The big air raids […] were much more dreadful than the air raids of the World War. They began with a nightmare of warning maroons, sirens, hooters and the shrill whistles of cyclist scouts, then swarms of frantic people running to and fro, […]
1933 September, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Last War Cyclone, 1940–50”, in The Shape of Things to Come, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, 2nd book (The Days after Tomorrow: The Age of Frustration), page 203