“Bunker: Building for the End Times” by Bradley Garrett and some of “Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back” by Mark O’Connell spring to mind in their interesting treatment of bunkers and the psychology, cultural and social history of these matters.
I was in elementary school in Calgary when the Cuban missile crisis happened. We had a few civil defence drills because Calgary had a NATO base, so it was considered a secondary target. I don't recall anyone building fallout shelters though. I guess that was mostly an American thing. The bizarre part of those drills was that we were sent home from school when the air raid sirens went off! I guess they figured better to die at home with your family than cowering in the school basement, but seriously, what were they thinking? At least we didn't have to duck and cover...lol.
I recall reading somewhere that the true intent of the fallout shelter craze was not to survive a nuclear war, but to convince the Soviet Union that the US government was able to convince the population that it was actually possible to survive a nuclear war - sort of an early psyop. The USSR of course had entire subway systems dedicated to the idea, which is why the Moscow metro is so far underground.
Along the same lines, people often comment on the width of Russian boulevards as if city planners had in mind an open and pleasant environment. Quite the contrary. Those boulevards were intended to make invading tanks easy targets from the surrounding buildings, which themselves had bunkers and connecting tunnels so fire teams could move between them without risk of exposure. If you look at the recent battle of Mariupol that's one of the reasons it was so difficult. Not only are the apartment blocks connected with tunnels, but the buildings themselves are arranged as fire positions, so no single building can offer cover - you are always in the fire line of one building or another.
Interesting about Russian invasion design. I need to check that out. I went to the University of Buffalo for grad school in late 70s. They had just opened a new suburban campus. It was a known secret that it was designed to be student protest proof. (Lots of pedestrian “pinch points” and all the building were interconnect via underground tunnels or sky bridges.
I forget where I read about that, and it's probably only true in the big cities, and most likely only on the approaches. I know some of the apartment buildings in Mariupol were set up that way, as it was mentioned by various analysts at the time. So was the Azovstal steel mill, which had an entire network of tunnels designed for defence.
Go to Google Maps and search on 'Mariupol Sport Zhyttya' then look at the arrangement of the buildings. You're actually looking at a fortress disguised as civilian residences. There's tons of steel and concrete in those building, far more than needed for conventional apartments, which is why none of them collapsed under intensive tank and artillery fire.
If you look at some of the older European cities, they were also designed with defence in mind. Narrow streets run into plazas and roundabouts with other streets radiating off in all directions. Nothing is parallel and many streets are dead ends. Wide boulevards allow you mount an attack in force, while the maze of narrow streets confuses the enemy's movements while the buildings offer tight fire positions for archers and musketeers.
Try driving around Paris or Madrid and you'll see exactly what I mean. Damn near impossible to find your way if you don't live there.
The naivety might best be exemplified by the device labeled “Plumbing” in the first drawing. Is that a drinking fountain? A sink? Where does the wastewater go? Where’s the toilet? Not seeing that device taking the place of a bathroom connected to a sewer system. And after a few months, won’t it start getting . . . full? I don’t even want to think about the smell.
I remember watching an episode of Quantum Leap where Sam went back to the 60s and tried to talk everyone out of buying these things. I think that was my introduction to this mania.
I was an eighth grader during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I remember JFK explaining the range of the Russian missiles in Cuba. (Yes, they could reach me in Rochester NY). Not long afterwards, "Saturday Night at the Movies" featured the Gregory Peck film: "On the Beach" which depicted the last days on earth after an atomic war.
I begged my parents to put in a fallout shelter (we never did). Although I did come up with plans to quickly build an improvised shelter under a heavy workbench in the basement. Fun fact: I still have a fallout shelter flyer I saved from back then.
At our Grade school, we practiced quickly moving to the hallway, sitting with our backs to the wall, tucking our heads between our knees and looping our arms over our heads! 😂
We lived in a new house in Littleton Colorado. My dad was an engineer at the Martin Company facility in the mountains, that tested ICBMs. So we had a room in our basement that was armored up – with hundreds of cases of canned food. The canned orange juice was particularly awful (I was the food tester over the course of a few years).
About the missile crisis, when I was 8, I remember walking out of the house one night just to look up at the stars and try to imprint them in memory, because I thought everything might be gone the next day. But more recently I was gifted a memory from a friend who was way more involved than most of us.
About 4 decades after 1962, my wife and I organized a day out along the central California coast to celebrate all our friends and colleagues who worked in resource conservation, protection and restoration. We had a solid 8 hours wandering thru parks, preserves, marine refuges and the like, just enjoying it all. Eventually, back to our place the fisherman's cottage, we sat about 20 people down to a massive meal around the big farmhouse-style table. After dinner, now late into the night, with many stories told, we were still resisting calling it a day. All the lights were off except the one over the table, which I lowered til pretty much the only things we could see in the darkened room were our faces, and our hands wrapped around drinks. Imagine the scene in Jaws, the 3 guys below deck at the table in the dark. Just like that. Finally, our friend Ed said he had a story he'd never told anyone before.
Ed was a seaman of various sorts, having done marine biology and fishing and merchant marine and also Navy time. He is also a really happy guy with an overwhelming positive attitude about life, matched with a good sense of self-deprecating humor. But for this story he looked at us soberly, and lowered his voice in a reflective way.
In October of 1962, about the time I was looking at the stars, Ed was underwater. He was in a submarine off the coast of Cuba, tracking Soviet warships on sonar. The lights in the sub illuminated a few faces as ours were at the table. The sounds of the sub, the sonar and the return sounds from the ships were his life in those hours. The crewmen seemed determined to do their jobs should the order come. Ed said he didn't really think to much what the outcome might be, just that the job needed doing. It was pretty tense work, tho he said he was confident every Soviet ship was accounted for and could be easily attacked and sunk. He thought about blowing up all those sailors...and how absurdly small that act would be in the overall madness...
Excellent dive into America's delusional fallout shelter fantasies.
Annie Jacobsen's Nuclear War: A Scenario will bring anyone who's interested up to speed on the very real nuclear nightmare Americans are still blindly walking around in.
The 21rst century counterpart are all these “Patriot” bunkers and food supplies sold on the internet for Republicans who fear a government takeover. I saw some of the ramshackle bunkers the extremists built in places like Idaho. A good thunderstorm would flood some of the “underground” bunkers—no more than a pit with a makeshift shelter on top. Same fears in a new version, with political extremist like Alan Jones promoting them for big bucks.
“Bunker: Building for the End Times” by Bradley Garrett and some of “Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back” by Mark O’Connell spring to mind in their interesting treatment of bunkers and the psychology, cultural and social history of these matters.
Thanks for adding those books to this thread. I like to think others that are interested will contribute and explore
I was in elementary school in Calgary when the Cuban missile crisis happened. We had a few civil defence drills because Calgary had a NATO base, so it was considered a secondary target. I don't recall anyone building fallout shelters though. I guess that was mostly an American thing. The bizarre part of those drills was that we were sent home from school when the air raid sirens went off! I guess they figured better to die at home with your family than cowering in the school basement, but seriously, what were they thinking? At least we didn't have to duck and cover...lol.
I recall reading somewhere that the true intent of the fallout shelter craze was not to survive a nuclear war, but to convince the Soviet Union that the US government was able to convince the population that it was actually possible to survive a nuclear war - sort of an early psyop. The USSR of course had entire subway systems dedicated to the idea, which is why the Moscow metro is so far underground.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8t5QKYa248
Along the same lines, people often comment on the width of Russian boulevards as if city planners had in mind an open and pleasant environment. Quite the contrary. Those boulevards were intended to make invading tanks easy targets from the surrounding buildings, which themselves had bunkers and connecting tunnels so fire teams could move between them without risk of exposure. If you look at the recent battle of Mariupol that's one of the reasons it was so difficult. Not only are the apartment blocks connected with tunnels, but the buildings themselves are arranged as fire positions, so no single building can offer cover - you are always in the fire line of one building or another.
Interesting about Russian invasion design. I need to check that out. I went to the University of Buffalo for grad school in late 70s. They had just opened a new suburban campus. It was a known secret that it was designed to be student protest proof. (Lots of pedestrian “pinch points” and all the building were interconnect via underground tunnels or sky bridges.
I forget where I read about that, and it's probably only true in the big cities, and most likely only on the approaches. I know some of the apartment buildings in Mariupol were set up that way, as it was mentioned by various analysts at the time. So was the Azovstal steel mill, which had an entire network of tunnels designed for defence.
Go to Google Maps and search on 'Mariupol Sport Zhyttya' then look at the arrangement of the buildings. You're actually looking at a fortress disguised as civilian residences. There's tons of steel and concrete in those building, far more than needed for conventional apartments, which is why none of them collapsed under intensive tank and artillery fire.
If you look at some of the older European cities, they were also designed with defence in mind. Narrow streets run into plazas and roundabouts with other streets radiating off in all directions. Nothing is parallel and many streets are dead ends. Wide boulevards allow you mount an attack in force, while the maze of narrow streets confuses the enemy's movements while the buildings offer tight fire positions for archers and musketeers.
Try driving around Paris or Madrid and you'll see exactly what I mean. Damn near impossible to find your way if you don't live there.
Of course the obvious question is, where's the toilet?
And no running water. So no showers.
I was scared as a young grade schooler. I recall a neighbor up the street installing a shelter. My mom and dad assured me things would be okay!
Me too - see my comment below
The naivety might best be exemplified by the device labeled “Plumbing” in the first drawing. Is that a drinking fountain? A sink? Where does the wastewater go? Where’s the toilet? Not seeing that device taking the place of a bathroom connected to a sewer system. And after a few months, won’t it start getting . . . full? I don’t even want to think about the smell.
Agreed. Those [lack of] details are hysterical. I also like the way they’re dressed - men in ties.
"A well-dressed group rides out Armageddon". 2 marks!
Loved listening to that Tom Lehrer song again - he nailed it then, and it’s so apt still now
What dry humor. Love it
Nice, Pete.
I remember watching an episode of Quantum Leap where Sam went back to the 60s and tried to talk everyone out of buying these things. I think that was my introduction to this mania.
Fallout shelters were seared into my psyche. See my comment below
Ahh, the home bomb bunker, or as anyone with even a small amount of nuclear physics knowledge would call them: "Convenient Backyard Gamma Ray Ovens."
Baked. Not to mention claustrophobia
I was an eighth grader during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I remember JFK explaining the range of the Russian missiles in Cuba. (Yes, they could reach me in Rochester NY). Not long afterwards, "Saturday Night at the Movies" featured the Gregory Peck film: "On the Beach" which depicted the last days on earth after an atomic war.
I begged my parents to put in a fallout shelter (we never did). Although I did come up with plans to quickly build an improvised shelter under a heavy workbench in the basement. Fun fact: I still have a fallout shelter flyer I saved from back then.
At our Grade school, we practiced quickly moving to the hallway, sitting with our backs to the wall, tucking our heads between our knees and looping our arms over our heads! 😂
I remember a couple things from back then:
We lived in a new house in Littleton Colorado. My dad was an engineer at the Martin Company facility in the mountains, that tested ICBMs. So we had a room in our basement that was armored up – with hundreds of cases of canned food. The canned orange juice was particularly awful (I was the food tester over the course of a few years).
About the missile crisis, when I was 8, I remember walking out of the house one night just to look up at the stars and try to imprint them in memory, because I thought everything might be gone the next day. But more recently I was gifted a memory from a friend who was way more involved than most of us.
About 4 decades after 1962, my wife and I organized a day out along the central California coast to celebrate all our friends and colleagues who worked in resource conservation, protection and restoration. We had a solid 8 hours wandering thru parks, preserves, marine refuges and the like, just enjoying it all. Eventually, back to our place the fisherman's cottage, we sat about 20 people down to a massive meal around the big farmhouse-style table. After dinner, now late into the night, with many stories told, we were still resisting calling it a day. All the lights were off except the one over the table, which I lowered til pretty much the only things we could see in the darkened room were our faces, and our hands wrapped around drinks. Imagine the scene in Jaws, the 3 guys below deck at the table in the dark. Just like that. Finally, our friend Ed said he had a story he'd never told anyone before.
Ed was a seaman of various sorts, having done marine biology and fishing and merchant marine and also Navy time. He is also a really happy guy with an overwhelming positive attitude about life, matched with a good sense of self-deprecating humor. But for this story he looked at us soberly, and lowered his voice in a reflective way.
In October of 1962, about the time I was looking at the stars, Ed was underwater. He was in a submarine off the coast of Cuba, tracking Soviet warships on sonar. The lights in the sub illuminated a few faces as ours were at the table. The sounds of the sub, the sonar and the return sounds from the ships were his life in those hours. The crewmen seemed determined to do their jobs should the order come. Ed said he didn't really think to much what the outcome might be, just that the job needed doing. It was pretty tense work, tho he said he was confident every Soviet ship was accounted for and could be easily attacked and sunk. He thought about blowing up all those sailors...and how absurdly small that act would be in the overall madness...
Panic in the Year Zero isn't meant to be funny.
It may be funny now for the same reason Reefer Madness is funny but it was played straight.
I've got a fun post on a "Reefer Madness' style film called "Marihuana - Weed With Roots in Hell!" (1936) https://forgottenfiles.substack.com/p/weird-orgies-wild-parties-unleashed
Excellent dive into America's delusional fallout shelter fantasies.
Annie Jacobsen's Nuclear War: A Scenario will bring anyone who's interested up to speed on the very real nuclear nightmare Americans are still blindly walking around in.
Looks interesting (frightening). I'll check it out. Thanks
I'd like to be in Mary Lou's dog house, but I was led to believe that my first grade desk was ample shelter in the event of a nuclear holocaust.
In first grade, Mary Lou was too old for you.
The 21rst century counterpart are all these “Patriot” bunkers and food supplies sold on the internet for Republicans who fear a government takeover. I saw some of the ramshackle bunkers the extremists built in places like Idaho. A good thunderstorm would flood some of the “underground” bunkers—no more than a pit with a makeshift shelter on top. Same fears in a new version, with political extremist like Alan Jones promoting them for big bucks.