Amongst the Dorset Council records is a small section of Civil Defence records, Ref: DCC-CD, dating primarily from the Second World War.
Following the first World War it was acknowledged that any future conflicts would involve aerial attacks and a committee was set up to establish what could be done to protect the public from aerial assaults. With the rise of Hitler in the 1930s, the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) Department, was created in March 1935 changing its title in 1941 to the Civil Defence Service to reflect its wider range of roles.
The ARP service included several organisations working together and every local council was responsible for organising these together which included, though not an exhaustive list, the following:
Wardens
Wardens ensured the blackout was observed, sounded air raid sirens, guided people into public air raid shelters, issued and checked gas masks, evacuated areas around unexploded bombs, rescued people from damaged properties and reporting to their control centre about incidents, fires, etc. Central headquarters received information from wardens and messengers and managed the delivery of the relevant services needed to deal with each incident. Records were also kept on air raids, bombing incidents as well as crashed aircraft.
Messengers
Often boys aged between 14 and 18, they would take messages from air raid wardens to either the sector post or the control centre, an essential service if phone lines were down.
First aid parties
Trained to give first aid to those injured in bombing incidents.
Ambulance drivers
Casualties from air raids were taken to first aid posts or hospitals by volunteer drivers. There were also stretcher parties that assisted in moving the casualties.
Rescue services
The rescue services were involved in helping those who were trapped in damaged properties.
Gas decontamination
Specialists to deal with, and clean up, incidents involving chemical and gas weapons.
Fire guards
Following the destruction caused by the bombing of the City of London in late December 1940, the Fire Watcher scheme was introduced in January 1941. All buildings in certain areas had to have a 24-hour watch kept. In the event of fire these fire watchers could call on the rescue services and ensure they could access the building to deal with incidents.
The poster above, drawn by B. Burt-Smith part of the ARP for Dorset County Council, is held within this Civil Defence collection. It represents the sort of organisation needed to deal with incidents that could arise following an air attack on the village of ‘Beersplit’ and shows some of the different roles undertook by ARP members, although we think they were a little bit harsh on the person identified as No. 10:
“…a member who should not have been included as he is obviously unfit.”