Evening star., 1940-11-20

can be moved so that the city Is
always covered and the disposition
of pieces Is always the most EN-
cient possible. Now, if it's just what
We call a ten-pump fire we will just
move up a few pieces to take the
place of the ones that have gone to
the fire.
"These"-and he pOinted-""are
district lines. If one district is hav-
ing really bad time 1t can draw on
the districts around it. This whole
map you see is only for what we call
the City of London Fire District.
Suburban districts are kept track of
just like this The boards are all on
the other side. If we were in real
trouble here we might call on them
for apparatus. Or vice versa. The
whole system is very flexible. We
can move very rapidly"
Marvel Overnight.
I probably used inaccurate terms,
but this was the gist of it. I mar
veled. have never seen such
obviously smooth efficiency in an
undertaking on such scale and so
new. For the blitz began in August
and 1t still was October. All this
that was now such a solid, simple,
effective system was only yesterday
emergency. Terrible emergency. Z
thought to myself, The English are
the most extraordinary people in the
world. They are so unbelievably
slow and unforesighted about some
things. and yet they work out this
marvel overnight.
"One month their fire department
Is an old established bureaucracy
1t must have been always we'll run
but it had only few thousand men
And its equipment, like our equip
ment at home, was heavy and pom
derOus and relied on perfect water
distribution. .And then the next
month there must have been more
fires in a week than there had been
in year before. and tens of thou
sands Of new men-a whole organi-
zation to be revamped-equipment
installed, men trained, routine
worked out And here it all is
as smoothly run as the dispatch
office in the Grand Central Termi.
nal in New York"
didn't count them, but there
couldn't have been over 20 or 2:
people in the control room. 1t didn1
cover much more area than the bis
newsstands in the Forty-seconc
street side of the Grand Central
Yet these few men in this little room
directed an army that licked tn,
Luftwaffe. They could put fires ou
faster than all the aerial armada.
backed by all the lethal chemist.
could start them. I told them tina
I couldn't believe my own eyes. L
was such beautiful system. They
were SO modest about it they seemed
shy. One of them said:
st works rather we'll"
We looked at the other boards
They showed us the records. H,
talked some more about the nigh,
Of September Is. 1t must hav,
been hell.
Mr.. Fordham said:
This board also records the fire!
that are burning in London now.
1t was empty, except for two
small green dots in one corner.
thought again of the bombers flyin.
back and forth 5 miles overhead
asked If these we're big fires. HI
said:
"Oh, no, no. Just two little one.
on the edge of town
We stood around talking quite /,
while, but no more calls came in
The f1remen at the switchboard
continued to wriggle in their chairs
The girls continued to knit. 1t wa
about l o'clock in the morning. w,
went back up to the ground foo
and ran into fire pole on which
the f1remen who slept above slid,
to the engines parked where y;
were.
Just before dawn I was awak,
and looked out over London from
the Dorchester. The all clear hat
sounded. The city was silent. black
Just for fun I clipped the German
official communique describing tn
bombing of London on the nigh
we spent in the fire department.
headquarters. Here is what it said
"Squadrons of German bomber
again dropped many bombs yester
day on London. obtaining this parti
cularly near the West End distric
and Waterloo Station Great tongue
OF flame and new fires were OBJ
served"
The accuracy of this communion
parallels the accuracy of every othe
communique I checked PERSONAL,
during the two weeks I was il
England.
| (To be continued
tCopyrisht. 1910. by the Newspaper Pm
Inc, in the United States Canada an
all the countries in the Internationa
Copyright Union. Reproduction in Who'll
or in part strictly forbidden)