Duck and cover
Encyclopedia
Duck and Cover was a suggested method of personal protection against the effects of a nuclear weapon
which the United States government taught to generations of United States
school children from the early 1950s into the 1980s. This was supposed to protect them in the event of an unexpected nuclear attack which, they were told, could come at any time without warning. Immediately after they saw a flash they had to stop what they were doing and get on the ground under some cover—such as a table, or at least next to a wall—and assume the fetal position
, lying face-down and covering their heads with their hands.
Similar instructions were given in 1964 in the United Kingdom
by Civil Defence Information Bulletin
No. 5. and, in the 1980s, by the Protect and Survive
series.
Proponents argued that thousands could be saved through this precaution, without which people would instead run to windows to find the source of the big flash. During this time a shock wave would cause a glass implosion, shredding onlookers.
According to the 1946 book "Hiroshima", in the days between the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs in Japan, one Hiroshima policeman went to Nagasaki to teach police about ducking after the atomic flash. As a result of this timely warning, not a single Nagasaki policeman died in the initial blast. This allowed more surviving Nagasaki police to organize relief efforts than in Hiroshima. Unfortunately, the general population was not warned of the heat/blast danger following an atomic flash because of the bomb’s unknown nature. Many people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki died while searching the skies for the source of the brilliant flash.
Similarly, "Drop, Cover and Hold On" is taught in areas prone to earthquake
s. Schools in some tornado-prone areas of the United States also practice tornado drill
s that involve children squatting and covering the backs of their heads.
The United States' monopoly on nuclear weapon
s was broken in 1949 when the Soviet Union
tested its first nuclear device
, and many in the government and public perceived that the United States was more vulnerable than it had ever been before. Duck-and-cover exercises quickly became a part of Civil Defense
drills that every American citizen, from children to the elderly, practiced to be ready in the event of nuclear war
. In 1950, during the first big Civil Defense push of the Cold War
; the movie Duck and Cover
was produced (by the Federal Civil Defense Administration
) for school showings in 1951. At the time, it was believed the main dangers of a Hiroshima
-type nuclear blast were from heat and blast damage: to maximize material damage, the air-burst was the preferred nuclear tactic which maximized surface damage and resulted in fallout being dispersed into the stratosphere. In the Operation Crossroads
tests of 1946, Test Able (air burst) had little local fallout, but Test Baker (underwater) left the test targets badly contaminated with radioactive fallout, leading to cancellation of Test Charlie. Widespread radioactive fallout itself was not clearly recognized as a threat until 1954, after the Castle Bravo
nuclear-weapon test in the Marshall Islands
caused sickness and death in Japanese fishermen on the Lucky Dragon fishing vessel far outside the planned test area.
following a nuclear explosion.
The advice to "duck and cover" holds well in many situations where structural destabilization or debris may be expected, such as during an earthquake
or tornado
. At a sufficient distance from a nuclear explosion
, the shock wave
would produce similar results and ducking and covering would perhaps prove adequate. It would also offer some protection from flying glass and other small, but dangerous, debris. Ducking and covering would also reduce exposure to the gamma rays. Since they are mostly emitted in a straight line, people on the ground will have more chance to have obstacles such as building foundations, cars, etc. between them and the source of radiation. The technique offers a small protection against fallout
- people standing up could receive a large, possibly lethal, dose of radiation, while people protected will receive less of it. The technique assumes that after the initial blast, a person who ducks and covers will move to a more sheltered area. It is a first response only.
In U.S. Army basic training in the 1970s, soldiers were taught to fall immediately down, covering face and hands and using their bodies to shield their weapons from the heat of the blast.
The exercises of civil defense
are now seen as having less practical use than psychological use: to keep the danger of nuclear war high on the public mind, while also attempting to assure the American people that something could be done to defend against nuclear attack.
These messages, including children's songs, were used to educate the young public in case of nuclear attack.
Ducking and covering does have certain applications in other, more natural disasters. In states prone to tornado
es, school children are urged to 'duck and cover' against a solid inner wall of a school, if time does not permit seeking better shelter—such as a storm cellar
—during a tornado warning
. The tactic is also widely practiced in schools in states along the West Coast of the United States
, where earthquakes are commonplace. Ducking and covering in either scenario would theoretically afford significant protection from falling or flying debris.
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
which the United States government taught to generations of United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
school children from the early 1950s into the 1980s. This was supposed to protect them in the event of an unexpected nuclear attack which, they were told, could come at any time without warning. Immediately after they saw a flash they had to stop what they were doing and get on the ground under some cover—such as a table, or at least next to a wall—and assume the fetal position
Fetal position
Fetal position is a medical term used to describe the positioning of the body of a prenatal fetus as it develops...
, lying face-down and covering their heads with their hands.
Similar instructions were given in 1964 in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
by Civil Defence Information Bulletin
Civil Defence Information Bulletin
Civil Defence Information Bulletin were a series of seven public information films dealing with civil defence measures individuals and families could take in the event of a nuclear attack on Great Britain. They produced for the Home Office and the Scottish Home and Health Department by RHR...
No. 5. and, in the 1980s, by the Protect and Survive
Protect and Survive
Protect and Survive was a public information series on civil defence produced by the British government during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was intended to inform British citizens on how to protect themselves during a nuclear attack, and consisted of a mixture of pamphlets, radio broadcasts,...
series.
Proponents argued that thousands could be saved through this precaution, without which people would instead run to windows to find the source of the big flash. During this time a shock wave would cause a glass implosion, shredding onlookers.
According to the 1946 book "Hiroshima", in the days between the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs in Japan, one Hiroshima policeman went to Nagasaki to teach police about ducking after the atomic flash. As a result of this timely warning, not a single Nagasaki policeman died in the initial blast. This allowed more surviving Nagasaki police to organize relief efforts than in Hiroshima. Unfortunately, the general population was not warned of the heat/blast danger following an atomic flash because of the bomb’s unknown nature. Many people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki died while searching the skies for the source of the brilliant flash.
Similarly, "Drop, Cover and Hold On" is taught in areas prone to earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
s. Schools in some tornado-prone areas of the United States also practice tornado drill
Tornado drill
A tornado drill is a method of practicing to take cover in a specified location in the event that a tornado strikes an area. Generally, a signal is given, such as a series of tones , or a voice announcement...
s that involve children squatting and covering the backs of their heads.
Background
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
s was broken in 1949 when the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
tested its first nuclear device
Joe 1
The RDS-1 , also known as First Lightning , was the Soviet Union's first nuclear weapon test. In the west, it was code-named Joe-1, in reference to Joseph Stalin. It was test-exploded on 29 August 1949, at Semipalatinsk, Kazakh SSR, after a top-secret R&D project...
, and many in the government and public perceived that the United States was more vulnerable than it had ever been before. Duck-and-cover exercises quickly became a part of Civil Defense
Civil defense
Civil defense, civil defence or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state from military attack. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, mitigation, preparation, response, or emergency evacuation, and recovery...
drills that every American citizen, from children to the elderly, practiced to be ready in the event of nuclear war
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
. In 1950, during the first big Civil Defense push of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
; the movie Duck and Cover
Duck and Cover (film)
Duck and Cover is a civil defense film produced in 1951 by the United States federal government's civil defense branch shortly after the Soviet Union began nuclear testing. Written by Raymond J...
was produced (by the Federal Civil Defense Administration
Federal Civil Defense Authority
The Federal Civil Defense Authority was established in the United States Department of Defense , by DOD Directive 5105.43, May 5, 1972.-Predecessor agencies:...
) for school showings in 1951. At the time, it was believed the main dangers of a Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
-type nuclear blast were from heat and blast damage: to maximize material damage, the air-burst was the preferred nuclear tactic which maximized surface damage and resulted in fallout being dispersed into the stratosphere. In the Operation Crossroads
Operation Crossroads
Operation Crossroads was a series of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. It was the first test of a nuclear weapon after the Trinity nuclear test in July 1945...
tests of 1946, Test Able (air burst) had little local fallout, but Test Baker (underwater) left the test targets badly contaminated with radioactive fallout, leading to cancellation of Test Charlie. Widespread radioactive fallout itself was not clearly recognized as a threat until 1954, after the Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo was the code name given to the first U.S. test of a dry fuel thermonuclear hydrogen bomb device, detonated on March 1, 1954 at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as the first test of Operation Castle. Castle Bravo was the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States ,...
nuclear-weapon test in the Marshall Islands
Marshall Islands
The Republic of the Marshall Islands , , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. As of July 2011 the population was 67,182...
caused sickness and death in Japanese fishermen on the Lucky Dragon fishing vessel far outside the planned test area.
Assessment
Within a considerable radius—depending on the explosion's height and yield—ducking and covering would offer negligible protection against the intense heat, shock waves, and radiationRadiation
In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing...
following a nuclear explosion.
The advice to "duck and cover" holds well in many situations where structural destabilization or debris may be expected, such as during an earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
or tornado
Tornado
A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...
. At a sufficient distance from a nuclear explosion
Nuclear explosion
A nuclear explosion occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy from an intentionally high-speed nuclear reaction. The driving reaction may be nuclear fission, nuclear fusion or a multistage cascading combination of the two, though to date all fusion based weapons have used a fission device...
, the shock wave
Shock wave
A shock wave is a type of propagating disturbance. Like an ordinary wave, it carries energy and can propagate through a medium or in some cases in the absence of a material medium, through a field such as the electromagnetic field...
would produce similar results and ducking and covering would perhaps prove adequate. It would also offer some protection from flying glass and other small, but dangerous, debris. Ducking and covering would also reduce exposure to the gamma rays. Since they are mostly emitted in a straight line, people on the ground will have more chance to have obstacles such as building foundations, cars, etc. between them and the source of radiation. The technique offers a small protection against fallout
Fallout
Fallout or nuclear fallout is the residual radiation hazard from a nuclear explosion.Fallout may also refer to:*Fallout , a 1997 post-apocalyptic computer role-playing game released by Interplay Entertainment...
- people standing up could receive a large, possibly lethal, dose of radiation, while people protected will receive less of it. The technique assumes that after the initial blast, a person who ducks and covers will move to a more sheltered area. It is a first response only.
In U.S. Army basic training in the 1970s, soldiers were taught to fall immediately down, covering face and hands and using their bodies to shield their weapons from the heat of the blast.
The exercises of civil defense
Civil defense
Civil defense, civil defence or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state from military attack. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, mitigation, preparation, response, or emergency evacuation, and recovery...
are now seen as having less practical use than psychological use: to keep the danger of nuclear war high on the public mind, while also attempting to assure the American people that something could be done to defend against nuclear attack.
These messages, including children's songs, were used to educate the young public in case of nuclear attack.
Ducking and covering does have certain applications in other, more natural disasters. In states prone to tornado
Tornado
A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...
es, school children are urged to 'duck and cover' against a solid inner wall of a school, if time does not permit seeking better shelter—such as a storm cellar
Storm cellar
A storm shelter or storm cellar is a type of underground bunker designed to protect the occupants from violent severe weather, particularly tornadoes...
—during a tornado warning
Tornado warning
A tornado warning is an alert issued by government weather services to warn that severe thunderstorms with tornadoes may be imminent. It can be issued after a tornado or funnel cloud has been spotted by eye, or more commonly if there are radar indications of tornado formation...
. The tactic is also widely practiced in schools in states along the West Coast of the United States
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
, where earthquakes are commonplace. Ducking and covering in either scenario would theoretically afford significant protection from falling or flying debris.
Earthquakes
In an earthquake, people are encouraged to "drop, cover, and hold on": to get underneath a piece of furniture, cover their heads and hold onto the furniture. This advice also encourages people not to run out of a shaking building, because a large majority of earthquake injuries are due to broken bones from people falling and tripping during shaking. While it is unlikely that "drop, cover and hold on" will protect against a building collapse, buildings built in earthquake-prone areas in the United States are usually built to earthquake "Life Safety" codes, and a building collapse (even during an earthquake) is rare. "Drop, cover and hold on" may not be appropriate for all locations or building types, but many experts agree it is the appropriate emergency response to an earthquake in the United States.See also
- Blast shelterBlast shelterA blast shelter is a place where people can go to protect themselves from bomb blasts. It differs from a fallout shelter, in that its main purpose is to protect from shock waves and overpressure, instead of from radioactive precipitation, as a fallout shelter does...
- Civil Defense Geiger countersCivil Defense Geiger CountersMost Civil Defense Geiger Counters and ion-chamber survey meters were issued by the governmental Civil Defense organizations in several countries from the 1950s in the midst of the Cold War in an effort to help prepare citizens for a nuclear attack...
- Civil Defence Information BulletinCivil Defence Information BulletinCivil Defence Information Bulletin were a series of seven public information films dealing with civil defence measures individuals and families could take in the event of a nuclear attack on Great Britain. They produced for the Home Office and the Scottish Home and Health Department by RHR...
- CONELRADCONELRADCONELRAD was a method of emergency broadcasting to the public of the United States in the event of enemy attack during the Cold War. It was intended to serve two purposes; to prevent Soviet bombers from homing in on American cities by using radio or TV stations as beacons, and to provide...
- Fallout shelterFallout shelterA fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designed to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War....
- Nuclear weaponNuclear weaponA nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
- Nuclear warfareNuclear warfareNuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
- Stop, drop and rollStop, drop and rollStop, drop and roll is a simple fire safety technique taught to children, emergency services personnel and industrial workers as a component of health and safety training....
- Duck and Cover (film)Duck and Cover (film)Duck and Cover is a civil defense film produced in 1951 by the United States federal government's civil defense branch shortly after the Soviet Union began nuclear testing. Written by Raymond J...
- Nuclear War Survival SkillsNuclear war survival skillsNuclear War Survival Skills or NWSS by Cresson Kearny is a civil defense manual. It contains information gleaned from research performed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory during the Cold War, as well as from Kearny's extensive jungle living and international travels.The book aims to provide a...
- Protect and SurviveProtect and SurviveProtect and Survive was a public information series on civil defence produced by the British government during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was intended to inform British citizens on how to protect themselves during a nuclear attack, and consisted of a mixture of pamphlets, radio broadcasts,...
- The Atomic CaféThe Atomic CafeThe Atomic Cafe is an American documentary film produced and directed by Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty, and Pierce Rafferty.-Synopsis:The film covers the beginnings of the era of nuclear warfare, created from a broad range of archival film from the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s - including newsreel...
- The House in the MiddleThe House in the MiddleThe House in the Middle was an American 1954 short documentary film produced by the Federal Civil Defense Administration and the National Clean Up-Paint Up-Fix Up Bureau, which attempted to show that a clean, freshly painted house is more likely to survive a nuclear attack than its poorly...
External links
- A critical assessment of ducking and covering
- Drop, Cover, and Hold On - American Red Cross drill (pdf file)
- Production history of the film Duck and Cover
- Duck and Cover! film at YouTube
- Prelinger Archive has Duck and Cover! available for download or streaming.