San Diego Air & Space Museum

Artifact Spotlight: Atomic Safety Films

During the Cold War, Nuclear War was a real threat. However, we have a few films in our Archive that prove that if you just follow a few safety precautions, you would have nothing to fear! One such film is from our Convair Film Archive, and was filmed at their San Diego plant. This film shows how one can survive a nuclear attack and details the safety measures and procedures Convair has in place in case of attack.

This film suggests that "The most common method of decontaminating a hot area, is to scrub it with water and brushes."

This film may seem a bit naive in its approach to what would actually happen in the event of a nuclear attack, but part of the reason this film was distributed to the workers was to give them hope in the face of impending doom. However, another film gives a little more stark (and one might say accurate) portrayal of what would happen in the event of a bomb dropping; this one it titled "Let's Face it, Nuclear Attack!"

"Let's Face It, Nuclear Attack" was produced by the Civil Defense Administration, and shows the real aftermath of a nuclear explosion.

Another movie features famed journalist Edward R. Murrow to explain what a simulated attack on New York by "enemy" aircraft with nuclear weapons could occur. This film actually was made to recruit volunteers to work as enemy aircraft spotters in the Civil Defense Administration.

The enemy in "One Plane, One Bomb" are American flown B-29s, simulating an attack on New York.

Luckily, the scenarios portrayed in this videos never came to pass. But the fears in them are kept safe in our Film Archive which we are digitizing and placing out YouTube. Our Channel has over 5,000 films from our archive on it, and it is not all doom and gloom! Check out our films here, and if you survive the Atomic bomb, there is certainly much here to inspire you!