Civil defence

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If you were wondering what the biggest and loudest air raid siren of all time is, then wonder no more, because it's the American Chrysler Victory Siren, made in the 1950s. Well, I don't know for sure that it was -- I'd like to see what the Soviets had to offer -- but it was clearly a mighty impressive piece of hardware: 12 feet long; 3 tons in weight; and 138 decibels at a distance of 100 feet! (120 dB is the pain threshold.) These were dotted all over the United States -- 20 in Detroit alone.

You can hear one of the few remaining examples in action here. It certainly sends a chill down my spine, which is perhaps strange as nuclear drills were not a feature of my youth here in Australia, so I only know the sound of such sirens second-hand. But I can't help but imagine what would have been happening to the communities these sirens were meant to warn, as the missiles (or in the 1950s, the bombs) rained down. Which in turn leads one to marvel at the optimistic choice of the name Victory Siren ... though I suppose the Defeat Siren ("If you can hear this, you're already dead") might not have sold so well!1

  1. Of course, nuclear war looked somewhat more winnable in the 1950s, and civil defence correspondingly less pointless, than was later the case. But still. [↩]

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[I posted this last Wednesday, but somehow, it was marked as "private" rather than "published", so nobody saw it but me! So I'm fixing that and bumping it to the top.]

The talk went off pretty well, I think -- at least I didn't hear any snoring and got some good questions at the end. The best part, though, was that "Four" Meaher (whose own paper on the political uses of the myth of the "great betrayal" -- ie of Australia, by Britain, in 1941-2 -- was one of the highlights of the day for me) put me on to this most amusing song called "The Deepest Shelter in Town", the lyrics of which are below. Googling, it turns out that it was sung by an English comedienne, Florence Desmond (whose first husband, incidentally, was one of the winners of the 1934 London to Melbourne Centenary Air Race, Tom Campbell Black). The reference to Herbert Morrison dates it to his early days at the Home Office (where he was responsible for air raid precautions), ie from October 1940, when he took over from John Anderson -- the height of the Blitz, which fits (though otherwise, the late 1930s might be an even better fit, when the left were attacking the government over the lack of deep air raid shelters).

Don't run away, mister,
Oh stay and play, mister.
Don't worry if you hear the siren go.
Though I'm not a lady of the highest virtue,
I wouldn't dream of letting anything hurt you.
And so before you go,
I think you ought to know

I got a cozy flat,
There's a place for your hat.
I'll wear a pink chiffon negligee gown.
And do I know my stuff?
But if that's not enough,
I've got the deepest shelter in town.

I've got a room for two,
A radio that's new,
An alarm clock that won't let you down.
And I've got central heat,
But to make it complete,
I've got the deepest shelter in town.

Ev'ry modern comfort
I can just guarantee.
If you hear the siren call,
Then it's probably me.

And sweetie, to revert,
I'll keep you on the alert.
I won't even be wearing a frown.
So you can hang around here
Until the "all clear,"
In the deepest shelter in town.

Now, honey, I don't sing
Of an Anderson thing,
Climbing in one, you look like a clown.
But if you came here to see
Why Sir John would agree
I've got the deepest shelter in town.

Now Mr. Morrison
Says he's getting things done,
And he's a man of the greatest renown.
But before it gets wrecked,
I hope he'll come and inspect
The deepest shelter in town.

Now, I was one of the first
To clear my attic of junk.
But when it comes to shelters,
Now-a-days, it's all bunk.

So, honey, don't get scared,
It's there to be shared!
And you'll feel like a king with a crown.
So please don't be mean,
Better men than you have been
In the deepest shelter in town.

Now, what she meant by 'I've got the deepest shelter in town' I'm sure I don't know, but I imagine she looked something like this when she was singing it!

Florence Desmond

Image source: Virtual History Film.

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Yesterday was the 63rd anniversary of the Bethnal Green Tube disaster. On the evening of 3 March 1943, 173 people -- men, women and children -- died at the Bethnal Green Tube station, the greatest loss of life of any single incident during the German bombing campaign against Britain. The tragedy took place during an air raid; the as-yet unused Underground station was one of London's biggest deep air raid shelters. Yet the deaths were not due to bombing; in fact no bombs fell nearby. Hundreds of people were streaming down the steps into the station. The crowd panicked and surged forward, a woman holding a baby fell and tripped, and the people behind her piled into one another and were crushed to death. (The woman survived, but the baby died.)

Why did they panic? It seems that it was because a secret new anti-aircraft weapon, which fired salvos of sixty rockets at a time, was being tested in a nearby park. The rockets made a very loud roaring sound as they were launched; moreover, the sound was unfamiliar and may have been mistaken for a new type of German weapon. As one resident recalled about that night on the BBC's WW2 People's War site:

I had to go back to the flat for something - don't remember what, as soon as I had entered the flat there was a horrendous roar and the place lit up. I hadn't heard that noise before and waited for the explosions, there were none other than the local guns firing and shells bursting overhead.

When I got back to the shelter everyone was asking what the noise was?

This shows how familiarity breeds contempt, at least when it comes to air raids -- civilians can cope with a lot if they know what to expect, especially if reality turns out to be not as bad as was feared. By 1943 bombing raids were routine, but the noise from the rockets was something new, and strange; for a brief moment, it caused the sort of panic that was supposed to take place during the knock-out blow.

Some useful links: an exercise at the National Archives addressing the question, why did Bethnal Green happen, including excerpts from the then-secret government report into the disaster; the WW2 People's War article on Bethnal Green, and another near-witness's report.

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A new addition to the historioblogosphere -- and one very close to my own interests! It's called The Blogger will always get through... and is the work of the indefatigable Peter Hibbs, who runs the amazingly exhaustive and informative NBCD (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence) site, primarily (but not exclusively) covering Britain in the era of the world wars. As Peter relates, the blog

records my thoughts on odd subjects related to the development of this website, Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare, Air Raid Precautions/Civil Defence and anything else that happens to grab my interest.

He's actually been blogging since the start of the year, so there's already a goodly number of posts to go through: highlights for me so far include the things people leave in their gas masks, beating air raid sirens into washing machines and a possible public air raid shelter in Norbury. Anyone who is interested in Airminded's subject matter will likely find it worth their while to read The Blogger will always get through... too, so do yourself a favour and check it out!

PS Bonus points for the blog's name ... very punny indeed.

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Japanese ARP poster

Boing Boing has a link to a very interesting and oddly beautiful set of Japanese air raid precautions posters at the National Archives of Japan. (Boing Boing says they are from the Second World War, but according to the page itself, they date from 1938.) I am myself somewhat ignorant of Japanese history, but as it happens my supervisor is a specialist in modern Japanese history,I should add that he had nothing to do with writing this post, so all errors are mine alone! and it seems that there are significant similarities between Britain and Japan when it comes to the fear of the bomber.

Japanese ARP poster - gas attack

As early as the 1920s, Japanese cities were holding air raid drills, and according to George H. Quester, Deterrence before Hiroshima: The Airpower Background of Modern Strategy (New Brunswick and Oxford: Transaction Books, 1986), nobody tried harder than the Japanese to ban or limit aerial bombing by international treaty. Quester also suggests that the ongoing deployment of several hundred American B-17s to the Philippines was an important factor in Japan's decision to go to war with the United States -- to take them out before they could become a big enough force to deter Japanese actions at a later date, or indeed to attack Japan itself. (Though I don't know whether this idea is sustained by more recent scholarship -- Quester originally wrote in 1966.)

Japanese ARP poster - incendiary attack

Anyway, I was surprised that there was such a fear of the bomber in Japan, as any potential aerial enemies were much further away than they were for Britain -- so the fear seems that much more irrational. Some possible reasons might include: a similar psychological reaction to the negation of the ocean barrier which a naval power like Japan had relied upon for protection; the perception that as a relatively highly-industrialised country, it had more to lose by aerial bombing than did less-industrialised countries like China or other neighbours like the Soviet Union or the United States, whose main centres of population and industry were out of Japan's reach; or the terrible example of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, which potentially foreshadowed the scale of devastation that might be suffered in an aerial knock-out blow.All of these ideas have some parallel with the British case: the first one is actually identical; the second is similar to the British conception that unlike Berlin, say, London was a uniquely vulnerable target, due to its size, importance and proximity to potential enemies; and the third is similar to the British drawing upon, and exaggerating, their experience of bombing in the First World War, particularly in 1917. In this last case the devastation in Japan was far greater, of course.

Japanese ARP poster - home-made gas masks

I can't read the writing, but this last poster is evidently about how to make your own gas-masks, and the image of (presumably) the mother leading her child enveloped in a home-made chemical protective suit is very poignant. Japan escaped the horror of gas attack, but it suffered the others depicted in these posters, and more besides.