Every citizen must know what to do in the event of an A-bomb attack.

2. WHAT YOU CAN DO IN CIVIL DEFENSE

You have a job to do in defending your home, your home town, your country against an A-bomb attack, when and if it comes. Whether it be a full-time paid job, a volunteer job or just the things you must know how to do on your own, is not important. What is important is in knowing what to do and, then, doing it.

Strangely enough, for every citizen to know what to do is in itself a form of civil defense. It is the helpless, the people who do not feel needed who are the causes of panic. And panic is one of the big dangers in an A-bomb attack or in any kind of a disaster.

What is your job?

That depends on the kind of person you are, where you work, what you like to do ordinarily.

First, there are the special agencies found in every city and town. These, and the people who work for them will be of vital importance in any A-bomb attack.

If you work for the telephone company, for the electric company, for a street car or bus line, for the water system, the gas company, a radio station, the railroad, the city government, or even the zoo, you will probably have an important job to do.

Radio engineers will keep communications open to the rest of the world.

If and when an A-bomb falls on your city, the water pressure must be kept up; the fire equipment must be mobilized, communication must be maintained -- there are a myriad of important functions which must be kept going.

Right now, in many American cities, the public utilities have completed plans for what they will do in case of an A-bomb attack. Water companies know what valves to turn so precious water will not drain away through broken and twisted pipes. You, if you work for the water company, might already be assigned a valve to turn if the bomb should happen to fall in a particular area.

In all the public utilities there will be specific jobs to do to keep things running where possible, to provide substitutes where that isn't possible.

Telephones, where the lines stay intact, will be vital for communication between important offices in the target city and to other cities which can provide relief and places where refugees can stay. If you work for the telephone company, yours will be an important job when and if an A-bomb comes.

But radio engineers -- hams and professionals -- will probably be the persons upon whom your home town must rely to keep communications open to the rest of the world. Emergency wave-lengths are being set aside for communications in case of disruption of regular channels. Radio hams will be vital links in the emergency radio networks.

You will notice that the transmitters of your home town radio stations are not usually where the downtown offices are, they are on the outskirts of town. Most of them have their own stand-by power units, to be used if the regular sources of supply are put out of commission. This is a most fortunate thing, and the men who work there will be essential cogs in our defense effort if and when an attack comes.

Keeping the gas and electricity going, or shutting it off where necessary will be important too. If you work for the gas or light company, you will have a big responsibility to your home town. The enemy will be wanting to kill people only as a secondary matter. What he is really after is to knock out your home town as a going concern -- if he knocks out the sources of power he will be doing a good job.

CIVIL DEFENSE

This is what civil defense is aimed at -- keeping your home town a going concern -- keeping it providing the regular needs of the people who live there -- keeping it providing the tools of war and the necessities of life which it is expected to produce.

Therefore, not only in the water, gas and electricity plants, but also in the factories, in the offices, in the government bureaus in your home town, there will be civil defense organizations. It's this simple -- keep things running so far as you can.

This means that you -- where you work -- will be assigned to some job to do in case of an A-bomb attack. You may be assigned to go up to the roof immediately after some kinds of attacks, armed with bucket of sand and shovel or with a chemical fire extinguisher to see that a fire does not get started and put your building out of commission. You may be assigned to the first aid station to take care of people cut with flying glass or knocked in the head by falling masonry. But in all the tasks for which you will be trained, the objective is the same -- keep the country running, fade with the knockout punch the enemy was expecting to deliver to us.

VOLUNTEER JOBS IN CIVIL DEFENSE

You may be assigned to go up on the roof armed with a bucket of sand and shovel.

Outside of your jobs, your places of work, there will be, of course, many tasks to perform. Volunteer jobs in civil defense may be expected to be broken down in much the same manner they are broken down by the British. They are, after all, old hands at the game.

You will probably find many jobs to do, many jobs for which to be trained, in your local civil defense headquarters. Communications must be kept open so civil defense workers may be deployed to the areas of greatest need, so supplies medical and food, may be sent where they will do the most good. This means volunteer work on switchboards, with raido transmitters, as couriers in cars, on motorcycles and on foot.

There will be need for special reconnaissance work.

Where communications are down, or are scanty, there will be need for special reconnaissance work, for people who will go out to find out the extent of the damage from any attack, to determine its boundaries, its seriousness and to make estimates of what is needed from that information.

No new agency can be set up, whether voluntary or permanent, city, state or federal without its "bureaucracy," its administrative workers. Typists, teletypewriters, file clerks, secretaries -- and supervisors for those people -- they will be needed, both as part time volunteers and as full time workers.

The public must be kept informed and there are two phases to this job. The first phase is the preparatory one -- telling the public what they can do, what they can expect, giving people the maximum amount of information before an attack occurs. This is the way democracy works. In the second phase, put into operation only if and when an A-bomb falls, public information will be the vital and specific job of directing the public so they do the things which will save their lives and keep them out of the way of life-saving efforts on the part of others.

Thousands are already trained in the use of detection instruments.

Volunteers will have to know how to identify the different kinds of radioactivity and their extent. They will be attached to civil defense headquarters so the public, the rescue workers and the firemen will not have to risk their lives needlessly. Here we are ahead of Great Britain -- this is natural because we have the A-bomb and thousands of our people have already worked with radioactive materials in Oak Ridge, Hanford and other places, including almost every university.

Thousands are already trained in the use of detection instruments, and they are trained to teach others. This is a job you might well be doing for your local civil defense office.

THE WARDEN'S JOB

We will have air raid wardens again -- but if you are a warden your job will be more complex. The wardens will, once more, be responsible for the organization of people in blocks, in apartment houses in neighborhoods. The wardens will be responsible for knowing how many people are in his area, where they are -- so that an estimate can be made, in the event of an A-bomb attack, of who are safe in shelters, who are away from the area, and who remain to be rescued from the rubble.

The wardens will see to it that the air raid warnings have been heard and have been heeded, that everybody will know where to go when a warning is sounded, or, if they have specific jobs, will know what to do.

The British have a polite word for one of the most important of a warden's jobs -- "incident control." The warden will be the man in charge if any "incident" occurs in connection with an A-bomb attack. He will be trained in what to do, whether to call on outside help, whether to enlist volunteers from the neighborhood, or whether to ignore the whole thing.

People who have lost their homes must find shelter.

An "incident" can be the falling of rubble across the entrance to a family air raid shelter, or it can be the panicking of the residents of a large apartment house. It will be up to the warden to know how to handle any kind of an incident.

The warden will be concerned, too, with the movement of refugees -- a horrible word for Americans to get used to. But, if and when an A-bomb comes near your home, there are two alternatives -- either people in your area will need to move on to find shelter, or people who have lost their homes will be moving in with you. These people are refugees.

The warden will have to know, if an A-bomb has destroyed parts of his area, how many refugees will be leaving. And he will have to know, if his area is not destroyed, how many refugees it can take.

RESCUE WORKERS

Rescue workers might well be called the skilled workers of civil defense. It is not a matter of just clawing away at falling rubble until you get to a trapped person. Rescue work calls for high discipline and technique. It is obvious, for instance, that clumsy clawing away at rubble might bring more rubble down upon the rescue worker and further block the avenues of escape for the trapped victims.

If and when an A-bomb comes, thousands of trained and skilled rescue workers will be needed. You will have the opportunity to train for this difficult but rewarding assignment.

Rescue workers will have to know first aid and stretcher bearing.

The government is hoping that at least 20,000,000 of us will take first aid courses. Except for the minority of casualties who will have radiation sickness, the larger number will be injured in familiar ways -- burned, hit by falling masonry, in shock. Elementary treatment of these everyone should know.

Rescue workers particularly will have to know first aid and stretcher bearing. Another job for you in which first aid will be particularly important is driving an ambulance.

The British have the appropriate word for everything. One section of their civil defense corps organization is called "pioneers." In a sense on which the British probably never figured, the word is apt.

Pioneer workers will be the first to clear the way for the new beginning of living after an A-bomb attack. Whatever we call them, they will be one of the most important parts of our American volunteer civil defense effort.

Uninjured persons who may have come in contact with radioactive materials should thoroughly scrub themselves.

Pioneers will clear away the debris and rubble left by an attack; they will plant the explosives which destroy unsafe buildings. They will be in charge of the early decontamination of roads and highways so people may move about without fear. Decontamination of vehicles and clothing will be in their hands. They will see to it that uninjured persons who may have come in contact with radioactive materials thoroughly scrub themselves -- one of the most effective first steps in decontamination.

They will go into blasted buildings to salvage what can still be used. Pioneers will make emergency repairs to houses and to fallen wires and broken gas and water mains. They will clear roads so refugees can be evacuated and the injured moved quickly to places of treatment.

CARING FOR THE HOMELESS

By size, the greatest human problem after an A-bomb attack will not be the injured, but the homeless. Your talents may be useful in one of the many tasks to be done in helping them.

You may be needed to escort the homeless men, women and children to places of safety, to places where they can lie down for rest. You may be able to give them advice about what to do -- where to get supplies of clothing, where to get food, where to contact relatives, where to find a temporary home.

There will be rest centers for refugees -- you may be needed to plan meals, to cook them, to oversee the sleeping quarters, to run the linen laundry, to register your guests.

Large public air raid shelters become, during alerts, communities with unique problems. You may be the right person to supervise an air raid shelter; to prevent, tactfully, quarrels about occupancy of the same space; to see to it that the shelter is kept clean; to make sure that the young and the old and the sick get the special attention they need. If you are that person, it is likely that you will be elected by the fellow residents of your "community" air raid shelter.

Do you cook for a large family? Then you may be the volunteer answer to the question of where the other volunteer workers will get something to eat or a hot cup of coffee. There will be mobile kitchens to man for the purpose.

There will be mobile kitchens and need of people to man them.

Along with the citizens who should learn first aid, there will be a great need of voluntary corps of hospital workers. Perhaps you were a nurse's aide, or a Red Cross grey lady during the last war. They will need you again and many more like you. In addition to training for work in the hospitals, persons will have to be trained to man emergency treatment centers, to take the place of, and supplement, hospitals which might be overcrowded or destroyed in an attack.

FIRE AND POLICE AID

An A-bomb sets fires immediately. The terrific heat blast instantaneously scorches everything within range that is inflammable. Then these fires begin to spread and other little fires, coming from gas tanks, stove burners left on in damaged houses, and from many other causes, start up.

Your fire department will need volunteers, many of them, trained to help them keep this danger under control.

The police, too, will need an auxiliary force. There will be a need to direct and control traffic, to maintain order, perhaps beyond the ability of the regular force to handle it. The precinct house communications will need extra manning.

The army and air force will make it extremely hard for an enemy plane to get through.

Then there will be jobs connected with what the military call the "positive defenses" of your town. These are the measures of the army and air force to make it extremely hard for an enemy plane to get through and to drop an A-bomb.

DEFENSE WITHIN THE HOME

Whether or not you can volunteer for any of these duties, your first responsibility will be your own home and those in it. A man's home is his castle, and it is his responsibility to make it as impregnable to attack as he can.

You may consider building a small shelter, if you are a home owner. It is estimated that many lives would have been saved at Hiroshima if the Japanese had taken to their very flimsy shelters when our B-29 was first reported overhead.

You should see that the proper first aid equipment is on hand. Your children should be taught where to go when the air raid warning is sounded. You see that everyone in your home understands instructions and follows orders in case of attack.

You have a final responsibility. If you take part in one of these many voluntary civil defense activities that final responsibility will be easy. It is to realize that there are many things that can be done to mitigate the effects of an A-bomb attack on your city -- and to do your share of them efficiently.

If we all do that, we will do a great deal to keep down the effects of an A-bomb attack and to maintain the operation of our cities and our factories.