AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21042, 19 February 1940, Page 8

AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS

GREAT TEST IN BRITAIN BIGGEST EVER UNDERTAKEN HUNDREDS OF BOMBS DROPPED (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright) Feb. 19, 3.15 p.m.) LONDON, Feb. 13 The world’s biggest air raid precaution test was carried out in the London regional areas, where 60,000 workers were engaged. Explosives shattered masonry and fires ignited derelict houses. Stretcher parties carried casualties to first aid posts, while steel-helmeted girls drove ambulances through the streets.

The exercises were preceded by successive waves of bombing planes, which fighters and anti-aircraft units broke up. Bombs numbering 250 were dropped on fifty boroughs, “killing” 400 and “wounding” 5000 people in 150 centres of Greater London, Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Kent, Surrey and Suffolk.

The realism culminated when an imitation German plane crashed in King’s Cross, exploding its cargos of bombs in a prepared excavation, causing 227 “casualties.” Only the silence of the sirens differentiated the exerises from an actual attack. Bodies were extricated from the debris by 360 rescue squads, after which came routine identification and disposal of the “dead.”