https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/white-bread-and-war-bread-rhbgzqhk0
july 17, 1917
“White” bread and war bread
To the Editor of The Times. Sir, It has been recently reported in the Press that the Food Controller has decided to allow the purchase of “white” bread to those who find bread of the official standard indigestible or harmful to health, and who can furnish a medical certificate in corroboration of their view. May I call attention to the difficulties which must arise from this decision — difficulties which appear to me to make the situation impossible? The first result has been, to judge from my experience, that medical men are being inundated with requests for certificates. How is the unfortunate doctor to deal with these, often peremptory, requests? Is he to refuse them all and offend his patients, or to grant them all and offend his conscience? For there is no possible middle course. Either “war” bread is difficult of digestion and harmful to health, or it is not. If it is in some degree harmful I cannot take the responsibility of refusing in the case of one sick person while acceding in that of another. And as for the sick, so for the delicate, and so for the children whose anxious parents fear that their future health may be jeopardized. In so far as I have been able to judge, the ill-effects are trifling and utterly insufficient to justify the wholesale upset of a Regulation which has been made, we are told, on grounds of stern necessity as an alternative to a possible national shortage of food. But a section of the public appears to be developing the view that most of its ailments arise from its altered dietary. I have recently been assured that cases of the epidemic diarrhoea so common at this season, and others of spots evidently caused by mosquito bites, were certainly the result of war bread! Unless the whole matter of the imposition of a standard is an unnecessary farce, the civilian population must surely bear such inconvenience as results from it. And it would seem wiser for the authorities to devote their energies to appease unnecessary anxiety while ensuring that the flour milled is uniformly of proper standard and that the bread is skilfully prepared. They appear rather, by their recent action, to be sheltering from baseless clamour by shifting responsibility to the medical profession, a body which has neither time nor the authority to carry out war regulations.
Yours faithfully, MD.
Yours faithfully, MD.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-07-15/register/suggested-air-raid-precautions-p9cq9cxtm
Sir, As the recent raids upon London show a crescendo from one to five and then to 22 Gotha air-planes, it is clear that we should not only cease to look for immunity, but should also prepare thoroughly for future attack. Such preparations include things the public can do for itself and things to be done for it. I venture to suggest that we need precise instructions and a certain amount of military help. We may frankly recognize that loss and damage of property are unavoidable; but property can be repaired. The hurt or loss of one schoolchild is always irreparable.
It is obvious that the chief danger to life will not be from direct hits from a German bomb, but from falling houses, flying debris, and our own protective shrapnel. I write to ask that two things be urged: (1) The immediate issue of a leaflet of instructions — of monosyllabic brevity — directing us to take cover and telling us precisely the safest cover in every building within a radius of three miles or so round the Tower Bridge. (2) In districts where there is no safe cover, notably in thickly populated streets of small collapsible houses, simple trenches or dugouts should at once be made, in back gardens or open spaces. They should, I suppose, be narrow and fairly deep, with steps into them and corrugated iron over them. The chance of a direct hit in any such trench would perhaps be one in a million. Could not our 18-year-old battalions get good practice by digging humbler London in?
I am Sir, yours truly,
H W DAVIES, Temple Church, EC.
Sir, The City is full of admirable dugouts if they could only be identified. I suggest that each street should form its own committee for the inspection and labelling of buildings where secure shelter can be found. Many of the most suitable retreats are the basements of the tea and coffee restaurants that abound in the City, and it seems to me that Messrs Lyons and Co, the Aerated Bread Company, the Express Dairy Company, and others would be doing a great public service if, in the case of those basements that are under buildings, announce them as shelters on their shop fronts.
Yours obediently,
DOUGLAS M GANE, 106 Leadenhall St.
About 6am the enemy artillery began a fierce bombardment of our front line with 5.9-inch howitzers, assisted by aeroplanes. The defences suffered heavily under this punishment, the men being forced to seek fresh shelter among the dunes. At about 2 o’clock shells were falling into the battalion headquarters of the King’s Royal Rifles, whereupon the Staff sought to carry on operations under cover of a tunnel nearer the sea. A sergeant of the Northamptonshire Regiment, who volunteered for the task, was sent out to warn the regiment on the right that there was a danger of their being cut off, since all the bridges over the Yser were now destroyed. Although wounded, this gallant fellow swam the river and delivered his warning, and the attack when it came was prevented from extending beyond this point.
At about 3pm the Germans were seen advancing in three heavy waves along the sea-front. Never was a more valiant fight than was put up by the sadly depleted defenders, but against such overwhelming odds there could be but one result. The remains of two platoons were surrounded and fought until the last man fell amid a circle of dead and wounded Germans. Bombers and a Flammenwerfer party made for the tunnel wherein the headquarters of the King’s Royal Rifles lay, and the last scene here was the spectacle of six officers, back to back, using their revolvers with a cool deliberation for which the language of admiration can find no fitting words.
Fighting all the way, a number of the men were pressed back to the river bank, where such as could swam across. But there were those who could not swim. With bullets hissing around him, one soldier breasted across to the opposite bank, returned with a rope, one end of which he secured, then took to the water again and carried the loose end across, establishing the means of escape for the non-swimmers — a magnificent act of heroism.
july 15, 1917
Suggested air-raid precautions
To the Editor of The Times.Sir, As the recent raids upon London show a crescendo from one to five and then to 22 Gotha air-planes, it is clear that we should not only cease to look for immunity, but should also prepare thoroughly for future attack. Such preparations include things the public can do for itself and things to be done for it. I venture to suggest that we need precise instructions and a certain amount of military help. We may frankly recognize that loss and damage of property are unavoidable; but property can be repaired. The hurt or loss of one schoolchild is always irreparable.
It is obvious that the chief danger to life will not be from direct hits from a German bomb, but from falling houses, flying debris, and our own protective shrapnel. I write to ask that two things be urged: (1) The immediate issue of a leaflet of instructions — of monosyllabic brevity — directing us to take cover and telling us precisely the safest cover in every building within a radius of three miles or so round the Tower Bridge. (2) In districts where there is no safe cover, notably in thickly populated streets of small collapsible houses, simple trenches or dugouts should at once be made, in back gardens or open spaces. They should, I suppose, be narrow and fairly deep, with steps into them and corrugated iron over them. The chance of a direct hit in any such trench would perhaps be one in a million. Could not our 18-year-old battalions get good practice by digging humbler London in?
I am Sir, yours truly,
H W DAVIES, Temple Church, EC.
Sir, The City is full of admirable dugouts if they could only be identified. I suggest that each street should form its own committee for the inspection and labelling of buildings where secure shelter can be found. Many of the most suitable retreats are the basements of the tea and coffee restaurants that abound in the City, and it seems to me that Messrs Lyons and Co, the Aerated Bread Company, the Express Dairy Company, and others would be doing a great public service if, in the case of those basements that are under buildings, announce them as shelters on their shop fronts.
Yours obediently,
DOUGLAS M GANE, 106 Leadenhall St.
july 14, 1917
Great story of Yser fight
On Tuesday last the enemy made a big-gun drive in the Belgian dunes, and flattened the sand defences. The scene is a windswept stretch of hillocks and gullies reaching an elevation of about 60ft above high-water mark. It is difficult ground to develop into a strong defensive system, good for hiding but bad for holding when the lair is discovered.About 6am the enemy artillery began a fierce bombardment of our front line with 5.9-inch howitzers, assisted by aeroplanes. The defences suffered heavily under this punishment, the men being forced to seek fresh shelter among the dunes. At about 2 o’clock shells were falling into the battalion headquarters of the King’s Royal Rifles, whereupon the Staff sought to carry on operations under cover of a tunnel nearer the sea. A sergeant of the Northamptonshire Regiment, who volunteered for the task, was sent out to warn the regiment on the right that there was a danger of their being cut off, since all the bridges over the Yser were now destroyed. Although wounded, this gallant fellow swam the river and delivered his warning, and the attack when it came was prevented from extending beyond this point.
At about 3pm the Germans were seen advancing in three heavy waves along the sea-front. Never was a more valiant fight than was put up by the sadly depleted defenders, but against such overwhelming odds there could be but one result. The remains of two platoons were surrounded and fought until the last man fell amid a circle of dead and wounded Germans. Bombers and a Flammenwerfer party made for the tunnel wherein the headquarters of the King’s Royal Rifles lay, and the last scene here was the spectacle of six officers, back to back, using their revolvers with a cool deliberation for which the language of admiration can find no fitting words.
Fighting all the way, a number of the men were pressed back to the river bank, where such as could swam across. But there were those who could not swim. With bullets hissing around him, one soldier breasted across to the opposite bank, returned with a rope, one end of which he secured, then took to the water again and carried the loose end across, establishing the means of escape for the non-swimmers — a magnificent act of heroism.
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