AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23114, 13 February 1937, Page 11

AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS

GAS MASK DEPOTS INSTRUCTIONS AND LECTURES • From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, Jan. 20. The first gas mask depots in London are to be established shortly, and the Air-Raid Precautions Department of the Home Office is making arrangements to have them fully advertised, so that everyone will know exactly where to go in time of need. No gas masks will be issued to the public until the need does arise. They are stored in bulk in a way that should make sure that they will retain their gas-resisting properties for a very long time. The store life is expected to be something like 20 years. In private houses, without special storing precautions, the life of the masks would be comparatively short. The masks are so simple in design that instructions in the proper way to put them on and use them can be given in one minute. Part of the Home Office scheme is to provide an adequate staff of instructors at each issuing depot. In many parts of the country, and in London, local authorities have already started on the work of forming voluntary airraid precautions organisations. Very soon such organisations will be in being in every vulnerable area. Lectures and practical instruction will be given to the members of these bodies, not only as to the issue and proper use of gas masks, but in the quite simple precautions that should be observed by the civilian population in case of a gas attack from the air. . The real danger of such an attack is considered to lie not so much in the damage it might do as in the panic which might follow in populous areas without proper protection. The purposes of these voluntary organisations is to provide the public with such complete knowledge that there will be no chance of panic. When the depots are in being, any member of the public will be able to have instruction in fitting the mask and will be told what to do if an air raid should occur. Indicating the careful preparations for protection, of the public during air raids, a committee of the Wandsworth Borough Council has been making inquiries as to whether specific premises may be earmarked for various purposes in connection with the borough's air raid precautions scheme, . Consideration has been given to the use of large garage establishments as stations for decontamination of material objects, laundries for the decontamination of clothing, buildings for first aid posts and cleansing centres, and premises, including church crypts, as shelters for persons caught in the streets during air raids.