Hmm ... I was 5 at this time. My dad was working for Honeywell avionics and we were moving from contract location to contract location (Lockheed in LA, McDonnell/Douglas in St Louis, White Sands Proving Ground in Alamogordo, NM). In 1960 we moved to Germany as they were building the F-104 for NATO. I don't remember any mention of the nuclear threat but I do remember how upset people were when the Berlin wall construction was started (it was on TV a lot). By the time we got back to the US in '64, the duck'n'cover thing was waning. I do remember at least one drill in grade school in '64 or '65.
Some of the idea may have come from US servicemen that saw or experienced the backyard bomb shelters in London. Those actually were used and worked.
Very thoughtful post. I lived through this era, having been born in 1952. My family would have been in the demographic target, living in suburban Chicago with a nice big, back yard that could accommodate a shelter. I vividly remember seeing the ridiculous civil defense film Duck and Cover (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKqXu-5jw60), and engaging in drills where we hid under our desks when a warning siren sounded. I also recall reading about building a bomb shelter, perhaps in a newspaper or magazine. It was close to the time of the Cuban missile crisis, and my family was petrified--because my father had worked in X-10 at Oak Ridge as an electronics technician. During the cold war, he continued as an electronics engineer to work on missile components and underground nuclear testing. So I asked him, "Dad, why aren't we building a bomb shelter?" I was so disappointed when he said, "Honey, it wouldn't help." Another memory I have is that plans urged people to build zig-zag entrances to the shelters, since supposedly, radiation could not navigate around corners! I did not see that in the plans you found, however.
I also grew-up during this period. Upper middle-class suburb. Never knew of anyone building a shelter! We all had basements and that seemed like an possible option. When I bring this up with people my age, few if any knew of or had a home shelter. But there's always someone who asks- maybe the families that built them kept it a secret?!
Dad worked in DASA / DNA on Sandia Base, the heart of the nuclear weapons industry. We didn’t have a bomb shelter, but did have a crawl space under the house. There seemed to have been the assumption of the futility of planning to survive the unsurvivable. Looking back on it now, it seems typically American, to outsource civil defense as a DIY hobby activity.
Funny coincidence but I was involved with excavating one here in Manitoba a few years back. It was getting to be a hangout for druggies and the like so the province decided that it was time to just bulldoze the thing. At that point the Manitoba historical Society got involved and a plan was made to preserve the shelter for future generations. The one below isn't the exact one(there were several dozen identical shelters scattered across the country to be used as monitering stations) but it gives you the idea of what the shelters were like:
One thing really struck home was the description of the end of one training films, the one where the observers walk out of the bunkers to a world that was completly destroyed. The dazed look on the actors faces reminded me of a remark that was made to me about the bunker that we excavated: the man asked his superior what they were supposed to do after the supplies in the bunker ran out and he was told simply that at That point he was on his own and would have to make his own arrangements. Pretty stark and cold but I guess that it was a realistic appraisal of a post nuclear exchange world,....
Hmm ... I was 5 at this time. My dad was working for Honeywell avionics and we were moving from contract location to contract location (Lockheed in LA, McDonnell/Douglas in St Louis, White Sands Proving Ground in Alamogordo, NM). In 1960 we moved to Germany as they were building the F-104 for NATO. I don't remember any mention of the nuclear threat but I do remember how upset people were when the Berlin wall construction was started (it was on TV a lot). By the time we got back to the US in '64, the duck'n'cover thing was waning. I do remember at least one drill in grade school in '64 or '65.
Some of the idea may have come from US servicemen that saw or experienced the backyard bomb shelters in London. Those actually were used and worked.
Very thoughtful post. I lived through this era, having been born in 1952. My family would have been in the demographic target, living in suburban Chicago with a nice big, back yard that could accommodate a shelter. I vividly remember seeing the ridiculous civil defense film Duck and Cover (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKqXu-5jw60), and engaging in drills where we hid under our desks when a warning siren sounded. I also recall reading about building a bomb shelter, perhaps in a newspaper or magazine. It was close to the time of the Cuban missile crisis, and my family was petrified--because my father had worked in X-10 at Oak Ridge as an electronics technician. During the cold war, he continued as an electronics engineer to work on missile components and underground nuclear testing. So I asked him, "Dad, why aren't we building a bomb shelter?" I was so disappointed when he said, "Honey, it wouldn't help." Another memory I have is that plans urged people to build zig-zag entrances to the shelters, since supposedly, radiation could not navigate around corners! I did not see that in the plans you found, however.
I also grew-up during this period. Upper middle-class suburb. Never knew of anyone building a shelter! We all had basements and that seemed like an possible option. When I bring this up with people my age, few if any knew of or had a home shelter. But there's always someone who asks- maybe the families that built them kept it a secret?!
The sign you mention that is 11" x 22" or there about were put in sign holders often found on city buses in the day.
Dad worked in DASA / DNA on Sandia Base, the heart of the nuclear weapons industry. We didn’t have a bomb shelter, but did have a crawl space under the house. There seemed to have been the assumption of the futility of planning to survive the unsurvivable. Looking back on it now, it seems typically American, to outsource civil defense as a DIY hobby activity.
Funny coincidence but I was involved with excavating one here in Manitoba a few years back. It was getting to be a hangout for druggies and the like so the province decided that it was time to just bulldoze the thing. At that point the Manitoba historical Society got involved and a plan was made to preserve the shelter for future generations. The one below isn't the exact one(there were several dozen identical shelters scattered across the country to be used as monitering stations) but it gives you the idea of what the shelters were like:
https://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/sites/falloutpostjg3.shtml
https://civildefencemuseum.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/5-Burtch-Fallout-report-system.pdf
You might like this video about similar monitoring stations in Britain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50aJla1IWtU
Cool!
One thing really struck home was the description of the end of one training films, the one where the observers walk out of the bunkers to a world that was completly destroyed. The dazed look on the actors faces reminded me of a remark that was made to me about the bunker that we excavated: the man asked his superior what they were supposed to do after the supplies in the bunker ran out and he was told simply that at That point he was on his own and would have to make his own arrangements. Pretty stark and cold but I guess that it was a realistic appraisal of a post nuclear exchange world,....
I was curious how this sort of civil protection imagery would be handled today.
Switzerland of course continues to mandate the construction and maintenance of air raid/fallout shelters, and it's all renderings either entirely without people (https://www.babs.admin.ch/de/schutzraeume, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptkeqg4RF4s, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrazX5gtBxE) or very cute 3D animations where Godzilla stands in, as usual, for the nukes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUlWXdtDy3Y)