The Wyandotte herald. (Wyandotte, Mich.) 1879-1943, 1941-11-14
Harden Britons
ToBomb Shock.
Stage Experiment in Vaults
With Sound Effects of
Genuine Attack.

LONDON. Workers, children and
bomb-shocked neurotics were led in
to dark and cold bomb-like vaults in
London recently, and, in one of the
most horrible experiments of the
war, were exposed to an artificial
blitz bombing calculated to be just
exactly as terrifying as the real
thing
Afraid precaution officials and
physicians conducted the expert
ment with view TO preparing Brit
ons for things to come in the fall and
winter which government leaders
have predicted will bring German
raids perhaps worse than those Of
last year
Wide-eyed, expecting anything,
the subjects of the test huddled to-
gether as they were led under
ground. Some clutched the hands
of others. A switch was turned,
and there began a terrible sound -
the raw reproduction of AFRAID
noises.
The noise, nothing conCoc;ed in a
sounds-effects studio, was the real
thing, recorded during one Of Lon
don's worst raids last year
Screaming sirens in a sinking and
rising wall filled the vault with omi-
nous notes. Presently Bang
Bang Bang" went the guns. The
drone of bombers was heard as
overhead.
Sounds Swell in Dark.
The sounds swelled in the dark
vault. The guns kept banging
Then big bombs burst. The guns
kept up. More bombs. Then the
crackle of flames. Next changing
fire engines added their noise, the
other sounds continuing.
The experimenterS, fearing lest
they try their subjects too hard,
SOftened the sounds momentarily to
see how the people were standing
the realistic reproduction
No one was crying out The beam
of flash light around the room, re-
Vealed drawn faces and frightened
eyes. But no one was swooning. The
experimenters stepped up the amp!i-
fication.
PandemOnium broke loose. To
the awful accompaniment were
added walls and screams, and the
shouted orders of wardenS and fire
fighters and doctors.
After this climax the noises grad
ually died out At the all clear the
people were led from the vaults
Tie physicians questioned those
who had been through it, 1t was
terrifying. they agreed, but they
said they we're glad for having been
through it.
The ARP was overjoyed " tin
the results. The suggestion was
advanced that whole populations be
put through the experiment to make
them immune, through familiarity,
TO fear caused by air raid noises"
Use Nazi Films.
This is a psychological principle
underlying visual experiment now
being run by the government in
motion-picture houses in various
parts of the country A film, said
TO have been captured from the
Nazis, purporting to show the Ger
man campaign against Russia with
all the terrors of war clearly set
forth, is being shown to harden the
population.
The Germans are said to hope
for the opposite effect - morale
breaking.
This first afraid experiment was
conducted in the vaults of the
Church of England Temperance So
ciety's home for treatment of peo-
pie suffering from neuroseS.
Some of these patients underwent
the experiment, and there also were
people brought in from nearby
towns and the countryside
1.-THE theory is" said the ARP
that you can accustom yourself to
anything And the things you know
do not brighten like the unknown"