On This Day, 18 May 1918

Birmingham Daily Gazette

Saturday 18 May 1918

RAID-SIGNAL TEST.

DAYLIGHT EXPERIMENT IN BIRMINGHAM.

MAROON WARNINGS.

The warning system which will be adopted in the event of a daylight air raid upon Birmingham was tested yesterday in a manner which gave complete satisfaction, not only to the authorities but to the members of the public.

A long time has elapsed since the scheme first came under consideration, but the delay in demonstrating the system has not been wasted. Maroon firing is evidently effective.

There were few people except those afflicted with total or partial deafness, who did not hear the loud detonations which rent the air at a height of from 750 to 1,000 feet at mid-day, and many citizens who were in the open counted as many as twenty explosions, some being so near that they almost shook the houses, and others, although far-off, leaving no doubt, in view of the public announcements as to the time of the demonstration, as to their origin and purpose.

SATISFACTORY RESULTS.

The test was applied at thirty-eight stations which had been carefully and wisely chosen, and the Chief Constable was obviously pleased with the results.

In an interview Mr. Rafter said he personally heard from eighteen to twenty detonations. “When the test was made at Greet on Saturday,” he continued, “the noise of the explosions was heard at two opposite boundaries of the city, and one of the superintendents who was in Digbeth at the time said that he heard it there.

“We have established the fact that the sound will travel over open country. It remains to be known whether buildings interfere with its progress.”

The general conclusion after yesterday’s experiment will be that they do not, but there remains some doubt as to whether the burr of factory machinery does not drown the detonations.

MINUTE EXPLOSIONS.

Two maroons were fired, with an interval of about one minute between each, at every station. After the explosions a few pieces of soot floated in the air, and just as one was wondering where the harmless projectile had got to, a second explosion took place at a height of 750 or 1,000 feet.

A red-coloured smoke was set free. It was observable for not quite a minute, and soon became part of the atmosphere. It was not everyone who saw the smoke, but the demonstration proved that it will be a simple matter to give adequate warning of the approach of enemy aircraft during the day time.