E.P.S. LESSONS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24275, 16 May 1942, Page 8

E.P.S. LESSONS

EXETER'S EXPERIENCE ORGANISATION BREAK-DOWN WORKERS VICTIMS OF RAID SYDNEY, May 14 Exeter, heavily bombed last week, provides some lessons which may be useful to Emergency Precautions Service organisers in Australia and New Zealand, says the London correspondent of the Sydney Daily Telegraph. The London Daily Herald reports that Exeter's organisation for shepherding, feeding, and housing bombed civilians broke down. It failed because it lacked a regional -organisation to strengthen the "paper plans" of the local authorities, the paper says. What happened at Exeter (population (39,210) is a warning to towns oi comparable size. Every town has elaborate books and neat lists of restcentres and of buses to evacuate the homeless. But when the bombs fell the paper plans did not come to life smoothly. Many women volunteers, scheduled to staff rest-centres, were victims of the raid. New rest-centres had to bo improvised, and there were no staffs for them. Some transport was dislocated. Women with babies, young children, old people, and the infirm were huddled in halls before buses took them from the city. Some centres worked efficiently. But exceptions were sufficient to warrant a searching inquiry. Some police, drafted into Exeter from outside areas, did not know their way about, and there were few emergency signs. Scores of homeless people were directed —and walked —long distances to rest-centres which had been destroyed. The Daily Herald reporter says he saw people* turning away from a hall where they found the doors locked. They did not know that the entrance was by a side door, because there was no notice. Two women wardens who opened the door later acted as cooks, waitresses, nurses and foster-mothers for 37 hours without relief. "When buses arrived to take the first batch of homeless from the city the two women acted as evacuation officers. PATROL-BOAT ACE RETURN TO UNITED STATES GREAT WORK IN PHILIPPINES SYDNEY, May 14 Lieutenant John Bulkeley, the expert in patrol torpedo-boats (P.T.'s), who supervised General .Mac Arthur's dash from the Philippines last March, travelled by air from Australia to America with three other torpedo-boat officers. He is regarded as America's "Ace" in the handling of P.T.'s, which the Philippine Army was beginning to adopt on General Mac Arthur's request when the Pacific war began. P.T. boats have always been strongly favoured by General Mac Arthur. He tried several times to have them adopted as part of the modern machinery of war before they finally were tried in the Philippines, where the archipelago forms an island sea. He had urged their use for harassing any capital invading ships, and staked his reputation on their efficiency. In response to General Mac Arthur's plea 12 of these boats were delivered to the Philippines, six arriving in the charge of Lieutenant Bulkeley just before the outbreak of war. In a few months Lieutenant Bulkeley sank seven Japanese ships. Twice he went into Subic Bay and scored heavily. Once he returned to make certain*that a Japanese cruiser was sinking, and was almost captured. Lieutenant Bulkeley won the Distinguished Service Cross. MOANING DEPLORED TAXATION AND DONATIONS "Even now there are still examples of complacency—not that I think jittering is of any value; but, unless we in the Dominion first win out on the service and production fronts, our troops cannot be expected to win on the liberty front," said Sir Ernest Davis, in making his # nnnual report as chairman at the annual meeting last night of the joint council of the Order of St'. John and the Red Cross Society. "We would all like to see our war effort waged in the true sense of the word." added Sir Ernest. "Quite a number of people are moaning about taxation, and saying they cannot continue subscribing to patriotic funds. We must realise that taxes and subscriptions to the war for victory come before so-called essentials in our standards of living. They demand a full degree of self-sacrifice." RATIONING SYSTEM REGULATIONS IN AUSTRALIA CANBERRA. May 14 Powers to declare for rationing purposes any commodity or service in Australia are vested in the Minister of Customs, Mr. R. V. Keane, by regulations which have been gazetted. The only limitation is that the Minister cannot declare for rationing any service supplied or carried on by a State unless the Government concerned agrees. The chairman of the Rationing Commission, Mr. A. W. Coles, announced that ration books would be introduced throughout Australia on .Tune 13. This is nearly three weeks earlier than the date originally anticipated. Mr. Coles said that, broadly speaking, the British system of rationing would be followed, but it would be adapted to Australian conditions. Coupons would he issued lor a period of a year and restrictions might be imposed to compel coupon holders to spread their purchases over the year. The commission would decide how many coupons would be equivalent to each rationed article, but the classes of goods to be rationed would be decided by the Federal Government. The Tea Control Board has been given power to control coffee as well as tea. Hie board will take over the importation and distribution of coffee. This does not mean that coffee rationing has been introduced. EARTHQUAKE IN ECUADOR (Reed. 8.15 p.m.) NEW YORK, May 14 A message from Guayaquil, Ecuador, says that more than 100 people were killed when an earthquake of one minute's duration wrecked many buildings in the Guayaquil area. The population became panic-stricken when the city's electricity supply was cut off. The earthquake is the most disastrous in the history of the countrv.