House of Commons to H. F Jones

This January 19, 1962 letter is the full reply from the Privy Council Office to H. F. Jones’s December letter (see CDWB00281). The January response mentioned the need to update the “Civil Defence Health Services Manual” (CDWB00286). 

While the current manual contained a “Mortuary Services” subsection, including plans for performing funerals in “damaged areas”, covering plane travel procedures for “coroners, police, public health officials, funeral directors and superintendents of cemeteries,” it was time to update the manual, since the previous edition had been written when atomic weapons were still in the “Model T” stage – a reference to the early car made by the Ford company. Due to technological advances in weaponry, updated protocols needed to address a larger volume of bodies, along with the “complicating effects of fallout” on rescue personnel.  “The handling of the dead where they prevent a health hazard will be one of the problems to be dealt with” by the Army, which had responsibility for both rescuing survivors and retrieving the dead.   

Jones was informed that a “working group”, including morticians, was being developed to address the issue of war dead. Records of this “working group” have not yet been identified. Bryce’s letter to Jones had been drafted by R. B. Curry, Director of the Emergency Management Organization, and available in CDWB00285.