What position on disarmament? The fact I mentioned is the specific explanation for why disarmament in 1965 failed: fact, Noel-Baker blamed "militarists". Either it is a fact, or it isn't.

Just for the record, I'm not referring to that (what Noel-Baker thought in 1965 was the reason for the failure of disarmament in the 1930s isn't very interesting to me). I'm referring to this (from the other thread):

Bertrand Russell's suggestion to simply disarm and tell Hitler to do his worst was the prevailing view of disarmers like Noel-Baker, but Kendall in 1938 lampooned this advice.

No, unilateral disarmament was not the prevailing view of Noel Baker, as I've explained (i.e. he wanted an international air force to keep the peace; national disarmament would happen in train with or shortly after its creation). If you'd left Noel Baker's name out of it, I wouldn't have disagreed. But seeing as you claim that

Noel-Baker is singled by Paul Mercer, in Peace of the Dead (1986) which goes into Noel-Baker's motives for trying to prevent war in the 1930s by disarming

then I have to conclude that Mercer either doesn't understand history very well or he was making it up to fit his preconceived ideas. To be fair to Mercer, however, I have not read his book; I'm going on your account. But as I say, I'm not particularly interested in chasing it down either.

The main irony is, NC, that if you apply your own type of analysis to your own work, huge problems appear. That's the issue right there; that the methodology is unsound and the material presented is poorly handled.

I can't speak for the academic contributors, and you've not offered on what basis you have been researching this material for so long. However as a non-academic but interested editor (whose job includes evaluating the credibility and integrity of academic and non-academic writing) you are hitting too many warning notes that (as has been said) your work is polemical and partisan. Your presentation here, and your notes-style blog acts (also ironically, I think) most effectively at repelling a critical unbiased reader of what I think (it's still not clear) you are trying to say, rather than convincing the interested reader.

Certainly it is worth discussing that there are significant issues with government advice and analysis over civil defence, bombing and nuclear war. Some of the material you've presented is of interest, and thought provoking. However your selection of the data and presentation just won't do. I cannot currently recommend your work as presented here and there as a sound source of views on the topic, however much the ideas may be debated. It is not a question of bias or political leaning, but simply unreliability of work.

You have said the free criticism is enlightening, so with that in mind;

- Avoid the prejudicial adjectives.

- Get your definitions right, manage exceptions and diversity: for instance your definitions of 'prejudice' and 'civil defence' are neither accurate enough or robust.

- Don't miss out key words.

- Show why some evidence and statements are more worthy or less: for instance calling people or statements lies and liars says more (too much) about your analysis than them.

- You can't attack a person in one paragraph and use the same person's other views to justify yours in another paragraph. Leave the attacks out, and instead argue why they are correct or incorrect in each case.

- Don't write like a party political pamphlet or a politically funded think tank, unless that's how you wish to be seen. If you want your research to have credibility, put as much effort into getting the process of evaluation and presentation of the ideas as you have into selecting supporting data - and choose tighter more focused examples.

- When you say you are being concise, be so.

- And a summary of the argument at the start or the end will keep a lot more people interested in what you have to say; volumes of material do not make your argument or views stronger, if it is not clearly presented somewhere.

- 'Facts' are not some silver bullet. Everyone is always selecting facts and avoiding or discarding others. The test is not to harangue others with your chosen set, but to address why they might 'better' and how others may be less appropriate. More rigor in selecting and testing rather than just waving those that suit would be another point.

That's more than enough; Brett's blog is not the most appropriate place for research and thesis skills, or writing an analysis; and I'm not attempting to distil either or offer academic advice, so I agree the discussions better brought to a close. But I hope that the discussion may encourage a review of approach, good luck.

To argue that this makes conventional bombing worse than nuclear warfare is bizarre.

You've misrepresented me; I pointed out a factor and did not use that factor alone to argue "this makes conventional bombing worse than nuclear warfare".

... nuclear weapons pretty much create an automatic firestorm.

Only one of predominantly two wooden frame cities that existed in Japan in 1945 suffered a firestorm after a nuclear explosion, and even there (Hiroshima) people in modern building in the firestorm area survived. The increase in casualties in various buildings due to the firestorm was trivial as all the detailed reports on casualties in buildings within the firestorm proved (the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey reports it took 2-3 hours to develop to maximum intensity). The Dirkwood Corporation report DC-FR-1054 compared firestorm casualties in different buildings in Hiroshima to Nagasaki (where there were fires, but no firestorm). The was a small effect, and a recent study Lawrence Livermore study shows that the thermal flash is shadowed in modern buildings, preventing ignitions in most cases. So no firestorm. EMP again is ignored in firestorm studies. It precedes the blast, and cuts off electrical power by activating circuit breakers. The fires in Hiroshima were mostly overturned charcoal braziers in wooden houses.

And it was the firestorms which caused the truly mass casualties and destruction, precisely because, as I said, the fires overwhelmed the emergency services: more than twice as many people were killed in the Hamburg firestorm than in London during the whole Blitz, for example. And with nuclear weapons you can do that predictably and repeatably.

Hamburg was bombed with incendiaries which burn for 15 minutes unlike the nuclear flash which can't start many fires in a city, as Stanbury explained in Fission Fragments in 1961 after "academic scientists" on TV had attacked the Home Office for discounting fire storms . You cannot start any fires in materials other than fine kindling with nuclear weapons, and you can stamp out ignited newspapers near windows before your house burns down. How many people hang Hiroshima's wartime black coloured curtains in their windows today? Even in Hiroshima, they didn't start a firestorm. There is no mechanism in Western cities for a firestorm, unless you use incendiary bombs as well as nuclear weapons.

Mercer fundamentally misrepresents Philip Noel Baker's position on disarmament

What position on disarmament? The fact I mentioned is the specific explanation for why disarmament in 1965 failed: fact, Noel-Baker blamed "militarists". Either it is a fact, or it isn't. I agree with your thesis on this subject. May I take this opportunity, having been well and truly humbled, to withdraw well and truly beaten and humiliated, from this discussion. Again, thanks for the lively exchange, and I agree with the free criticism, which is very enlightening.

Civil defence is first about prevention of casualties, precisely so you don't produce so many casualties in the first place, that you would have without civil defence. You're defining civil defence purely as first aid and other recovery functions in the aftermath. Air raids during WWII which went on for hours and included a lot of unexploded bombs with delay timers or motion sensor detonators (booby traps) severely hampered civil defence rescue efforts. Bomb disposal had to defuse unexploded bombs before civil defence could work. This is not the case with nuclear weapons.

They sometimes had to defuse unexploded bombs before civil defence could work. Unexploded ordinance was a serious problem, sure, but you are elevating it far above its actual importance. To argue that this makes conventional bombing worse than nuclear warfare is bizarre.

In any case, Hamburg and Tokyo were destroyed in a matter of hours, just like Hiroshima where the firestorm wasn't instant but took hours to develop.

Yes. That was effectively my point: that nuclear weapons pretty much create an automatic firestorm. Firestorms were very difficult to create intentionally with conventional weapons: the RAF and USAAF were almost at that point in 1945, but not quite, everything still had to come off perfectly. And it was the firestorms which caused the truly mass casualties and destruction, precisely because, as I said, the fires overwhelmed the emergency services: more than twice as many people were killed in the Hamburg firestorm than in London during the whole Blitz, for example. And with nuclear weapons you can do that predictably and repeatably.

Mercer reprints the reports [...]

There's no point in continuing to throw Mercer at me. I've already explained that, judging from your own account, Mercer fundamentally misrepresents Philip Noel Baker's position on disarmament, and, to a lesser extent, Bertrand Russell's. Let me be blunter: when it comes to the 1930s, either Mercer doesn't know what he's talking about, or you don't know what he's talking about. Either way, you're on a hiding to nothing here.

-- Rt Hon David Cameron MP
February 2010

A political leader praising one of his own MPs! I'm almost positive this has never, ever happened before in the history of the world.

One minute you cite Ceadel's paper about the 1930s, the next you're talking about Mercer infiltrating the CND in the 1980s.

Mercer reprints the reports and they show a consistent effort by the Soviet Union from the 1930s to the 1980s to infiltrate the British Government civil service and to recruit not only Marxist-leaning historians but any socialists they could get to the great cause. The Daily Worker first appeared in London on 1 January 1930. This links to Stalin and it didn't start as the Soviets trying to get secrets or preparing for WWIII, just as an effort to encourage Soviet leaning Brits to get involved in politics, hoping to use democracy to introduce socialism, which was strongly affiliated to the peace and disarmament lobby. Mercer has extensive references and documents lots of primary sources. His boss was the Director of Policy Research Associates, Dr Julian Lewis (DPhil in Strategic Studies in 1981), now MP for New Forest East.

"Julian Lewis has a formidable reputation in the field of defence and disarmament. He led the challenge to dangerous unilateralism in the Eighties, and was proved right on this crucial issue. Julian is held in very high regard by defence experts and has brought this real experience and expertise to my Front Bench team."

— Rt Hon David Cameron MP
February 2010

http://www.julianlewis.net/

Dr Smith apparently now works in the Whitehall Civil Service, so I fear that red tape and secrecy may prevent further insights being openly published.

"I'm talking about civil defence, not morale. In a nuclear attack, fire services, hospitals, rescue squads, etc, would be overwhelmed, because the vast majority of damage is done in minutes. But with the damage spread over months, they have time to respond effectively and then to recoup between raids. It's a completely different problem."

Civil defence is first about prevention of casualties, precisely so you don't produce so many casualties in the first place, that you would have without civil defence. You're defining civil defence purely as first aid and other recovery functions in the aftermath. Air raids during WWII which went on for hours and included a lot of unexploded bombs with delay timers or motion sensor detonators (booby traps) severely hampered civil defence rescue efforts. Bomb disposal had to defuse unexploded bombs before civil defence could work. This is not the case with nuclear weapons. For example, after radiation exposure the white blood cell count reaches a minimum about 30 days after a sub-lethal exposure, and most of the casualties from infection are spread over a period of two months. In any case, Hamburg and Tokyo were destroyed in a matter of hours, just like Hiroshima where the firestorm wasn't instant but took hours to develop.

The International Center of Photography in 2011 published Hiroshima: Ground Zero 1945 which is extracts from the secret 1947 3-volume U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), which America should have published in 1947, instead of the misleading 1946 report and other propaganda. On page 176, they quote the USSBS secret Hiroshima report's volume 2, pages 126-8:

"Structural damage by blast to multistory, steel- and reinforced concrete-frame structures did not extend beyond 2,000 feet from GZ. The buildings within this radius sustained an average of 12 percent structural damage. The average for all the buildings of this type in Hiroshima was 8 percent."

These are modern city buildings. The burned out areas in old photos are congested (a roof to ground area of over 40%) wood frame houses. On page 98, they quote the secret 1947 USSBS Hiroshima report, vol 1, pp 13-14 (typeset edition, not the typed manuscript in the UK National Archives at Kew, which I examined on visiting it - then called PRO - with my father right back in July 1990):

... six persons who had been in reinforced-concrete buildings within 3,200 feet of air zero stated that black cotton blackout curtains were ignited by radiant heat ... but a large proportion of over 1,000 persons questioned was in agreement that a great majority of the original fires was started by debris falling on kitchen charcoal fires, by industrial process fires, or by electric short circuits.

I'm glad that this has finally been published, although it is hidden away on page 98 of that 2011 book of photos. If I can just make a final encouraging observation about the fickleness of public opinion: Dr David Bradley in 1948 wrote a book called No Place to Hide, claiming that an underwater burst like the 1946 Baker test at Bikini Atoll, would contaminate everything and everyone like that nuclear test which he attended as a radiation monitor. It was widely reviewed, praised, and led to Britain detonating Hurricane as a water burst in 1952 (to check the contamination data from Baker, and the effects of very shallow water in a harbour). Bradley reports that the book was a best-seller until 23 September 1949 bomb, when sales dropped off suddenly. That was the day Truman announced the first Russian nuclear test (source: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nov 1983, p39). This is precisely what happened in the late 1930s, when the popularity of "next war" fiction was replaced with an interest in realistic civil defence (1 million ARP members signed up after the Munich crisis) because air attack was becoming a real threat, no longer escapist fiction. If only it hadn't taken so long.

I don't precisely see what you are suggesting is gained, since we're comparing the same number of casualties and the same amount of destruction, spread over different periods of time. Rebuilding in London's heavily hit East End postwar and took many years after the war, so a the number of hours or months the damage was spread over did not affect the situation. For individuals it makes the fear, worry and stress last 9 months. There is evidence from Janis that spreading out a given amount of destruction can cause more disruption to city life than equal destruction delivered in a single raid.

I'm talking about civil defence, not morale. In a nuclear attack, fire services, hospitals, rescue squads, etc, would be overwhelmed, because the vast majority of damage is done in minutes. But with the damage spread over months, they have time to respond effectively and then to recoup between raids. It's a completely different problem.

I'm not interested in producing a diatribe against disarmers, certainly most were entirely genuine. Unfortunately virtually all of most outspoken "pacifists" who distorted the facts did have a political agenda and were spreading propaganda knowingly, and there is evidence to support the fact of this prejudice.

I can't agree with this formulation either. Some, no doubt; not 'virtually all'.

Martin Ceadle's paper, "The First Communist 'Peace Society': The British Anti-War Movement 1932-1935", Twentieth Century British History (1990) 1 (1), pp 58-86, traces how the peace movement infiltrated back in the 1920s. Paul Mercer's 1986, 465 pages The Peace of the Dead: The Truth behind the Nuclear Disarmers documents evidence of the links of the Moscow Politburo-controlled World Peace Council, and CND. Sure it's published by a right-wing think tank (Policy Research Publications, trying to hit Labour before the Thatcher's third general election) but who else would fund such a detailed research publication (Mercer infiltrated CND to get access to their records, a right-wing Mole to balance out Duncan Campbell, albeit with far fewer sales than War plan UK).

I don't know Mercer's book. But with such an obvious agenda I would find it very difficult to trust it as a work of history, even to the extent that it was intended as history. And I find it odd that you ask 'who else would fund such a detailed research publication'. Historians, poorly funded as we are, do this sort of thing all the time. Maybe not for the CND yet; I don't know. (I assume somebody has used the CND's extensive archives at the LSE; of course you wouldn't trust that to give the whole picture either.) But you don't need to play at being a secret agent to do serious research. It's not exactly repeatable.

More importantly, it's one thing to compare different periods, it's another to conflate them. One minute you cite Ceadel's paper about the 1930s, the next you're talking about Mercer infiltrating the CND in the 1980s. The extent to which CND was influenced or even controlled by communists says nothing whatsoever about what was happening between the wars to the peace groups which came before CND.

Ceadel's paper is certainly to the point; but he does not portray a peace movement dominated by communists. Clearly communists were influential, but that is not the same thing: peace activists in the 1930s came from all ideologies and none. The Peace Pledge Union, the Peace Ballot, the New Commonwealth, the League of Nations Union, these things were as important to the history of pacifism in the 1930s, if not more, than any communist front group. It's one reason why they couldn't present a united front.

Dr Smith did not cover 1950s Scientific Advisory Branch blast casualty estimates, which were justified by the 1952 Hurricane nuclear test exposure of WWII Anderson shelters to various overpressures at Monte bello.

See, to me that is a legitimate criticism. That sounds like something she should be discussing.

You're also ignoring the fact that in a nuclear attack all those megatons would been delivered in seconds, not spread out over the nine months of the Blitz. Don't you think this makes a slight difference to the civil defence problem?

On the issue of the 9 months time spread of the Blitz, Janis's Air War and Emotional Stress and later revisionist studies of both single mass attacks (Hamburg 1943, Tokyo 1945, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki) provide evidence which can be compared to the Blitz, i.e. protracted bombing. Spread out the same casualties and destruction over a longer time period does greatly reduces the overall intensity of the shock of the damage, but the disruption lasts longer. Disrupting the sleep of the population due to repeated night air raids for many months is a negative effect which is reduced in a single explosion. I don't precisely see what you are suggesting is gained, since we're comparing the same number of casualties and the same amount of destruction, spread over different periods of time. Rebuilding in London's heavily hit East End postwar and took many years after the war, so a the number of hours or months the damage was spread over did not affect the situation. For individuals it makes the fear, worry and stress last 9 months. There is evidence from Janis that spreading out a given amount of destruction can cause more disruption to city life than equal destruction delivered in a single raid.

A delay in the arrival of the harmful blast winds and debris over the vast area of destruction, and the delayed thermal plus nuclear radiation pulse emission, simply does not happen with conventional explosives. At 1 mile from a 20 kt WWII nuclear explosion even without an air raid warning, you have a flash of light many times brighter than the sun which gives you a full 3 seconds to duck and cover before the blast arrives. Hence Bert the Turtle's duck and cover advice in 1950. The H-bomb makes this even more effective, since the heat comes out more slowly and the blast takes longer to arrive over vast areas, with higher yield (a full 40 seconds 10 miles from a 1 megaton burst). Apart from the Blitz comparison, there is the single air raid on Tokyo, or the air raids over one day (USAF) and the following night (RAF) on the medieval (wooden) area of Hamburg.

I'm not interested in producing a diatribe against disarmers, certainly most were entirely genuine. Unfortunately virtually all of most outspoken "pacifists" who distorted the facts did have a political agenda and were spreading propaganda knowingly, and there is evidence to support the fact of this prejudice.

Martin Ceadle's paper, "The First Communist 'Peace Society': The British Anti-War Movement 1932-1935", Twentieth Century British History (1990) 1 (1), pp 58-86, traces how the peace movement infiltrated back in the 1920s. Paul Mercer's 1986, 465 pages The Peace of the Dead: The Truth behind the Nuclear Disarmers documents evidence of the links of the Moscow Politburo-controlled World Peace Council, and CND. Sure it's published by a right-wing think tank (Policy Research Publications, trying to hit Labour before the Thatcher's third general election) but who else would fund such a detailed research publication (Mercer infiltrated CND to get access to their records, a right-wing Mole to balance out Duncan Campbell, albeit with far fewer sales than War plan UK).

Dr Smith did not cover 1950s Scientific Advisory Branch blast casualty estimates, which were justified by the 1952 Hurricane nuclear test exposure of WWII Anderson shelters to various overpressures at Monte bello. Those estimates were incorporated into the Confidential 1957 Capabilities of Atomic Weapons, TM 23-200 for brick houses (that manual was given to Britain in 1958), yet they were were vigorously attacked by SANA and Duncan Campbell (War Plan UK, 1982). So there was information suggesting an exaggeration of published effects back in the 1950s, and Glasstone's 1962 edition of The Effects of Nuclear Weapons obliquely included some of the early data showing 50% survival at 0.12 mile from ground zero in concrete buildings in Hiroshima, versus 1.3 miles for 50% survival outdoors. My father who remembers the 1930s situation and the Blitz was a Civil Defence Corp instructor in the UK from 1950, attending instructor courses at the Easingwold civil defence college. Throughout the entire pre-war to Cold War period civil defence was vilified and sneered at in the press, the radio and later on TV by all manner of experts who didn't know even the facts available at the time in question.

Again, I apologise for any errors, misunderstandings, and off-topic lengthy comments, and please feel free to delete the comments if they are unhelpful to yourself or others. The responses have been enlightening in any case.

Firstly, let me just say I appreciate that you have taken my request on board, and furthermore have remained polite despite some rough handling. I welcome your continued comments, as long as they are on topic (within reason); if you want to go off on a tangent you are welcome to link to your own blog. Thank you.

Thanks, but you're missing the point: everybody knew that WWII in Europe was coming to an end and that physics would return to pre-war activities. This meant nuclear physics, and the application of fission, which was as big then as superstring hype is today. Laurence's articles in 1940 did not mark the end of public interest: atoms dominated sci fi throughout the war, just as superstring hype today is indistinguishable from sci fi: Sam Moskowitz, "The Atom Smashers: Fiction's Prophetic Parallel to Fact", published in Fantasy Fiction Field, no. 210, 6 October 1945; Paul Brians, Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction, 1895-1984, Kent State University press, 1987.

With respect, no. This just is not relevant to what I'm talking about here.
Once again, in this post I am talking about a very specific moment: the end of May 1945. (This is several weeks *after* the end of the war in Europe, by the way, not before.) In this post I am asking why, at this specific moment, it was possible for somebody to say that 'The second world war had been within measuring distance of the atom bomb' and for somebody else to refer to 'The atomic bomb, which was almost ready at the end of the war'. Of course the idea of the atomic bomb was public knowledge. It had been around since 1914, and used in SF novels and stories since then. But that fact alone cannot explain why, suddenly, these people started to discuss it right at this specific moment. They are not talking about the mere idea of an atomic bomb, and speculating that it might be developed soon. They are claiming that the atomic bomb had already been in development (past tense). Being aware of the general idea of atomic bombs simply cannot explain why they made these claims. As I pointed out in a previous comment, Darnley even said that 'the Press tells us' that the atomic bomb was 'three-quarters' finished by the end of the war. This, the fact that they were speaking in the past tense, and also the way that they talk as if the atomic bomb project had been interrupted by the end of the war, all suggests to me that they are referring to a specific press claim about a German atomic bomb project.

And, just by the by, I rather doubt that members of the House of Lords were regular readers of American science fiction pulps during the war.

Richard Rhodes quotes Churchill's reaction in The Making of the Atomic Bomb:

"Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I
feel we must not stand in the path of improvement."

Churchill was just being realistic, and contrary to Rhodes, was proved right. It turned out to be too late to drop on Germany, and with most of the wooden medieval German city centres already burned out by firestorms, and better air-raid shelters in Germany basements than in Hiroshima, I doubt if the casualties would have been significant.

I can't see what your point is here. Churchill could not foresee the future; he did not know how long the bomb would take to develop nor when the war would end. It was a big investment in resources and money (which could have been expended on other things) and so, given that he did not know if the bomb would be ready in time he was a bit doubtful about it. But his advisors believed it was a worthwhile risk and so he did approve it. If he had been so prescient as you seem to think he was, why would he do that? Again, he was not a scientist and he had no special understanding of nuclear physics. He was instead a war leader trying to allocate resources efficiently. That's the extent of his 'apathy' about nuclear weapons.

Note that no historian, not even Dr Melissa Smith (Architects of Armageddon: the Home Office Scientific Advisers' Branch and civil defence in Britain, 1945–68 has ever checked the Dirkwood Corporation's 1968 analysis of 35,000 Hiroshima and Nagasaki case histories with respect to survival rates outdoors or indoors, in shelter, etc. The bomb was only highly in Hiroshima against overcrowded wooden housing when most people were outdoors. There is too much prejudice to deal with this.

You don't seem to understand what it is that historians actually do. Why would a historian of British civil defence care particularly what an American corporation reported about Hiroshima? She might, if the subjects of her study (i.e. the Home Office Scientific Advisers' Branch) had used that study. (But since it was done right at the very end of her period, that seems unlikely.) Or perhaps she might use it in a comparative vein, to see what the Americans were thinking about civil defence in the sane period. But I don't read you as saying this. Instead you seem to be suggesting that she should have looked at it in an effort to check whether or not the Home Office Scientific Advisers' Branch was correct in its assessment of the effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. That's not history, that's science. (And I need to keep pointing out that your beliefs about the effects of nuclear weapons are heterodox.)

The Blitz blast overpressure effects on London were thus equivalent to 4 hydrogen bombs of 2 megatons yield each. Sure, there was no fallout, but if the Russians wanted to optimise blast and thermal effects they would have to air burst the bombs well above the fireball radius.

You're also ignoring the fact that in a nuclear attack all those megatons would been delivered in seconds, not spread out over the nine months of the Blitz. Don't you think this makes a slight difference to the civil defence problem?

Now, please tell me, why civil defence is supposedly not possible against nuclear weapons for all the orthodox historians? Can they calculate? :-)

Again, historians would generally accept the advice of scientists, engineers, etc, on this point. That's if they made a judgement on the question at all; more likely they would confine themselves to discussing what people (e.g. civil defence planners) thought at the time and why they thought it. Proving or disproving scientific ideas doesn't come into it.

Here's a summary: the popular media, disarmament activists, fashionable politicians, and the military have all, always had a duty to try to maximise the alarm over various "weapons of mass destruction". All have a duty to warn the public of the possibility of impending doom, if that helps sell newspapers, books, disarmament conferences, votes, and weapons systems.

I absolutely agree that pacifists and militarists both had an interest in promoting the fear of the bomber. I absolutely disagree that their motives were always, or even usually, venal as you imply. They were honestly-held beliefs. (And Alan's comment is spot on in this regard.) In this case they happened to be wrong, or at least, vastly exaggerated. That doesn't mean it always has to be the case. Sometimes the sky does fall in.

Yet there is no financial benefit to anyone from even publishing the efficiency of simple duck and cover type knowledge-based countermeasures. My argument is that if people know the facts, the panic is replaced by effective counteractions which greatly reduce the effects.

Not everything is about money. And 'knowledge-based' is a nice phrase, but the point is how is that knowledge acquired? The question is what knowledge did they have, rather than what knowledge you think they should have had? You need to look at the bomber fear from the vantage point of the 1930s, not from c. 1960 as Kahn did and not from 2012 as you are.