By Andrew A. Rooney, Stars and Stripes Staff Writer
March 1, 1943

In a building where teen age English gentlemen of an Eton-type secondary school used to play squash the American Army is now conducting a fire school complete with incendiary bomb demonstrations for every commissioned and non-commissioned man in the outfit.

With the help of the county judge who took up fire-lighting as a hobby and became an expert on the subject during the blitz, Col. Martin Rhodes, of Chicago, Ill., has developed the half-bombed squash courts into one of the most realistic demonstration grounds in England.

Pvt. Jack Litvak and Pvt. Francis Walsh, both of whom used to watch enviously the engines race through Brooklyn, are two of the permanent firemen. They see that a smoking good fire is curling up inside the first small room of the demonstration chambers, while in the next room Sgt. Edward M. Brueggmann, of Milwaukee, and Pvt. Joseph Cavanagh, of Elizabeth, N.J., get a good wood fire blazing. .

Home-Made Bombs

Outside Pvt. William J. Suissille, of Brooklyn, and Pvt. Kenneth Brings, of Milwaukee, put together their home-made variety of a German incendiary bomb.

The "bomb" consists of magnesium shavings wrapped in newspaper and sprinkled with kerosene.

When the men are ready for the demonstration they are led into the first smoke-filled room. They crawl in on their bellies, and the smoke doesn't bother them too much. The officer leading them tells them to stand up. They stand, but in a few seconds they are back on their bellies again with smarting eyes.

Lesson one. Smoke rises. Stay low.

They are led through the connecting door to the second room where fires blaze, and it is not quite as smoky. The "bomb" is thrown on the fire, the kerosene blazes and soon the magnesium begins to burn with a white heat.

Four-Man Team

At the far door of the second room a man stands with a stirrup pump and several pails of water. Behind him is a three-man bucket brigade to keep the pump pail full, and to spell him when be gets tired. When they call for water he starts his even hundred strokes a minute and it doesn't take long for the best conditioned pumper to get tired.

The men inside lie quietly for several minutes, while the magnesium burns.

Lesson two. Stay away from an incendiary bomb for at least five minutes. They are often equipped with a time mechanism which explodes after five minutes. (Now the Germans have extended it in some cases to seven minutes.)

At the end of the waiting period they yell for water and the direct stream of the stirrup pump is directed at the magnesium bomb.

When the water hits the magnesium, the heat will become more intense. The oxygen of the H2O acts as a fan on the bomb. In a few seconds the magnesium has burned itself out. Without the stream of water it would have burned much longer.

Don't Use a Spray

Lesson three. Don't spray magnesium with water. Direct a stream on it. Water will not extinguish it, but it will make it burn out.

Col. Henry T. J. Weishaar, of Scarsdale, N.Y., is fire marshal at the station in addition to his regular duties with the quartermaster section, and often leads the men through the smoke and fire chambers.

The regular staff men at the school are volunteers and although they work in smoke several hours out of every day they don't mind it. Sometimes at night after a heavy day their eyes are red and smarting but during the day when they emerge from the smoke chamber they invariably take "a busman's ten minute break." They sit down and have a smoke.

They have more fun when the officers go through, they claim.

"We don't keep any less smoke in the chamber when the officers go through," one of them admitted, smiling. "As a matter of fact we might add just a drop or two more kerosene to the `bomb' before they go in."

And when the firemen leave at night their favorite parting words are: "Don't take any magnesium nickels."