1940-07-04 — Page 20

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EFORE the "black-out" des-

BE

cends upon London there 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 now 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.

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Thursday, July 4, 1940. Wyndham St., Hongkong Telephone: 20015

THE Drax "Special to the Telegraph" is kied by the "Hongkong Telegraphs" to indicale news which is strictly copyright under the provisions of the Teiscommuni.

catione Ordinance, 1936. Such news as bears the indication "UP is recated in Hongkong on the date of publication by serve all rights and forbid republication, elther wholly or in part without previous

the United Press Associations, who re-

strangement.

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- tions.

July 4, 1940.

H. V. MORTON

writes the first detailed account of

GHQ

of ARP

Part of the array of maps of London, on which can be plotted, bu mean8 of coloured pins, every sort of damage.

"Current Events" Map, and so, by looking at this map and then at the Tally Board, it is easy to see how many A.R.P. units are out on a job, and where, and how many still remain unaffected by

defences used to sit before a squared map, anticipating tho movements of the enemy. Speak- ing into a tube that hung over- head, he could send up a barrage AT such a moment I found from Putney Heath and a flight

a taxi in the Strand. I of pursuit planes from some- All AR.P. Headquarters in the raid. 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. one of the close-guarded secrets

touch with the War Room; to

all all air-raid incidents, and from IF, for instance, Butter-

80a

the War Room they must ask Roomi an 5.0.S. for help during sends the War a raid, one glance at the Tally Board will tell whether rescue units can best be afforded by Wandsworth, Lambeth, Chelsea

of war-time London: the War The car stopped in a court- the War Room they must report

Dark buildings rose Control Room of the Regional yard. Headquarters of Civil Defence, round.

"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, although I must have passed up building with which

I was amused to recognise a and down the Strand thousands familiar, but I knew it, as thou- of times in the course of my life, sands of Londoners do, by an- an air raid as a local event: the a quick moving map that records.

a feeling of fantasy came over other name!

me; and I felt like a ghost travel-

ling through dim regions of the Shades.

I WON

AL

LL other A.R.P. organi- or Westminster.

sations in London sce The "Current Events" Map is War Room alone sees the whole the rushing about of A.R.P. picture, and is as much con units all over London. cerned with happenings in Barnet as in Bromley.

there are two.

·

The "Damage" Map is more static. The yellow (gas) pins,

With some surprise I sensed

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 descended, There was. Linked, as it is, to the Home the red (fire) pins, the blue 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 to draw o

War Room receives news of all light blue. (gas, electricity and reasoned opinion from Houses of Parliament.

and were now approaching the work.

air-raid happenings ns they water main) pins, remain on Brigadier-General Hugh S. Johnson

Pushing open the kind of door occur, and these are at once the scene of damage until the in an article In Current History.

In a few moments I stepped you see on a burglar-proof safe, plotted on its maps, of which situation is safely in hand. The answer he gives is quite definit, out towards what my torch re- we entered a room whose bril- rent Events" Map; the other is Room are: the Officer-in-charge,

One is the "Cur- vealed as a rampart of sandbags. liance for a moment blinded us. the "Damage" Map.

The men on duty in the War -Hitler could not. Every Important military or naval expert in the coun-

the Operations Officer, two Tally At a glance, those maps with Board officers, the Plotting Clerk try regards the claim that Hitler could ever successfully attack America as nothing less than pre- posterous.

It concealed the entrance to the Home Office in Whitehall.

It was a large room shining with cream-coloured paint, very "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, "S'nothing!" replied the above by powerful electric lamps. repair squads, and so on, are headquarters in the London Re "Every town hall and A.R.P. driver. "Snack! Get used to it,

know. Suppose you blinkin-the-Royal-Geographical Society also-the-type-of-damage that sion has a Control-Room,-which- My first Impression was that working at that moment, and well get used to anything""

was meeting in the operating has been inflicted.

Is a smaller and less complicated room of a hospital.

version of the War Room," I was The function of this room is toll. It was quiet. No one had therefore twofold: to make a 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 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 light, were as obviously on duty personnel in London; and, if and know exactly what is hap- featureless night, the at their desks in the bright and to keep track of all A.R.P. of London may work calmly and pressed upon me the need for

in safety from bombs. and gas,

That being so, and that being alse The conviction of the people of this country, it is scarcely worth while to enter into details. Even if Hitler won the present war, the Germans would be too exhausted to pick a

AS

our car

on earth. So says the Brigadier-secrecy. Fow people are shown as men on the bridge of a ship. called upon to do so, to move

General, and he concludes with this the Civil Defence War Room; remark: "If we make reasonable and no one must say where it preparations there isn't a Power or is. combination of Powers on earth that: could threaten the Americas against our armed opposition."

во.

Aviation in War And Peace

reserves from an undamaged pening during a raid." zone to one that is in need of I went into the next room, MESSENGERS came in help.

where I saw the organisation 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 secret places in London where, and wrote busily

Room must, depend. in a blaze of electric light and which they gave to the messen- looked so complicated,

on forms, I realised that what, at first, whom is entrusted the defence behind gas-proof doors, those to of London keep watch day and night.

A.R.P.

gers,

arranged in groups.

was in

with the network of A.R.P. will not be broken during an attack on 'London.

A most enviable position for any country to be in, and that has been

reality quite simple.

ABOUT twenty girls were Now and then a man would

sitting at telephones America's good fortune ever since the

Two men, called Tally Board and teleprinters, They are the approach the great map of Lon- Officers, were sitting at a long cars 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 is more than a century Cabinet War Room, where the a hundred yards of my own of differently-coloured push-pins make sure that their contact Among such rooms are the him put a yellow push-pin within liant hue was due to hundreds precautions have been taken to since Abraham Lincoln made this Prime Minister and the members house. bonst: "All the armies of Europe, of the War Cabinet would go Asia, and Africa combined with af during an attack on London; the from the Home Office. "Yellow "Gas," whispered my friend 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 Ohlo 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."

Lincoln was a youth when he made Room of the London Civil De- and deliberately stuck a red pin schemed; and the War Control

arranged under the names of tion of those times when they The pin man read a message their respective boroughs.. that boast, but it is a boast that has fence to which we were travel a bit nearer my house.

have been busy with mock raids. Now and then one would take been justified and is likely to remaining the G.H.Q. of London's

Thus you could see at a glance "Fire" whispered my friend. Fulham, how many stretcher

how many ambulances are at up a telephone and write a mes-

sugo. "Red pins mean fire!" These war rooms must bo

parties at Enfield, how many. bomb proof. They must be in ate room below the London pave many decontamination gangs at in a cool telephone service voice. And in this weird, dispassion repair squads at West Ham, how Sloane Square," I heard repeated "Two incendiary bomba in War gave an immense impulse to touch with the outside world. ments, with the tinned air Croydon, how many mobile hos "Near Peter Jones, Message. aviation, and the inventive genius They are mirrors in which every humming, I was seized by a pital units at Paddington; and ends." that was so conspicuously deployed enemy action is Instantly re sense of the utter fantasy of the go on. In the years between 1914 and 1918

flected.

age in which we live.

"You see the Chelsea scheme changed the whole aspect of modern

They are brains that instantly to-date sights in London, this pour into the War Room, saying plained.

This was one of the most up- During a raid, messages will is still going on,' warfare, robbing the seabound coun- send out orders to fighter planes, quict room where men chase that so many Fulham stretcher

So we left the bright, secret tries of their strongest defence and barrage balloons, to anti-aircraft map with little coloured pins. street, so many ambulances uir, and went up and out into to gun crews, to searchlight, to death and destruction across the parties are at work in such a rooms with their rush of filtered almost annihilating distance itself as organisations; indeed, to the a protection against aggression. He- whole of that intricate network to-day, this War Room would so many decontamination gangs six months something like two

If a real air raid took place from Enfield at such a street, a black, war-time night. cent air raids are a demonstration at of military and civil units direct the civil defence of Lon- from Wandsworth in such a hundred thousand people have "Few people realise that for. once of the new power that has been trained to defend London from den.

street; and, as these messages been keeping watch and ward required and a trial of the defences air attack,

For raid purposes London is are received, the Operations 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: dave 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 They are all children of the Northern point on the War the board only those units at would not spring to life, because been, acon in London before. Metropolitan Police Aren. The units at work, leaving behind on sleeps. If the sirens went at retaliatory raids. Air warfare has be "Operations Room of London Room maps is at Cheshunt, in

this minute, the organisation that moment unemployed. 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.

1

someone ex-

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