Russian Efficiency In Providing Air Raid Shelters

Northern Advocate, 7 March 1942, Page 6

Russian Efficiency In Providing Air Raid Shelters

KUIBISHEV, January 12,

Excellence c£ the Russian AH.P trailing 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. I wondered 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 boen much more advanced before the war.

Today’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.

Families Combine

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. Here is what I saw at a typical rehearsal, carried out with disturbing realism.

An alarm sounded and 1 people rushed to the 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 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 v/as head of the fire-fighters, a member of was his grand-mother. 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.