Category Archives: Civil Defense History

1951: Building the Family Foxhole

Seventy years ago this month, the cover of the March 1951 issue of Popular Science featured this artwork by artist Denver Gillen (who made the first drawings of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and later, numerous covers for Outdoor Life) showing “what an A-Bomb blast may do to your home,” but with an inset of a family safely hunkered down in their family foxhole.

The cover entreats the buyer to save the issue, since it contains a special section on emergency preparedness written by Michael Amrine, formerly of the Atomic Energy Commission.

The magazine’s editors noted that much of the literature regarding civil defense was “tragic nonsense–aspirin for cancer. Even the official booklets say mainly, ‘Keep calm, keep covered, and follow directions.” But it goes on to say that official directions might not be forthcoming, since there did not exist civil defense organizations comparable with the problem. Instead, the magazine advocated “planning and plain hard work” by individual homeowners, and the magazine contained advice on how to do that. “The hard truth is that the most you can expect from civil defense will be control and rescue work after a bombing. The most effective preparation for atomic attack will be family by family, house by house.”

The article first noted what not to do, and pointed out that steps such as blacking out the house, taping windows, or even buying a Geiger counter were of very minimal utility. It noted that, as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, radiation was not going to be the big killer. Instead, it would be the familiar forces of heat and blast, and the article gave pointers on preparing a refuge room to protect against them. The author asked readers to “imagine that your house is in a cyclone or hurricane belt, and next door to a gas tank” and plan accordingly. The most important principles in planning a refuge room were making sure there were at least two exits, keeping out from under heavy furniture or appliances, and preferably being in a corner of the cellar with the least windows or exposure. The importance of using a corner is illustrated by the drawing at left.

After a spot was located, ideas such as shuttering windows and making use of a heavy table or workbench were outlined.

The article included a number of frequently asked questions, including “what should I tell the children?” The answer was simple: the truth. They should be instructed where to go in a raid and how to hit the deck. You shouldn’t scare them, but don’t make it a game, either.

For homes without a basement, the author suggested placing earth or logs against an outside wall, with a sturdy table inside.

The list of recommended supplies included the usual suspects such as canned food and battery operated lights. Under the category of “valuables,” the recommendation included an extra pair of glasses and a lockbox for valuable papers. Rounding out that category was money (in small bills), on the assumption that, as in the last war, the economy would be in full operation.

The list included a wind-up clock and maps of the city and county. The battery operated radio made its usual appearance on the list. The article noted that utilities would probably be out, although some, especially the gas lines, might continue to function for a time. Since battery operated radios were still quite rare (but not unheard of) in 1951, the article noted that a car radio would also work.

The article did note that it was dealing with just the Hiroshima-style A-bomb, and not the H-bomb. It notes that the H-bomb was then still just a theoretical possibility, but that if perfected, it would wreak the same level of damage over a still larger area.

National Emergency Alarm Repeater: 1961

One of the great challenges of civil defense planners was alerting the public to an imminent nuclear attack. Sirens could be effective outdoors, but it was unlikely that people indoors would be able to hear them. One possible solution is discussed in the March 1961 issue of Radio-Electronics: NEAR, the National Emergency Alarm Repeater.

Three methods had been considered: telephone lines, power lines, and radio. The technical challenges for using the telephone network for simultaneously alerting the entire population were too difficult to overcome, and not everyone had a phone. Radio was a possibility, but radios were turned off many hours of the day, and especially at night. NEAR took advantage of the power grid. With only a few hundred repeater stations, a 240 Hz signal of about a volt could be superimposed on the line, and the receiver shown here was a clever electromechanical method of picking up that signal and sounding the alarm.

The home NEAR until shown here would be plugged in and forgotten by the homeowner until such time as there was an attack. It included a resonant circuit consisting of a 0.55 uF capacitor and 1 henry coil, with a tuned frequency of 240 Hz. To avoid false alarms, there was a time delay in the form of a 1 RPM motor. If the incoming signal were less than 10 seconds long, then the motor would simply reset and continue listening for a signal. But after 10 seconds, the motor would trip a clapper which used the outside of the device’s case as a sounder. The unit would emit a loud annoying noise which would alert the homeowner to the missiles that were incoming.

1971 EBS False Alarm

Broadcasting, Mar. 1, 1971.

Fifty years ago today, the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) sent out a warning that the nation was under attack. Thankfully, it turns out it wasn’t. A test was scheduled for that Saturday morning, but an operator at the Cheyenne Mountain complex put in the wrong tape. Instead of the tape announcing that it was only a test, he ran the tape for a real attack. It contained the code word “hatefulness” to authenticate the message.

At radio stations around the country, DJ’s ripped open the envelope next to the teletype machine containing the authenticating code. And sure enough, that was the correct code word for that day. Stations were supposed to cease normal operations and begin broadcasting information about the attack. But that information was never forthcoming.

Since a test had been scheduled, many stations suspected that there was an error, but it wasn’t confirmed officially for 40 minutes. The most famous recording from that day comes from WOWO in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, which you can hear in this video, where announcer Bob Sievers interrupted the Partridge Family with the news:

You can also listen to the event from WCCO Minneapolis at RadioTapes.com.

The USPS Delivers!

We take unwarranted criticism of the U.S. Postal Service very seriously around here. As we reported previously, the Post Office stood ready to serve the nation even after a nuclear war, and during COVID-19 the men and women of the USPS have acted heroically to ensure that the mail goes through. Even when rioters burnt down two post offices in Minneapolis, the Postal Service quickly regrouped to make sure that its customers would continue to receive mail with minimal interruption.

Recently, for political reasons, the USPS has come under intense criticism, the gist of which being that they can’t do anything right. They were allegedly in the process of ripping out all of their sorting machines, and even removing mailboxes. The particular conspiracy theory was that without these sorting machines, they would be unable to deliver millions of ballots. This didn’t make much sense to us, since most ballots in a given locality would all be addressed to the same city or county election office, and wouldn’t require much sorting, by machine or otherwise.

And allegedly, the removal of mailboxes was to prevent voters from sending their ballots. The theory was that a voter would go to a spot where there used to be a mailbox, would see that the mailbox was gone, and then give up in despair. For the theory to work, the voter would have to be too dumb to look for another mailbox, take it to the nearest post office (where they would find a mailbox in the parking lot), give it to their friendly letter carrier, or just take it to the election office themselves. In short, as conspiracy theories go, it wasn’t very plausible, but a lot of people seemed to subscribe to it.

So as an experiment, I decided to test the United States Postal Service. I asked for volunteers on Facebook and NextDoor. I had them send me their address, and I mailed them an honest-to-goodness piece of snail mail. I had ten volunteers, and I asked them to inform me when they received the letter. I mailed the letters from three different locations. Some I mailed from a blue mailbox in front of a local strip mall (one of the boxes that was allegedly being torn out). Some I mailed from the drive-up mailbox in front of my local post office. And some I placed in my own mailbox, and the friendly letter carrier picked them up with the mail.

A small sampling of my letters is shown above. All ten were delivered in a timely fashion. Most of the transit times included a Sunday, but I included it. All ten of the letters were delivered in four days or less. Crosstown letters were delivered in either one or two days (the two day period included a Sunday). I tracked the average speed of each letter (measured by road miles from the center of the two ZIP codes). The slowest traveled an average speed of 0.16 miles per hour (845 feet per hour). That sounds slow, but keep in mind that I dropped it in a box in the afternoon, and there’s no way it could have arrived any earlier than the next day.

The fastest letter got from Minnesota to Maine at an average speed of 19.6 miles per hour. Remember, this included a Sunday, when it presumably didn’t travel at all. It was undoubtedly in multiple trucks during its trip. In my humble opinion, travelling at that speed for a mere 55 cents is an amazing bargain. Letters to Texas and Washington got similar excellent service. The full results are shown in the table below.

All of my letters were addressed by hand, and as my elementary school teachers would attest, my penmanship isn’t the greatest. But the post office managed to sort them. And all of the letters I saw had bar codes printed on them. These would have been printed on the envelopes by an automatic sorting machine, and they are designed to be read by other automatic sorting machines. These, of course, are the automatic sorting machines that the USPS allegedly ripped out and put on the scrap heap. But somehow, my letters all made it through one or more of these allegedly non-existent machines.

In short, the criticism of the USPS is unfounded. As they have done throughout the pandemic, as they have done despite civil unrest, they continue to serve their country proudly.

If you’re wondering about the design on some of the envelopes, I copied the design from a 1944 patriotic cover. (You can see that cover and read more about it at this link.) Just like they do today, during the war, the Post Office Department made sure that they mail went through. I’m sure there were detractors back then, but someone decided to print up some special envelopes to thank their letter carrier for heroic service.

We ought to do the same today. If you haven’t done so recently, thank your letter carrier for his or her hard work. And for the workers behind the scenes, you can invest 55 cents and mail them a thank you card. Just address it to “Postmaster” and your city, state, and ZIP code. I’m sure it will get pinned up to the employee bulletin board. They’ve worked hard to serve you, and they deserve your thanks.

Mail During Quarantine: How to Get Stamps

Quick links:

Buying stamps online
Curbside stamp pickup
Printing postage at home
Other online sources

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

–Herodotus, as carved in stone at the New York Post Office.

The postcard shown above, first issued in 1959, and current for at least two decades thereafter, was a Safety Notification Card (Post Office Department form 810), for use after a civil defense emergency such as a nuclear war. After such an event, the Post Office would be tasked with putting friends and relatives back in touch with one another. On the front of the card, you would write the name and address of those who might be worried about you. On the back, you would sign your name and give the address where you could be reached.

I have no doubt that after Americans emerged from their fallout shelters, the Post Office would use Herculean efforts to deliver these cards, and most of them would go through. The Post Office is one of the things that makes us a country, and thus one of the things over which such a war would have been fought. It’s unthinkable that they would bother with fighting a nuclear war and then decide not to deliver the mail. Under the Constitution, the Congress has the power and duty to establish a Post Office, and a nuclear war doesn’t change that. Neither does a pandemic virus. With very few exceptions, the mails right now continue to flow without interruption during the lockdown. And most of the exceptions come from things outside the control of the U.S. Postal Service. For example, mail service is currently suspended to over a hundred countries, due either to lack of transportation or a shutdown of postal service in the destination country. But the U.S. Postal Service is doing whatever needs to be done to make sure the mail goes through. Even though most international mail has been by air for the past few decades, suspension of flights has prompted the U.S. Postal Service to send mail to Europe by container ship.

In my experience, domestic mail is going through with little delay. I have a forwarding order to have all of my office mail to go to my home, and even forwarded items are arriving, at most, a day or two later than I would have expected them. The postal workers and letter carriers are working hard, and in many cases risking their lives to make sure the mail goes through. Would they have risked their lives delivering post cards across a nuclear battlefield? I have little doubt that they would have. (Say, that might make a good book.)

Much of my work involves getting and sending things in the mail. And with the national emergency, the mail also serves as one of the ways that vital supplies arrive at our house. Yes, some of our food comes by mail.

One practical issue, however, is buying postage. In the pre-COVID time, I had to go to the post office frequently, and when the line was short, I picked up a few weeks’ supply of stamps. Sometimes, I would mail items at the counter, but I would usually just weigh them myself and affix the exact amount of postage required. (If you don’t have a scale, they’re not expensive.) Little has changed in that regard, since I can just leave outgoing mail for the carrier. But getting stamps has become more difficult.

Buying stamps online

At first, I ordered stamps online at the USPS website. Orders are fulfilled at a central location in Kansas City. At first, it worked well, and stamps and stamped envelopes arrived about a week after I ordered them. All denominations are available, and they’re sold at face value with only a small shipping charge. But the most recent order took 2-1/2 weeks. They’re obviously swamped in Kansas City, I was almost out of stamps, and had to come up with another way of getting them. Update: The last few orders have gone smoothly, and the stamps arrive within about 10 days.

Curbside stamp pickup

I did find three sources locally that have curbside pickup. Office Depot has stamps, at face value. You can buy a book of 20 Forever stamps for $11. Unfortunately, the closest one was out of stock, and other stores looked like they had low stocks. Update: Since I originally wrote this, Office Depot is doing an excellent job of keeping stamps in stock. You can usually order online and pick them up curbside the same day. Walgreens also sells stamps at face value. You can order online and pick them up, usually in about an hour, either curbside or at the drive-up window. It looks like CVS has curbside pickup of stamps in some states, although I don’t know if they are being sold at face value.

Printing postage at home

Another great option is OrangeMailer.co which allows you to buy postage online and print it with your printer. I was leery about using them, since I imagined my printer jamming and having to pay again. Fortunately, that is not the case. You can print as many times as necessary until you get it right. Of course, if you use more than one of those prints for postage, you’ll be spending some time in Leavenworth.

To buy postage, you enter the name and address of the recipient, and when you’re done, the website directs you to turn on your printer and print a label with the address, your return address, and the postage meter. For letters, you can print right on the envelope. It took me a couple of tries with my printer settings to get it exactly right. The first few times, it cut off my return address. When I told my printer that it was printing a number 10 envelope, it cut off the return address. But when I lied and told the printer that it was a 4 by 8 sheet of paper, it worked perfectly. Similarly, for small envelopes, I have to tell the printer that it’s a 4 by 6 piece of paper.

I have also mailed one small package, and that works well. You enter the dimensions and weight of the parcel, and it prints a label with the right amount of postage. Of course, we don’t have any labels in the house, but you don’t need any. I used a plain sheet of paper and affixed it to the package with Scotch tape. One advantage for packages is that if a package is over 13 ounces, you can’t use stamps. But printing the postage online is equivalent to taking it to the counter at the Post Office.

The philatelist in me likes using real stamps. And it’s faster to just scribble the address and slap on a stamp. But given the current emergency, OrangeMailer.co is an extremely convenient option. Unlike their largest competitor, there is no monthly charge. You just have to deposit a minimum of $10, enough for 18 First Class letters. You pay the customary postage of 55 cents per letter. They make their 5 cent profit due to the fact that your metered letter is actually going for only 50 cents. That seems reasonable to me.

Other online sources

If you do need actual stamps, two other options appear to be faster than ordering directly from the USPS. You’ll pay more than face value, but not a great deal more. If you combine the purchase with another order, you can get free shipping. You can buy postage stamps on Amazon for only a little over face value. If you do a search for “postage stamps,” click the button for “free shipping by Amazon,” and you’ll see the ones that can be added to another order. As long as the total order is at least $25, there will be no shipping charge.

Walmart also sells stamps online, only slightly above face value, with free two-day shipping with a $35 order.

Some links on this page are affiliate links, meaning that this site earns a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking the link.

1960 Nuclear Blast Detector

Sixty years ago this month, the March 1960 issue of Electronics Illustrated showed this nuclear blast detector to be used in critical installations. The magazine noted that such installations were well protected, as long as they were away from ground zero. But they still had to button down at the last second by closing blast doors and closing valves on ventilation equipment.

The sensors here would detect the flash of the nuclear explosion and the gamma ray burst. This would sound an alarm that would automatically seal up the base prior to the arrival of the blast wave seconds or minutes later.

Wiring the Iowa State Capitol For Sound: 1939

For the first 93 years of statehood, the Iowa Legislature managed to carry on the people’s business without resort to electronic sound amplification. Back then, politicians presumably understood that to be successful, they needed to learn how to project their voice. But in 1939, they decided to solicit bids for an audio amplifier for the House chambers. The low bidder was Lloyd Moore of Moore’s Radio Shop, Chariton, Iowa, and he recounted his experiences with the project in the October 1939 issue of Radio News.

The first step in successfully completing the project was the preparation of a viable bid. To do this, Moore met with members of the legislative committee tasked with overseeing the project. The committee was made of of non-technical men, none of whom had any experience with sound work. A few had used a studio mike, but they were unfamiliar with the problems of having the speakers and microphone in the same room. After Moore’s patient explanation, they readily understood the feedback problem. It was explained that they would need to talk within about eight inches of the mike and use a good voice.

The sealed bid was submitted, with an adequate cushion to allow for the best equipment and a reasonable amount for the labor involved. Moore’s bid was chosen, and he set to work.

Act appropriating payment. Google books.

The amplifier was over engineered. The power transformer was three times as large as necessary. Four stages of amplification were used. Gain was not excessive, so as to avoid any problems with microphonics. Five inputs were used, each switchable from the main console. One mike was mounted at the Speaker’s desk and one at the clerk’s. Three additional microphones were located in front of the floor, with cords long enough to extend to any speaker’s desk. Future plans called for additional microphones throughout the chamber, with a switch box used in place of the three existing mikes.

The amplifier was placed near the clerk’s desk, giving the Clerk the ability to turn microphones on and off and set the levels. They were particularly lucky that one of the clerk’s staff was “a girl, who had been an operator in a broadcasting station,” and her skill proved invaluable.

The author was honored to address the body in the use of the new system, particularly with regard to what to do in the case of feedback, and noted that this was probably the only time he would address such a distinguished body.

The legislator shown above at the microphone is Leo Hoegh, who was elected in 1936. He resigned in 1942 when called up for duty in the National Guard. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and served in Europe. After the war, he returned to Iowa where he served as Attorney General from 1953-55 and Governor from 1955-57.

In 1957, President Eisenhower named him the head of U.S. Civil Defense and a member of the National Security Council. He was in the backyard bomb-shelter business for a time, before returning to the practice of law. He retired in 1985 and died in 2000.

SWLing Hurricane Florence

If you have a shortwave receiver (or even if you don’t), here are some frequencies you can keep in mind for tuning in to information about Hurricane Florence. Modern news media do an admirable job of getting the information out, but there’s something to be said for being able to tune in first-hand reports directly.

The best option is the Hurricane Watch Net (HWN), a group of amateur radio operators who will be on the air more or less continuously during the storm, taking reports from stations in the affected areas. Since most hams are able to get on the air without commercial power, this is often the first source of reports from damaged areas.

HWN formed informally during Hurricane Betsy in 1965, and now becomes active any time a hurricane approaches populated areas.

You can tune in to HWN on 14.325 MHz Upper Sideband (USB). An alternate frequency, which will be more active during the evening hours, is 7.268 MHz, Lower Sideband (LSB). Conditions on 20 Meters (14 MHz) have been poor in recent days, so it’s likely that there will be more reliance on the 7.268 MHz frequency.

Health and welfare messages from those affected by the hurricane will be heard on the Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN), which will meet on 14.265 MHz USB.

If you have a shortwave receiver, you’ll want to tune to these frequencies for live updates. Even if you don’t own a receiver, there are many connected to the web, and you can listen online. Simply go WebSDR.org, find a receiver in North America, and tune to these frequencies.

For updated information about amateur radio involvement in the hurricane response, please check the ARRL news page.

You can also listen to live streams of many NOAA weather stations at this link.

1960 Soviet Nuclear War Planning

Shown here are some eerie images of how the Soviet Union envisioned the Battle for the Fulda Gap would take place. In the event of war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, it’s likely that Soviet tanks would rumble through the gap on their way to Frankfurt. And it’s just as likely that they would have been met by the use of atomic weapons to delay their advance. As can be seen here, the Soviet tanks were expecting the atomic blasts, and planned to dig in to continue the tank battle.

The images here are taken from a 1960 book entitled Поражающее
действие ядерного взрыва (The damaging effect of a nuclear explosion) by A.I. Vanov and G.I. Rybkin, one in the series Popular scientific library of the military publishing house published by the Soviet Defense Ministry.

Despite the word “popular” in the series title, the book appears to be a quite scholarly look at the effects of nuclear weapons. In fact, the book contains numerous footnotes, including frequent citations of the definitive U.S. Government treatise on the subject, the Effects of Nuclear Weapons, as shown here in the bibliography:

1961 Life Magazine Fallout Shelters

A year before the Cuban Missile Crisis, the September 15, 1961, issue of Life magazine carried a big section of civil defense advice to the nation, along with a letter to the American people from President Kennedy. He stated that war couldn’t solve any of the world’s problems, but that the decision was not ours alone.

Accordingly, he urged the magazine’s readers to carefully consider the issue’s contents to prepare for all eventualities. And the picture above shows how one family did exactly that by building one of the fallout shelters, the basic blueprints of which were included in the magazine. The magazine also told where you could write for more information, and it’s likely this family had done exactly that.

The view outside shows that this family’s town escaped the blast effects of the nuclear weapon, but the fallout had either arrived or was on the way. But life went on. Mom is tucking in the youngest child, while the older brother sits vigilantly near the entrance. (And the shelter did have an entrance, but since the original picture took up two pages in the magazine, it seems to have gotten cut off when the image from the two pages was combined). Meanwhile, the older sister seems to be fixing her hair, and the father is relaxing by lighting up a smoke in the relatively well ventilated enclosure. (In addition to the ventilation provided by the entryway, you can see four ventilation holes on the wall near the ping-pong table.)

The family shown in the picture below had even better protection, since their outdoor corrugated pipe shelter provided protection against the blast as well as fallout. In this case, instead of going inside the relax with a smoke, it looks like the father is hoping to catch a glimpse of the fireball before slamming the door before the blast wave arrives.

The magazine carried plans for more shelters along with estimates for their cost, as well as some other rudimentary civil defense instructions. It also suggested the possibilities for private community shelters, such as that constructed for the group shown below:

This shelter was in a suburb of Boise, Idaho. Families there incorporated and bought shares for $100 each for access to this community shelter dug into a hill. According to the magazine, the shelter had dormitories, a power plant, kitchen, hospital, and decontamination showers. In the photo, the families were lining up in peacetime to bring in their emergency rations.

And speaking of peacetime, there was no reason to let all of that perfectly good living space go to waste just because Krushchev hadn’t hit the launch button yet, as demonstrated in the picture above of Amelia Wilson of Vega, Texas. The family had installed a shelter in the backyard, and Amelia seized upon the opportunity to make it her clubhouse and the perfect place to get away and chat with her friends. But as the magazine pointed out, the shelter was ready to be put to its intended use at a moments notice, as evidenced by the air blower directly above her and the exhaust pipe running out of the ceiling. And the radio entertains her now, but it’s also all ready to go at a moment’s notice to tune in civil defense information and warnings on CONELRAD.

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