beams and the smashed walls from the floors above.

“Lying on my side I began to work a bole over the table, keeping a wary eye on the unsafe debris and passing bricks and rubbiGi back along tlie chain of men. At last there was enough space for ns to slide the. four people head first into the hole over the table, swing their legs round and pull them backwards through the basement door. RESCUE OF CHILDREN.

“A boy and a girl were still left badly trapped under the heavy joists towards the centre of the basement. The table had now to be carefully broken up and removed, and again the debris was passed out bit bv bit. There was not room 'to use tho standard A.11.P. jacks and I called for motorcar jacks. With these we managed to raise the main joist a little. It started to crack, but by jacking immediately underneath the crack I raised the joist still further. “By this time the cellar was filling with coal gas, and water appeared to be rising on the floor. The boy and girl were in severe pain so I called a doctor to give an injection. We had to work them free from the joists and slide them out, but at last after four hours’ hard work with shaded hand torches as the only means of light it was done. Tho planes were still humming overhead, but I had been too busy to notice them.”

Mr Anderson works as a supervisor for the Bridlington Corporation and has been training workmen for rescue work for the past two years.