"All Clear"

I'm a child of the Cold War. In my lifetime nuclear annihilation was an everyday possibility. I remember the air raid sirens drills, and being rushed into the basement by my folks till the 'All Clear'.

I remember well an unscheduled drill.

It may have been in spring of 1957 or '58. I remember it was on one of the first warm days of spring. 

In those days the ground even as far south  from the Arctic Circle as New York was frozen from January to about April. This was before planetary climate change became obvious.

Anyway I took this opportunity to play in the backyard. The ground was now soft enough to use my toy crane, and plow-truck. There I was with our dog "Brownie" playing, and digging.

Have you noticed how if left to their own boys will dig. 

I suspect it may be a species memory from our time of being prey to large animals. "Hide"...cover your tracks, and most of all keep quiet!. So species boy digs. Quietly digs

Safe from the leopards. A large Cat that had a particular fondness for human meat. They've deduced this from examining their ice-age stool. We were their fast food. 

So there I was peacefully digging to hide from Leopards 20,000 years gone. Safe from leopards yes, but Bears no. 

The Tupolev Tu-95, NATO code name "BEAR".

ICBM's were still not widely available to either side in this Cold War. So both sides in that death dance relied on heavy bombers to deliver their A-Bombs. Our former ally, and now deadly Enemy Soviet Russia used the Tu-95...the BEAR.    

America used the then brand new B-52.

On that day it seemed to my Mother that the Bears had finally come hunting. Hunting for her, and her cub...me.

What happened I remember as a terrifying blur...but I nevertheless still well remember it. 

The unscheduled Air Raid Alert sirens shrieked across peaceful Brooklyn. I was later told that drivers stopped their cars in the middle of the street others ran the stop lights trying to get home. I remember adult voices yelling in tones I'd never heard before...fear.

I remember our neighbor Mrs. Holder screaming...yes screaming for Mr. Holder who was in working on their car in the garage to come into the house! Again adults with fear in their voice. I had never imagined never heard never dreamed such was possible.

Adults afraid?

Now if people were calm thoughtful thinking rationally they'd have checked about before going nuts. The radio or TV maybe the police. However the era was thick with fear. We'd normalized terror into something we could live with. 

We took it for granted. 

Took for granted that one fine day. ...say a quiet Saturday morning...it would happen.

We all of us, and our kids, and dogs would be turned shadows of carbon. 

We'd all be burnt seared into walls all over the city. The adults of that era had made a treaty with madness. "We won't think about it, and you won't bother us with it till...till it happens."

Well on that day it seemed to have at last happened.

The Blur...

I'm playing with the toy truck, and crane I'd got for Christmas. At last able to use it in real dirt. My mother was busy doing Mommy things in the house. There's a kind of music we make as we go about our routines. She was making comforting Mommie music in the house. It drifted out to the yard where I played. 

All was safe. All was well.

The storm door window shatters as my mother kicks it open flying down the steps of the porch which my carpenter uncle Lee had built last summer.

I looked up confused, and with the cold of fright entering my body. I'd heard Mrs. Holder scream for her husband I heard other adult voices also with that new thing in them...fear.

My Mommie had an expression I'd never seen before. An expression of a mother whose only point only reason for living was to protect her baby. My sister, and bother were at my aunt's house. We were alone. Alone at the end of the world.

I'm scooped up held tightly so tightly. I remember trying to say "I can't breath".  We're up the steps through the house down the cellar into the little store room at the back the door is slammed I'm stuffed into the corner my mother's body heavy, and warm atop me.

She's protecting me with her own body.

Protecting me from the gale of fire about to descend on the City. I remember I was crying. My mother was speaking to me I don't know what she was saying. I think she may have been praying. 

After a time the 'All Clear' sounded.

The aftermath of this is very unclear to me. Again adults taking that strange talk they always do. Children don't understand all the words, but are expert at picking up tones.

Anger was a clear tone. Especially from the Daddies. The Mommies spoke in low mommie tones, but just as upset. Like all children I took it in my stride. Children do. They can take wars concentration camps poverty murder with amazing resilience.

I even forgot about. For many years it slept at the bottom of my memory. 9/11 brought it back.

...But that's another story.


Stay Tuned.

COMMENTS, And REPLY:


 

1. AnonymousOctober 17, 2014 at 10:54 PM

   
   

   Sydney,
   In the small town I was raised in we didn't pay any attention to the nuclear scare. My older friend a news man from St. Louis explained to me as we were talking on his shortwave to Omaha that that was where they kept the bombers to H-Bomb Moscow. I was just interested in that we had talked all the way to Omaha.
   
   Boys are marvelous creatures wouldn't you say? Oh ... I remember, you have said that many times :-)
    

   Lukas
2.  

    

   AnonymousOctober 18, 2014 at 1:03 AM

   
   

   Boy, folks sure were paranoid then (not like now).
   
   I'm about a decade behind you, and it seems to make a difference. We never, ever had such air raid drills. Also, like Lukas I grew up in a smaller place. To speak truth, I don't recall seriously worrying about getting H-bombed for more than about 90 seconds, if ever.
   
   That last poster shows vividly how ee-vill was the Red Menace. The bomber hitting California is going for Sacramento, which sort of takes the pressure off.
   
   Z
3.  

   sydney smithOctober 18, 2014 at 3:59 PM

   
   

   When I was little it did scare me, but as I grew older I just accepted as a given we were going to burn. Amazing to think that now. New York then as now was a Bulls-eye. We were going to be hit with a pattern of bombs...later missiles.
   
   However at the time of the story with bomber attacks likely we'd get three or so. All below the one mega-ton yield. So Manhattan was toast..goodbye Aunt Sybil, and Grandma.
   
   Brooklyn would be caught in the Manhattan firestorm plus the bomb likely dropped on the our Navy Yard. It was still active then. Putting out carriers, and cruisers. So my Mom, and I would have suffocated as the air was sucked out of our basement to feed the firestorm. This happened in Coventry Hamburg Dresden, Tokyo etc.
   
   My aunt Agnes my cousin Henry, and my brother, and sister who were visiting might have lived. Uncle Clyde as I vaguely remember had built a cinder block shelter about that time in their basement. So their odds were middle to good.
   
   They were in east Queens the farthest from the bombs within the city limits.
   
   My Grand-aunt, and Grand-uncle would have made it okay they lived out in Suffolk Country maybe 40 or so miles from the bombs. There was a squadron of Nike missile bases out there. So placed specifically as the last ditch defense against any Russian bombers that got past *regional the fighter screen.
   
   (Btw that was a common sight...fighters in the air on patrol. Also some always staged at local airports large, and small. I recall being with my dad as he drove past a Queens small aircraft strip, and seeing two F-100's sitting there amongst the Piper Cubs.)
   
   I remember a quote by then President Eisenhower, "...The 'awful' arithmetic of such a conflict is that 'some' enemy strategic bombers 'will' get through."
   
   Like I say it was a Hell of a Time.
   
   Uncle

   
   

   
   

   

   
   

   
   

   (This above is an illustration of the "F-100" I saw at that small strip so long ago. Note the gaudy Cold War colors. This was common in the Air Force at the time. As Lord Wellington once said, "...I like my Officers well dressed...for the Enemy".)