A fascinating little glimpse of wartime life in Lerwick, 1941.
The notice, issued by the Burgh of Lerwick, sets out plans for a full-scale, Civil Defence Exercise, to take place on the 6th July, 1941.
There were no half measures!
The exercise was to simulate an air raid on the town, complete with practice incendiary and smoke bombs, major fires, damaged roads, burst water mains, power cuts and even a direct hit on the Picture House, with 200 mock casualties for rescue and first-aid teams to deal with.
Around 100 civilians were also to be “evacuated”, while the afternoon session included a simulated gas attack, anti-gas demonstrations and road-clearing exercises.
Members of the public were encouraged to take part, treat the incidents as if they were real, and even carry their gas masks — with a warning that tear gas might be used.
One particularly striking instruction comes right at the end: the circular was for distribution within Lerwick only and “should be burned after the Exercise has taken place.”
Thankfully, this copy survived! [Thanks to Elizabeth Angus who kindly passed this document on].
Signed by Provost Magnus Shearer and dated 3 June 1941, it’s an extraordinary reminder of how seriously communities, such as our own here in Shetland, prepared for the possibility of attack during the Second World War.
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Historian Angus Calder summarises the scale of Civil Defence measures nationally, and how it was co-ordinerated:
“… Most of the 200,000 or 250,000 people who served…in the various post-raid services or in the shelters were volunteers. Most of the men and women of the Civil Defence services were volunteer part-timers. These were the ‘militant citizens’ of whom J. B. Priestley wrote. He saw in them the seeds of a new democracy.
Over the nation as a whole, the organized ‘militant citizens’ formed a very large and important section of the population. There were one and a half million men in the Home Guard, whose duties took them into the raids, who were often called in to assist the police, and who frequently joined in rescue work. The Civil Defence (General) services included the wardens, the rescue and stretcher parties, the staffs of the control centres, and the messenger boys. The casualty services embraced the emergency ambulance workers and the staffs of the first aid posts. The Fire Service included full-time and part-time regular firemen and full-time and part-time auxiliaries. Altogether, these numbered over a million and a half people in December 1940. To these should be added just over a quarter of a million full-time and part-time policemen, who did all sorts of Air Raid Precaution work in addition to their much complicated peacetime duties of maintaining order and controlling traffic. Outside London (where the special complexities of local government made this impossible), the Chief Constable of a borough was usually its Chief Warden as well, and the whole Civil Defence service was built round the police force. The peacetime forces had been strengthened by a full-time police war reserve, and a very large number of part-time ‘specials’ – special constables.
Even this impressive roll-call omits the members of the Women’s Voluntary Service….running into hundreds of thousands.
Source: “The Peoples War, Britain, 1939-1945. [Pimlico. 1992]. p.193.