[Dramatic music]
[Narrator:] Let's face it.
The threat of hydrogen bomb warfare is the greatest danger our nation has ever known.
Enemy jet bombers carrying nuclear weapons can sweep over a variety of routes
and drop bombs on any important target in the United States.
The threat of this destruction has affected our way of life in every city, town, and village
from coast to coast.
These are the signs of the times.
[Air raid sirens sound]
Only in practice now, a rehearsal, a training exercise,
but tomorrow this siren may mean the real thing.
And if you hear it as you drive in your auto,
as you sit in your office, or work at your bank,
wherever you are, what will you do?
What will happen to you?
Let's face it. Your life, the fate of your community, and the fate of your nation
depends on what you do when enemy bombers head for our cities,
and that is why civil defense was organized.
To teach you how to survive in the thermonuclear age by taking shelter
or by evacuating your area as directed.
Civil defense will teach you how to take care of yourself, your family, and neighbors,
how to get official instructions and act according to plan.
In time of atomic attack, the usual professional services,
police, fire, welfare, hospital, and ambulance
could be bombed out, too busy, or unable to get to you and your family.
Civil defense control points would function as the nerve centers
for dispatch of organized assistants to disaster areas from outside the target districts.
Every preparation is being made to deal with emergency conditions which would be created
by enemy attack.
To provide for communication with the public during an actual attack,
our broadcasting industry and the federal government developed Conelrad.
This system permits the broadcasting of official news and civil defense instructions
without helping enemy navigators find our cities by following radial beams.
The Conelrad frequencies are 640 and 1240 on your standard radio dial.
A hazard unique to nuclear warfare is radioactive fallout.
Unseen, unheard, and odorless, this substance can only be detected with sensitive instruments.
Special training is necessary for radiological safety experts.
Their duties will be to check radiation levels in both damaged areas and probable fallout areas.
When sufficient warning time can be obtained by early detection
of approaching enemy aircraft, withdrawal from key target cities
or fallout areas may be ordered by local civil defense authority.
The instinct of survival is inherent in all of us
and national survival requires that each one of us assume his share of the responsibility.
There is work to be done and each must cooperate.
Opportunities for training with the Red Cross and other groups are everywhere.
The combined efforts of many trained individuals are needed to make civil defense a forceful reality.
This training is invaluable in preparation for enemy attack
or the savage fury of nature.
Experience in past disasters has proved the value of advanced training and the need
for more stockpiling of emergency food supplies, medicines, and other critical items
to care for the injured and the homeless.
However, it was the awesome power of atomic energy
as demonstrated in wartime use that brought to sharp focus the new problems
concerning human survival and the urgent need for a civil defense program
based on facts about the atomic bomb.
Opportunities to gain this information came with the study of structures
in controlled atomic tests conducted at Eniwetok Atoll in the central Pacific.
The main objective of testing is weapons development to strengthen national security,
but also included are scientific experiments for the Atomic Energy Commission,
military projects for the air force, army, and navy,
and defense tests for the Federal Civil Defense Administration
primarily concerned with the effects of nuclear weapons on cities, industries, and people.
The tremendous effects of heat and blast on modern structures raise important questions
concerning their durability and safety.
Likewise the amount of damage done to our industrial potential
will have a serious effect upon our ability to recover from an atomic attack.
Transportation facilities are vital to a modern city.
The nation's lifeblood could be cut if its traffic arteries were severed.
These questions are of great interest not only to citizens in metropolitan centers,
but also to those in rural areas who may be in a danger zone
because of radioactive fallout from today's larger weapons.
We could get many of the answers to these questions by constructing a complete city
at our Nevada proving ground
and then exploding a nuclear bomb over it.
We could study the effects of damage over a wide area under all conditions,
and plan civil defense measures accordingly.
But such a gigantic undertaking is not feasible.
Instead we build representative units of a test city with steel and stone and brick and mortar,
with precision and skill as though it were to last a thousand years, but
but it's a weird, fantastic city, a creation right out of science fiction.
A city like no other on the face of the earth.
Homes neat and clean and completely furnished that will never be occupied;
bridges, massive girders of steel spanning the empty desert.
Railway tracks that lead to nowhere, for this is the end of the line.
But every element in these tests is carefully planned as to its design and location in the area.
a variety of materials and building techniques are often represented in a single structure.
Every brick, beam, and board will have its story to tell.
When pieced together these will give some of the answers
and some of the information we need to survive in the nuclear age.
At varying distances from ground zero, the point of detonation, numerous experimental
elements are assembled.
Underground structures and facilities of various types play their part in duplicating the complexity
of the modern city.
The vast research program includes testing such items as covering materials,
paints, varnishes, plastics, also various fabrics and samples of clothing.
On the outskirts of our test city, a synthetic forest has been erected
to determine the protective value of foliage and trees.
To give us a ringside view of the event, high-speed cameras
stand like lonely sentinels ready to photograph the hurricane of fury.
Before leaving the test area, a final check is made
on the multitude of instruments and technical devices which will record a variety of blast
phenomena for future study.
Now, with all the elements in place, our test city is complete.
From the air its center will appear as a bullseye to the bombardier at H hour.
On the morning of shot day official observers, technicians,
and scientists gather at News Knob to await the momentous event.
This is the pay-off for months of planning and preparation
on the part of the Atomic Energy Commission, the military services, civil defense and other test agencies.
As part of an experiment to observe the phenomenon of atomic
detonation at close hand, military personnel and defense officials
dig in within a few miles of ground zero.
After a final briefing from the officer in charge just before H hour,
the men disappear into their foxholes.
Every precaution has been taken for their safety.
They are told to crouch low, shield their eyes,
and remain down until the signal to rise is given.
Now the moment of greatest anxiety, waiting those last few seconds.
[Music]
[Images of buildings collapsing, fires igniting, explosions, bridges crumbling, and trees bending...]
[Narrator:] Seconds later the blast wave reaches the trenches.
[Explosive sound]
[Narrator:] As the tower of smoke and flames looms overhead, one thought is uppermost in all minds:
Now it's over.
The fury of it had stunned some, but not one was injured.
High above, the smoke ring puffed by atomic breath rises skyward,
watched by the men who had faced it.
A scouting party takes the first look at the scattered wreckage of the test city.
The imprint left by the hurricane of fire and blast remains here for us to read and analyze.
From studies of ruins and damage such as this,
we get the hard-to-come-by knowledge that helps us form rules for survival in modern warfare.
While only atomic bombs are tested in Nevada,
the results can be scaled for the larger, far more powerful thermonuclear weapons.
A hydrogen bomb will destroy a greater area than the atomic bomb
and will release more dangerous radioactive materials,
but the problems of rescue caused by blasts and fire along the periphery of damage remain the same.
In these fringe areas, civil defense training can save many lives,
lessen damage from secondary fires, and help establish emergency facilities.
Now in a helicopter, the radiological safety men measure the amount of radiation.
When readings indicate safety for human beings, the troops are led in for a tour of the area.
By doublechecking with Geiger counters every inch of the route,
men can now enter safely and confidently areas spotted with radiological contamination,
an indication of the progress made in understanding atomic hazards.
And thus each test adds to our growing fund of knowledge.
For it is only by investigating and experimenting that we get the facts
to keep our military and civil defense program up-to-date and effective.
Every bit of twisted steel makes its contribution.
Blackened ruins and ashes of a structure add another chapter.
The shattered wreckage of a dwelling offers an eloquent testimonial.
Piece by piece, like the parts of a jigsaw puzzle,
our story is assembled, analyzed, and evaluated.
Then the survival facts are made available to you through your local civil defense program.
In the thermonuclear age, civil defense, like military defense, must be flexible.
It must develop and grow even as the forces that threaten our existence.
And so until men of goodwill have turned this awesome power to peaceful uses,
let us recognize the threat to our way of life, the threat to our survival,
and, let's face it.
[Dramatic music]