The Pittsburgh Press (December 30, 1941)
Rambling Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
SAN FRANCISCO – Today we continue with our free advice on how to conduct yourself when the bombs begin to fall.
The questions were asked by the staff of The San Francisco News, which apparently expects to get blown up at any moment. The answers are by this column’s Ye Olde Bombe Department, which sees and knows all. Well, practically all. We’ll start off with one we can’t answer, and get the embarrassment over quickly.
Q. Comes the gas, and we without masks, do we get on the floor or grab the air higher up?
A. Honestly, I don’t know. But I think you’re supposed to hold your breath and run, for
gas usually doesn’t cover a very large patch. We never had gas in London.
Q. Shouldn’t we get stirrup pumps so we can deal with bombs? And are those pumps used only on incendiaries, or on any bomb?
A. Only on incendiaries. Other bombs go poof and then you ain’t there no more. I think everybody who can afford it should have a stirrup pump, even in peace time. Even if you don’t get the incendiary out with it. you can control the resultant fire until the bomb burns itself out.
Q. Don’t you have to wear some sort of protective device in order to get close enough to an incendiary to smother it?
A. Yes, preferably. People hold wash-boiler lids and boards and such things in front of them, but not always. I’ve seen people in England try to stamp them out with their feet and get only a burned shoe, although I assure you they didn’t stamp long. You can put on sand with a long-handled shovel without much danger.
Q. Is blue cellophane over lights effective?
A. No. They won’t let you use it here anyway, you know.
Q. Is the cellar a safe place to go in a raid? Otherwise, where is the best place to go?
A. Yes, the cellar is safest place if you’re at home. Lots of people in England get underneath the stairway that goes down to the cellar. That protects you from falling debris. The best shelter here, it seems to me, would be the second basement of a big apartment house or office building. Nothing that I know of, except a long, deep, winding tunnel under 50 or 60 feet of rock, is safe from a direct hit.
Q. What gases do the masks in England protect against?
A. Against all types known to be in possession of the Germans. All civilian gas masks in England now have an extra filter cap taped over the original nozzle. That is because when France fell, the Germans captured a certain French gas against which the British masks didn’t immunize, France having been on our side. So England immediately whipped up a device against this new gas, distributed it thru the ARP service, and soon everybody had the new protection on his mask.
Q. Should I stock up on canned goods, sugar, other foods? Auto tires? Clothes?
A. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to stock up a little, although we’ll doubtless have laws against hoarding pretty soon. They’ve already stopped tire sales, you know.
Q. What civilian defense activities do you think will be most valuable for a housewife to perform? A man? A high school student?
A. I couldn’t say, because the authorities take the whole mass and fit people into whatever they’re best qualified to do. It’s best just to register, give your qualifications, and let the people running it decide.
Q. How can we equip our cars to drive during a blackout?
A. You can’t, unless the rule against driving at all is modified. If that ever happens, the authorities will probably specify an official type of headlight cover that must be used. In London they use just one light, which has a shield over it with tiny silts in it, and a hood projecting over that. It makes a very dim and soft light by winch you can see faintly a few feet.
Q. Since we have no shelters, what’s the point in keeping a bag packed, the better to flee with? There’s no place to go.
A. You might come up and see my etchings.
Q. Is flying shrapnel apt to be a real menace or it is just something you skip?
A. Well, it’s a menace all right, and if the guns are going big, most people in London get under cover. But where the shrapnel all falls I don’t know, for you seldom hear of damage. Personally I heard only two pieces of shrapnel fall all winter in London. But I do know that if you’re on the streets during a heavy raid, the fear of getting hit by shrapnel just keeps pulling you over close to the buildings in spite of yourself.