What we were told to do in case of nuclear attack....

CinnamonSugar

CinnamonSugar

A Quiet American
Anyone else have "atomic bomb" drills in grade school in the early 60's? We were taught to scrunch down on the floor next to our desks and cover the back of our neck with our hands.

Now you want to say, "Like that was really going to make a difference," right? lol
 

CinnamonSugar said:
Anyone else have "atomic bomb" drills in grade school in the early 60's? We were taught to scrunch down on the floor next to our desks and cover the back of our neck with our hands.

Now you want to say, "Like that was really going to make a difference," right? lol
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Yes....we probably are the same age...We had to go to the lower level of the school...and scrunch down....at that age, it really wasn't scary...
 
Yes, I remember those bomb drills well. We either hunkered down under our desks, or went to the school basement and cowered against the walls. How absurd to think that a wooden desk would protect us in the event of a nuclear war!

While bomb drills are now a thing of the past, schools today sadly have "active shooter drills," a new horror that's closer to home...

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Oh yes, the "duck and cover" drills of the 1950's. Truth was the govt knew they were futile but the pols felt they had to appear to be doing something to protect the people. And then the crates of Civil Defense food stocks shoved into bank vaults and basement storage rooms. Remember the cartoon turtle wearing a Civil Defense hat who served as spokes turtle for all this nonsense. Does the world Conelrad mean anything to anyone?
 
Yeah, I remember that. They must have thought kids didn't know any better than to think that would work. They were right, but stupid. Didn't they know kids would grow up & lose respect for teachers?
 
Marlene said:
Those and fire drills where we all ended up outside standing around shivering. I've often wondered whether the real purpose of both was simply to teach us to follow directions in an orderly manner.
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Fire drills made perfect sense, and still do: They check on how fast a given building can be successfully evacuated. Bomb drills, OTOH, were silly: In the event of a direct hit by a nuclear weapon, no amount of classroom furniture would save your life. Everything would be incinerated in a matter of seconds. Sheltering in a deep basement would, possibly, offer some protection. Being outside the epicenter, ducking and covering might help, a bit, depending on how far from the epicenter you were.
 
treeguy64 said:
Fire drills made perfect sense, and still do: They check on how fast a given building can be successfully evacuated. Bomb drills, OTOH, were silly: In the event of a direct hit by a nuclear weapon, no amount of classroom furniture would save your life. Everything would be incinerated in a matter of seconds. Sheltering in a deep basement would, possibly, offer some protection. Being outside the epicenter, ducking and covering might help, a bit, depending on how far from the epicenter you were.
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I agree that fire drills make sense, but we had about one a month. Seems like after the first couple, we would have had it down??
 
Few realize just how close we came to nuclear war in late October, 1962. I was in Germany, at that time, and as the Russian ships approached Cuba, every available aircraft was fueled, loaded with a Nuke, and the pilots were in the cockpit, ready to start the engines and launch on a one-way suicide mission that would have wiped out civilization. We are all ready to vacate the base, and get as far away as possible as soon as the aircraft launched. We had all written our letters home, in hopes that they would be delivered, and that there would be someone there to read them. It was perhaps only about 15 minutes till "launch" when we got word that the Russian ships had diverted away from Cuba. After the alert was lifted, and we were allowed to return to normal activity, there was some "Serious" consumption of that good German beer.
 
I was in elementary school in the '50's, but we never had any drills of this nature. I heard about them and remember watching the news on CBS with Cronkite and watching other kids go through the drills, but no, we never had any.

My dad was career Army and attended the War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as an aide to some big shot Colonel and he kept telling us that there wasn't anything to worry about. I also remember people digging holes in their backyard to make a shelter.
 
Foolish advice in similar situations is not all ancient history.

Who remembers color coded alerts and black plastic to cover our windows during the skirmish following 9/11?
 
During WW2, we had air raid drills. All lights in the house were to be turned off and curtains drawn. Now, I lived in the country outside of a town of 9500 people. Slim to none our town would have been bombed.

Also remember getting under our school,desk. Great way to pick the gum wads off the bottom of the desk. :oops:
 
In addition to bomb drills at school, we were also told that it was good to have a bomb shelter at home. Although not including beds as in the photo, my father stored canned food and gallons of water in the cellar. During the Cuban Crisis, nuclear war seemed a distinct possibility, but living close to NYC I probably wouldn't have survived...
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toffee said:
what is the point -everything will be contaminated .
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The point was - by telling them to do something - even if it was useless, they could avoid telling them the truth which was "kiss your azz goodbye."
 

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