Atomic Bomb Protection: Blast Briefcases and Anti-Heat Linen, 1950: What to Do When the Big Ones Come

JF Ptak Science Books Post 282

 This anti-CYAG plump-piece comes to us by virtue of the helpful folks at LIFE magazine in their issue of 18 August 1950.  The article"Atomic Handbook is a Best-Seller/New Government manual tells what will happen and what to do if A-bombs fall on U.S. cities".

But what excellent material to work with when multi (multi) megatons come raining down from over the Pole. 

Here are the helpful hints that were being sold to the American public in a family magazine:

1)  If there is nothing to hide in, put your face in the crack where the sidewalk and a building meet, and put your attache case over your head.  Too bad the case wasn't bigger--like a few tons of lead and concrete. Make sure the metal clasp is facing out, rather than in, otherwise it will fuse with your skull, if there was any skull left.

2)  So, if you're hanging up the laundry in the backyard when the bombs go off, get into a

trench (that just happens to be there in the middle of the yard) and cover your head with a sheet "to protect you from heat" ("if your drying laundry is within reach").  I hope that its an Oxford double weave.

3) (Illustrated below.)  Find a doorway to hide in, and hope that you're not within two miles of the blast, otherwise you're a part of the rubble.

4)  (Illustrated  below.)  If you're within two feet of a tree, hide behind it. Honestly  The warning is for two feet:  if you're three feet away, you might be toast.  That's the message.

5) (Illustrated below.)  Crawl under a table and cover yourself with the table cloth to "ward off glass splinters".  That was a real suggestion.  Somehow the cotton of tablecloths and linens and such had magical anti-glass and heat-reductive power brought on only during a nuclear holocaust. 

The trick to all of this is to put yourself fifty years into the future and try to look back at whatever these LIFE images might be here in 2008. 

 

Comments

[Jeff]

John, this duck & cover stuff is inextricably connected in my memory with a particular classroom in P.S. 29 and with a particular event unrelated to the atomic bomb drills. I just can't be sure of the teacher or what grade it was ... the classroom was on the second floor, on the Slosson Ave. side. One day, we were all quietly doing work or taking a test, and a distant siren intruded (on my thoughts, anyway). I listened to it come closer and closer, waiting for that familiar moment when the ambulance would crest the hill and the sound would suddenly become much louder. And so all that happened, and an instant later there was a stunning, explosive crash, followed by the long, long, long winding down of the siren. The teacher looked out the window, grabbed some blankets I think and said, "Stay in your seats," before running out, as if that might happen. We all ran to the windows to watch. This classroom is also connected with the bomb drills because I recall the discussion of ducking under the desks or better yet, under the windows, to be safe(r) from the flying glass. There was also a drill where we filed calmly to the inner hallway, which was dark and mostly free of windows. We would sit down with our backs against the wall. I think the wall was tile at that height, but I'm not sure. Do you remember any of that? Anyway, the tea water's boiled ...

[John Ptak]

Jeff! I do remember the hallway exercise, but I remember going downstairs in that big (I say "big" but we were 10 or less so who knows)open area that was close by the lunch room and lining up along the walls there? No? I remember Mr. Rotelli being part of this, but little else. I do not remember the siren incident, which sounds like it could've been scary. Was Slosson Mrs. Schrieber?