RAILWAYS IN BLACK-OUTS
SIR,—Your editorial note " Playing at Black-outs " reminds me of an experience during the early autumn of 1916. An air-raid was expected late one evening whilst I was in my Surrey home on sick-leave. As an important railway line passed through the locality all lights in the houses were extinguished or suit- ably muffled. Near midnight and whilst the unforgettable noise of Zeppelin engines was heard overhead, a late train passed, and I was horrified to see the fire-box open and a great pulsing glare in the steam from the engine. Within not more than 20 seconds there was a b:uish flash and a terrific ex- plosion. Another bomb was immediately dropped, but appa- rently the raider was after larger fish and the Zepp went away. Fortunately, no lives were lost, as the residences were few and far between, but a good deal of material damage was done.
There can be not the slightest doubt that had any deaths ensued the driver and fireman of the train would have been guilty of manslaughter as a result of their carelessness. Even so, the subsequent movements of the raider or raiders showed that the railway line was afterwards followed to the suburbs of London, where, as I saw for myself the following day, though the general public knew little of the matter, a great deal of devastation was caused.
In The Times of August 12th we are told that many of the railway termini were clearly marked during the black-out, but good excuse is pleaded for the companies " who had promised co-operation only to an extent which would not interfere with essential services." It would seem that Herr Hitler's ideas of essential services are somewhat different from our own. In the same issue of the same paper there is a report of police-court proceedings as a result of which a citizen was heavily fined for breaking a neon sign in the West End as a protest against its being alight during the black-out. One cannot help wondering whether a Nazi follower acting in a similar manner during a black-out in Berlin—supposing anyone had the temerity to leave a sign flashing—would have received the same measure of punishment.
It is said there is a dearth of A.R.P. personnel in some large towns, and can this be wondered at? Citizens having actual experience of what an intensive bombardment from the ground or the air can be like will not feel much inclined to do more than their best to safeguard their own families so long as there is, in your own words, " a subservience to money-making interests, which shows democracy at its worst."—I am, Sir,
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