Morrison shelter

http://nige.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/dirkwood-report-summary6.pdf The U.K. Government's Shelter Census of central London during the Blitz in November 1940 found that 60% of the public were sleeping in their own homes during air raids, instead of getting up and dressed to go to a shelter upon the attack warning siren. Only 4% used the Underground system shelters, 9% used other public air raid shelters, and 27% used domestic Anderson shelters (Morrison indoor shelters were not even introduced until March 1941). The 60% who did not go out to any kind of shelter during air raids stayed in their homes, sleeping downstairs, under stairs, under tables, in cupboards. Sir John Anderson lost his job and was replaced by Herbert Morrison, who instructed Sir John Fleetwood Baker and his assistant Edward Leader-Williams at the Ministry of Home Security to develop an indoor shelter which could absorb the energy of the falling debris from the collapse of a normal house. These Morrison table shelters were named after the Minister of Home Security (Herbert Morrison) and were introduced in March 1941. More than 500,000 were issued by November 1941, when the following press release was issued: Morrison Shelters in Recent Air Raids A report of Ministry of Home Security experts on 39 cases of bombing incidents in different parts of Britain covering all those for which full particulars are available in which Morrison shelters were involved shows how well they have stood up to severe tests of heavy bombing. All the incidents were serious. Many of the incidents involved direct hits on the houses concerned, a risk against which it was never claimed these shelters would afford protection. In all of them the houses in which shelters were placed were within the radius of damage by bombs; in 24 there was complete demolition of the house on the shelter. A hundred and nineteen people were sheltering in these Morrisons and only four were killed. So that 115 out of 119 people were saved. Of these only 7 were seriously injured and 14 slightly injured while 94 escaped uninjured. The majority were able to leave their shelters unaided. "At no time did Hitler threaten to initiate war against France and England. He simply threatened to 'retaliate' ... The technique he used is such an obvious prototype for a future aggressor armed with H-bombs that it is of extreme value to all who are concerned with the problem of maintaining a peaceful and secure world ..." -- Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, 1960, p. 403. Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, 3rd ed., 1977, pages 545-8: "The high incidence of flash burns caused by thermal radiation among both fatalities and survivors in Japan was undoubtedly related to the scanty clothing being worn. ... If there had been an appreciable cloud cover or haze below the burst point, the thermal radiation would have been attenuated somewhat and the frequency of flash burns would have been much less. Had the weather been cold, fewer people would have been outdoors and they would have been wearing more extensive clothing. Both the number of people and individual skin areas exposed to thermal radiation would then have been greatly reduced, and there would have been fewer casualties from flash burns. ... The death rate in Japan was greatest among individuals who were in the open at the time of the explosions; it was less for persons in residential (wood-frame and plaster) structures and least of all for those in concrete buildings. ... Had they been forewarned and knowledgeable about areas of relative hazard and safety, there would probably have been fewer casualties even in structures that were badly damaged."