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CONFIDENTIAL.

ADVICE ON THE PREPARATION OF BROADCASTS describing conditions in heavily raided towns.

NOTE: In designing the broadcast and estimating its effect, it should be remembered that the majority of those who will be listening are outside the raided town and most of them have not experienced a heavy raid. The broadcast is also available for enemy listeners. However, the most interested and critical listeners will be those whose own observations, or the testimony of their friends, enable them to judge the integrity of the broadcast.

Reports make it possible to give a general outline of public reaction and behaviour after heavy air raids:-

1. Immediately after the raid, people are dazed and in a condition of mild shock. They are surprised and thankful to be alive. They feel important and are inclined to exaggerate the experiences through which they have passed. Those who have suffered loss are feeling sad and depressed. A few feel hopeless. All are tired. There is a considerable degree of isolation, both physical and psychological. There is a craving for attention, sympathy and encouragement.

2. During the first day after the raid, people are mainly concerned in making plans for evacuation (temporary or permanent), in deciding on shelter for the following night, getting and cooking food, making inquiries about missing relatives and friends, or thinking about salvaging their furniture and possessions.

3. People seem unable to absorb information easily: many wireless sets are out of action: the written word seems not to have the usual effect. They seem unable to bestir themselves in order to acquire information. Advice is best conveyed by word of mouth.

4. Rumours circulate suggesting the possibility of a return attack. People are abnormally sensitive to this possibility.

5. People are primarily interested in damage, and there is a natural inclination to exaggerate it.

6. There are various signs of tension. Those who remain in the town often show a considerable amount of “cheerfulness” which is often thought to be synonymous with “high morale”. Joking is common.

7. There is pride in local efficiency but at the same time inefficiency and failure, (whether in administration, fire-fighting, the conduct of rest centres, demolition, and so on) becomes known very rapidly.

8. Authorities of various kinds, conscious of the many difficulties they have faced, are abnormally sensitive to criticism.

9. There is an initial tendency to look back, to think in terms of the past history and associations of the town, and, in view of the obvious damage, to consider the town “done for”, “without a future”.

These considerations make it possible to offer the following advice in the preparation of the broadcast.

1. The broadcast, as far as possible, should be confined to eye-witness accounts: hearsay evidence should be very critically examined before it is included.

2. Generalisations on the state of morale should never be given. It is inevitable that many people listening will find themselves an exception to any generalisation.

3. Morale should never be over-played. The raid will have made many people feel frightened and far from “heroic”. They will resent a standard being set up which they know to be impossible.

4. Damage should never be minimised. This applies particularly to industrial damage. It is widely felt that the Germans will take advantage of an official statement which suggests that the raid has been relatively ineffective.

5. Examples of local efficiency should be praised, but deficiencies should not deliberately be concealed. Concealment is likely to be recognised and lead to a mistrust of official news. It is possible to enhance confidence by mentioning failures in a constructive way.

6. Local leaders should be mentioned by name only if there is certainty that they have not been the subject of criticism.

7. Government aid is provided, but individual initiative is always possible and can generally be illustrated. So can neighbourliness which offsets isolation.

8. Useful pieces of information might find a place in the broadcast, e.g. what happens at a rest centre, where the homeless should go for aid, what arrangements are made for evacuation and transport. This can be done indirectly, e.g. describing what was broadcast from loud-speaker vans. The information, though perhaps not of primary interest to those in the raided town, would succeed in giving general advice to others.

9. Controlled evacuation is official policy and although it varies in different regions, most towns will have been given an opportunity of profiting by it. Indirect reference to the success of previous plans might be effective. Any description of people moving out of the town during the raid should be avoided: government advice shows that people are safer in shelters during the raid.

10. Opportunity should be taken of pointing out that this particular raid, severe as it has been, is an incident on the whole war front. The raided town courageously endures its experiences in common with others: all make their contribution to the general war effort.

11. References to the future, to rebuilding, reconstructing, replanning, shift attention from the present to the future. The future will be better than the past.

31st March, 1941.