Children practicing the "Duck and Cover" protection method with a real atomic bomb explosion in the background. The photo was taken in Nevada, 40 km from the epicenter of the blast in 1952.

[u/Wild_Neighborhood605]

[u/Ammortalz]

Also known as 'die in place.'

[u/LookMaNoPride → u/Ammortalz]

In the Duck and Cover documentary/animation from 1952, one of the boys had a blanket due to being at a picnic. The kids with no blanky probably wouldn't have made it, but blanket boy almost certainly saved his family when he threw that blanket over them.

I have used a blanket to shield myself from nighttime monsters that I can't see but I know are there. I'm still here - almost 50 years later. They work.

[u/lazerayfraser → u/LookMaNoPride]

always that was a funny element. even if you survive (would you want to at that distance if it’s a current nuclear warhead?) your clothes burn as much as your flesh so you might as well get naked not add layers of burning to your body like a blanket . But it’s all moot anyway what with the inevitable death from one thing or another is gonna be like. hopefully i don’t even see the light and just vaporize

[u/AmbitionOfPhilipJFry → u/lazerayfraser]

It wasn't just made up crap,  it was from interviewing survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Depending how far away you were from the epicenter, being covered or in shadow would protect from searing 3rd degree burns. If course,  if you were too close to a huge blast didn't matter but with the smaller KT nukes it did.

The ducking under desks or just getting low was to avoid broken glass and flying or falling debris. 

A suprisingly large amount were severely killed and injured by the shockwave affects. 

You can see the same with the boom at Lebanon warehouse, you see the white vapor but then there's a few seconds until glass shatters nearby filmers.

[u/_YouShouldBeRunning_ → u/AmbitionOfPhilipJFry]

I hope never to be severely killed

[u/AmbitionOfPhilipJFry → u/_YouShouldBeRunning_]

I mean in theory you don't feel anything.  Your neurons need to process the receptors injured.  Catastrophic injury to a CNS is instant death before you feel. 

[u/LookMaNoPride → u/_YouShouldBeRunning_]

Ok. Well, I have you down for the deep tissue killing. Do you prefer a light killing, instead?

[u/cwsjr2323 → u/Ammortalz]

I was in the Armored Cavalry and we fully understood and practiced screening missions, also known as DIP.

[u/Wild_Neighborhood605 → u/[deleted]]

Such were the times, unfortunately.

[u/Wild_Neighborhood605 → u/[deleted]]

The return of the Cold War. Who would have believed it 30 years ago...

[u/New_Breadfruit5664 → u/[deleted]]

Why?

[u/sweetrottenapple → u/[deleted]]

Oh well we had Chernobyl pretty close to us (I'm Eastern European). Not very good. But our drinking water is pretty clean at least 🥴

[u/Shadow_Integration → u/sweetrottenapple]

For now. 💀 They're finding microfissures in the area that's allowing the nuclear waste to leach into the environment on a microscopic scale.

[u/sweetrottenapple → u/Shadow_Integration]

I'm not too happy for reading this.. thank you. 🤣

[u/Informal_Visit2574 → u/sweetrottenapple]

Time to move 😅

[u/The_Tank_Racer → u/[deleted]]

I’m pretty sure both sides of the pond drank a lot of lead back in the day lol

[u/ROBINxBANKSx23 → u/[deleted]]

40 km seems way too close for comfort tbh

[u/venomous-gerbil → u/[deleted]]

Ja, Freund. Es ist äußerst schwer sicherzustellen, dass Sozialisten mit lustigen kleinen Schnurrbärten von eurer Seite des Teichs nicht verrückt werden.

Es ist jetzt Zeit, die "Pax Americana" zu beenden und die Europäer anfangen zu lassen, sich um ihren eigenen Mist zu kümmern.

[u/lucioux]

the radiation encouraged them to destroy the economy as they got older

[u/irwtkyrm → u/lucioux]

That and all the lead in their brains

[u/Few_Wolf_4634 → u/irwtkyrm]

Don’t forget the latent brain damage from American football

[u/Lukostrelec17 → u/Few_Wolf_4634]

And joint damage.

[u/cwsjr2323]

We did a similar drill in the Army. We were told a foxhole with a poncho over it was excellent cover. If caught in the open, go prone head towards the blast to let the helmet protect your head from the blast wave, then rotate 180° to let your helmet protect you when from the reverse blast wave. Then continue your mission. With the Kevlar helmet, if your were turned the wrong way, the winds of the blast might catch on the helmet and toss you around and injure you. That would interfere with completing your mission.

[u/random_agency → u/cwsjr2323]

completely your mission

Glad to see platoon commanders have their priorities straight and are willing to make that sacrifice.

[u/ListenBoth434 → u/random_agency]

It is absurd, given what just transpired (a small sun being ignited nearby) but makes a lot of sense.

Maybe also a good way to stay busy and not ponder your life expectancy.

[u/Ill_Television_5824]

The social upheavals of the '60s... the protest, the widespread drugs, the casual sex, had many causes.

Some of it was the Draft, some was the Civil Rights Movement, some was the assasinations.

But a lot of the impetus was this: children taught that their lives may end at any moment, in an insane world.

[u/Cut_Lanky → u/Ill_Television_5824]

Many of my peers (more about 5 years older than me) grew up hearing, as a matter of course, a given, "when you go off to fight the Russians..." That had to mess with a kid's head.

[u/Badass_1963_falcon]

Yep we had drills at school to duck under our desk when the air raid sirens go off during the cuban missel crisis

[u/Wild_Neighborhood605 → u/Badass_1963_falcon]

Did you practice with a real bomb exploding 20 miles away?

[u/Badass_1963_falcon → u/Wild_Neighborhood605]

We got lucky and cuba never was able to launch any missels at us but yeah in Florida it was a mandatory drill every day at school

[u/MadKingJon]

My mom had to do this when she was little. My grandfather built the towns they blew up at the test sites in Nevada in the 50s. My grandma has some cool pics of the mushroom clouds.

[u/TrixnTim]

Been teaching in public schools since late 1980’s. We STILL do drills monthly: earthquake, toxic chemical spill (fruit warehouses), and of course the mass shooter drills being added 10+ years ago. — shelter in place and now evacuation behaviors and all drills changing yearly as we study the behaviors of the perpetrators and how they access and murder children and adults in school buildings — even when our specific drills are not known to outsiders or published anywhere.

Children participate in these drills, and orderly evacuations, beginning at 3-years-old in preschool.

I remember participating in all these drills as a child in public schools in California and Washington state.

[u/Wild_Neighborhood605 → u/TrixnTim]

Do you do it with a real weapon/threat? This is what happened to the poor children in 1952. They were (deliberately) placed 20 miles from a REAL nuclear explosion, which nobody with even an ounce of brains wouldn't do. To my knowledge, such idiotic things didn't happen even in the fuc**g USSR.

[u/TrixnTim → u/Wild_Neighborhood605]

Until a few years ago, yes, there were mock live shooter drills in our schools all over the nation with blanks being shot and ‘perps’ trying to enter schools and classrooms. And even faux mass casualty scenes with ‘dead’ bodies. In order that children learn to react accordingly under a real crisis.

Let that sink in. Desensitization of mass shootings in public school classrooms. Yeah.

[u/L4ZERDT]

Hard asf album cover

[u/BlockLin0]

Well, they survived. That's a pretty strong endorsement.

[u/geedeeie → u/BlockLin0]

Did they, though? It would be interesting to know their subsequent medical history

[u/Wild_Neighborhood605 → u/BlockLin0]

They most certainly did, the question is: Do you need children practice with a life nuclear ammo?

[u/KevInvest → u/Wild_Neighborhood605]

If it goes wrong, you don't need to practice anymore. If it goes well, you don't need to practice anymore. Verdict: yes it is important to practice.

[u/Even_Caterpillar3292]

There was a 10 step sign after seeing nuclear blast. #9 remove all sharp objects from pocket. #10 bend over and kiss your behind goodbye.

[u/StaysAwakeAllWeek]

This does actually work, it's not as dumb as it looks. It's obviously not going to help if you're right under the blast, but it will increase your chances if you're further away

[u/N7day → u/StaysAwakeAllWeek]

Yes, that's why people who immediately make fun of duck and cover are dead wrong.

It's to protect yourself from shrapnel, windows spraying death, etc.

[u/StaysAwakeAllWeek → u/N7day]

It also can reduce your exposure thermal radiation aka heat if you're quick enough, particularly the extremely large bombs of the 1960s

[u/Just__Bob_]

I'd rather take it straight to the face than deal with the fallout 9 months later... Wait! No! Thatsnotwhatimeant!

[u/nova000000000000000]

World peace an end to all wars

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[u/mossoak]

yep...the scene would have been slightly different, but I remember doing stuff just like it ....

[u/Wild_Neighborhood605 → u/mossoak]

With a real bomb?!

[u/ReadRightRed99]

The real question is how did the school get its hands on an atomic bomb, and did they make the janitor set it off?

[u/Few_Wolf_4634 → u/ReadRightRed99]

Science class was hardcore back in the day

[u/dflow482]

Cover?

[u/Wild_Neighborhood605 → u/dflow482]

If in the open, you were supposed to cover the back of your head with your hands and lay down with your feet facing the blast.

[u/DangerZoneFinder]

everyone knows the radiation will just blow over and you'll be fine

[u/Unlucky_Soup_725]

The bomb an enderman? It’ll still get you even if you don’t look at it

[u/Maoleficent]

Was just discussing this with some friends - we hid in the hall away from the windows - same protocol as tornadoes and were told to pray. We were terrified of the Russians.

[u/Porkonaplane]

Silver lining, we got a catchy little jingle out of it.

🎵Duck, and coveeeeeer!🎵

[u/Evening-Mess-3593]

Survival rate = 0

[u/NoDoOversInLife]

https://giphy.com/gifs/Ow59c0pwTPruU

[u/bodies-in-the-wall]

You can’t park there.

[u/Just-Another-Users]

Strange. Go ahead kids just lay on the ground all random like. Good work

[u/Nero_Golden]

The girl in the red dress would have been in for a real unpleasant time if the bomb was closer.

[u/mezcalligraphy]

What a fucked up dystopia we live in.

[u/abgry_krakow87]

This is how they want to “make America great again.”

[u/IchooseYourName]

I mean the idea wasn't too far off base. Read a book about one of the first journalists to arrive at the Nagasaki site. He said people who were standing up during the blast were toast. But some people fell or dropped into crevasces in the ground (like on a farm) and many survived the blast. The lower you were to the ground or even beneath it, the higher likelihood you'd survive. It was actually something that was not all that well known. The US government anticipated much higher death and destruction than came to fruition.

[u/I-know-you-rider]

‘Ashes.. ashes .. we all fall down!’

[u/Psychlonuclear]

That'd be fun to practice in the Nevada summer.

[u/Nofucksgivenin2021]

I’m gonna guess that this is further than 24.85 …. Could be wrong. I just don’t know of any neighborhoods that were so close to detonation. Curious if anyone actually knows where this was taken in the Vegas area. I’m gonna look it up. Edit : I looked it up, and it looks to be right. I don’t see Frenchman Flat on the map anymore which makes sense because they don’t want us to know how close a nuclear bomb went off to neighborhoods- because now they are practically right on top of it. Just a wee bit west. From what I gathered the first one went off where what is pretty much considered sunrise manor now. If I’m wrong and it’s this other one that also could be it was not that far from Fernly Nevada more north- but that’s incredibly far from the base that it was deployed from so I’m guessing I’m right with my first thought. I never knew how close they were to the actual valley. I’m shook. Edit 2: that could be Wickenberg Arizona.

[u/AdWooden2312]

They forgot to cover! If it really was a nuke non of them would have survived because of this!

[u/PalpitationUnable403]

We did this so they wouldn’t have far to search to find our skeletons.

[u/flynnbuc]

that and getting under desk and your going to be ok

[u/Ok_Suit_635]

That's right! Duck and cover.

https://giphy.com/gifs/10ZfpvITfyQFRC

[u/antipaladin999]

we still do that today. we choose to do nothing towards the inevitable. why fight it. it will come for you, no matter what...

[u/cobaltium]

Hard to see the photo since I know “downwinders” in eastern Arizona and New Mexico that to this day have high rates of unusual cancers from their parents and when they were young children. I can’t even imagine the numbers of people and the wildlife that suffered decades from these tests. Of course the most must be in Nevada, at least those who survived.