“The chief danger of an air raid, he said, was splintered glass
from windows. Thus, when one hears the siren one should get a
drink, lie down on a couch and put two pillows over
oneself–one pillow over the eyes and the other over the
groin…if the eyes or groin were injured, life was not worth
living. It was good advice for any groundling in the age
before atom bombs; and I took it.”
– Theodore White, recalling advice given him by cryptographer
Herbert Yardley during White’s reporting stint in China during
the early 1940s.