PRESERVING THE NUCLEAR FAMILY

In 1951, two years after the Soviets obtained the atomic bomb, and for decades thereafter, virtually every U.S. schoolchild was exposed to the public service film Duck and Cover, featuring Bert the Turtle. In the opening of the movie (which you can view in its entirety here), the chelonian is sauntering down the road, jauntily wearing a hard hat, when he realizes that behind him a monkey on a branch of a tree is setting off  a stick of dynamite suspended on a string. Bert "ducks for cover" by retreating into his shell, and the evil simian (who is obviously a commie pinko Ruskie) disappears in the blast and is presumably and appropriately atomized. The film then explains that should a child encounter an unanticipated atomic explosion, he should immediately duck underneath his desk or any other available shielding and cover his exposed skin and eyes.

For decades thereafter, smug youth who had grown up in the atomic age ridiculed with copious quantities of condescension the naivete of those who proposed that crawling underneath a desk could provide any sort of protection in the event of a nuclear explosion. 

Admittedly, Bert was dealing with smaller one-stage fission explosions, not the later-developed far more massive two-stage multi-megaton hydrogen bombs. However, for the most part, Bert's advice was sage and still is so. Of course, anyone relatively close to an atomic blast is likely to be vaporized instantaneously, while victims a little further away will have a couple of seconds to succumb to a horrible fiery death. However, for those persons a greater distance from the detonation, ducking and covering would in numerous (but, of course, not all) cases increase the chances of survival. 

In the Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions, many persons were far enough from the detonation that they would have lived but for the fact that they got up and looked out the window to see what the source of bright light was--only to be shredded by shards of glass when the blast wave hit the window several seconds later. A similar phenomenon occurred during the 1986 Chernobyl reactor explosion, where a school teacher told her 44 children to duck and cover while she remained standing. The kids ended up fine, while the teacher suffered serious and paneful lacerations from the flying glass.

Also, in the Japanese bombings, some victims received substantial protection, even with just a thin layer of covering, from the thermal effects of the blast--with some showing third-degree burns on exposed skin with no injury on the parts of the body covered with clothing. In another example, a telephone pole located behind a bush showed no charring on its parts which were shadowed by leaves from the bush, but it was burned black on the portions not so protected.

"Duck and cover" states that whenever possible, the person hide behind a substantial barrier between him and the explosion, even if it just means falling face down in the street next to a curb. The barrier will impede, at least in part, the total amount of gamma radiation (which is emitted in straight lines from the blast) absorbed by the victim.

Naysayers also argue that being caught in a building in a nuclear zone simply means that you will suffer certain death by being buried and crushed in the rubble. Studies of other tragedies involving collapsing buildings show that stout objects like desks create cavities which can protect persons underneath--at least creating better odds than merely standing up in a room waiting for the roof to come down. 

A few persons in reinforced concrete buildings in Hiroshima as close as 170 meters and 300 meters to ground zero (well within the open-air lethal zone for exposure to the radiation, blast, and thermal effects) survived with only minor injuries.

Would following "duck and cover" procedures make nuclear war anything but a horrific experience? Of course not. Is it not quite possible that a child initially surviving such a conflict would ultimately die from fallout, disease, exposure, C.H.U.D.s, or many other things? Absolutely. However, the standard alternative advice by the nattering nabobs of negativism of "Stick your head between your legs and kiss your a-- goodbye" does seem a tad defeatist.

Duck and Cover was not the only atomic warfare education provided. In 1967, gym classes for the boys in my high school were preempted for a couple of months in order to teach a variety of potentially relevant skills such as using a dosimeter, reading a Geiger counter, assembling survival supplies, and building a fallout shelter. It apparently was presumed that either the girls could not master this information or that they simply did not need to do so. After all, the males now knew what to do and would presumably protect the weaker sex.

And no, the Duck and Cover film did not even mention either the thumb test or riding the blast out in a refrigerator.

And, if you wish to see further how Hollywood envisions nuclear Armageddon, there are many examples from which to choose.