The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-11-12

a delayed action hand grenade to the old type kilogram or 22- pound incendiary bomb. The de- layed action may amount to seven minutes and is controlled by o time fuse. If fire watcher, fireman, air raid warden or ordinary house. holder spots one of these bombs and goes close enough to 1t to try to put out the fire by the usual methods of water spray, tongs, or bag of sand, he may succeed in stopping the fire, only to have the hand grenade attachment go of in his face,
 On the other hand, If this new type bomb is let alone, the fire Is successfully started. There you have the reasons for the need of all new oCD training,
 First of these new fire bombs were dropped on England late In Aug ust. Not being prepared for this new and fancy improvement the British auxiliary flremen proceeded to put out the fire in the usual way. Not every bomb dropped had this grenade or bomb attachment-iuSt one to the dozen or so--enough to cause 200 casualties.
 In Britain the new bombs were given the name of A, ? I. or Antl- Personnel 1ncendiary.
 To the British tho problem of dealing with these new A, P, IS hasn't been so very difficult, There all the air raid wardens and fire wardenS are experienced, so the only step necessary was to issue new instructions to the old hands to be on the lookout for thls new weapon, It Is difficult to spot the occasional A. P. l. bomb, its only difference being that the new bomb Is 2i Inches long instead Of i7 and weighs Ave pounds Instead of two, 200 FRAGMENTS
 It's this extra four Inches and three pounds of bomb that makes the difference When 1t eXplodes 1t breaks into 200 fragments of metal which burst up and out for a radius of 20 yards or SO, It will shatter an ordinary door, go through plaster and partition wall. At close range you're fairly safe behind four-inch brick wall.
 If you're caught near ono ot these babies, the safe thing is to fiatten out behind the brick wal 20 yards or more away, and If you feel like playing the hose on the fire while waiting for the bomb to go of, expose only one hand at 6 time.
 So far, there are only a few Of these new A. P. I. bombs in the United States, Mare Peter, Jr., at. taehed to the American embassy in London as observer for the offiee of Civilian Defense, brought them back recently with full information. The British have played the bomb down so far, with one brief announce ment In the newspapers about six weeks ago, SO as to not make It scare story.
 But to the United States, as yet unhombed, this A. r. |. presents c different problem and 1t iS no petty dispute similar to ell the domestel huilabaloo kicked up recently over jet vs. spray Vs. dunking as the best method to put out an ineendiary This is c real problem of training for the Civilian Protection branch of OCD under Brig, -den. U. S Grant III and Col, Augustine Jane way, chief of the training section, 2S0,00O TRAINED
 Around 2B0,000 auxiliary firemen have been given brief training in handling ordinary ineen q iary bombs, and these 2b0,000 have in turn gone back to pass this tfain- lnS 10 others in their home com- munities Of the target area--roughiy e strip about 200 miles inland froir the sea coasts. But with. the new A. ?. 1. bomb menace, it might Dc necessary to train up to four fire fighters to every block in the target area. Roughly that would near training about two million civilian bomb putter-outers. It might mean making a fire lady out Of the wife, nom, and the girl friend.
 This particular problem Isn't eon- Slderod acute on the west coast The Japs haven't used magnesium bombs because they haven't enough magnesium. Out west all they have to worry about are the Jap i00- pound ineendiary bombs of phoS- phorus and oil, which explode on