Decontamination of materials : air raid precautions handbook no. 4 / Home Office, Air Raid Precautions Dept.

Date:
1937
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Decontamination of materials : air raid precautions handbook no. 4 / Home Office, Air Raid Precautions Dept. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/76 (page 3)
    GENERAL PREFACE. The series of Air Raid Precautions Handbooks (of which a list is given on the opposite page) is pro- duced, under the authority of the Secretary of State, by the Air Raid Precautions Department of the Home Office with the assistance of other Government Depart- ments concerned. The measures for safeguarding the civil population against the effects of air attack which these Hand- books describe have become a necessary part of the defensive organisation of any country which is open to air attack. The need for them is not related to any belief that war is imminent. It arises from the fact that the risk of attack from the air, however remote it may be, is a risk that cannot be ignored, and because preparations to minimise the consequences of attack from the air cannot be improvised on the spur of the moment but must be made, if they are to be effective, in time of peace. For the purpose of the measures NOW to be taken, it must be assumed that the scale of attack would greatly exceed anything which was experienced in the last war, and would involve the use of high explosive and incendiary bombs. The use of poison gas in war is forbidden by the Geneva Gas Protocol of 1925, to which this country and all the most important countries of western Europe are parties, and the Government would use every endeavour on an outbreak of war to secure an under- taking from the enemy not to use poison gas. Never- theless, the risk of poison gas being used remains a possibility and cannot be disregarded. jhe Handbooks are designed to describe a scheme of precautions which it is hoped would Pere effective in preventing avoidable injury and loss of life, or widespread dislocation of national activities. ‘The Handbooks will aim at giving the best available in- formation on methods of passive defence against air attack, and will be revised from time to time in the light of fnture developments