Word: raids
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...chairman, a serious young man, talked of incendiary bombs (one plane can carry as many as 2,000), of the consequences of a lucky hit on exposed telephone wires, or whether or not it would be a good idea to use Boy Scouts as messengers during a raid. (When someone suggested that young boys ought to be kept out of harm's way, a veteran father said, "Hell, if there are bombs dropping, you won't be able to keep the kids indoors anyway.") A man from the gas company feelingly urged his fellow wardens not to attempt...
...Though men are wanted (for air-raid wardens, bomb squads, etc.) the big need is for able women. OCD estimated that it could use 500,000 women for home nursing, another 100,000 for nurses' aides. Some 300,000 women are wanted to take charge of OCD's nutrition program, 100,000 more to look after school lunches...
Chief hitch in the Mayor's program so far is lack of air-raid facilities. It would take a mort of heavy cloth to blackout New York City's 10,000,000 windows. Most big cities are so noisy that civilians cannot hear air-raid warnings. New York's Board of Estimate last week appropriated $25,000 to buy sirens. In the newspapers, OCD took full-page advertisements telling civilians what to do ("Keep cool. Stay at home. Put out lights.") if raiders come...
Even the Christian Science Monitor's war correspondent, Joseph C. Harsch, was fooled: "I awoke my wife and asked her if she wanted to know what an air raid sounded like in Europe. 'This,' I remarked, 'is a good imitation.' We then proceeded to the beach for our morning swim, assuming with everyone else in the hotel that it was just another practice maneuver by the Navy....Only when the radio began telling the people what had happened could one grasp the incredible fact...
After the first stunning shock, the defenders swung into action. Spotters in the Navy Yard signal tower picked up the attackers, flashed air-raid warnings via visual signals. Working coolly under enemy bombs and machine-gun fire and shrapnel from defending anti-aircraft batteries, the signalmen routed scores of orders to ships standing out to sea or fighting from berths...