Air Raid Precautions in the United Kingdom
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Air Raid Precautions (ARP) refers to a number of organisations and guidelines in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
dedicated to the protection of civilians from the danger of air raids. Government consideration for air raid precautions increased in the 1920s and 30s, with the Raid Wardens' Service set up in 1937 to report on bombing incidents. Every local council was responsible for organising ARP wardens, messengers, ambulance drivers, rescue parties, and liaison with police and fire brigades. From 1 September 1939, ARP wardens enforced the " blackout". Heavy curtains and shutters were required on all private residences, commercial premises, and factories to prevent light escaping and so making them a possible marker for enemy bombers to locate their targets. With increased enemy bombing during
the Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...
, the ARP services were central in reporting and dealing with bombing incidents. They managed the air raid sirens and ensured people were directed to shelters. Women were involved in ARP services through the Women's Voluntary Service. The Auxiliary Fire Service was set up in 1938 to support existing local fire services, which were amalgamated into a National Fire Service in 1941. From 1941 the ARP officially changed its title to Civil Defence Service to reflect the wider range of roles it then encompassed. During the war almost 7,000 Civil Defence workers were killed. In all some 1.5 million men and women served within the organisation during World War Two. Over 127,000 full-time personnel were involved at the height of
the Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...
but by the end of 1943 this had dropped to 70,000. The Civil Defence Service was stood down towards the end of the war in Europe on 2 May 1945. Between 1949 and 1968 many of the duties of the Civil Defence Service were resurrected through the
Civil Defence Corps The Civil Defence Corps (CDC) was a civilian volunteer organisation established in Great Britain in 1949 to mobilise and take local control of the affected area in the aftermath of a major national emergency, principally envisaged as being a Co ...
.


Origins

During the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
Britain was bombed by
Zeppelin A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp ...
s and Gotha bombers and it was predicted that large-scale aerial bombing of the civilian population would feature prominently in any future war. In 1924, the
Committee of Imperial Defence The Committee of Imperial Defence was an important ''ad hoc'' part of the Government of the United Kingdom and the British Empire from just after the Second Boer War until the start of the Second World War. It was responsible for research, and som ...
set up a subcommittee to look at what measure could be taken to protect the civil population from aerial attack. The new committee, known as Air Raid Precautions, was headed by the then Lord Privy Seal,
Sir John Anderson John Anderson, 1st Viscount Waverley, (8 July 1882 – 4 January 1958) was a Scottish civil servant and politician who is best known for his service in the War Cabinet during the Second World War, for which he was nicknamed the "Home Front P ...
. For the next ten years this committee looked into issues of new aerial weapons development and the possible impact on civilians. The use of gas attacks in the First World War played heavy on the decisions and protection via
gas mask A gas mask is a mask used to protect the wearer from inhaling airborne pollutants and toxic gases. The mask forms a sealed cover over the nose and mouth, but may also cover the eyes and other vulnerable soft tissues of the face. Most gas mas ...
s was a core decision taken by the committee. Every single person would need a gas mask which meant nearly 40 million would be required. Together with ideas around the building of air raid shelters, evacuations of people and blackout requirements these were all termed passive air defence. With the rise of
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
and
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
's remilitarisation during the 1930s, a further Home Office committee, the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) Department, was created in March 1935. This department replaced the earlier subcommittees and took overall control of the British response to passive air defence. In April 1937, the Air Raid Wardens' Service was created which aimed to seek some 800,000 volunteers (some 200,000 people had joined by mid-1938, and following the
Munich Crisis The Munich Agreement ( cs, Mnichovská dohoda; sk, Mníchovská dohoda; german: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. It provided "cession to Ger ...
of September 1938 another 500,000 had enrolled). After the
bombing of Guernica On 26 April 1937, the Basque town of Guernica (''Gernika'' in Basque) was aerial bombed during the Spanish Civil War. It was carried out at the behest of Francisco Franco's rebel Nationalist faction by its allies, the Nazi German Luftwaffe ...
, Gaumont-British began distributing newsreels on air-raid safety to British cinemas. Wardens gave ARP advice to the public and were responsible for reporting bombs and other incidents, and were joined by the Women's Voluntary Service in May 1938. On 1 January 1938, the Air Raid Precautions Act came into force, compelling all local authorities to begin creating their own ARP services. Air raid shelters were distributed from 1938. With the threat of war imminent in 1939, the Home Office issued dozens of leaflets advising people on how to protect themselves from the inevitable air war to follow.


ARP duties

The ARP services were to include several specialist branches:


Wardens

ARP wardens ensured the blackout was observed, sounded
air raid sirens A civil defense siren, also known as an air-raid siren or tornado siren, is a siren used to provide an emergency population warning to the general population of approaching danger. It is sometimes sounded again to indicate the danger has pas ...
, safely guided people into public air raid shelters, issued and checked gas masks, evacuated areas around unexploded bombs, rescued people where possible from bomb damaged properties, located temporary accommodation for those who had been bombed out, and reported to their control centre about incidents, fires, etc. Also, they called in other services as required.


Report and control

Central headquarters that received information from wardens and messengers and managed the delivery of the relevant services needed to deal with each incident.


Messengers

Often
Boy Scouts Boy Scouts may refer to: * Boy Scout, a participant in the Boy Scout Movement. * Scouting, also known as the Boy Scout Movement. * An organisation in the Scouting Movement, although many of these organizations also have female members. There are t ...
or Boys' Brigade members aged between 14 and 18 as messengers or runners would take verbal or written messages from air raid wardens and deliver them to either the sector post or the control centre. Bombing would sometimes cut telephone lines and messengers performed an important role in giving the ARP services a fuller picture of events.


First aid parties

Trained to give first response first aid to those injured in bombing incidents.


Ambulance drivers

Casualties from bombing were taken to first aid posts or hospital by volunteer drivers. There were also stretcher parties that carried the injured to posts.


Rescue services

The rescue services were involved in getting the dead and injured out of bombed premises.


Gas decontamination

Specialists to deal with and clean up incidents involving chemical weapons.


Fire guards

Following the destruction caused by the bombing of the City of London in late December 1940, the Fire Watcher scheme was introduced in January 1941. All buildings in certain areas had to have a 24-hour watch kept. In the event of fire these fire watchers could call on the rescue services and ensure they could access the building to deal with incidents.


Second World War

Local councils were responsible for organising all the necessary ARP services in their areas. Although the standard procedures prescribed that the ideal warden should be at least 30 years old, men and women of all ages were wardens. In certain instances, given special needs of communities, even teenagers were wardens. The role of ARP was open to both men and women but only men could serve in the gas contamination (teams that dealt with chemical and gas bombs), heavy and light rescue and demolition services. Control of a local authority's warden service was through a chief warden to whom each sector's area warden would report. Within metropolitan boroughs, the initial aim was to have one warden to every 500 residents (this increased later), reporting from individual warden posts – each with its own post warden. Post wardens received messages from the local wardens which they passed to the central Report and Control headquarters. ARP wardens were initially set up in temporary posts (in homes, shops and offices) and later in purpose-built facilities, mainly at the junctions of roads. In cities, a warden post was responsible for a small area (larger in rural areas) with five wardens to every 4–5,000 people. In London there were approximately ten posts to the square mile. Divided into sectors each post had between three and six wardens who had local knowledge of the location of shelters,
utilities A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and ...
(water, gas, electric), what buildings contained (important for the fire services) and who was resident in their sector. ARP wardens had the task of patrolling the streets during blackout, to ensure that no light was visible. If a light was spotted, the warden would alert the person/people responsible by shouting something like "Put that light out!". They could report persistent offenders to the local police. During the seven-month Phoney War period following the outbreak of war in September 1939, ARP wardens mainly offered advice, issued gas masks and air raid shelters (such as the external Anderson and internal Morrison shelter) and enforced the blackout.


The Blitz

The role of ARP services came into their own during the Blitz of 1940–41. ARP control centres would sound the air raid sirens and wardens would marshal people into the shelters and then watch out for the fall of any bombs within their sector – often done during air raids and therefore highly dangerous. When the wardens came across the site of a bombing they would telephone for the emergency services, render first aid to victims with minor injuries and deal with small fires (placing sand on
incendiary device Incendiary weapons, incendiary devices, incendiary munitions, or incendiary bombs are weapons designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using fire (and sometimes used as anti-personnel weaponry), that use materials such as napalm, ...
s). Other ARP units included first-aid, light and heavy rescue parties, stretcher parties and messenger boys and girls (who cycled between incidents carrying messages from wardens). Other duties included helping to police areas suffering bomb damage and helping bombed-out householders. They were also tasked with keeping an emergency under control until official rescue services arrived. From 1 September 1939 a small percentage of ARP wardens were full-time and were paid a salary (£3 for men, £2 for women), but most were part-time volunteers who carried out their ARP duties as well as full-time jobs. Part-time wardens were supposed to be on duty about three nights a week, but this increased greatly when the bombing was heaviest. One in six was a woman, and amongst the men there were a significant number of veterans of World War I.


Uniform

At the beginning of the war, ARP wardens had no uniform, but wore their own clothes (wardens wore helmets, arm bands and badges on their civilian clothes) and in October 1939 issued with 'bluette' overalls with a red on black 'ARP' badge. From the formation of the ARP until 1939, the badges were produced by the Royal Mint and made of solid sterling silver, with a crescent-shaped button hole attachment for men and a pin style brooch for women. From 1940 on, the badges were made of a base metal. From May 1941 full-time and regular part-time wardens were issued with dark blue battledress and beret. Women were issued with a four pocket tunic, again in dark blue serge with skirt.


Helmets

ARP service personnel were issued with Mk. II British helmets. These were often not made to the same level as issued to soldiers to reduce costs. These helmets, which had less resistance to ballistic impact, would have small holes drilled in the rim to show they were not for front line use. Depending on the role of the person the helmet would be marked with a letter or letters to easily allow others to ascertain their role at an incident. * W for wardens (some warden/fire guards had W/FG). Rank within the warden service was denoted by a white helmet and black bands. * R for rescue services (later HR and LR were used for heavy and light rescue parties) * FAP for first aid parties * SP for stretcher parties (to carry injured from incidents) * A for ambulance drivers * M for messenger/runner


Numbers

By the outbreak of war there were more than 1.5 million involved in the various ARP services. There were around 1.4 million ARP wardens in Britain during the war. Full-time ARP staff peaked at just over 131,000 in December 1940 (nearly 20,000 were women). By 1944, with the decreasing threat from enemy bombing, the total of full-time ARP staff had dropped to approximately 67,000 (10,000 of whom were women). Volunteers in 1944 numbered nearly 800,000 (180,000 women).


Civil Defence regions

Mainland Britain was divided in eleven CD regions. Each has a headquarters than controlled the services in that region. * Region 1 –
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Newcastle * Region 2 – North Eastern
Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popul ...
* Region 3 – North Midland
Nottingham Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robi ...
* Region 4 – Eastern
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* Region 5 –
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
** Group 1 – 1. Chelsea, 2. Fulham, 3.
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, 4. Kensington, 5.
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Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the London Borough o ...
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Islington Islington () is a district in the north of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the ...
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Bethnal Green Bethnal Green is an area in the East End of London northeast of Charing Cross. The area emerged from the small settlement which developed around the Green, much of which survives today as Bethnal Green Gardens, beside Cambridge Heath Road. By ...
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City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...
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Finsbury Finsbury is a district of Central London, forming the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Islington. It borders the City of London. The Manor of Finsbury is first recorded as ''Vinisbir'' (1231) and means "manor of a man called Finn ...
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Shoreditch Shoreditch is a district in the East End of London in England, and forms the southern part of the London Borough of Hackney. Neighbouring parts of Tower Hamlets are also perceived as part of the area. In the 16th century, Shoreditch was an imp ...
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Lewisham Lewisham () is an area of southeast London, England, south of Charing Cross. It is the principal area of the London Borough of Lewisham, and was within the historic county of Kent until 1889. It is identified in the London Plan as one ...
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Barnet Rural District Elstree Rural District (until 1941 called Barnet Rural District) was a rural district in Hertfordshire, England from 1894 to 1974. Creation The district had its origins in the Barnet Rural Sanitary District, which had been created in 1872, ...
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Barnet Urban District Barnet was a local government district in south Hertfordshire from 1863 to 1965 around the town of Barnet. Creation Barnet Local Government District was created on 25 September 1863, after the town's ratepayers decided to adopt the Local Governm ...
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Hendon Hendon is an urban area in the Borough of Barnet, North-West London northwest of Charing Cross. Hendon was an ancient manor and parish in the county of Middlesex and a former borough, the Municipal Borough of Hendon; it has been part of Gre ...
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Uxbridge Uxbridge () is a suburban town in west London and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Hillingdon. Situated west-northwest of Charing Cross, it is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Uxb ...
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* Region 9 - Midland
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* Region 12 –
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Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...


Medals

Many wardens went considerably beyond the call of duty and a search of medal citations in the ''
London Gazette London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major se ...
'' demonstrates this. The first ARP warden to receive the
George Cross The George Cross (GC) is the highest award bestowed by the British government for non-operational Courage, gallantry or gallantry not in the presence of an enemy. In the British honours system, the George Cross, since its introduction in 1940, ...
was Thomas Alderson, who won his award for actions saving civilian life in Bridlington in 1940.


Gallery of ARP photographs

File:Issue of Gas Masks To British Civilians, 1940 HU103753.jpg, Issue of gas masks to British civilians, 1940 File:Tea and buns are supplied by local Air Raid Precautions (ARP) workers to fellow ARP workers and civilians in this basement shelter in South East London during 1940. D1623.jpg, Tea and buns are supplied by local ARP workers to fellow workers and civilians in a basement shelter in south east London, 1940 File:Air Raid Precautions, 1940 HU104525.jpg, ARP control room, Nottingham, 1940 File:Air Raid Precautions Dog at work in Poplar, London, England, 1941 D5945.jpg, Air Raid Precautions dog at work in Poplar, London, England, 1941 File:Air Raid Precautions, 1940 HU104542.jpg, Ambulance drivers knit and listen to a wireless while they await a call out to air raid incidents in 1940 File:Air Raid Precautions and Civil Defence in Wartime Britain, 1942 D10588.jpg, Adjusting blackout curtains in 1943 File:Air Raid Precautions in Central London, England, UK, 1941 D3606.jpg, Encased equestrian statue of Charles I in Trafalgar Square with a notice giving directions to the nearest public air raid shelter File:Air Raid Precautions on the British Home Front- the work of the Gas Cleansing Centre, Wandsworth, London, England, 1941 D3919.jpg, Training exercise at a Gas Cleansing Centre, Wandsworth, London, England, 1941


See also

* Air raid siren * Air raid shelter * Auxiliary Fire Service * Civil Defence Service *
Strategic bombing during World War II World War II (1939–1945) involved sustained strategic bombing of railways, harbours, cities, workers' and civilian housing, and industrial districts in enemy territory. Strategic bombing as a military strategy is distinct both from close ...
*
The Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...


References


Further reading

* Mike Brown: ''Put That Light Out!: Britain's Civil Defence Services at War 1939–1945''. Sutton Publishing Ltd 1999, .
Basic information about the ARP in the UK
– Spartacus Educational.


External links


''ARP Schools''
(c. 1940)
''ARP: A Reminder for Peacetime''
(c. 1940) (archive films from the National Library of Scotland: Scottish Screen Archive)
''WW2 Civil Defence Uniforms, Insignia & Equipment''
{{Authority control Civil defence organisations based in the United Kingdom Groups of World War II 20th century in the United Kingdom 1924 establishments in the United Kingdom Military units and formations established in 1924 United Kingdom home front during World War II