Sir John Anderson Talks on Question of Shelters London, Dec. 11.
Various aspects of the problem of evolving the best possible plan for protecting the civil population against air attacks in wartime were discussed by Sir John Anderson in a speech before architects last night.
To provide bombproof shelters would mean going very many feet underground, and adequate shelter underground would involve many serious considerations, including cost. To build one in London only would cost an enormous sum per mile. To contemplate providing underground headquarters free from the risk of ion by a direct hit-from heavy bombs would necessitate expenditure the measure of which could be calculated only by members of another learned profession—astronomers.
Deep bombproof shelters might heve a limited application, but would not furnish complete solution of the problem, which must be sought along several lines.
For poor people who lived in bad! constructed houses without good bascments, and without much ground ie them in which trenches could be constructed, they must try to find some simple form of shelter, which would give. protection against splinters from bombs and falls of deb Houses of three or four" storeys high, with a basement, might be provided with some kind of structural strengthening in basements such as members of engineering profession had suggested. For those who were liable to be caught away from their houses and in streets, there were questions of concrete shelters and trenches—Wireless fhrouzh Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.