Preparing the Home for War
Shortly before the outbreak of WW2 leaflets were sent out to every household and business around Britain, informing the population to prepare their homes for enemy bombing raids, the leaflets information on blackout protection, covering windows and doors with either thick black curtains or even painting windows black to prevent light from housing being seen from the air.
As well as blackout for windows people were advised to tape up windows to prevent flying shards of glass should a bomb explode in the vicinity
Gas Masks were issued to every member of the population in preparation for Gas attacks from the air and decontamination stations were set up in the event of a gas attack.
Morrison shelters were also issued "where available" for inside the home a Morrison shelter was a cage fitted around a bed which offered protection from rubble and debris if your home suffered a direct hit. The Morrison shelter was provided free to households whose total income was less than £350.00 a year.
Anderson Shelters which were mainly used in the suburbs rather than in the city, because city homes rarely had gardens, were sectional corrugated iron shelters intended for use in the back garden of the home, the shelters were built into holes in the ground at least one meter deep and the earth from the hole was then spread on top of the shelter for extra protection.
Because the Anderson shelters were partially underground they were cold, damp and draughty and if there was a heavy rainfall they would often flood, but lessons were learned and people started putting drainage systems in place to help prevent the flooding.
Although the Anderson shelter would not survive a direct hit they were good protection against near misses and flying fragments.
People were resourceful and came up with ingenious ways of heating their Anderson shelters, drinks could be kept warm in thermos flasks, or Hay bottles which were bags wrapped around bottles of hot liquid which were stuffed with Hay or wrapped up newspapers, a brick sat in front of the coal fire for an hour or 2 then wrapped in a woolen jumper would make a great bed warmer and a heater was made from a candle and two clay flowerpots place the candle in one of the flowerpots lighting it and putting the other flowerpot upside down on top of the other provided a great source of heat….
By jimmythejock
http://hubpages.com/hub/World-War-2-The-Home-Front-Home-Life
The Morrison Shelter
The Morrison shelter, officially termed Table (Morrison) Indoor Shelter, had a cage-like construction beneath it. It was designed by John Baker and named after Herbert Morrison, the Minister of Home Security at the time. It was the result of the realization that due to the lack of house cellars it was necessary to develop an effective type of indoor shelter. The shelters came in assembly kits, to be bolted together inside the home. They were approximately 6 ft 6 in (2 m) long, 4 ft (1.2 m) wide and 2 ft 6 in (0.75 m) high, had a solid 1/8 in (3 mm) steel plate “table” top, welded wire mesh sides, and a metal lath “mattress”- type floor. Altogether it had 359 parts and had 3 tools supplied with the pack.
The shelter was provided free to households whose combined income was less than £350 per year.
When Head of the Engineering Department at Cambridge University, Professor Sir John Baker (latterly Baron Baker) presented an undergraduate lecture on the principles of design of the shelter, as an interesting introduction to his theory of plastic design of structures; in 1968 this lecture was attended by Prince Charles, and it can be summarized as follows:
It was impractical to produce a design for mass production that could withstand a direct hit, and so it was a matter of selecting a suitable design target that would save lives in many cases of blast damage to bombed houses. Examination of bombed buildings indicated that in many instances, one end wall of a house was sucked or blown out by a nearby blast, and the floor of the first storey pivoted about its other end (supported by a largely intact wall) and killed the inhabitants. The Morrison shelter was therefore designed to be able to withstand the upper floor falling, of a typical two storey-house undergoing a partial collapse. The shelter was designed to absorb this energy by plastic deformation, since this can absorb two or three orders of magnitude more energy than elastic deformation. Its design enabled the family to sleep under the shelter at night or during raids, and to use it as a dining table in the daytime, making it a practical item in the house.
500,000 Morrison shelters had been distributed by the end of 1941, with a further 100,000 being added in 1943 to prepare the population for the expected German V-1 flying bomb (doodlebug) attacks.
In one examination of 44 severely damaged houses it was found that three people had been killed, 13 seriously injured, and 16 slightly injured out of a total of 136 people who had occupied Morrison shelters; thus 120 out of 136 escaped from severely bomb-damaged houses without serious injury. Furthermore it was discovered that the fatalities had occurred in a house which had suffered a direct hit, and some of the severely injured were in shelters sited incorrectly within the houses.
In July 1950 the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors made an award of £3,000 to Baker for his design of the Morrison shelter (Baker 1978)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-raid_shelter
Other sites:
http://www.rayleighprimary.org.uk/Year4/MorrisonShelters.htm
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWmorrisonshelter.htm
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/nof/blitz/2200_info.html
http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/em/_story/story_69.php
