1938: News - Britain begins to prepare for war
There was an error
This content is not available in your location.
Newsreader Frank Phillips announces various precautionary defence measures to be rolled out in response to Germany's likely invasion of Czechoslovakia. They include the mobilisation of the Territorial Army's anti-aircraft and coastal defence units, the distribution of gas masks, the organisation of trench digging in parks and the circulation of leaflets on how to take refuge in the event of an air raid. There are also appeals for more emergency workers and plans for the evacuation of patients from hospitals. Food rationing is also to be expected in the near future.
More than 500,000 people joined the Air Raid Wardens' Service, which already had 200,000 members, during the Sudeten crisis of 1938. By the outbreak of war there were park trenches available for half a million people and 1.5 million Anderson shelters had been provided for householders with gardens. The Anderson shelter was designed by William Paterson and named after John Anderson, the Lord Privy Seal, who was made responsible for civil defence in 1938. Parks were also turned into allotments to grow extra food during the war.
Originally broadcast 26 September 1938