Duck and Cover

Even though I'm of the "Duck and Cover" generation, I don't remember this video. It's the second one on the page. The first one is worth watching also.

Duck and Cover

[Richard]

We were taught to 'Turn, Duck and Cover' - turn away from the flash as you sought to duck and cover - and practiced it pretty regularly.

There were also CD supplies (barrels of water, sealed cartons of food and medical supplies) in our classrooms and an air-raid siren near the school which was white with the CD symbol painted on it.

Such was life about 8 miles away from a SAC base.

Richard

Originally Posted by Richard

We were taught to 'Turn, Duck and Cover' - turn away from the flash as you sought to duck and cover - and practiced it pretty regularly.

There were also CD supplies (barrels of water, sealed cartons of food and medical supplies) in our classrooms and an air-raid siren near the school which was white with the CD symbol painted on it.

Such was life about 8 miles away from a SAC base.

Richard

8 miles from the SAC base!!! Just like the TSA of today, all the prep you describe is more theater than effective.

Here is a little neat museum for those of us who kived during the Cold War

http://www.civildefensemuseum.com/

Brings back some memories.

[JJ_BPK]

Originally Posted by HowardCohodas

Even though I'm of the "Duck and Cover" generation, I don't remember this video. It's the second one on the page. The first one is worth watching also.

Duck and Cover

I remember the turtle,, never could understand why they bothered???

I guess I was a little dubious,, After watching "Victory at Sea" and WW II tv videos of the destruction of London and most EU cities,, every day for years,,,

I never could understand how anyone was to survive an Atomic attack. Why bother,, your going to be vaporized if your close to ground zero,, or your going to be poisoned by 1000 yrs of radiation..

Even after I went to the classes in OCS on nuclear weapons planning and how to map radiation scatter. I never thought the A-bomb was a viable weapon.

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by JJ_BPK

I remember the turtle,, never could understand why they bothered???

I guess I was a little dubious,, After watching "Victory at Sea" and WW II tv videos of the destruction of London and most EU cities,, every day for years,,,

I never could understand how anyone was to survive an Atomic attack. Why bother,, your going to be vaporized if your close to ground zero,, or your going to be poisoned by 1000 yrs of radiation..

Even after I went to the classes in OCS on nuclear weapons planning and how to map radiation scatter. I never thought the A-bomb was a viable weapon.

I disagree with you completely.

Note the recent death of a man who was nuked twice in less than a week, and lived another 54 years.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are vibrant cities today, and have been since shortly after WW II ended.

Do some research. Nuclear weapons lose power very quickly. Blast and shock attenuate very rapidly, and heat does almost as quickly.

Refer to the Rule of Sevens for half-life and decay of isotopes from a ground burst.

By far the worst damage outside of a few miles would be the results of an EMP which could disble the entire country and push us back into a pre-electric age.

TR

[JJ_BPK]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

I disagree with you completely.

Nuclear weapons lose power very quickly.
TR

TR

Your correct,, But when I was I kid in grade school, that's not the story they were telling..

If I may add to what TR stated. To a certain point of Megatonage is concerned, it is that once you go over 50 megatons There is no more destruction or radiation than what 20 megatons fired at 6,000 feet can do. So do not believe anybody that tells you that such and such has a huge"Continental Buster". Because it simply cannot be that way according to theroetical physics. Now will the heat and light given off by a 50 megaton airburst be brighter and the heat be more hotter, sure, but not as much as one would feel compared to a 20 megaton weapon. It does not work exponentually the way one would think. Besides most of our stuff and the chinese and Soviets have are in the kiloton range.

The megatonage is usally reserved for fortified military installations such as Chyenne Mountain or the SAC bases and the actual silos themselves.

Look at it like this. If your delivery vehicle(s) is now reached to a point of accuracy that is into within a football field, then you will not need a large amount of power to destroy the target. Pin-point accuracy like we have developed will come in yards/meters as distance from the target that is unless something goes wrong in the electrical systems/power supplying the MIRV or the Satellites are down (Knock out of orbit or destroyed) as a preemptive strike. Which we would know before hand.

My apoligies for a long winded answer. It is however, better to have some bit of knowledge so that one doesn't freak out at the sounding of the attack signal from airhorns.

[dr. mabuse]

*

[ZonieDiver]

Originally Posted by Richard

We were taught to 'Turn, Duck and Cover' - turn away from the flash as you sought to duck and cover - and practiced it pretty regularly.

There were also CD supplies (barrels of water, sealed cartons of food and medical supplies) in our classrooms and an air-raid siren near the school which was white with the CD symbol painted on it.

Such was life about 8 miles away from a SAC base.

Richard

They made us take pens and pencils out of our shirt pockets, so we wouldn't poke our eyes out while crawling under our desks.

I was about 60 miles from Scott AFB growing up. I was also pissed at my parents because they wouldn't buy one of those cool pre-fab bomb shelters!

[longrange1947]

During the Cuban crisis I was on Cape Cod and about 10 miles from Otis. Dad did the shelter thing in the basement but we figured that if it hit and if we were not already in it then there was little chance. Being in high school and worldly, (yeah right) we rather took it as it came.

With Otis being a ADC base with F101Bs and the newer Genie (I think that was the name) we figured it would get hit for sure.

[Richard]

I was also pissed at my parents because they wouldn't buy one of those cool pre-fab bomb shelters!

That thought brought back some memories and made me laugh. Where we lived - about 8 miles from a SAC base - my Dad said a shelter wouldn't do us any good and was a waste of $$ - most of the ranchers around the area felt the same way and the only family to put one in were the McGinity's who had the big chicken ranch - smelliest place in the county and an alarmist bunch of folks who were about as skitterish as those chickens they raised.

During the Cuban crisis I was on Cape Cod and about 10 miles from Otis.

Cuban Missle Crisis memories for me are of the adults being scared and literally glued to the news, and the sound of B-52s and KC-135s in the air day and night as they came and went from Mather AFB to the Bering Straits.

Richard

[LarryW]

"Duck & Cover" in the 50's in SoCal (Orange County) involved all of it. The drill didn't so much prepare us to survive an atomic blast, but endure the threat of one. It was the silly things like curling up in a gutter outside, fold up into ball against an exterior wall, or wad oneself up in a ball under the flimsy desk that were all techniques we practiced that helped us live with what we thought would happen. The enemy was armed with our imagination.

[mojaveman]

I grew up four miles from March AFB which at one time was one of the largest SAC bases on the West Coast. That was during the late 60s and 70s. I guess I missed all of the cold war Atomic attack hysteria. I do remember performing earth quake drills though. We were taught to seek cover under the closest desk or table which I thought was kind of silly because if the building ever started coming down I was heading for the door.