Air Raid Precautions Training Bulletin's

The training bulletins were created to contain a single reference including material that modified any of the existing Air Raid Precautions documents or in other ways affected the work of ARP training instructors. This type of content had previously been issued by the Ministry of Home Security through Circulars.

The Bulletins would include updated material covering the areas of:

  1. Anti-gas
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    Eg. Civil Defence Training Bulletin No.10. Page 7
  2. Rescue
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    Eg. Civil Defence Training Bulletin No.12. Page 14
  3. First-Aid
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    Eg. Civil Defence Training Bulletin No.10. Page 11
  4. High Explosives
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    Eg. Civil Defence Training Bulletin No.4. Page 3
  5. Incendiary Bombs
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    Eg. Civil Defence Training Bulletin No.1. Page 16
  6. Fire Fighting
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    Eg. Civil Defence Training Bulletin No.12. Page 21
  7. Publications
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    Eg. Civil Defence Training Bulletin No.12. Page 30
  8. Miscellaneous
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    Eg. Civil Defence Training Bulletin No.07. Page 21

They are a good source of information regarding new versions of the various ARP documents and the reasons for the changes.

There were 13 Training Bulletins issued between June, 1940 and April, 1945. In 1942 from Bulletin 9 onwards they were renamed 'Civil Defence' in line with the government strategy of renaming the whole ARP strategy as 'Civil Defence'. At this point Bulletin 8 included an index of the contents of all Bulletins up to that point.

The Bulletins number 3 to 13 were not available to the general public to purchase but an organisation official was required to apply for a copy. These included :

  1. Clerk to a local authority
  2. A chief constable
  3. Secretary of a public utility company
  4. Secretary of an industrial or commercial concern
  5. County secretary of the St John Ambulance Brigade
  6. County secretary of the British Red Cross
  7. County secretary of the St Andrews Ambulance Society

Individual item covers were overprinted at the printers with classification labels of 'Confidential', 'Restricted' or 'For Official use' according to the content that they contained. These could also change as updated editions of some of the Bulletins were published.

The size of the pamphlet was generally set to 14 x 22 cm, except Bulletins 1,8 and 9 which was increased to 15.5 x 24.5 cm.

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