How to Fight Fire Bombs (1942), the Office of Civilian Defense's revised method

How to Fight Fire Bombs is a 1942 Office of Civilian Defense instruction sheet marked as revised in July 1942. Drawn panels show a householder in suit and tie putting out an incendiary bomb with a jet of water from a pump tank, with sand as the fallback (NAID 514544).

A sheet to memorize

This is a manual printed as a poster. The archive describes six drawn panels in which a man in a suit and tie attacks an incendiary bomb with a pump-tank water jet, an extinguisher, and sand. The text runs longer than the pictures and ends by telling the reader to post it, study it, and memorize it.

IMPORTANT NEW INSTRUCTIONS---REVISED JULY 1942

How to Fight FIRE BOMBS

OFFICIAL INSTRUCTIONS U. S. Office of Civilian Defense

[...] Both American and British tests prove that a jet of water, as illustrated below, will knock out the fire bomb in less than one minute---before major fires can get started. Fire (not the bomb) is the chief danger, and a jet of water is the best weapon. Respect the fire bomb but do not fear it.

[...]

USE SAND ONLY IF A BOMB FALLS WHERE IT CANNOT START A FIRE OR IF WATER IS NOT AVAILABLE

[...]

POST THESE INSTRUCTIONS WHERE THEY CAN BE SEEN

Study Them . . . Understand Them . . . Memorize Them . . . Then You Will Be Ready for Any Emergency

What changed in July

The headline announces a revision, and the opening paragraph explains it. The new method, the sheet says, rests on research by technicians of the Office of Civilian Defense and the Army's Chemical Warfare Service, and British officials had adopted the same change. Water now comes first. Sand is demoted to a fallback for a bomb that cannot start a fire, or for when water is not available. The 4-gallon pump tank, the sheet adds, would be handed out by the OCD to the air raid warden service in target areas, and a garden hose counts as one of the best tools while the water pressure holds.

The record files the sheet under the purpose "Warn or inform," and the archive calls the technique faint: ordinary men in ordinary rooms show the steps. The tone is calm on purpose. "Respect the fire bomb but do not fear it" is the line a fear appeal would never print.

How to read it

As government messaging goes, this sheet is easy to defend. It tells adults how to protect their own houses, explains why the advice changed, and names who did the testing. It asks for no money and no silence, and it names no enemy. It does make a strong empirical claim, that American and British tests "prove" a jet of water beats a fire bomb in under a minute, and it cites no report a reader could check. The record says nothing about where copies were posted or whether anyone ever used the method.

For the government that issued it, see the Roosevelt administration essay. Postwar civil defense, from 1945 on, has its own civil defense and atomic age hub.