The twin atomic bombs that savaged Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed a
horrified world what a Third World War might look like; its survivors
even included British prisoners of war. Philosophers and politicians
sought to come to terms with the new weaponry. As the Cold War began,
and especially the Korean War in 1950, the UK set up the Civil Defence
Corps, mainly of volunteers, much like Air Raid Precautions of the
1939-45 war. At local, regional, and national level, exercises to test
preparedness for nuclear war required planners to imagine how war would
come, and what bombing would look like. Exercises affected not only the
obvious departments of government - police and fire services, and
hospitals - but everyone; the railways, mines, retail and agriculture.
The authorities faced dilemmas, beyond how much to tell the people, who
in the main did not want to face another war, as the persistent trouble
in recruiting and retaining civil defense volunteers showed.
Should the official advice be, as in September 1939, to evacuate women
and children from cities and towns most at risk of bombing? Or was it
safer to stay put? A change from Hiroshima-strength atom bombs to
megaton bombs in the later 1950s made for profound and sinister changes
in civil defense. Hiroshima-style attacks were on a par with the very
worst non-nuclear bombing of 1939-45, containable by Civil Defence;
whereas a megaton bomb would wipe out housing and create fires for miles
around, and spread radiation across the country. Farmland and cattle
could be contaminated; making evacuation pointless, even harmful. How
feasible was it for the authorities to send people by bus from lethally
radioactive areas to less radioactive places? And if millions would
survive, as the authorities assured the public, what would they eat?
Life After Nuclear War is a blood-chilling, detailed reconstruction of
official planning by the British authorities in the event of a nuclear
war in Great Britain: a story revealing details of what officials
thought would happen, and what the days, weeks, months and the years
'after' would look like, and how the Civil Defence Corps was planning
for the 'unthinkable'.
