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New, Outstanding features incorporate-
INTEGRAL DOOR HANDLES, CONCEALED 'DOOR
GREATER
EFORE the "black-out" des-
is a brief period of fading light that is singularly beautiful. It will always remain with me as a memory of this war.
Even buildings of no quality lie against the sky in an heroic way. Old scenes look so new that one gazes at London with fresh eyes, conscious not of the vulgarity of Neon lighting or the glare of windows full of things for sale, but of the com- ing of night.
HINGES,
It is a matter only of minutes VISIBILITY. before this tender moment swift- LOEWY-STYLED INTERIORS, Ly passes into the blackness of
the jungle.
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For further particulars apply-
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Thongkong Telegraph.
Thursday, July 4, 1940, Wyndham St, Hongkong Telephone: 26615
THE prefix "Special to the Telegraph in used by the "Hongkong Telegraph to Indicate Aws which is strictly copyright under the provisions of the Telecommuni-
cations Ordinance, 1936, Buch new bears the lndlestion "Ujgure recalved in Bengkong on the date of publication by intve all rights and forbid republication, either wholly or in part without previons
the Waited Press Associailona, who re-
arrangement,
Could Hitler
Invade America?
The Strand becomes a long canyon of darkness in which queer gleaming blue things turn out to be omnibuses. Red fire flies trace a quick pattern in the black velvet, indicating to those wizards of the night, the taxi drivers, that a policeman is holding them up.
Thin red crosses fade into green, and a surge of shadows, only a little darker than the night itself. moves onward to what seem impossible destina-
tiona.
AT
July 4, 1940.
H. V. MORTON
writes the first detailed account of
GHQ
defences used to sit before n squared map, anticipating the movements of the enemy. Speak- ing into a tube that hung over- head, he could send up a barrage from Putney Heath and a flight
T. such a moment I found
a taxi in the Strand. I.of pursuit planes from some-
of
Part of the array of maps of London, on which can be plotted,
by means coloured pins, every sort of damage,
All A.R.P. Headquarters in told the driver to take me to the where else, almost in the same this colossal area are in direct Home Office. I was to be shown breath.
touch with the War Room; to
of war-time London: the War Control Room of the Regional Headquarters of Civil Defence.
round.
ARP
"Current Events" Map, and so, by looking at this map and then at the Tally Board, It is easy to sce how many A.R.P. units are out on a job, and where, and how many still remain unaffected by the raid.
IF.
a raid, one glance at the Tally Board will tell whether rescue units can best be afforded by Wandsworth, Lambeth, Chelsen
one of the close-guarded secrets The car stopped in a court- the War Room they must report
[F, for instance, Batter- yard. Dark buildings rose all all air-raid incidents, and from
sen sends the War the War Room they must ask Room an S.O.S. for help during "Here we are," said my help if they require it. Sitting there in the complete friend. "The headquarters of insulation of the "black-out," the London Region." unable to discover where I was, I was amused to recognise a although I must have passed up building with which I and down the Strand thousands familiar, but I knew it, us thou- of times in the course of my life, sands of Londoners do, by an- an air raid as a local event: the a feeling of fantasy came over other name!
me; and I felt like a ghost travel- ling through dim regions of the Shades.
With some surprise I sensed
Was
descended. There was
ALL other A.R.P. organi- or Westminster.
sations in London see
The "Current Events" Map is War Room alone sees the whole the rushing about of A.R.P. a quick moving map that records picture, and is as much con-units all over London.
cerned with happenings in Barnet as in Bromley.
The "Damage" Map is more static. The yellow (gas) pins, Linked, as it is, to the Iome the red (fire) pins, the blue
WE stepped into a lift and rather than saw the Thames, a hum in the air like the noise Security War Room, and to all (high explosive) pins, the apple THIS question is asked in the and i realised that we must have below-decks in a liner. I was the Group Headquarters, the green (dock damage) pins, the United States with persistence enough come down to the Embankment told it was the air-filter plant at War Room receives news of all fight blue (gas, electricity and to draw a reasoned opinion from Houses of Parliament.
and were now approaching the work.
air-raid happenings us they water main) pins, remain on Brigadier-General Hugh S. Johnson
Pushing open the kind of door plotted on its maps, of which situation is safely in hand,
occur, and these are at once the scene of damage until the In un article In
In a few moments I stepped you see on a burglar-proof safe, there are two. Current History.
One is the "Cur- out towards what my torch re- we entered a room whose bril- rent Events" Map; the other is vealed as a rampart of sandbags, liance for a moinent blinded us. the "Damage" Map. It concealed the entrance to the Home Office in Whitehall.
The answer he gives is quite definite -Hitler could not. Every important military or naval expert in the coun- try regards the claim that Hitler could ever successfully attack Amerien as nothing less than pre- posterous.
That being so, and that being also the convlition of the people of this
country, it is scarcely worth while to enter into details. Even If Hitler
"S'nothing!" replied driver. "Snack! Get used to it,
The men on duty in the War Room are: the Ofcer-in-charge, the Operations Oflicer, two Tally
It was a large room shining with cream-coloured paint, very At a glance, those maps with Board officers, the Plotting Clerk
"I don't know how you can workmanlike and clean. The their coloured pins tell you how (who attends to the maps), and drive in this," I said.
walls, were covered with enorm many stretcher parties, ambu- their clerks and assistants. ous maps of London, lit from lances, decontamination gangs,
"Every town hall and A.R.P. the above by powerful electric lamps, repair squads, and so on, are.
My first impression was that working at that moment, and headquarters in the London Re- y'know. Suppose you blinkin' the Royal Geographical Society also the type of damage that gion has a Control Room, which well get used to anything?"
was meeting in the operating
is a smaller and less complicated has been Inflicted.
version of the War Room," I was room of a hospital.
The function of this room is told. It was quiet. No one had therefore twofold: to make a
*
won the present war, the Germans. AS S our ear
would be too exhausted to pick n,
could threaten the Americas against our armed opposition."
gers.
with the network' of A.R.P. will not be broken during an attack on London,
ran into the ever dared to smoke a cigarette complete picture of airraid in those running the civil defence "They are all designed so that featureless night, the there, and the few men, sitting cidents and keep it up-to-date, fresh quarrel with the hightest Power official of the Home Office im- at their desks in the bright and to keep track of all A.R.P. of London may work calmly and on earth. So says the Brigadier-pressed upon me the need for light, were as obviously on duty personnel in London; and, in safety from bombs and gas, as men on the bridge of a ship, called upon to do so, to move and know exactly what is hap General, and he concludes with this the Civil Defence War Room; secrecy. Few people are shown
reserves from an undamaged pening during a raid." remark:-"If we make reasonable and no one must say where it
zone to one that is in need of I went into the next room, preparations there isn't a Power or is.
MESSENGERS came in help.
where I saw the organisation combination of Powers on earth that
It is one of several deep-down, before them. They filed them tant and not unpleasant room,
and placed telegrams. Glancing round this impor- on which the working of the War
Room must depend. secret places in London where, and wrote busily on forms, I realised that what, at first, in a blaze of electric light and which they gave to the messen- looked so complicated was in A most enviable position for uny behind gas-proof doors, those to
reality quite simple.
ABOUT twenty girls were country to be in, and that has been of London keep watch day and whom is entrusted the defence
sitting at telephones Now and then a man would Two men, called Tally Board and teleprinters. They are the America's good fortune ever since she night.
approach the great map of Lon- Officers, were sitting at a long ears of an air-raid as the war took a recognised place among the
don and stick a pin in it. I saw table facing'a board whose bril- rooms are the eyes. Elaborate nations. It la more than a century Cabinet War Room, where the a hundred yards of my
Among such rooms are the him put a yellow push-pin within Hiant hue was due to hundreds precautions have been taken to since Abraham Lincoln made this Prime Minister and the members house.
own of differently-coloured push-pins make sure that their contact boast: "All the armies of Europe, of the War Cabinet would go
arranged in groups. "Gas," whispered my friend Asia, and Africa rembined with a during an attack on London; the from the Home Office, "Yellow Bonaparte for a commander, could War Room and Operations Room pins mean gas! They're having not by force take a drink from the Home Security War Room, in night. You're lucky, because
of the military defence; the an. A.R.P. scheme in Chelsea to- THESE pins represent the The girls were reading 'and' Ohio or make a track on the Blue which plans against enemy ac- this is what it would be like in of the London Region, and were for six months, with the excep
entire A.R.P. resources knitting, as they have been doing Ridge in a trial of a thousand years." tion anywhere in Britain are a real raid."
arranged under the names of tion of those times when they Lincoln was a youth when he made Room of the London Civil De- and deliberately stuck a red pin
schemed; and the War Control The pin man read a message their respective boroughs. have been busy with mock raids. that boost, but It Is a boast that has fence-to which wa were travel a bit nearer my house.
Now and then one would take Thus you could see at a glance up a telephone and write a mes.. been justified and is likely to remaining the G.HQ. of London's "Fire!" whispered my friend. Fulham, how many stretcher how many ambulances are at A.R.P.
"Red pins mean fire!"
parties at Enfield, how many
"Two incendiary bombs im Those war rooms must be And in this weird, dispassion- repair squads at West Ham, how Sloane Square," I heard repeated bomb proof. They must be in ate room below the London pave many decontamination gangs at in a cool telephone-service voice. War gave an immense impulse to touch with the outside world. monts, with the tinned air Croydon, how many mobile has "Near Peter Jones, Message aviation, and the inventive genius They are mirrors in which every humming. I was seized bypital units at Paddington; and ends." that was so conspicuously displayed enemy action is instantly re- sense of the utter fantasy of the Bo on.
"You see the Chelsen scheme nge in which we live. in the years between 1914 and 1918
This was one of the most up- During a rald, messages will is still going on," someone ex- changed the whole aspect of modern
They are brains that instantly to-date sights in London, this pour into the War Room, saying plained. warfare, robbing the scabound coun- send out orders to fighter planes, quiet room where men chase that so many Fulham stretcher rooms with their rush of filtered So we left the bright, secret tries of their strongest defence and to gun crews, to searchlight, to death and destruction across the parties are at work in such a
barrage balloons, to anti-aircraft map with little coloured pins. street, 80 mony ambulances air, and went up and out into almost annihilating distance itself as organisations; indeed, to the If a real air raid took place from Enfield at such a street, a black,. war-time night. De a protection against aggression. Re- whole of that intricate network to-day, this War Room would so many decontamination gange six months something like two "Few people realise that for cent air raids are a demonstration et of military and civil units direct the civil defence of Lon- from Wandsworth in such a hundred thousand people have once of the new power that has been trained to defend London from deu
street; and, as these messages acquired and a trial of the defences air attack.
For raid purposes London is are received, the Operations been keeping watch and ward against the ralder. But science and It would be untrue to say that, divided into nine Groups, which Officer will take from the Tally day and night over London," Invention have not yet provided nothing like these war rooms has correspond roughly with the Board pins corresponding to the said my friend. "A.R.P. never means of defeating the bomber except been seen in London before. Metropolitan Police Area. The units at work, leaving behind on sleeps. If the sirens went at retaliatory raids. Air warfare hos be "Operations Room" of London Room maps is at Cheshunt, in that moment unemployed.
They are all children of the Northern point on the War the board only those units at this minute, the organisation would not spring to life, because It is alive and waiting." come a never-ending race between Defence in the last war, a room Herts; the southern includes We will at once stick the pins That is London in 1940-a city the means of offence and defence. In which the commander of the Banstead, in Surrey.
in the appropriate streets on the on guard.
80.
Aviation in War And Peace
fected.
►
Bnge.