www.nukegate.org Glasstone's book exaggerates urban nuclear weapons effects by using unobstructed terrain data, without the concrete jungle shielding of blast winds and radiation by cities!
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
U.K. Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch 'Protect and Survive' civil defence research
"From the earlier studies of radiation-induced mutations, made with fruitflies [by Nobel Laureate Hermann J. Muller and other geneticists who worked on plants, who falsely hyped their insect and plant data as valid for mammals like humans during the June 1957 U.S. Congressional Hearings on fallout effects], it appeared that the number (or frequency) of mutations in a given population ... is proportional to the total dose ... More recent experiments with mice, however, have shown that these conclusions need to be revised, at least for mammals. [Mammals are biologically closer to humans, in respect to DNA repair mechanisms, than short-lived insects whose life cycles are too small to have forced the evolutionary development of advanced DNA repair mechanisms, unlike mammals that need to survive for decades before reproducing.] When exposed to X-rays or gamma rays, the mutation frequency in these animals has been found to be dependent on the exposure (or dose) rate ...
"At an exposure rate of 0.009 roentgen per minute [0.54 R/hour], the total mutation frequency in female mice is indistinguishable from the spontaneous frequency. [Emphasis added.] There thus seems to be an exposure-rate threshold below which radiation-induced mutations are absent ... with adult female mice ... a delay of at least seven weeks between exposure to a substantial dose of radiation, either neutrons or gamma rays, and conception causes the mutation frequency in the offspring to drop almost to zero. ... recovery in the female members of the population would bring about a substantial reduction in the 'load' of mutations in subsequent generations."
As we explain below, the government should have published its nuclear weapons effects research based on the nuclear test data in order to substantiate the scientific basis for civil defense. Hiding the factual scientific evidence for public civil defense advice behind a solid wall of secrecy is a guaranteed way to allow the advice to be falsely ridiculed and ignored by ignorant 'scientists' with a political agenda, thereby maximising the scale of tragedy in the event that civil defense is needed in a disaster. Allowing the popular media to wrongly discredit civil defence also increases the risk of war by encouraging dictators and terrorists to spend money trying to get hold of weapons of mass destruction in the belief that there is no effective defense against such weapons. It's vital to publish the facts!
My father was a Civil Defence Corps instructor in Colchester the 1950s. After the local basic instructor course, for the advanced instructor course he attended the government Civil Defence College, Easingwold (which still exists, now named the Emergency Planning College). At the time he left in 1957 (when he had to work abroad for 12 years until 1969), Britain's Civil Defence Corps was at its largest size since the wartime Blitz. Civil defence Corps membership peaked at 336,265 by May 1956 (reported in The Times, 2 May 1956, page 6). This would have been enough to make a large difference in the event of a war or disaster. However, my father found that even when he left in 1956, the British Civil Defence Corp was doomed by secrecy. The American fallout fiasco at the 15 megaton Castle-Bravo Bikini Atoll surface burst on 1 March 1954 (when they didn't evacuate inhabited atolls directly downwind for two days, and also failed to warn or spot a Japanese ship directly downwind) was being exploited by Soviet Union "peace" propaganda, far-left wing political groups, and genuine but ignorant pacifist groups.
Despite the fact that the BBC still fakes all nuclear explosion films with the sound of the blast falsely superimposed on the explosion flash, to make civil defense duck and cover seem stupid (actually, like thunder after lightning, the blast wave travels slower than light so the flash occurs in silence until the blast arrives, which can be many seconds later for the case of large areas of devastation from a nuclear explosion, giving plenty of time for “duck and cover” action to avoid flying glass when the blast finally arrives), the BBC did make one honest film about the Soviet Union’s “peace offensive” propaganda lies, the four-part 1995 “Messengers from Moscow” documentary. This documentary provides essential evidence of Soviet KGB and related "World Peace Council" propaganda lies discussed in an earlier blog post. Dimitri K. Simes reviewed “Messengers from Moscow” in the 1 June 1995 issue of Confirmation Time:
Our government had the facts from British nuclear tests, but even in 1956 every piece of information such as scientific British nuclear test data and even basic pamphlets of civil defence countermeasures against biological and chemical warfare of relevance to civil defence and of any value in convincing the public and the next generation Civil Defence Corp members that planning and training was based on hard facts, was either Restricted or Official Use Only. A propaganda war ensued, in which all convincing Western nuclear test data was withheld, so that enemy anti-civil defence lies was allowed to go unopposed. The Civil Defence Corp gradually declined and was closed in 1968. The secrecy did not increase security. Enemies armed with nuclear weapons were testing their weapons, and had their own supply of nuclear effects data; in any case secrecy failed to stop the atom spies like Fuchs giving the blueprints of nuclear weapons to the Soviet Union even before Hiroshima! The idea that the public is best-served by keeping civil defence validation data secret is therefore crazy. It's very interesting to look at the Soviet Union's Cold War civil defence history. Until 1971, the Soviet civil defence organization was under control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but that year (coinciding with the Soviet nuclear missile program approaching parity with the West, the failure of American efforts in Vietnam, and the American decision to withdraw 2,100 Davy Crockett tactical nuclear weapons from Western Europe), it was put under the control of the Soviet Ministry of Defence, and it had a vastly increased budget from 1973.
Physics and mathematics professors John Dowling and Evans M. Harrell's 1987 American book Civil Defense: A Choice of Disasters (American Institute of Physics, New York) states in Table 1 on page 119 the following per capita expenditures for civil defence (defense for Americans), which shows how the Soviet Union was investing in civil defence for war preparedness (the Soviet figure is what it would cost a democratic country to duplicate the Soviet civil defence preparedness; obviously the Soviet system was not democratic but socialist, so it didn't involve the same actual costs that it would take for a democracy, i.e. the Soviets did not pay out the same wages and tended to less democratic methods to make its citizens train in civil defence):
France: $0.15
U. S.: $0.75
U. K.: $1.15
Italy: $2.00
Denmark: $6.50
U. S. S. R.: $11.30
Switzerland: $33.00
(Note that at the same time that the Soviet Union was transferring its civil defense organization from civilian to direct military control with massively increased resources in the early 1970s when the Soviet Union's nuclear missile stockpile and main battle tank collection was beginning to rival Western military capabilities to defend Western Europe, America transferred its civil defense from military control to a civilian agency. At the same time, as discussed elsewhere, President Nixon was pressed into détente with the Soviet Union in order to deflect media harrassment over his personal involvement in the Watergate controversy. The transfer of American civil defence from control by the Pentagon to a civilian agency had actually been recommended in several research reports on civil defence by nuclear weapons effects researchers in the late 1960s, in the belief that it would reduce secrecy problems. Actually, it increased secrecy problems because civilian agencies tended to have greater numbers of uncleared personnel who had to be kept out of discussions involving classified data, so that the flow of key information was seriously impeded, and being out of the Pentagon they were physically more removed from discussions of the problems with others who were doing very similar analyses.)
§ Lord Renton My Lords, while I thank my noble friend for that reply, may I ask him whether he is aware of the serious conflicts of evidence and the consequent misunderstandings with regard to this vital matter? Will he therefore ensure that publication of the report is given the highest priority and the widest possible circulation when it is published?
§ Lord Elton My Lords, the report will rest on very thorough research. It will be published as an official document available to the public and a copy will be placed in your Lordships' Library.
Lord Shinwell My Lords, with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, may I ask the noble Lord the Minister how it is possible to estimate or determine the casualties that are likely to result from the use of nuclear weapons when the nuclear weapons have not been used? Do we not have to wait for what happens, and when it happens shall we not know what is going to happen? We shall be destroyed.
...
§ Lord Mishcon My Lords, will the noble Lord the Minister agree that the public of this country deserve a full, frank and simple account of what the Government feel, on scientific advice, to be the effects of nuclear war, in so far as one can carry that hypothesis through? Does the Minister feel that that may well encourage people to support, in so far as is practicable, a civil defence policy, whereas if the Government are not frank people will disbelieve?
§ Lord Elton My Lords, it is the purpose of the report to reveal what we believe the effects of certain nuclear weapons would be if they were used. That will no doubt contribute to the understanding of the public of the need for civil defence, as the noble Lord rightly suggests. ...
§ Lord Jenkins of Putney My Lords, is it not the case that the fortunate people in such an event would be not the survivors but those of us who were lucky enough to catch the full benefit of the blast? ...
§ Lord Renton My Lords, with regard to the question—if I may say so, the shrewd question—raised by the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, is my noble friend aware that there have been nuclear tests in various parts of the world and that a great deal of scientific evidence has been accumulated as a result of those tests which would give us some indication of what could be done to help people who were not damaged by a direct hit by a nuclear bomb, but were on the wide perimeters of such an attack?
Home Secretary Hurd replied: "We are updating our estimates and information and that will be published. One of the difficulties about this subject is the way in which some people persist in believing that the only possibility worth considering is a massive nuclear attack. That is simply not so. Civil defence planning and training must deal with a whole range of possibilities, including, of course, conventional attack."
"Will my right hon. Friend please make it clear that a increasing number of countries are capable of joining the nuclear powers and therefore any hostilities of this sort could come from one of those, which would create a very different scale of casualties from that following action by one of the super powers? Therefore, it would be quite wrong to reject civil defence purely and merely because some people believe that a major confrontation is quite incomprehensible."
(For fairly up-to-date civil defense countermeasures against chemical and biological terrorism, see the 2004 U. S. Department of State publication No. 11162, Responding to a Biological or Chemical Threat in the United States, while for convincing scientific data on casualty predictions see G. O. Rogers et al., Evaluating Protective Actions for Chemical Agent Emergencies, Oak Ridge National Laboratory for FEMA and the U. S. Army, ORNL-6615, 1990. Other useful information can be found here, here, here, here and here. The Hague Declaration of 1899 Concerning Asphyxiating Gases supposedly “banned” the use of “projectiles the sole object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases.” Despite this 1899 ban on poison gas, all sides used it extensively in World War I. So much for trusting security to making written promises. In his 1923 book The World Crisis, Winston Churchill summarised the wishful thinking of people towards warfare including chemical warfare in 1911: “It is too foolish, too fantastic to be thought of in the twentieth century ... No one would do such things. Civilisation has climbed above such perils. The interdependence of nations in trade and traffic, the sense of public law, the Hague Convention, Liberal principles, the Labour party, high finance, Christian charity, common sense have rendered such nightmares impossible.” Despite the wishful thinking of the 1899 Hague Convention banning chemical warfare, chemical warfare was used by both sides in World War I, and was used in gas chambers in World War II.)
Above: the Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch forerunner during World War II ensured that every civilian and soldier had a reliable gas mask, which deterred Hitler from using nerve gases tabun and sarin (discovered in the late 30s by German chemists) against England. He was not being a nice guy: he was deterred by the fact that in highly dispersed form, nerve gas inhalation (not merely skin contact, which requires far larger doses and far more nerve gas to overcome disperson by the wind) is prevented by the activated charcoal absorbers in the cannisters of standard gas masks! If Hitler had used nerve gas, it would have been largely ineffective and would have led to a retaliation with mustard gas against Germany, which did not have enough gas masks due to a rubber shortage. (In Britain, rubber was stockpiled for gas masks long before war broke out and by September 1939, no less than 38 million gas masks had been issued to civilians.) Civil defence thereby helped to negate weapons of mass destruction.
Above: school girls skipping in Britain during a World War II gas mask drill (such drills had to apply to sports recreation outdoors, as well as indoor activities). Cynical, evil anti-civil defence propaganda by falsely claims that because gas masks helped to negate the threat of, and thus deter, gas attacks, they 'were never used and therefore a waste of time and money; no more use than home fire insurance in a year when your home doesn't burn down'. Such people miss the whole point:civil defence is not just like a worthwhile insurance policy, but it actually helps to deter the enemy from attacking because it undermines the gains to be had from making an attack! If America had better aircraft security and defences against terrorists prior to 9/11, and the terrorists had been thus deterred, then we can envisage that terrorism-supporting anti security propaganda would doubtless have cynically and nefariously claimed that the defence measures were a 'waste of time and money' because they were never needed. The gas masks that deterred Hitler from using weapons of mass destruction were successful because they were never used against gas, they were successful because they were used as a deterrent; similarly nuclear weapons in the cold war were not a waste of time because they were never dropped, they were a success, in combination with some civil defence planning, for deterring the Soviet Union from launching an invasion of the West through nuclear intimidation.
Above: this picture answers the question 'why didn't Hitler use his nerve gas against Britain in World War II?' Britain's comprehensive issue of gas masks for all civilian situations - including babies, children, telephone operators, the unconscious and people with acute breathing disorders - meant that Nazi nerve gas production was rendered impotent and obsolete; for it was simply inadequate to gas Britain. The LDt50 (i.e., the air concentration and exposure time product which has units of dosage*time/volume, and which gives rise to 50% lethality) for skin exposure to Nazi tabun and sarin nerve gases were 3,700 and 3,100 times the inhalation LDt50's, respectively. Issuing gas masks increased the amount of nerve gas needed by a factor of 3,700 for tabun and 3,100 for sarin. To overcome dispersion by the weather, the Nazis would have had to drench the country with nerve gas to get it on people's skin assuming people were out of doors, but they simply couldn't make enough nerve gas to do this. Thus, because of Britain's civil defence - which didn't even know about nerve gas, although they did know that the pores in activated charcoal absorbers will absorb any dangerously reactive molecules apart from carbon monoxide - the Nazis were effectively deterred from making what would have been an ineffective attack inviting effective retaliation. These scientific facts are totally ignored in evil anti-civil defence propaganda which ignores the fact that simple civil defence countermeasures in Britain successfully averted weapons of mass destruction during World War II.
Above: the 1963 Civil Defence Handbook No. 10, Advising the Householder on Protection against Nuclear Attack, was cynically written by the Central Office of Information for either the illiterate or the inmates of lunatic asylums, and contained no justification or nuclear test experience to substantiate the crazy-sounding advice it offered. It quickly led to the closure of the Civil Defence Corps when it was held up and ridiculed in the House of Commons. It teaches the lesson that for civil defence, it is no good to dictatorially hand out 'official' nonsense-sounding advice, while keeping the facts that justify it secret. That is what communist and fascist dictatorships do, on the false grounds of 'secrecy' and 'national security' (in fact, some dictatorships are more open to their citizens that this). Instead of patronising citizens by refusing to reveal the solid scientific evidence for each protective measure, the facts must be disclosed to forestall cynical anti-civil defense propaganda. By contrast, the 1950 edition of the U.S. Department of Defense Effects of Atomic Weapons, edited by Dr Glasstone, on pages 392-9 justifies each protective action:
'If a person is in the open when the sudden illumination is apparent, then the best plan is instantaneously to drop to the ground, while curling up so as to shade the bare arms and hands, neck and face with the clothed body. ... A person who is inside a building or home when a sudden atomic bomb attack occurs should drop to the floor, with the back to the window, or crawl behind or beneath a table, desk, counter, etc.; this will also provide a shield against splintered glass due to the blast wave. The latter may reach the building some time after the danger from radiation has passed, and so windows should be avoided for about a minute, since the shock wave continues for some time after the explosion. ... planning will be necessary to avoid panic, for mass hysteria could convert a minor incident into a major disaster.'
It is estimated that Mongol invaders exterminated 35 million Chinese between 1311-40, without modern weapons. Communist Chinese killed 26.3 million dissenters between 1949 and May 1965, according to detailed data compiled by the Russians on 7 April 1969. The Soviet communist dictatorship killed 40 million dissenters, mainly owners of small farms, between 1917-59. Conventional (non-nuclear) air raids on Japan killed 600,000 during World War II. The single incendiary air raid on Tokyo on 10 March 1945 killed 140,000 people (more than the total for nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined) at much less than the $2 billion expense of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs! Non-nuclear air raids on Germany during World War II killed 593,000 civilians.
J. K. S. Clayton (formerly with the Weapons Department of the RAE Farnborough which he joined in 1946), as Director of the Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch oversaw Thatcher’s brilliant ‘Protect and Survive’ era civil defence assault on the Soviet Union (which was controversial because it presented facts about how to protect against nuclear weapons blast, heat and fallout without giving the nuclear test data which validated those facts). Clayton wrote about the basis of Protect and Survive policy in his lengthy and brilliant introduction, 'The Challenge - Why Home Defence?', to the Home Office 1977 Training Manual for Scientific Advisers:
'Since 1945 we have had nine wars - in Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam, between China and India, China and Russia, India and Pakistan and between the Arabs and Israelis on three occasions. We have had confrontations between East and West over Berlin, Formosa and Cuba. There have been civil wars or rebellions in no less than eleven countries and invasions or threatened invasions of another five. Whilst it is not suggested that all these incidents could have resulted in major wars, they do indicate the aptitude of mankind to resort to a forceful solution of its problems, sometimes with success. ...
'Let us consider what a nuclear attack on the United Kingdom might mean. It will be assumed that such an attack will only occur within the context of a general nuclear war which means that the UK is only one of a number of targets and probably by no means the most important. It follows that only part of the enemy's stock of weapons is destined for us. If the Warsaw Pact Nations constitute the enemy - and this is only one possible assumption - and if the enemy directs the bulk of his medium range and intermediate range weapons against targets in Western Europe behind the battle front, then Western Europe would receive about 1,000 megatons. Perhaps the UK could expect about one fifth of this, say 200 Mt. Let us assume rather arbitrarily that this would consist of 5 x 5 Mt, 40 x 2 Mt, 50 x 1 Mt and 100 x 1/2 Mt.
'An attack of this weight would cause heavy damage over about 10,000 square kilometres, moderate to heavy damage over about 50,000 square kilometres, and light damage over an additional 100,000 square kilometres. (Light damage means no more than minor damage to roofs and windows with practically no incidence of fire.) We can compare the heavy damage to that suffered by the centre of Coventry in 1940. This will amount to approximately 5% of the land area of the UK. Another 15% will suffer extensive but by no means total damage by blast and fire; another 40% will suffer superficial damage. The remaining 40% will be undamaged. In other words, four-fifths of the land area will suffer no more than minor physical damage. Of course, many of the undamaged areas would be affected by radioactive fallout but this inconvenience would diminish with the passage of time.
'Policy to meet the Threat
'The example just given of the likely severity of the attack - which is, of course, only one theoretical possibility - would still leave the greater part of the land area undamaged and more people are likely to survive than to perish. Government Home Defence policy must therefore be aimed to increase the prospects of the survivors in their stricken environment.'
Clayton's decisive civil defence actions based on the Miller fallout data were later strongly supported by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (a former research chemist, unlike most scientifically ignorant politicians) who - despite her widely perceived domestic policy failings as a right-wing woman - backed the morality of civil defence and on foreign policy issues stood up to terrorist state dictator Leonid Brezhnev, echoing Clayton's pragmatic outlook on war in her address to the United Nations General Assembly on disarmament on 23 June 1982, when she pointed out that in the years since the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 10 million people were killed by 140 non-nuclear conflicts, so:
‘The fundamental risk to peace is not the existence of weapons of particular types. It is the disposition on the part of some states to impose change on others by resorting to force against other nations ... Aggressors do not start wars because an adversary has built up his own strength. They start wars because they believe they can gain more by going to war than by remaining at peace.’
On 29 October 1982, Thatcher stated of the Berlin Wall:
‘You may chain a man, but you cannot chain his mind. You may enslave him, but you will not conquer his spirit. In every decade since the war the Soviet leaders have been reminded that their pitiless ideology only survives because it is maintained by force. But the day comes when the anger and frustration of the people is so great that force cannot contain it. Then the edifice cracks: the mortar crumbles ... one day, liberty will dawn on the other side of the wall.’
Leonid Brezhnev fortunately died on 10 November 1982, while Reagan and Thatcher challenged the Soviet Union's nuclear superiority with increased civil defence efforts coupled to military expenditure in a successful effort to bankrupt and reform the corrupt Soviet terrorist system.
On 22 November 1990, she was able to declare: ‘Today, we have a Europe ... where the threat to our security from the overwhelming conventional forces of the Warsaw Pact has been removed; where the Berlin Wall has been torn down and the Cold War is at an end. These immense changes did not come about by chance. They have been achieved by strength and resolution in defence, and by a refusal ever to be intimidated.’
'The case for civil defence stands regardless of whether a nuclear deterrent is necessary or not. ... Even if the U.K. were not itself at war, we would be as powerless to prevent fallout from a nuclear explosion crossing the sea as was King Canute to stop the tide.' - U.K. Home Office leaflet, Civil Defence, 1982.
The text of the 15 by 10 inch Jaunary 1964 H.M. Stationery Office printed posters shown at the top of this post is:
DEFENCE REGULATIONS IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT BILLETING
The Government has announced that the dispersal of people in priority classes from certain large towns shall be put into effect immediately.
The area covered by the ........... Council is a receptopn area to which some of these people are being brought.
Occupiers of housing property in this area are required by law to provide accommodation for any persons assigned to them by the Billeting Officer. Every effort will be made to spread the burden of billeting fairly and equally between households.
It may be necessary to carry out billeting at night as well as day-time. Your co-operation in this emergency is requested.
An allowance will be paid to occupiers for the accommodation provided. To claim this you will need a billeting allowance order form. Watch the bottom of this notice for further information about how to obtain the form.
Clerk of the Council
The poster above, as well as that below, contains spaces to be filled in by hand.
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT DISPERSAL OF CIVILIAN POPULATION
.................... Council
The Government has announced that the voluntary dispersal of the following classes of persons from this area to reception areas in other parts of the country shall be put into effect immediately
1. Children under 18
Children of this age must be taken by their mothers, or by another responsible adult if their mother cannot go. Only in exceptional circumstances will children be allowed to go on their own. (EXAMPLE: if neither of their parents can go because of ill health and there is no one else to take them.)
2. Children between 15 and 18 if still at school full-time
Children in this class may either go with their mothers or on their own. In exceptional circumstances they may go with another responsible adult. (EXAMPLE: a handicapped child whose mother is too ill to go.)
3. Children between 15 and 18 who have left school
Children in this class should go on their own. Only in exceptional circumstances may they be accompanied. (EXAMPLE: if they are handicapped, or if the mother is taking younger children.)
4. Expectant mothers
5. Blind, crippled or aged and infirm people
Only if they are dependent on the help of a person who is a mother of the classes summarised above and who is travelling under the scheme.
...
Clerk of the Council
The leaflet is similar in content to this last poster, and would have been given to each evacuee together with a travel pass.
The 1964 posters can be compared to the July 1939 evacuation leaflet issued when Britain's relations with Nazi Germany were on the verge of WWII:
Evacuation
Why and How?
Public Information Leaflet No. 3
Read this and keep it carefully. You may need it.
Issued from the Lord Privy Seal’s Office July 1939
Why evacuation?
There are still a number of people who ask “What is the need for all this business about evacuation? Surely if war comes it would be better for families to stick together and not go breaking up their homes?”
It is quite easy to understand this feeling, because it is difficult for us in this country to realise what war in these days might mean. If we were involved in war, our big cities might be subjected to determined attacks from the air – at any rate in the early stages – and although our defences are strong and are rapidly growing stronger, some bombers would undoubtedly get through.
We must see to it then that the enemy does not secure his chief objects – the creation of anything like panic, or the crippling dislocation of our civil life.
One of the first measures we can take to prevent this is the removal of the children from the more dangerous areas.
The Government Evacuation Scheme
The government have accordingly made plans for the removal from what are called “evacuable” areas to safer places called “reception” areas, of school children, children below school age if accompanied by their mothers or other responsible persons, and expectant mothers and blind persons.
The scheme is entirely a voluntary one, but clearly the children will be much safer and happier away from the big cities where the dangers will be greatest.
There is room in the safer areas for these children; householders have volunteered to provide it. They have offered homes where the children will be made welcome. The children will have their school teachers and other helpers with them and their schooling will be continued.
What you have to do
Schoolchildren:
Schoolchildren would assemble at their schools when told to do so and would travel together with their teachers by train. The transport of some 3,000,000 in all is an enormous undertaking. It would not be possible to let all parents know in advance the place to which each child is to be sent but they would be notified as soon as the movement is over.
If you have children of school age, you have probably already heard from the school or the local education authority the necessary details of what you would have to do to get your child or children take away. Do not hesitate to register you children under this scheme, particularly if you are living in a crowded area. Of course it means heartache to be separated from your children, but you can be quite sure that they will be looked after. That will relieve you of one anxiety at any rate. You cannot wish, if it is possible to evacuate them, to let your children experience the dangers and fears of an air attack in crowed cities.
Children under five:
Children below school age must be accompanied by their mothers or some other responsible person. Mothers who wish to go away with such children should register with the local authority. Do not delay in making enquiries about this.
A number of mothers in certain areas have shown reluctance to register. Naturally, they are anxious to stay by their men folk. Possibly they are thinking that they might wait as well wait and see; that it might not be so bad after all. Think this over carefully and think of your child or children in good time. Once air attacks have begun it might be very difficult to arrange to get away.
Expectant mothers:
Expectant mothers can register at any maternity or child welfare centre. For any further information inquire at your town hall.
The Blind:
In the case of the blind, registration to come under the scheme can be secured through the home visitors, or enquiry may be made at the town hall.
Private Arrangements:
If you have made private arrangements for getting away your children to relatives or friends in the country, or intend to make them, you should remember that while the government evacuation scheme is in progress ordinary railway and road services will necessarily be drastically reduced and subject to alteration at short notice. Do not, therefore, in an emergency leave your private plans to be carried out at the last moment. It may then be too late.
If you happen to be away on holiday in the country or at the seaside and an emergency arises, do not attempt to take your children back home if you live in an “evacuable” area.
Work must go on:
The purpose of evacuation is to remove from the crowded and vulnerable centres, if an emergency should arise, those, more particularly the children, whose presence cannot be of assistance.
Everyone will realise that there can be no question of wholesale clearance. We are not going to win a war by running away. Most of us will have work to do, and work that matters, because we must maintain the nation’s life and the production of munitions and other material essential to our war effort. For most of us therefore, who do not go off to the Fighting Forces our duty will be to stand by our jobs or those new jobs which we may undertake in war.
Some people have asked what they ought to do if they have no such definite work or duty.
You should be very sure before deciding that there is really nothing you can do. There is opportunity for a vast variety of services in civil defence. You must judge whether in fact you can or cannot help by remaining. If you are sure you cannot, then there is every reason why you should go away if you can arrange to do so, but you take care to avoid interfering with the official evacuation plans. If you are proposing to use the public transport services, make your move either before the evacuation of children begins or after it has been completed. You will not be allowed to use transport required for the official evacuation scheme and other essential purposes, and you must not try to take accommodation which is required for the children and mothers under the government scheme.
For the rest, we must remember that it would be essential that the work of the country should go on. Men and women alike will have to stand firm, to maintain our effort for victory. Such measures of protection as are possible are being pushed forward for the large numbers who have to remain at their posts. That they will be ready to do so, no one doubts.
The “evacuable” areas under the government scheme are: London including West Ham, East Ham, Walthamstow, Leyton, Ilford and Barking in Essex; Tottenham, Hornsey, Willesden, Acton and Edmonton in Middlesex; the Medway towns of Chatham, Gillingham and Rochester; Portsmouth, Gosport and Southampton; Birmingham, Smethwick; Liverpool, Bootle, Birkenhead and Wallasey; Manchester and Salford; Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford and Hull; Newcastle and Gateshead; Edinburgh, Rosyth, Glasgow, Clydebank and Dundee.
In some of these places only certain areas will be evacuated. Evacuation may be effected from a few other places in addition to the above, of which notice will be given.
It should be noted that this 1939 leaflet was accompanied with others on food rationing in war:
Civil Defence
Your food in war-time
Public information leaflet no. 4
Read this and keep it carefully. You may need it.
Issued from the Lord Privy Seal’s Office July 1939.
Your food in war-time:
You know that our country is dependent to a very large extent on supplies of food from overseas. More than 20 million tons are brought into our ports from all parts of the world in the course of a year. Our defence plans must therefore provide for the protection of our trade routes by which these supplies reach us, for reserves of food here and for the fair distribution of supplies, both home and imported, as they become available.
What the government has done:
During the last eighteen months the government has purchased considerable reserves of essential foodstuffs which are additional to the commercial stocks normally carried. This is one of the precautionary measures which has been taken to build up our resources to meet the conditions of war. In addition, the necessary arrangements have been made to control the supply and distribution of food throughout the country immediately upon the outbreak of hostilities and to bring in such measures of rationing as may be required.
How can you help?
There are certain ways in which traders and households can help to strengthen our food position at the present time.
In the ordinary way, the stocks of food in any area are based on the extent of local demand, or the size of the local population. In wartime, the amount of stocks in any area might be affected by air raid damage, or the flow of supplies might be reduced temporarily by transport difficulties.
As an additional precaution against difficulties of this kind, traders will be doing a good service now by maintaining, and if possible increasing, their stocks, so far as they can. You, too, as an ordinary householder, will be doing a good service if you can manage to get in some extra stores of food that will keep. These will be a stand-by against an emergency. Of course, there are many of us who cannot do this, but those who can will find, if a strain is put at any time on local supplies, that such reserves will not only be a convenience to themselves but will help their neighbours. By drawing on these reserves instead of making demands on the shops at such a time, they would leave the stocks available for the use of those who have not been able to put anything by.
For those who have the means, a suitable amount of foodstuffs to lay by would be the quantity that they ordinarily use in one week. The following are suggested as articles of food suitable for householder’s storage:
Meat and fish in cans or in glass jars; flour; suet; canned or dried milk; sugar; tea; cocoa; plain biscuits.
When you have laid in your store, you should draw on it regularly for day-to-day use, replacing what you use by new purchases, so that the stock in your cupboard is constantly being changed. Flour and suet in particular should be replaced frequently. You may find it helpful to label the articles with the date of purchase. Any such reserves should be brought before an emergency arises. To try to buy extra quantities when an emergency is upon us, would be unfair to others.
Food supplies for evacuation:
The government evacuation scheme, of which you have already been told, will mean a considerable shift of population from the more vulnerable areas to safer areas. This will lead to additional demands on shops in the reception areas. Traders have been asked to have plans in readiness for increasing the supplies in shops in reception areas to meet the needs of the increased population. It would, however, take a day or two for these plans to be put into full operation.
The government are, therefore, providing emergency supplies for the children and others travelling under the official evacuation scheme. These supplies would be issued to them on their arrival in their new areas and would be sufficient for two days. Those who receive them will be asked not to make purchases, other than small ones, in the local shops during these two days.
Those making their own arrangements to travel, should take food with them sufficient for two days, and should buy in advance, as part of their arrangements, the non-perishable food which they would require. As already said, anyone who, in times of emergency, buys more than normal quantities, would be doing harm, as such buying must draw on stocks, which should be available to others.
National house keeping in war-time:
Central Control:
Should war come, the government would take over responsibility for maintaining the main food supplies for the country, and for distributing them through all the stages down to the consumer. This would ensure that every precaution could be taken against wartime risks. The prices of food would be controlled and supplies directed wherever they were needed.
For this purpose, the existing organisation of the food trades would be used so far as possible, and all food traders – importers, manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers – would work under the direction of the Ministry of Food. The Ministry would act for the benefit of the country as a whole and be assisted by representatives of the various trades.
In each area food control would be in the hands of a local committee, which would be set up at the outbreak of war. The membership of these committees would be chosen to represent the general body of consumers in the area. It would include a few retail traders who possess a first-hand working knowledge of trading conditions.
The principal duty of these local Food Control Committees would be to look after the interests of the consumers. They will also be responsible for supervising retail distribution. Shopkeepers would be licensed to trade by these committees. Ordinarily, all existing shops would receive these licenses. New shops would not be opened unless there was a need for them
Shopkeepers would be instructed that they must not supply excessive quantities to any of their customers, and powers would be taken to prevent people from buying more than their responsible share. Maximum prices would be fixed by the Ministry for each controlled food, and would be shown clearly in shop windows.
Rationing Scheme:
Certain foods, soon after the outbreak of war, would be brought under a rationing scheme similar to that, which was introduced during the latter part of the Great War. In the first instance, rationing would be applied to five foodstuffs – butcher’s meat, bacon, ham, sugar, butter, margarine, and cooking fats. Later, it might be necessary to add other articles.
The object of this scheme is to make certain foodstuffs are distributed fairly and equally and that everyone is sure of his or her proper share.
Before rationing begins application forms would be sent through the post to every householder, who would be asked to give particulars of everyone living in his home. These forms, when filled in, would be returned to the local food office set up by the local Food Control Committee, which would issue the ration books, one for each person.
You would then register at a retail shop of your own choice for each rationed food. This registration is necessary to enable the local committee to know the quantities of rationed foods, which each shop would require. There is no need to register with a shop in peacetime. It is not advisable to do so.
The ration books would have coupons, a certain number for each week. The Ministry would decide how much food each coupon represented, and you would be entitled to but that amount. In the case of meat, the amount would be expressed in money. Thus, you could choose between buying a larger amount of a cheaper cut, or a smaller one of a more expensive cut. In the case of other foods, the amount would be by weight.
For children under six years of age, there would be a child’s ration book, but the only difference would be that a child would be allowed half the amount of butcher’s meat allowed for a grown-up person. On the other hand, the allowance for a heavy worker will give him a larger quantity of meat. For catering and other institutions, special arrangements will be made.
These are the plans for our national housekeeping in wartime. Like all plans for our civil defence they need your help. In wartime, there would be no food to waste, but with your care and co-operation we shall have enough.
There was also a general information summary leaflet:
Civil Defence
Some things you should know if war should come.
Public Information Leaflet No 1
Read this and keep it carefully. You may need it.
Issued from the Lord Privy Seal’s Office July 1939.
If war should come:
The object of this leaflet is to tell you now some of the things you ought to know if you are to be ready for the emergency of war.
This does not mean that war is expected now, but it is everyone’s duty to be prepared for the possibility of war.
Further leaflets will be sent to you to give you fuller guidance on particular ways in which you can be prepared.
The government is taking all possible measures for the defence of your country, and has made plans for protecting you and helping you to protect yourselves, so far as may be, in the event of war.
You, in your turn, can help to make those plans work, if you understand them and act in accordance with them.
No-one can tell when and how war might begin, but the period of warning might be very short. There would be no time then to begin to think what you ought to do.
READ WHAT FOLLOWS, and think NOW.
1. Air Raid Warnings:
When air raids are threatened, warning will be given in towns by sirens and hooters, which will be sounded, in some places by short blasts, or in other places by a warbling note, changing every few seconds. In war, sirens and hooters will not be used for any other purpose than this.
The warning may also be given by the Police or Air Raid Wardens blowing short blasts on whistles.
When you hear the warning, take cover at once. Remember that most of the injuries in an air raid are caused not by direct hits by bombs, but by flying fragments of debris or bits of shells. Stay under cover until you hear the sirens or hooters sounding continuously for two minutes on the same note, which is the signal “Raiders Passed”.
If poison gas has been used, you will be warned by means of hand rattles. Keep off the streets until the poison gas has been cleared away. Hand bells will be rung when there is no longer any danger. If you hear the rattle when you are out, put on your gas mask at once and get indoors as soon as you can.
Make sure that all members of your household understand the meanings of these signals.
2. Gas Masks:
If you have already got your gas mask, make sure that you are keeping it safely and in good condition for immediate use. If you are moving permanently, or going away for any length of time, remember to take your gas mask with you.
If you have not yet received your gas mask, the reason may be that it has been decided in your district to keep the masks in store until an emergency is threatened. If, however, you know that your neighbours have got their gas masks, and you have not got yours, report the matter to your Air Raid Warden.
The special anti-gas helmet for babies and the respirator for small children will not be distributed in any district before an emergency arises.
3. Lighting Restrictions:
All windows, sky-lights, glazed doors, or other openings which would show a light, will have to be screened in war time with dark blinds or blankets, or brown paper pasted on the glass, so that no light is visible from outside. You should obtain now any materials you may need for this purpose.
No outside lights will be allowed and all street lighting will be put out.
Instructions will be issued about the dimming of lights on vehicles.
4. Fire Precautions:
An air attack may bring large numbers of small incendiary bombs, which might start so many fires that the Fire Brigades could not be expected to deal with them all. Everyone should be prepared to do all he can to tackle a fire started in his own house. Most large fires start as small ones.
Clearing the top floor of all inflammable materials, lumber etc., will lessen the danger of fire, and prevent a fire spreading. See that you can reach your attic or roof space readily.
Water is the best means of putting out a fire started by an incendiary bomb. Have some buckets handy. But water can only be applied to the bomb itself in the form of a fine spray, for which a hand pump with a length of hose and special nozzle are needed. If you throw a bucket of water on a burning incendiary bomb it will explode and throw burning fragments in all directions. You may be able to smother it with sand or dry earth.
5. Evacuation:
Arrangements have been made by the government for the voluntary evacuation from certain parts of the London area and of some other large towns of schoolchildren, children below school age if accompanied by their mothers or other responsible persons, expectant mothers, and adult blind persons who can be moved.
Parents in the districts concerned who wish to take advantage of the government’s evacuation scheme for their children have already received or will receive full instructions what to do, if the need arises.
Those who have already made, or are making arrangements to send their children away to relations or friends must remember that while the government evacuation scheme is in progress, ordinary railway and road services will necessarily be drastically reduced and subject to alterations at short notice.
Try to decide now whether you wish your children to go under the government evacuation scheme and let you local authority know. If you propose to make private arrangements to send your children away do not leave them to the last moment.
All who have work to do, whether manual, clerical or professional, should regard it as their duty to remain at their posts, and do their part in carrying on the life of the nation.
6. Identity labels:
In war you should carry about with you your name and address clearly written. This should be on an envelope, card, luggage label, not on some odd piece of paper easily lost. In the case of children a label should be fastened, e.g. sewn, on to their clothes, in such a way that it will not readily become detached.
7. Food:
It is very important that at the outset of an emergency, people should not buy larger quantities of foodstuffs than they normally buy and normally require. The government are making arrangements to ensure that there will be sufficient supplies of food, and that every person will be able to obtain regularly his or her fair share; and they will take steps to prevent any sudden price rises. But if some people try to buy abnormal quantities, before the full scheme of control is working, they will be taking food which should be available for others.
If you wish, and are able to lay in a small extra store of non-perishable foodstuffs, there is no reason why you should not do so. They will be an additional insurance. But you should collect them now and not when an emergency arises.
8. Instructions to the public in case of emergency:
Arrangements will be made for information and instructions to be issued to the public in case of emergency, both through the Press, and by means of broadcast announcements. Broadcasts may be made at special times, which will be announced beforehand, or during ordinary news bulletins.
Finally, and most important to this blog, the precursor of British nuclear age civil defence advice was the booklet, The Protection of Your Home Against Air Raids issued by the British Home Office in 1938 (printed by H.M. Stationery Office, London): this has the same sort of advice in a section on page 8, "How to choose a refuge-room", as the advice issued for fallout sheltering in both the 1963 published Civil Defence Handbook Number 10, Advising the Householder on Protection Against Nuclear Attack, and the 1980 published booklet Protect and Survive.
The reason is that an inner refuge which can protect against bomb case fragments and splinters from conventional chemical explosive bombs, is also generally good protective shielding against gamma radiation from radioactive fallout deposited over a wide area surrounding the house (half the dose comes from fallout beyond a radius of 15 metres on flat ground, so it is a radiation problem with gamma rays reaching you horizontally, and the dose from the small amount of fallout under your feet - even if it can get into your house in the same quantities as the ground deposit concentration outdoors - is trivial).
Background information related to last comment above: 15 million copies of the 1939 "Public Information Leaflets" were printed by the U.K. Government (Lord Privy Seal's Office) and these were delivered to every household in Britain, beginning on 20 July 1939:
Public Information Leaflets
No.1: Some Things You Should Know if War Should Come
No.2: Your Gas Mask How to keep it and How to Use it
Here's a brief list of some of the Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch civil defence research papers in the British National Archives:
Ministry of Home Security, Research and Experiments Department, 1940-1945 Ministry of Works, Scientific Adviser's Division, 1945-1948 Home Office, Scientific Advisers Branch, 1948-1970 Home Office, Research and Scientific Department, 1970-1971 Home Office, Scientific Advisory Branch, 1971-1982 Home Office, Scientific Research and Development Branch, 1982-2005 Home Office, Scientific Development Branch, 2005-present
Home Office records: HO228 Scientific Advisers' Branch; reports (Z Series), 1948-1966
36 files The Scientific Advisers' Branch of the Home Office was established in 1948 with responsibility for advising all government departments concerned with civil defence, and advising other divisions of the Home Office on scientific matters generally.
Reports dealing with the effects of possible nuclear war on the civil population and measures intended to mitigate these effects. The majority of pieces are collections of papers given to Civil Defence Regional Scientific Advisers at conferences or meetings. See also HO225-HO227, HO229, HO338 and HO45.
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some thoughts on the fire problem from atomic bombs; report. HO228/7 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: notes on the distribution of the population of Greater London. HO228/8 [1949]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the effect of window opening on the fire risk in domestic property; report. HO228/9 1950
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the hydrogen bomb; draft note for the director general of training. HO228/10 1950
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the resistance of concrete to explosions and projectiles; report. HO228/11 1950
Scientific Advisers' Branch: papers read at the meeting held on 12 Apr 1950 between the staff of the Civil Defence Staff College, the Civil Defence Schools and the Scientific Advisers' Branch on radioactive ground contamination and civil defence; shelter policy and atomic casualties; problems of civilian morale; the potentialities of nerve gas as a chemical weapon agent. HO228/12 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the zoning of towns for fire susceptibility; report. HO228/13 1951
Scientific Advisers' Branch: papers read at the meeting held on 6-8 Nov 1950: deaths from the explosion of an atomic bomb more or less powerful than that used at Nagasaki; debris, its distribution and the means of negotiating it; the zoning of towns for fire susceptibility; mustard gas on cities; social and economic effects of German air raids on the UK in World War II; estimates of homeless from atomic, explosive and incendiary bomb attack; the possible economic effects of atomic attack on centres of UK population; the risk of inhaled or ingested fission products compared with the external radiation risk; a problem connected with fallout. HO228/14 1951
Scientific Advisers' Branch: summary of papers read at the meeting held on 16-17 May 1951; paper on possible trend of future developments in atomic weapons; experimental developments in air raid warnings; regional scientific advisers and technical aspects of reconnaissance; decontamination; some aspects of the debris problem arising from an airburst atomic bomb assumed to burst over Trafalgar Square; respirators and protective clothing for civil defence personnel; an appreciation of radiological hazards in time of war; nerve and mustard gas; the atomic bomb as a fire raiser; memorandum on the use of radiation metering instruments in civil defence operations and training; discussion on practical monitoring and the present position regarding policy and organisation. HO228/15 1952
Scientific Advisers' Branch: papers read at the meeting held on 7-9 Apr 1952 on lessons from incendiary attacks on Hamburg; fireguards, to be or not to be; assessment of an attack on a city area with mustard gas; shadowgraphs; influence of the height of burst on the effects of an atomic bomb; some chemical warfare problems; combined operations; obstruction by debris in city streets after an atomic attack. HO228/16 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College, Apr 1953; papers on strategic assumptions for Civil Defence; Civil Defence aspects of the Monte Bello trial; warning systems and the general public; some factors affecting shelter design and policy; the allowable radiation dose in wartime and its implications; civilian behaviour under air attack; implications of FP (fission products) deposition. HO228/17 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College, 1-3 Jun 1954; papers on impact of hydrogen bomb on civil defence; a theoretical evacuation study; expected scale of types of attack; thermal effects of the British atomic bomb trials; gamma ray penetration at the Woomera tests; Admiralty gamma ray measurements at Monte Bello and Woomera; the work of the Scientific Advisers in the regions; training of radiac officers; radioactive training grounds; biological warfare; hazards of radioactive contamination from a water burst; agricultural problems resulting from a water burst; recent trends in radiac instrumentation. HO228/18 1955
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at Civil Defence Staff College, 23-25 May 1955; papers on the consequences of a thermonuclear explosion; fallout from a groundburst bomb; the characteristics of residual radioactivity; the fallout and the meteorological problems; the physiological effects of radiation; the contamination of water supplies; hazards to grazing animals in the period immediately following a nuclear explosion; hazards from fallout to vegetation immediately following a thermonuclear explosion; monitoring and plotting of fallout; problems in the fallout area; technical reconnaissance; leader equipment; concluding discussion. HO228/19 [1956]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the radiation dose to human tissues from natural sources. HO228/20 1957
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College, 4-6 Jun 1957; papers on civil defence policy; fallout prediction from meteorological information; the work of the Radiobiologist Research Unit; introductory talk on fallout plotting; aerial survey and possible applications to civil defence; report on tests on structures, of atomic trials; radiological work during the BUFFALO atomic trial; thermal radiation; chemical warfare-training of radiac officers. HO228/21 1957
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a course given to university physics lecturers at the Civil Defence Staff College, 8-11 Jul 1957; papers on nuclear weapons and their effects; blast from nuclear weapons; thermal radiation; biological effects of nuclear radiation; radiological control in the damaged area; control of civil defence forces; protection afforded by buildings against gamma radiation from fallout; meteorological aspects of radioactive fallout; fallout plotting; public control in a fallout area; introductory talk on fallout plotting; problems of water contamination; effects of nuclear weapon attack on agriculture and food; radiological decontamination; trends in radiac instrumentation; radiac fallout simulator; assessment of the protection afforded by buildings against gamma radiation from fallout. HO228/22 1959
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of the conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College, 20-22 May 1958; papers on the travel and deposition of radioactivity in the Windscale accident; fallout-an analysis of the most recent data; meteorology and the fallout prediction; fallout plotting and reporting up to the regional level; new plans for the control of civil defence operations; the regional scientific organisation in relation to new operational plans; the effects of ionising radiation on human beings; radiation hazards. HO228/23 1959
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College, 12-14 May 1959; papers on operation of the scientific team at region; training of scientific intelligence officers; local authority training and exercise "Arc"; radiation tolerance doses in civil defence; deployment of civil defence forces into the damaged areas contaminated by fallout; survey of protection against fallout afforded by houses and other buildings; radioactive decontamination; proposed food monitoring organisation; study of "Torquemada" fire problems after a megaton explosion. HO228/24 1961
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at Civil Defence Staff College, 10-12 May 1960; papers on measurement of deposition and decay rates; food monitoring; the treatment of casualties from heavy dosage; effects of radiation on fertility; structural research for civil defence; display of fallout information in Central Government Headquarters; account of recent trials; the decay of fallout radiation; information derived from nuclear radiation injury from accidents. HO228/25 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at Civil Defence Staff College 15-17 May 1962; papers on Soviet strategic air threat to the UK; blast effects of high yield weapons; effects of high yield weapons-interference with communications and electrical equipment; high explosive trails at Suffield, Canada; dispersal policy; modern concepts for chemical and bacteriological weapons; local authority controls-ventilation and other problems; training of scientific intelligence officers; planning assumptions for the assessment of food and water hazards. Retained. HO228/(26) 1963
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College, 28-30 May 1963. (Missing) HO228/27 1964
Report on conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College 12-14 May 1964: papers on resource evaluation for resource management; damage assessment; emergency planning for continuity of Government; methods of resource analysis in Canada; exercise CINLOG 1965; post attack problems; post attack problems of farming and agriculture in the UK, fallout predictions by probability; biological hazards of exposure to blastwaves; ionising radiation in leukaemia. Retained. HO228/28 1966
Report of a conference of Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College 13-15 Sep 1965: papers on warning and monitoring organisation; communal shelters survey results; communal shelters; leadership; biological warfare implications for civil defence; chemical weapon defensive equipment; development of improved nuclear burst detector; discussion on training of scientific intelligence officers; use of scientific manpower; ERDs (effective residual doses) and their application to public control; discussion on combined hazards of external and internal radiation; application of input and output economic models. HO228/36 1951
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College, 16-17 Oct 1951.
Home Office records: HO227 Scientific Advisers' Branch and successors; reports (Scientific Advisers/ Police Research Series), 1951-1973
137 files The series dates from 1950 and deals with the protection of the civil population against the effects of a possible nuclear war. Topics include casualty assessment, effects of fallout, shelter survival requirements, and the fire service. The series also includes discussions with civil defence authorities in the USA, Canada and West Germany.
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the effect of a limit on the travelling distance allowed between private house and communal buildings on the spectrum of protective factors; report. (Wanting, 1997) HO227/2 [1960]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: refuge space in communal buildings of various classes in a sample of six towns; report. HO227/3 1960
Scientific Advisers' Branch: passing information direct from Royal Observer Corps group to sub-region; trial 14 Feb 1960; report. HO227/4 1960
Scientific Advisers' Branch: Advisory Group on Structural Research for Civil Defence, theoretical treatment of blast-induced earth shock; report. HO227/5 [1960]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: operation of the scientific team at region; report. HO227/(6) 1960
Scientific Advisers' Branch: estimated casualties from an attack with two 3 megaton bombs on each of 71 different bases, with one 3 megaton bomb on each of 16 cities; report. (Wanting, 1997) HO227/7 [1960]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the adaptation of basement garages under new office buildings for use as shelters; report. HO227/8 [1960]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: structural research for civil defence; notes of a lecture to regional scientific training officers, Sep 1960. HO227/11 1960
Scientific Advisers' Branch: Hamburg shelters; some notes on occupancy, prepared May 1960. HO227/12 [1960]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report on war games Nos 1 and 2. HO227/13 1951
Scientific Advisers' Branch: protection from air attack available in Westminster Hospital; report. HO227/14 [1961]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: proposals for revised public control drills in a fallout area. HO227/15 [1961]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the role of civil defence in defence strategy, Commonwealth Advisory Committee on Defence Science; report. HO227/16 [1961]
The accuracy of the present procedure for issuing black warnings. HO227/17 [1961]
Ventilation and filtration requirements for local authority control centres. HO227/18 1961
Transmission of information round the control (Working Party on Sub-regional Controls). HO227/19 1961
The standard of fallout protection to be provided at regional, sub-regional and area controls. Retained. HO227/20 1961
Notes on a visit on 20-23 Feb to civil defence departments and establishments in the Federal Republic of Germany. HO227/21 1961
Provision of scientific staff for regions and sub-regions: Working Party on Sub-regional Controls. HO227/22 [1961]
Provisional procedures for the scientific team at sub-region. HO227/23 1961
Attenuation of thermal radiation by the atmosphere. HO227/24 1961
Science in civil defence. HO227/25 1961
The proposed used of deposition measurements taken at Royal Observer Corps posts. HO227/26 [1961]
Royal Observer Corps trainer, user trial. HO227/(27) 1961
Notes on proposed habitability trials in Tottenham civil defence sub-area control centre. HO227/29 [1961]
Flight duration for photographic reconnaissance over a fallout area. HO227/30 1961
Conference of regional fire commanders (designate): some technical aspects of decontamination. HO227/31 1961
Inter-departmental Committee on Shelter against Fallout: the effect on casualties of moving people from bungalows and pre-fabs into communal refuge. HO227/32 1960
Note by Scientific Advisers' Branch on washdown installations. HO227/33 1961
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the effect of exposure on the sensitivity of printing-out paper used in the Home Office ground zero indicator; report. HO227/(34) 1961
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the safety of underground headquarters; report. (Wanting, 1997) HO227/(35) 1961
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the effect of high explosive bombs on the estimation of ignition ranges for megaton explosions; report. (Wanting, 1997) HO227/36 1961
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the effect of peripheral dispersion on casualties from heavy nuclear attack; report. HO227/37 [1961]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: immediate casualties from 50 and 100 megaton low airbursts on London; report. HO227/38 [1961]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: basic assumptions for use in the assessment of the radiological hazard to food from fallout; report. HO227/41 [1962]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: requirements for space, ventilation, heating and lighting in a communal refuge; report. HO227/(42) 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: preliminary estimates of sand and earth needed for the improvement of private houses, refuge and communal shelters. (Wanting, 1997) HO227/43 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the scientific data and basic information required in preparing for protection by shelter against fallout; summary of presentation to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Shelter Working Party. HO227/51 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the Soviet strategic air threat to UK; report. Retained. HO227/53 (1962)
Scientific Advisers' Branch: day and night populations of the administrative county of London; report. HO227/54 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: calculation of the protective factor of simple buildings and shallow basements; report. HO227/57 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: visit to USA; report. HO227/60 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: probability of becoming a casualty due to a 3 megaton groundburst weapon having various CEP's as a function of distance from the target; report. HO227/61 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: annuli for calculation of prompt casualties from groundburst bombs; report. HO227/62 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some effects of fallout on the operation of mobile fire columns; report. HO227/(63) 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: neutron-induced activities in soil, an examination of its possible extent from contact burst bombs; report. (Wanting, 1997) HO227/64 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some calculations and tables on the neutron-induced activity in fallout due to soil and sea water; report. HO227/65 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: delayed fallout in the casualty area; report. HO227/66 (1962)
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the use of the BBC for the passage of fallout information; report.
Home Office records: HO226 Scientific Advisers' Branch; reports (R and M Series), 1952-1969
97 files The Scientific Advisers' Branch of the Home Office was established in 1948 with responsibility for advising all government departments concerned with civil defence, and advising other divisions of the Home Office on scientific matters generally.
The content of these reports covers aspects of the possible threat to the civil population posed by a future war, especially a nuclear attack, and measures that might be used to mitigate the effects of enemy attack. These reports are mainly the work of individual scientists. They do not define government policy; they are part of the input of the Branch to the policy making process.
Other reports are in HO227 and HO228; related files are in HO338.
Comments on proposals by Messrs Rendel, Palmer and Tritton, consultants for the strengthening of certain pre cast concrete-lined trench shelters in Westminster; report. HO226/2 1952
Some requirements for shelter studies; report. HO226/3 1952
Some basic assumptions needed for shelter planning; report. HO226/4 1952
Location of vital services under debris; report. HO226/5 1952
Possible damage to Wandsworth Prison resulting from atomic or high explosive/incendiary bomb attack; report . HO226/7 1953
Proposed new design of a new shadowgraph, the drum shadowgraph; report. HO226/9 1952
Use of aerial photographs for civil defence purposes; report. HO226/(10) [1952-1953]
Long term shelter and evacuation planning; report. (Wanting, 1997) HO226/11 1953
The construction for training purposes of synthetic air information of high and medium level jet aircraft attacks; report. HO226/12 1953
Atomic bomb damage to raw material stocks; report. HO226/14 1953
The worthwhileness of certain due-functioning measures; report. HO226/15 1953
The vulnerability of cold storage to atomic attack; report. HO226/16 1953
Atomic attacks and water undertakings: the significance of the ratio of groundburst to airburst weapons; report. HO226/17 1953
The risk to the civil population from the rocket motors of guided missiles. HO226/18 1953
The distribution of atomic bombs over the UK so as to affect as many people as possible; report. HO226/19 1953
The numbers of deaths resulting from an attack on the British Isles with 29 atomic bombs and 27,000 tons of high explosive/incendiary bombs; report. HO226/20 1953
Marshalling the homeless immediately after atomic attack: minimum size of assembly areas for safety from fires; report. HO226/21 1954
The question of shock amongst civil defence workers following atomic incidents; report. HO226/22 1954
A study of potential assembly areas in London and Sheffield; report. HO226/23 1954
A Royal Observer Corps group synthetic exercise computer; report. HO226/24 1954
Civil defence high range dose-rate meter logarithmic scale; report on the practical feasibility of using a log scale. HO226/25 1954
Compilation of track cards for the Royal Observer Corps group synthetic exercise computer; report. HO226/26 1954
The performance of warning teams under training. HO226/27 1954
Evacuation and dispersal measures to meet the H bomb threat; report. HO226/28 1954
The preparation of population contour maps for use by the Civil Defence Joint Planning Staff Working Party on Evacuation; report. HO226/29 1954
War economy statistics; report. HO226/(30) [1954]
Some preliminary considerations in regard to the use of underground railways as shelter from the effects of H bombs; report. (Wanting, 1997) HO226/31 1954
Preliminary considerations in regard to the value of incorporating a steel or reinforced concrete frame in multi-storey buildings; report. See also HO225/63. HO226/32 1954
Shelters in central high risk areas; report. HO226/33 1954
The protection afforded by trenches and refuge rooms against radioactive ground contamination; report. HO226/35 1955
A points scheme for evaluating protection against fallout; report. HO226/36 1955
Refuge rooms as shelter against radioactive fallout; report. HO226/37 1955
The protection against fallout provided by Glasgow tenements; report. HO226/39 1955
Bomb power indicators; report. HO226/40 1955
Questionnaire on underfloor trench. HO226/42 1956
The effect of blast pressures likely to result from a nuclear attack on London and the North on the worthwhileness of incorporating strengthening measures in new framed buildings; report. HO226/43 1956
Some notes on the plotting of fallout at the national level. HO226/44 1956
Standards of protection for operational premises against fallout. HO226/45 1956
Casualty rates for a groundburst 10 megaton bomb omitting residual radiation, all in houses; report. HO226/47 1956
The effect of fallout on general industry; report. HO226/48 1956
The protection afforded by industrial buildings against gamma radiation from fallout; report. HO226/52 [1956]
The likely extent of fallout from a nominal groundburst bomb. HO226/53 1957
The location of a nuclear explosion by means of radar; report. HO226/54 1957
Effectiveness of gamma radiation spread, over a long period of time, in producing radiation sickness; report. HO226/56 1956
Notes on civil defence for national survival. HO226/57 1957
The distribution of fallout information in the UK to organisations requiring it; report. HO226/(58) 1957
Civil defence for national survival; report. (Wanting, 1997) HO226/59 [1957]
Physical conditions of wardens and others in zone outside the damaged area; report. HO226/61 [1957]
Preparation of regional fallout exercises; report. HO226/62 1957
Conference of Regional Directors of Civil Defence, the display of fallout information at region; report. HO226/63 1957
Coverage of the UK by fallout from nine 10 megaton ground burst bombs; report. HO226/64 1957
New civil defence legislation in United States of America; report. HO226/65 1957
The entry of jets of air through orifices in shelter walls; report. HO226/66 1957
Some theoretical estimates of the protection in streets and at cross-roads against radiation from fallout; report. HO226/68 1957
The hazard due to exposure in the open in the damaged area during fallout; report. HO226/69 1958
Study of "Apocalypse"; casualty estimates for twenty groundburst 1 megaton bombs. Retained. HO226/70 1958
A survey of methods used for the removal of radioactive contamination from water; report. HO226/71 1958
Casualties from a heavy nuclear attack on the UK; report. HO226/74 1958
War time emergency doses of gamma radiation; report. HO226/75 1959
The contribution of U239 and Np239 to the radiation from fallout; report. HO226/76 1959
Royal Observer Corps fixed survey meter, probe withdrawal; report. HO226/78 [1960]
Organisation of the scientific team at area (provisional); report. Closed until 2011. HO226/79 1962
Problems on deposition sitreps (situation reports). HO226/80 1961
Exercise ZERO; general brief to directing staff. HO226/81 [1963]
Using deposition analysis-overlap made easy; report. HO226/82 [1963]
Protective factors in houses and flats; report. HO226/83 [1963]
Casualties due to immediate effects of groundbursts; report. HO226/86 1965
The need for design of radiation monitors for large scale issue to civilians for civil defence purposes; report. HO226/87 [1966]
131 files The Scientific Advisers' Branch of the Home Office was established in 1948 with responsibility for advising all government departments concerned with civil defence, and advising other divisions of the Home Office on scientific matters generally.
The content of these reports covers the scientific aspects of the possible threat to the civil population posed by a future war, especially a nuclear attack. They do not define government policy; they are part of the input of the Branch to the policy making process.
Reports dealing with civil defence in a nuclear age are in HO226-HO229, and also see HO338. Earlier HO papers relating to scientific research are in HO45.
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some aspects of shelter and dispersal policy to meet atomic attack; report. HO225/2 1948
Scientific Advisers' Branch: preliminary note on the present vulnerability of British cities to fire storms from air attack; report. HO225/3 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some considerations affecting a points system for the allocation of space in public shelters; report. HO225/4 1948
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the 'builtupness' of inner London; report. HO225/6 [1949]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the atomic bomb as a fire raiser: a study of the mechanism of initiation and development; report. HO225/7 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the relative advantages of open and closed windows during air attack; report. HO225/8 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the risk of fire from air attack (prepared for the Working Party on Emergency Fire Fighting); report. HO225/9 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: notes on a possible method of defining 'bulls eye' areas; report. HO225/10 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the fire risk attendant on the use of blackout curtains during an atomic bomb attack; report. HO225/11 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: a summary of information on the effect of atmospheric conditions on heat flash, gamma radiation, and blast from an airburst atomic bomb; report. HO225/14 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the advantage of lying prone in reducing the dose of gamma rays from an air-burst atomic bomb; report. HO225/15 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some advantages and disadvantages of a multi-standard shelter scheme; report. HO225/16 1950
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the number of atomic bombs equivalent to the last war air attacks on UK and Germany; report. HO225/17 1950
Scientific Advisers' Branch: comparison of day and night population distributions of Birmingham; report. HO225/18 1950
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some means of locating the direction of an airburst atomic bomb explosion; report. HO225/19 1950
Scientific Advisers' Branch: proposals for defining central key areas; report. HO225/20 1950
Scientific Advisers' Branch: conference with senior Metropolitan Police officers, 13 Jul 1950, analysis of questionnaires; report. HO225/21 [1951]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the zoning of towns for fire susceptibility, shortened version issued to the fire service; report. HO225/22 [1951]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: an analysis of the time taken to distribute air raid warning messages during exercise EMPEROR; report. HO225/23 1951
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the hazard from inhaled fission products in rescue operations after an atomic bomb explosion; report. HO225/24 [1951]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: time allowance to be made in issuing air raid warnings; report. HO225/25 1951
Scientific Advisers' Branch; preliminary report on exercise PINNACLE. HO225/26 [1951]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some radiological hazards of atomic warfare in relation to civil defence; report. HO225/29 [1952]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the increase in the number of atomic casualties due to large public gatherings; report. HO225/30 1952
Scientific Advisers' Branch: atomic warfare in relation to civil defence; lectures given to the staffs of Home Office Regional Scientific Advisers at Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, 4-6 December 1951. HO225/31 1952
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the standard of protection of trench shelters; report. HO225/33 1952
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the influence of accuracy of attack on atomic casualties; report. HO225/34 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: assessment of the damage and the number of casualties and homeless likely to result from an attack on Glasgow with an atomic bomb; report. HO225/35 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the distribution of (air raid) warning messages; report. HO225/36 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch; final report on exercise PINNACLE. HO225/37 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: atomic warfare in relation to civil defence; lectures given to the staffs of Home Office Regional Scientific Advisers at Atomic Energy Research Establishment Harwell, 1-3 Oct 1952. HO225/38 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the effect of size of warning district on the duration and frequencies of air raid warning to be expected under a possible all-out attack; report. HO225/39 1953
Scientific Advisers', Branch: exercise ARDENT: the best possible performance of the air raid warnings organisation against Canberra attacks; report. HO225/40 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: reservoir dams, Sheffield, danger of breaking from atomic attack on Sheffield; report. HO225/41 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: gamma ray penetration of grade A concrete shelters, comparison of dosage and casualty estimates; report. HO225/42 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: estimates, for exercise purposes, of the radioactive contamination of land areas from an adjacent underwater explosion. HO225/43 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: population movement related to atomic attack: analysis of questionnaires by the Metropolitan and Birmingham police; report. HO225/45 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: gamma radiation dose rates at heights of 3-3000 feet above a uniformly contaminated area; report. HO225/46 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: basic studies on the casualties and homeless to be expected from heavy air attacks; report. HO225/47 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the vulnerability of flour mills to atomic attack; report. HO225/48 1953-1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the safety-cost relationship for certain types of surface and trench shelters; report. HO225/49 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the safety-cost relationship of certain basement shelters and comparison with surface and trench shelters; report. HO225/51 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: assumed effects of two atomic bomb explosions in shallow water off the port of Liverpool; report. HO225/52 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: fatal casualties likely to result from an air attack on UK cities with 20 atomic or hydrogen bombs of varying power; report. HO225/54 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some aspects of shelter and evacuation policy to meet H bomb threat; report. HO225/55 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: provisional estimates of the results of a hydrogen bomb explosion; report. HO225/56 1954
Comparison of methods for assessing the effects of area bombing with toxic weapons. Retained. HO225/58 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: seriously injured casualties likely to result from an attack on UK cities with 20 atomic or hydrogen bombs of varying power; report. HO225/(59) [1955]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some published statements on radioactive fallout from hydrogen weapons. (Wanting, 1997) HO225/61 1955
Scientific Advisers' Branch: neptunium as a residual radiation hazard; report. HO225/62 1955
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the effective energy of fission product gamma radiation; report. HO225/63 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: preliminary considerations in regard to the worthwhileness of incorporating a steel or reinforced concrete frame in multi-storey buildings; report. HO225/64 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the protection afforded by trenches and refuge rooms against radioactive ground contamination; report. HO225/65 1955
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the probability of radioactive fallout in different parts of the UK; report. HO225/66 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: a proposed system of radiological control for civil defence operations in an area devastated by a nuclear explosion; report. HO225/68 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: protection against gamma radiation from fallout; report. HO225/69 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the penetration of gamma radiation from a uniform contamination into houses: first report on some field trials; report. HO225/70 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: a comparison between observed and calculated protection against fallout radiation; report. HO225/71 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: numbers of casualties from a groundburst megaton weapon likely to be personally contaminated by radioactive material; report. HO225/72 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the hazard from inhaled fission products in rescue operations after an atomic bomb explosion; report. HO225/74 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: durability of coated window glass as a heat radiation shield; report. HO225/(75) [1956]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the domestic fallout shelter surveyed in Guildford and Halifax; report. (Wanting, 1997) HO225/(76) [1956]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: a simplified table of predicted factors in normal British houses and flats; report. (Wanting, 1997) HO225/77 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: a method of assessing the protection afforded by buildings against gamma radiation from fallout; report. HO225/78 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some long term shelter possibilities; report. HO225/79 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: developments in the UK in relation to a fallout reporting organisation; report. HO225/80 1956-1957
Scientific Advisers' Branch: Royal Observer Corps post 2/N1 Farnham, Surrey, conditions of the atmosphere when post is sealed for 6 hours, 30 Sep 1956; report. HO225/82 1957
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the transmission of fallout information to civil defence regions and the manner of its use at Regional Headquarters; report. HO225/84 1957
Scientific Advisers' Branch: space requirements in sealed shelters. HO225/87 1957
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some recent information from USA about fallout from groundburst megaton weapons; report. HO225/88 [1958]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: Royal Observer Corps post 2/N1 Farnham, Surrey, conditions in sealed post under cold weather conditions, 22-23 Jan 1958; report. HO225/89 1958
Scientific Advisers' Branch: survey of the protection afforded in private houses against radiation from fallout; report. HO225/90 1958
Scientific Advisers' Branch: Royal Observer Corps 2/N1, Farnham; report of tests carried out 12-13 Jul 1958 to study atmospheric conditions in the post when sealed for 10 hours with four occupants, and to study time required to ventilate the post. HO225/91 [1958]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the speed and accuracy of reading ground zero indicators; report. HO225/92 1959
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the deployment of civil defence forces into damaged area contaminated by fallout; report. HO225/93 [1959]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: survey of protection afforded in communal buildings and private houses against radiation from fallout; report. HO225/96 1959
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the decontamination of residential areas; report. HO225/97 1959
Scientific Advisers' Branch: uptake of radioactivity in fire hoses; report. HO225/98 [1960]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: Royal Observer Corps post 2/N1, Farnham, 48 hour trial in closed underground post, fully manned and equipped with hand-operated bellows, 1-3 Dec 1959; report. HO225/99 [1960]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the decay of fallout radiation; lecture given at Regional Scientific Advisers' Conference, 11 May 1960. HO225/100 [1960]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the hazards from direct exposure to fallout in a damaged area; report. HO225/101 1960
Scientific Advisers' Branch: downwind fallout area from groundburst megaton explosions; report. HO225/102 1960
Scientific Advisers' Branch: notes on radiological filters for civil defence control centres; report. HO225/103 [1961]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: retention of fallout particles on roof surfaces and their removal by washdown with water; report. HO225/104 [1961]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the calculation of dose rates from fallout at Royal Observer Corps posts by electronic computer; report. HO225/106 1961
Scientific Advisers' Branch: probability of occurrence for the whole year of vector means of winds over the British Isles; report. HO225/107 [1961]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the calculation of fallout risks; report. HO225/108 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: assessment of the protection offered by buildings against radiation from fallout; report. HO225/109 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the fire ranges of nuclear explosions in the 10-100 megaton range; report. HO225/110 [1962]
Habitability in local authority civil defence control centres; 24 hour trial in Tottenham sub area control on 14-15 Sep 1961. HO225/111 [1962]
A new gas detector kit. HO225/112 1962
The estimation of ignition ranges for megaton explosions outside the earth's atmosphere. HO225/113 1962
Report on road decontamination trials carried out at the Fire Service Training Centre, Moreton in Marsh, on 16 Feb 1962. HO225/114 1962
Chemical protection against effects of ionising radiations. HO225/115 1962
Report to NATO Shelter Working Party on Fallout Shelters. HO225/116 1963
Research on blast effects in tunnels with special reference to use of London tubes as shelters. HO225/127 1966
Scientific Advisers' Branch: three-day test of a typical UK basement as a fallout shelter with only natural ventilation, occupancy trail in the basement of Civil Defence Centre, Twickenham; report. HO225/128 1965
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the psychology of fear; report. HO225/129 1965
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the energy required for ignition with very short exposure times; report. HO225/131 1955
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report on measurements of transmission of visible radiation at Orfordness.
Home Office records: HO229 Fission Fragments: Journal of Home Office Scientific Advisers' Branch and Successors The Scientific Advisers' Branch of the Home Office was established in 1948 with responsibility for advising all government departments concerned with civil defence, and advising other divisions of the Home Office on scientific matters generally.
The journal Fission Fragments was first published by the Scientific Advisers' Branch in 1961, and continues to be produced today by the present Scientific Research and Development Branch for distribution to the volunteer local authority scientific advisers, originally called "scientific intelligence officers". Articles in the journal are mainly written by members of the branch but have also been contributed by local authority scientific advisers and by the former Civil Defence Department of the Home Office: they range across all aspects of civil defence against conventional, nuclear, chemical and biological warfare. Publication is at irregular intervals, depending upon the availability of material and the importance of its early circulation.
HO338:
Scope and content: Registered files of the Scientific Adviser's Branch and its successors relating to the provision of scientific advice within the Home Office and to other Departments involved in civil defence, the sponsoring of scientific research, the training of scientific intelligence officers, the development of computer projects for scientific research, and liaison with civil defence regional scientific advisers. Subjects covered include the effects of radiation and bomb blasts, and equipment for fire fighting. Reports of the Branch are in HO 225- HO 229
Arrangement: The papers in this series are arranged under four subheadings (Office of the Scientific Adviser; Scientific Advisers, Chemical; Scientific Advisers, General, and Scientific Advisers, Nuclear) and then by departmental file number. The inclusion of a date preceding a file number (as in SAN(1961) 3/1/1) indicates that the year in which the file was created was included in the file reference number. Thus the full departmental reference of a file listed as SAN(1961) 3/1/1 would be SAN/61 3/1/1.
Administrative / biographical background: The Scientific Adviser's Branch of the Home Office was established in 1948, most of its staff being taken from the Scientific Advisor's Division of the Ministry of Works, which had itself originated in the Research and Experiments Department of the Ministry of Home Security. In 1970 its title changed to the Research and Scientific Department, in 1971 to the Scientific Advisory Branch, and in 1982 to the Scientific Research and Development Branch. It is responsible for advising all government departments concerned with civil defence and advising other divisions of the Home Office on scientific matters. It sponsors scientific research for the Home Office, liaises with Civil Defence Regional Scientific Advisers and Training Officers, assists in the training of Scientific Intelligence Officers, and develops computer projects relating to scientific research.
There are also important files at other British National Archives sections:
ES1/1
ES Records of the Atomic Weapons Establishment and predecessors ES 1 Atomic Weapons Research Establishment: Rowley Collection
Record Summary Scope and content:
Craters: cratering from atomic weapons Covering dates 1946-1959
ES Records of the Atomic Weapons Establishment and predecessors ES 1 Atomic Weapons Research Establishment: Rowley Collection
ES1/2:
Record Summary Scope and content Patent specification for HE lenses Covering dates 1950-1958 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
ES Records of the Atomic Weapons Establishment and predecessors ES 1 Atomic Weapons Research Establishment: Rowley Collection
ES1/3:
Record Summary Scope and content 'Charybdis' underwater explosions: base surge Covering dates 1947-1955 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
ES1/13:
Weapon design and production: some early progress reports Covering dates 1947-1951 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Further information about access conditions is available
ES1/14:
Nuclear physics experimental work: nuclear data; fusion shock waves Covering dates 1947-1954 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Further information about access conditions is available
ES1/19:
Scope and content Types of bomb: hollow or solid core Covering dates 1950-1951 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Further information about access conditions is available
ES1/20:
Scope and content Weapon progress charts: weapon design and loading Covering dates 1950-1956 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
ES1/21:
Scope and content Critical mass criticality experiments Covering dates 1950-1956 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
ES 1/111:
Scope and content Exponent of fission growth: part 1 Covering dates 1953 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Further information about access conditions is available
ES 1/455:
Scope and content Super bomb papers Covering dates 1946-1953 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Further information about access conditions is available
ES 1/462:
Scope and content Super bomb handbook Covering dates [c. 1958] Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
ES 1/463:
Scope and content Further consideration of double bomb Covering dates 1958 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
ES 1/873:
Scope and content US hydrogen bomb Covering dates 1955-1956 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
ES 1/895:
Scope and content AWRE role in civil defence research programme against atomic warfare Covering dates 1953-1957
ES 1/1648:
Scope and content Volume 11: damage to ships (test Baker) Covering dates 1946 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Further information about access conditions is available
ES 1/1656:
Scope and content GRASSHOPPER history: use of air lenses for implosion Covering dates 1947-1964 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
ES 1/1655:
Scope and content Summary of UK nuclear weapons trials Covering dates 1965-1966
ES 1/1633:
Scope and content Manual on design of Bikini bombs (the "Tuck Bible") Covering dates 1946 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Further information about access conditions is available Former reference (Department) 0683 Note JL Tuck, member of the British mission at Los Alamos
DEFE 16/65
Scope and content Operation Totem: fall-out particles from Totem 1 and 2 Covering dates 1955 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report No T8/55
DEFE 16/61:
Scope and content Operation Totem survey of residual contamination Covering dates 1956 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report No T4a/55
DEFE 16/67:
Scope and content Operation Totem: thermal measurements Covering dates 1956 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report No T10/55
DEFE 16/104:
Scope and content Operation Buffalo: measurement of radiation dose rates from fallout Covering dates 1957 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report No T40/57
DEFE 16/158:
Scope and content Operation Antler: remote measurement of variation with time of gamma dose rate from fallout Covering dates 1958 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report No T43/58
DEFE 16/165:
Scope and content Operation Buffalo target response tests Biology Group: Part 3a, effects of blast on dummy men exposed in open Covering dates 1959 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report No T2/59
DEFE 16/156:
Scope and content Operation Antler: aerial survey of radioactivity deposited on the ground Covering dates 1958 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report No T40/58
DEFE 16/166:
Scope and content Operation Buffalo target response tests Structures Group: effect on field defences, text Covering dates 1959 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report No T4/59
DEFE 16/411:
Scope and content Determination of U237 production in Operation Totem by FC Hanna Covering dates 1954 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report No N/M 68
DEFE 16/444:
Scope and content Permanent proving ground trials: CO 60 pellets found at Maralinga Covering dates 1958 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) 0171/2
DEFE 16/665:
Scope and content Request for return of Cobalt 60 pellets Covering dates 1963 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) AHP 2/11
DEFE 16/933:
Scope and content Anderson shelters (Operation Hurricane) Covering dates 1954 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report T/17/54
DEFE 16/935:
Scope and content Penetration of gamma flash into Anderson shelters and concrete cubicles (Operation Hurricane) Covering dates 1954 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report T/20/54
DEFE 16/947:
Scope and content Thermal radiation intensity-time distribution: photoelectric method (Operation Hurricane) Covering dates 1954 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report T/68/54
DEFE 16/948:
Scope and content Thermal radiation intensity-time distribution: photographic method (Operation Hurricane) Covering dates 1954 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report T/69/54
DEFE 16/949:
Scope and content Measurement of total integrated heat output (Operation Hurricane) Covering dates 1954 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report T/70/54
DEFE 16/953:
Scope and content Effects on a Landrover and generating sets (Operation Totem) [Note by NC: this report was cited and quoted by Philip J. Dolan in the U.S. Department of Defense manual "Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons", 1972 (originally Secret - Restricted Data) together with other British reports because British test procedure was to leave the engine of the vehicle running before and during the nuclear test, which provided valuable information on EMP survivability and the enhanced hazards of the blast wave to a car with the engine running: in one British test, the blast wave damaged the carburettor of a vechicle left with the engine running, causing petrol to leak and set the vechicle on fire.] Covering dates 1956 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report T/79/54
DEFE 16/969:
Scope and content Target Response Group: effects of blast on dummies and scout car [Like above report, this one is also cited in Dolan's "Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons", 1972]. Covering dates 1959 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report T/6/59
DEFE 16/961:
Scope and content Target response tests: decontamination of radioactively contaminated drinking water in the field Covering dates 1957 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report T/4/57
DEFE 16/965:
Scope and content Measurement of ground shock and crater [Buffalo R2 surface burst test, 1.5 kt] Covering dates 1957 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report T/37/57
DEFE 16/972:
Scope and content Target Response Group: cine photography of target response; implementation and results [Operation Antler] Covering dates 1967 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) Report T/3/66
ES 3/53:
Scope and content Shielding of armoured fighting vehicles against nuclear radiation Covering dates 1960 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) E1/60
ES 3/53:
Scope and content Shielding of armoured fighting vehicles against nuclear radiation Covering dates 1960 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) E1/60
ES 3/55:
Scope and content Drag force effects on men in shelters Covering dates 1961 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) E1/61
ES 3/63:
Scope and content Gamma dose-rate above an infinite plane source Covering dates 1963 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) E6/63
ES 3/75:
Scope and content Nuclear radiation fields from typical weapons Covering dates 1965 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) E5/64
ES 3/82:
Scope and content 1/117th scale experiments to assess the effect of nuclear blast on the London Underground system Covering dates 1966 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) E2/66
ES 4/14:
Scope and content Some aspects of the steady flow problem in radiation hydrodynamics Covering dates 1954 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O2/54
ES 4/25:
Scope and content Experimental study of the blast wave from a spherical charge of RDX/TNT 60/40 Covering dates 1954 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O13/54
ES 4/35:
Scope and content Decontamination of radioactive clothing: laundry investigations and recommendations Covering dates 1954 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O23/54
ES 4/47:
Scope and content Attenuation of prompt gamma radiation in the HURRICANE weapon Covering dates 1954 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) O35/54
ES 4/48:
Scope and content Estimates of the critical thickness of a slab of 95 per cent U235 situated in various thickness of graphite reflectors Covering dates 1954 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) O36/54
ES 4/76
Scope and content Attenuation of prompt gamma radiation in the HURRICANE weapon, and the variation of apparent time-constant during the period of its measurement Covering dates 1955 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) O64/54
ES 4/99:
Scope and content Calculation of critical size of depleted U235 core in an infinite uranium tamper Covering dates 1955 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) O9/55
ES 4/117:
Scope and content Shock waves in air from model charges: Part 5; triple point locus in Mach reflection of the shock at a rigid surface Covering dates 1955 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O28/55
ES 4/118:
Scope and content Experimental investigation into the interaction of blast waves with a hot layer [obviously this deals with the investigation of the hot, thermal radiation popcorned, desert surface dust cloud when the blast wave travels in it, creating a "precursor" shock wave] Covering dates 1955 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O29/55
ES 4/119:
Scope and content Hardness of plutonium and plutonium/1.7% gallium alloy Covering dates 1955 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) O30/55
ES 4/135:
Scope and content Experimental study of the blast wave from a spherical charge of TNT Covering dates 1956 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O46/55
ES 4/138:
Scope and content Guide to radiological decontamination after a nuclear explosion or radiological attack Covering dates 1956 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O49/55
ES 4/141
Scope and content Examination of fall-out pellets from TOTEM 2 Covering dates 1956 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O3/56
ES 4/205:
Scope and content Determination of the cross-section of the reaction U238 (N,2n) U237 for 14/5 MeV neutrons Covering dates 1957 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O12/57
ES 4/273:
Scope and content Bibliography on radiological decontamination and on the nature of weapon fallout Covering dates 1959 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O7/58
ES 4/308:
Scope and content Determination of (239) U from the (n,Y) reaction of 14/5 MeV neutrons with (238) U Covering dates 1958 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O46/58
ES 4/361:
Scope and content Theory of radioflash: Part 1; early phase of radioflash; Part 2; overall picture of of radioflash [this is the major British set of papers dealing with the theory of the Electromagnetic Pulse, EMP, from British kiloton yield nuclear tests at Maralinga, Australia] Covering dates 1959 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O33/59
ES 4/393:
Scope and content Radiological decontamination comparative appraisal of the state of advancement of British and American theory and practice Covering dates 1960 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O16/60
ES 4/394:
Scope and content Bibiliography on radiological decontamination Covering dates 1961 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O17/60
ES 4/635:
Scope and content Magnetic and electric fluctuations in the frequency band 0.1 - 10.0 c/s arising from the Starfish high altitude nuclear explosion of 9 July 1962 [these British measurements of the Starfish Prime EMP are not particularly exciting because the waveform and intensity of the long range EMP beyond the horizon was subject to severe modification and interferences before it arrived in Britain and was detected as a chaotic fluctuation; in addition notice that the report is only concerned with the measurement in the frequency band 0-10 Hz, which is the ELH frequency of the MHD-EMP, at very low intensity, not the high frequency microwave component which attains 50 kV/m] Covering dates 1963 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O68/63
ES 4/636:
Scope and content Electric and magnetic fluctuations in the frequency band 0.1 - 10.0 c/s arising from American and RUssian high altitude nuclear explosions Covering dates 1963 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O69/63
ES 4/954:
Scope and content Computations of radio-flash from high-yield nuclear bursts in the atmosphere Covering dates 1967 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) O12/67
ES 4/955:
Scope and content Compton currents and ionisation rate generated in a non-uniform atmosphere by fast, mono-energetic neutrons from a point source Covering dates 1967 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O13/67
ES 4/1099:
Scope and content Electric fields in flux compression devices Covering dates 1969 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) O2/69
ES 4/1136:
Scope and content Fallout prediction system for Western Europe Covering dates 1969 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately Former reference (Department) O39/69 Held by The National Archives, Kew
ES 4/1178:
Scope and content ABM defence of Russia: SSDS ABM committee report Covering dates 1970 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) O13/70
Scope and content Operation of AWDREY [Atomic Weapons Detection, Recognition and Estimation of Yield electronic computer system which measures the EMP from a nuclear explosion using 1 m long aerials to determine the burst location direction, and also measures the thermal flash rise time to its final peak to help determine the yield] during atomic weapon tests in the atmosphere Covering dates 1970 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) O35/70
ES 4/1264:
Scope and content EMP fields for inclusion in naval and military equipment specifications. (Paper presented at a meeting of panel N7 of subgroup N held at Defence Research Establishment Ottawa, Ontario, Canada on 14-16 September 1970.) Covering dates 1971 Feb 01 - 1971 Feb 28 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) O7/71
ES 4/1503:
Scope and content Proceedings of the Seventh UK/US Symposium on Neutron Generators held at AWRE on 2-6 October 1972. Volume 1 and 2 Covering dates 1973 Dec 01 - 1973 Dec 31 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) O53/73
ES 5/1:
Scope and content Some preliminary results from the Monte Bello tests, relevant to defence, including civil defence Covering dates 1953 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) T1/53
ES 5/2:
Scope and content Operation HURRICANE: directors report; scientific data Covering dates 1954 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) T1/54
ES 5/3:
Scope and content Operation HURRICANE: directors report; scientific data; top secret section Covering dates 1954 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) T1a/54
ES 5/5:
Scope and content Canberra flight report October 1953 (Operation HOT BOX) [flying an aircraft through the mushroom cloud of Totem tests in 1953 to measure radiation dose rate a few minutes after burst] Covering dates 1954 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) T3/54
ES 5/281:
Scope and content Operation ANTLER: Decontamination Group report; Parts 1-3 Covering dates 1960 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) T7/60
ES 5/77:
Scope and content Centurion tank: volume 1 (comprising parts 1, 2 & 3 and appendices 1-7) Covering dates 1956 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) T78/54
Additional reports at the British National Archives:
ES 6/19:
Scope and content: Radioactive species (other than fission elements) formed in atomic weapons Covering dates: 01/01/1959 - 31/12/1959 Availability: Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) NR/C15/59
ES 8/7:
Scope and content Operation ICE: interim report on radio-flash measurements Covering dates 01/01/1959 - 31/12/1959 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) J1/59
ES 10/3:
Scope and content Super bomb: notes on wartime Los Alamos papers Covering dates 01/01/1954 - 31/12/1954 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 3/54
ES 10/4:
Scope and content Fermi lectures on the super bomb Covering dates 01/01/1954 - 31/12/1954 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 4/54
ES 10/5:
Scope and content Miscellaneous super bomb notes by Klaus Fuchs Covering dates 01/01/1954 - 31/12/1954 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) TPN 5/54
ES 10/22:
Scope and content 'Super Bomb Handbook, Part One': information on first Los Alamos report on nuclear weapons Covering dates 01/01/1954 - 31/12/1954 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) TPN 22/54
ES 10/51:
Scope and content Revised reconstruction of the development of the American thermonuclear bombs Covering dates 01/01/1955 - 31/12/1955 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 1/55
ES 10/238:
Scope and content Conjectures concerning the precursor: mechanisms Covering dates 01/01/1956 - 31/12/1956 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) TPN 66/56
ES 10/239:
Scope and content Hydrodynamic models of an expanding core Covering dates 01/01/1956 - 31/12/1956 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 67/56
ES 10/359:
Scope and content Role of hot sand grains in precursor formation Covering dates 01/01/1957 - 31/12/1957 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) TPN 10/57
ES 10/447:
Scope and content Absorption of radiation by a body immersed in the fireball of a nuclear explosion Covering dates 01/01/1957 - 31/12/1957 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) TPN 99/57
ES 10/460:
Scope and content Preliminary study of the gamma dose versus distance results obtained on Operation GRAPPLE Covering dates 01/01/1957 - 31/12/1957 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 112/57
ES 10/494:
Scope and content U239 production in fission weapon tampers Covering dates 01/01/1958 - 31/12/1958 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 34/58
ES 10/503:
Scope and content Some aspects of radiation from the fireball Covering dates 01/01/1958 - 31/12/1958 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) TPN 43/58
ES 10/520:
Scope and content Electromagnetic radiation during the early stages of a nuclear explosion: Part I; weapon asymmetry Covering dates 01/01/1958 - 31/12/1958 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) TPN 60/58
ES 10/782:
Scope and content Spherical implosions of D-T gas by metal tampers Covering dates 01/01/1960 - 31/12/1960 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 103/60
ES 10/960:
Scope and content On blowing bubbles in magnetic fields: size of cavity produced in the earth's magnetic field by a nuclear explosion at a great height Covering dates 01/01/1962 - 31/12/1962 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) TPN 55/62
ES 10/1007:
Scope and content Nature of the CASTLE shots Covering dates 01/01/1963 - 31/12/1963 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 12/63
ES 10/1008:
Scope and content Correlation of stage interval with weapon design Covering dates 01/01/1963 - 31/12/1963 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 13/63
ES 10/1105:
Scope and content Limitations on the fireball constant, set by British megaton test results Covering dates 01/01/1963 - 31/12/1963 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 3/64
ES 10/1106:
Scope and content Megaton-class Redwing devices Covering dates 01/01/1964 - 31/12/1964 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 4/64
ES 10/1107:
Scope and content Ablative implosion: some thermodynamical principles Covering dates 01/01/1964 - 31/12/1964 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 5/64
ES 10/1122:
Scope and content Interpretation of early debris motion in the STARFISH event Covering dates 01/01/1964 - 31/12/1964 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 20/64
ES 10/1136:
Scope and content Methods of calculation of U239/f for an unboosted fission weapon Covering dates 01/01/1964 - 31/12/1964 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 34/64
ES 10/1303:
Scope and content Computations of radio-flash from high yield nuclear bursts in the atmosphere Covering dates 01/01/1966 - 31/12/1966 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 17/66
ES 10/1311:
Scope and content Radioflash dependence on the prompt gamma ray decay rate Covering dates 01/01/1966 - 31/12/1966 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 26/66
ES 10/1319:
Scope and content Review of U237, U239 and U240 relations from the tamper of an unboosted device Covering dates 01/01/1966 - 31/12/1966 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 34/66
ES 10/1338:
Scope and content Representation of U237/f and tamper fissions Covering dates 01/01/1966 - 31/12/1966 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 54/66
ES 10/1343:
Scope and content Recent discussions in the US on the theory of radioflash from nuclear bursts Covering dates 01/01/1966 - 31/12/1966 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 59/66
ES 10/1525:
Scope and content Calculated prompt gamma outputs from a variety of devices Covering dates 01/01/1968 - 31/12/1968 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 25/68
ES 10/1535:
Scope and content R values Covering dates 01/01/1968 - 31/12/1968 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 35/68
ES 10/1588:
Scope and content MIKE and CASTLE devices and their later derivatives Covering dates 01/01/1969 - 31/12/1969 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 18/69
ES 10/1587:
Scope and content Particular calculations on the radioflash [EMP] from multi-stage ground bursts Covering dates 01/01/1969 - 31/12/1969 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 17/69
ES 10/1648:
Scope and content Nuclear weapon effects on radio and radar Covering dates 01/01/1969 - 31/12/1969 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) TPN 78/69
ES 10/1710:
Scope and content Alternative kill mechanisms and the corresponding ABM warheads in terminal defence, and their relative blackouts Covering dates 01/01/1970 - 31/12/1970 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 61/70
ES 10/1735:
Scope and content Radioflash from spark plug tests Covering dates 01/01/1970 - 31/12/1970 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 86/70
ES 10/1836:
Scope and content Ultraviolet fireball phenomenology from Checkmate photographs Covering dates 1971 Jan 01 - 1971 Dec 30 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 87/71
ES 10/1866:
Scope and content Survey of experimental data relating to beta patch black-out. Part 1: data from Hardtack and Fishbowl Covering dates 1972 Jan 01 - 1972 Dec 30 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 10/72
ES 10/1894:
Scope and content Calculation of required zipper [electronic vacuum tube alpha particle accelerator with beryllium target to produce neutrons] source strengths Covering dates 1972 Jan 01 - 1972 Dec 30 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 38/72
ES 10/1957:
Scope and content Radiation emission from a high altitude nuclear explosion Covering dates 1972 Jan 01 - 1972 Dec 30 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 101/72
ES 10/2196:
Scope and content Expansion modelling for high altitude nuclear explosions: Part 1; basic piston model number 1 Covering dates 1975 Jan 01 - 1975 Dec 30 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 67/75
ES 10/2204:
Scope and content Comparison of R values with experiment Covering dates 1975 Jan 01 - 1975 Dec 30 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) TPN 75/75
ES 4/525:
Scope and content Radio flash waveforms Covering dates 1962 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) O20/62
ES 4/1130:
Scope and content AWRE programs for computing the radio-flash from ground and atmospheric bursts Covering dates 1969 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) O33/69
ES 1/1105:
Scope and content Radio flash from atomic explosions: protection of missile launching equipment Covering dates 1959 Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4 Former reference (Department) 0323 Pt 3E
WO 195/14436 Physics and Physical Chemistry Committee: Radiological decontamination: An investigation of the absorption on fission isotopes into concrete(PTP(R)15) 1958
WO 195/14479 Physics and Physical Chemistry Committee: Radiological decontamination: Removal of dry fall-out from skin and clothing (PTP(R)16) 1958
WO 195/14611 Physics and Physical Chemistry Committee: note on collaboration with other organisations in the field of radiological decontamination 1959
WO 195/14669 Physics and Physical Chemistry Committee: radiological decontamination, further studies of the removal of dry fall-out from clothing (PTP(R)22) 1959
WO 195/14844 Physics and Physical Chemistry Committee: the decontamination of residential areas 1959
WO 195/14938 Service aspects of personal decontamination prophylaxis and therapy of CW agents 1960
WO 195/14966 Decontamination from CW agents 1960
WO 195/15058 Radiological decontamination clothing trials 1960
WO 195/15302 Radiological decontamination: fallout contamination during a rescue operation(PTP(R)38) 1961
WO 195/15317 Exhaust powered vacuum cleaner for radiological decontamination purposes (PTP(R)40) 1962
WO 195/15331 Radiological Decontamination of clothing (PTP(R)41) 1962
WO 195/15332 Radiological Decontamination: particle retention (PTP(R)42) 1962
WO 195/15337 Radiological decontamination of boots (PTP(R)43) 1962
WO 195/15346 Personal decontamination outfit 1962
WO 195/15348 Radiological decontamination: some basic research adhesion 1962
WO 195/15532 Use of powders in personal decontamination 1962
WO 195/15536 Personal decontamination 1963
WO 195/15537 Decontamination of equipment and stores 1963
WO 195/15647 Fullers earth as a decontaminating powder 1963
WO 195/15654 Progress statement on personal decontamination outfit 1963
WO 195/15669 Radiological decontamination of road surfaces by mechanical sweeper 1963
There are Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch files with declassified information on EMP damage caused by Nevada nuclear tests.
HO 338/115:
Scope and content Communications: effects of radiation on radio transmission and equipment Covering dates 1955-1963 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) SAN 19/1/1
HO 338/116
Scope and content Communications: effects of a nuclear attack on GPO communications Covering dates 1956-1964 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) SAN 19/3/1
Fire effects of a megaton thermonuclear weapon (taking account of thermal radiation shadowing by the skyline of a city before the delayed blast wave effect arrives):
HO 338/117:
Scope and content Fire Service Study 'Torquemada', 20-22 July 1959 Covering dates 1958-1960 Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years Former reference (Department) SAN 24/41/1,2
Additional National Archive reports on British nuclear tests, Maralinga, Australia:
WO 320/1 1956:
British atomic trials, Maralinga, Australia; photographs of Operation BUFFALO, A vehicles, Centurion tank Mk3 and Daimler Scout Car Mk2.
WO 320/2 1956:
British atomic trials, Maralinga, Australia; photographs of Operation BUFFALO, B vehicles, Bedford RLB 3 ton GS 4X4 truck, Rover 1/4 ton GS FFW 4x4 Mk3 truck and 7.62mm FN rifle.
WO 320/3 1957:
British atomic trials, Maralinga, Australia; photographs of Operation ANTLER, targets before and after firings.
DEFE16/57 1955
Operation TOTEM naval radiological measurement final report: part 1, polar distribution of gamma radiation.
DEFE16/58 1955
Operation TOTEM naval radiological measurement final report: part 2, energy of flash gamma radiation.
DEFE16/59 1955
Operation HURRICANE group reports: part 53, radiochemical analysis of a sample of fallout from Monte Bello.
DEFE16/60 1956
Operation TOTEM survey of residual contamination.
DEFE16/61 1956
Operation TOTEM survey of residual contamination.
DEFE16/62 1955
Operation TOTEM: naval radiological measurements final report part 5, protection afforded by a steel box.
DEFE16/63 1955
Operation TOTEM: response of high range quartz fibre dosimeters.
DEFE16/64 1955
Operation TOTEM: radiochemical analysis at Totem neutron flash.
DEFE16/65 1955
Operation TOTEM: fallout particles from Totem 1 and 2.
DEFE16/66 1955
Operation TOTEM: radiation surveys of Totem craters.
DEFE16/67 1956
Operation TOTEM: thermal measurements.
DEFE16/68 1956
Operation TOTEM: dust hazard during operation.
DEFE16/69 1957
Operation TOTEM: measurement of protection against gamma radiation afforded by slit trenches.
DEFE16/70 1957
Operation TOTEM: naval radiological measurements final report part 3, response of fluorescent glass flash gamma dosimeters.
DEFE16/71 1957
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: construction and operation of a field radiological decontamination centre.
DEFE16/72 1957
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: field trials of radiac instruments in a radioactively contaminated area.
DEFE16/73 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: shielding from initial radiation afforded by field-works and armoured fighting vehicles.
DEFE16/74 1957
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: decontamination of radioactively contaminated drinking water in the field.
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: effect on 1/19th scale storage tank roof panels.
DEFE16/108 1957
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: effect of blast on reinforced concrete slabs and relationship with static loading characteristics.
DEFE16/109 1957
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: effect of earth covers on resistance of trench shelter roofs.
DEFE16/110 1957
Operation BUFFALO: penetration of residual gamma radiation into structures.
DEFE16/111 1957
Operation BUFFALO: radiation survey of ground deposited radioactivity.
DEFE16/112 1957
Operation BUFFALO: remote measurement of variation with time of gamma dose rate from fallout.
DEFE16/113 1957
Operation BUFFALO: aerial survey of radioactivity deposited on ground.
DEFE16/114 1957
Operation BUFFALO: measurements of airborne radioactivity and ground contamination at 15 and 200 miles from ground zero.
DEFE16/115 1957
Operation BUFFALO: naval radiological measurements final report part 1, polar distribution of flash gamma radiation.
DEFE16/116 1957
Operation BUFFALO: atmospheric transmission measurements with a telephotometer.
DEFE16/117 1957
Operation BUFFALO: neutron measurements.
DEFE16/118 1957
Operation BUFFALO: measurement of gamma dose rate and beta/gamma ratio in radioactive cloud.
DEFE16/119 1957
Operation BUFFALO: heat measurements by simple thermal indicators.
DEFE16/120 1958
Operations MOSAIC and BUFFALO: handling, servicing and decontamination of radioactive aircraft.
DEFE16/121 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response test, Biology Target Response Group: part 4a, effect of an atomic explosion on medical supplies.
DEFE16/122 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response test, Biology Target Response Group: part 4b, effect of neutron and gamma irradiation on foodstuffs.
DEFE16/123 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Instrumentation Group: accelerations recorded on target response items.
DEFE16/124 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Instrumentation Group: effects on models and idealised targets.
DEFE16/125 1958
Operation BUFFALO: air shock measurements, rounds 1 and 2.
DEFE16/126 1958
Operation BUFFALO: target response tests, Biology Group; physiological effects of long duration blast waves.
DEFE16/127 1958
Operation ANTLER: theoretical predictions.
DEFE16/128 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: effect of a nuclear explosion on petrol pipelines.
DEFE16/129 1958
Operation ANTLER Target Response Group: use of radiac survey meters nos 2 and 3 in aerial surveys of radioactive areas.
DEFE16/130 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: Explosives Group, final report part 1, Introduction.
DEFE16/131 1958
Operation BUFFALO: measurements of blast pressures associated with various service and civil defence targets.
DEFE16/132 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 8b, effect of a nuclear explosion on jerry can stocks.
DEFE16/133 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 6, effect of thermal radiation from a nuclear explosion on service uniforms.
DEFE16/134 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 2, effect on textiles.
DEFE16/135 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Ordnance Group: part 1, general introduction.
DEFE16/136 1959
Operation KITTENS: fallout measurements, 1955.
DEFE16/137 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 4, effects on rubbers.
DEFE16/138 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 1, general introduction.
DEFE16/139 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 3, effects on plastics.
DEFE16/140 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Explosives Group; final report part 2, mines.
DEFE16/141 1958
Minor trials: particle size distribution in certain TIM clouds.
DEFE16/142 1958
Operation ANTLER: airborne sampling of radioactivity.
DEFE16/143 1958
Operation BUFFALO: theoretical predictions of cloud height and fallout.
DEFE16/144 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 5, effect on paints.
DEFE16/145 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 9a, effects on chemical warfare equipment; part 9b, effects on flame thrower fuel; part 9c, effects on aircraft windscreens.
DEFE16/146 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 7, effects on packaging materials.
DEFE16/147 1958
Operation BUFFALO: Ordnance Target Response Group; part 3, details of exposure of B vehicles.
DEFE16/148 1958
Operation BUFFALO: attempted decontamination of roofs by washdown.
DEFE16/149 1958
Operation BUFFALO: target response tests, Instrumentation Group; part 3, special instrumentation.
Operation ANTLER meteorological services: Vol 2, tables and figures.
DEFE16/155 1958
Minor trials: health physics report TIM series 3.
DEFE16/156 1958
Operation ANTLER: aerial survey of radioactivity deposited on the ground.
DEFE16/157 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Ordnance Group: Part 4, details of exposure and guns, mortars and rifles.
DEFE16/158 1958
Operation ANTLER: remote measurement of variation with time of gamma dose rate from fallout.
DEFE16/159 1958
Operation ANTLER: radiological survey operations in Alice Road area.
DEFE16/160 1959
Operation ANTLER: health physics services.
DEFE16/161 1959
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Ordnance Groups: Part 4b, AA guns and rifles.
DEFE16/162 1959
Operation ANTLER Target Response Group: recording techniques used in study of electromagnetic effect on ground radar equipment.
DEFE16/163 1959
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Biology Group: Part 5, entry of fission products into food chains.
DEFE16/164 1959
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Biology Group: Part 5, appendix A, location of sites at which vegetation, soil and rabbits were collected.
DEFE16/165 1959
Operation BUFFALO target response tests Biology Group: Part 3a, effects of blast on dummy men exposed in open.
DEFE16/166 1959
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Structures Group: effect on field defences, text.
DEFE16/167 1959
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Explosives Group final report: Part 3, effect on rocket motors and warheads.
DEFE16/168 1959
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Explosives Group final report: Part 5, demolition explosives and ancillary stores, simulated demolitions, pyrotechnic stores.
DEFE16/169 1959
Operation ANTLER: an attempt at measuring gamma flash spectrum.
DEFE16/170 1960
Operation ANTLER: Decontamination Group report, Parts 1-3.
DEFE16/171 1961
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: Explosives Group final report Part 6, fuses and pistols.
DEFE16/172 1960
Resuspension in the atmosphere of radioactive or other fine particulate material deposited on the ground.
DEFE16/173 1961
Operation AYRES: removal and disposal of a highly contaminated hot box and accessories at Maralinga Range.
DEFE16/174 1961
VIXEN A trials, 1959: experiments to study release of particulate material during combustion of plutonium, uranium and beryllium in a petrol fire.
DEFE16/175 1963
VIXEN A trials, 1959: measurements of dispersion and deposition of beryllium released during combustion in a petrol fire.
DEFE16/176 1963
Decontamination of cloud sampling aircraft.
DEFE16/177 1967
Operation BUFFALO target response tests Ordnance Group: Part 2, details of exposure of "A" vehicles.
DEFE16/178 1963
VIXEN B firings Maralinga Feb-Jun 1961: Contamination Group report.
DEFE16/179 1963
Dispersal of beryllium from experiments involving beryllium and HE.
DEFE16/180 1963
Operation AYRES 2: removal and disposal of a contaminated hot box and accessories at Maralinga Range.
DEFE16/181 1964
VIXEN A field experiments 1961: Part 1 experiments to study release of radioactive material from actinium oxide heated in a petrol fire to temperatures up to 100°C.
DEFE16/182 1965
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Explosives Group final report: Part 7, high explosives initiators and propellants.
DEFE16/183 1964
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Explosives Group final report: Part 4, artillery, small arms and mortar ammunition.
DEFE16/184 1966
Operation BUFFALO: thermal measurements.
DEFE16/185 1965
Operation ANTLER: air shock measurements.
DEFE16/671 1957
Notes and conclusions on experience arising from 1952 Monte Bello trials.
DEFE16/737 1952-1954
Decontamination of ships following an atomic attack.
DEFE16/933 1954
Anderson shelters.
DEFE16/935 1954
Penetration of gamma flash into Anderson shelters and concrete cubicles.
"By an amazing coincidence, the configuration resembles a peace symbol with Earth at its centre."
Yes, it's the CND symbol, invented in by Gerald Holtom for the march of the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War from London to Aldermaston, Easter 1958.
I think it's a good thing to have peace, but there are issues about how best to get there. (Simple disarmament was tried in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s, but it just encouraged enemy aggression.)
Nuclear winter has quite an interesting history. It started off with the comet impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. The comet forms a fireball when it collides with the atmosphere, and the thermal radiation is supposed to ignite enough tropical vegetation to produce a thick smoke cloud, freezing the ground and killing off many species.
The best soot to absorb solar radiation is that from burning oil, and Saddam tested this by igniting all of Kuwait's oil wells after the first Gulf War. Massive clouds of soot were produced, but the temperature drop was far less than "nuclear winter" calculations predicted occurred in the affected areas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Kuwait_wells_in_the_first_Gulf_War
The idea that a dark smoke layer will stop heat energy reaching the ground is naive because by conservation of energy, the dark smoke must heat up when it absorbs sunlight, and since it is dark in colour it is as good at radiating heat as absorbing it. So it passes the heat energy downwards as the whole cloud heats up, and when the bottom of the cloud has reached a temperature equilibrium with the top, it radiates heat down to the ground, preventing the dramatic sustained cooling.
Although there is a small drop in temperature at first, as when clouds obscure the sun, all the soot cloud will do in the long run is to reduce the daily temperature variation of the air from day to night, so that the temperature all day and all night will be fairly steady and close to the average of the normal daytime and nighttime temperatures.
The dinosaur extinction evidence, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_Crater, might be better explained by the direct effects of the comet impact: the air blast wave and thermal radiation effects on dinosaurs, and the kilometers-high tsunami. At the time the comet struck Chicxulub in Mexico with 100 TT (100,000,000 megatons or 100 million million tons) energy 65 million years ago, the continents were all located in the same area, see the map at http://www.dinotreker.com/cretaceousearth.html and would all have suffered severe damage from the size of the explosion. Most dinosaur fossils found are relatively close to the impact site on the world map 65 million years ago.
Another issue is that some proportion of the rock in the crater was calcium carbonate, which releases CO2 when heated in a fireball. If there was enough of it, the climatic effects would have been due to excessive heating, not cooling.
The "nuclear winter" idea relies on soot, not dust such as fallout (which is only about 1% of the crater mass, the remainder being fallback of rock and crater ejecta which lands within a few minutes). So it is basically an extension of the massive firestorms theory, which has many issues because modern cities don't contain enough flammable material per square kilometre to start a firestorm even when using thousands of incendiaries. In cases such as Hiroshima, the heavy fuel loading of the target area created a smoke cloud which carried up a lot of moisture that condensed in the cool air at high altitudes, bringing the soot back promptly to earth as a black rain.
Because this kind of thing is completely ignored by "nuclear winter" calculations, the whole "nuclear winter" physics looks artificial to me. In 1990, after several studies showed that TTAPS (Sagan et al.) had exaggerated the problem massively by their assumptions of a 1-dimensional model and so on, TTAPS wrote another paper in Science, where they sneakily modified the baseline nuclear targetting assumptions so that virtually all the targets were oil refineries. This enabled them to claim that a moderate cooling was still credible. However, the Kuwait burning oil wells experience a few years later did nothing to substantiate their ideas. Sagan did eventually concede there were faulty assumptions in the "nuclear winter" model, although some of his collaborators continue to write about it.
“Fission Fragments: Journal of Home Office Scientific Advisers's Branch and successors. The Journal Fission Fragments is produced for distribution to volunteer local authority scientific advisers, originally called 'Scientific Intelligence Officers'. It contains articles on all aspects of civil defence against conventional, nuclear, chemical and biological warfare.
“The journal Fission Fragments was first published by the Scientific Adviser's Branch in [March] 1961, and continues to be produced today by the present Scientific Research and Development Branch, for distribution to the volunteer local authority scientific advisers, originally called 'scientific intelligence officers'. Articles in the journal are written mainly by members of the branch, but have also been contributed by local authority scientific advisers and by the former Civil Defence Department of the Home Office: they range across all aspects of civil defence against conventional, nuclear, chemical and biological warfare. Publication is at irregular intervals, depending upon the availability of material and the importance of its early circulation.”
The National Archives only list issues 1-21, dated March 1961 (issue 1) to April 1977 (issue 21), but this “Restricted” classification journal was still being published in the 1980s by the Home Office Scientific Research and Development Branch (SRDB), London, for example “Fission Fragments” issue No. 37 was published in 1985 containing an article on page 49 concerning “SRDB research: blast trials in the USA.”
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Notes about a few important U.K. Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch research reports on nuclear weapons tests effects and fallout decontamination research:
HO 225/42 (National Archives reference): “Estimates, for exercise purposes, of the radio-active contamination of land areas from an adjacent underwater explosion”, 1953. Original Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch reference: CD/SA 42. This contains a stylised low-classification (restricted) version of the top secret British “Operation Hurricane” fallout pattern from 1952, redrawn in the form of simplified elliptical contours for use in civil defence planning. George R. Stanbury who prepared it had attended the “Operation Hurricane” nuclear test at Monte Bello to measure civil defence effects of the detonation, including blast, heat and nuclear radiation. The text accompanying the fallout pattern tries to justify the fact that the dose rates are much higher than those shown in the 1950 U.S. Atomic Energy Commission book “The Effects of Atomic Weapons” Figure 8.101 (Radiation dosage rate countours at 1 hour after explosion due to fission products from underwater burst) by stating that the American data is for contamination on ships and most of the rainout on the ships immediately ran off the decks and straight back into the sea water (where it was diluted and shielded by the relatively deep water). The British data is for “Operation Hurricane” fallout on islands in the Monte Bello group, Australia, and does not suffer from the problem of the American studies. However, it should also be noted that the British underwater test was 10 miles per hour effective wind (not 5 miles per hour in the case of fallout from the cloud head of the American Crossroads-Baker test), in much shallower depth in much shallower water than the American test, and was actually inside the hull of a ship (below the waterline). Hence, the British “Operation Hurricane” test data is for a situation more that is like a hybrid between a surface burst over mud and a shallow underground burst. “Operation Hurricane” was 25 kt, detonated 2.7 metres below the water line inside a 1,370 ton River class frigate (HMS Plym) anchored in 12 metres deep water, 350 metres off shore from Trimouille Island. Anderson shelters (World War II style outdoor civilian shelters) survived with just a few sandbags displaced on the island, and there are photos showing the ship in the background from the Anderson shelters before the test. The objective of this test was to evaluate the effect of a bomb smuggled near a city on the coast, hidden aboard a ship. The American “Crossroads-Baker” test of 1946 was a 23.5 kt bomb suspended by cable 90 feet below the water surface inside Bikini Lagoon, and hence detonated at mid-depth in 180 feet of water. Baker produced a base surge, Hurricane didn’t because the Hurricane depth of burst (2.7 metres under water) was simply too shallow for base surge formation. To make a base surge, a large bubble of steam must be formed under water. The escaping hot steam condenses into small radioactive droplets which under bulk subsidence, causing the base surge. A burst which is too shallow doesn’t produce a dense-enough cloud of small particles to subside and form a base surge.
HO 225/87 (National Archives reference): “Some recent information from USA about fallout from groundburst megaton weapons”, 1957. Original Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch reference: CD/SA 87. This report is in turn based on data from a September 1957 report by Dr Frank H. Shelton called “Physical Aspects of Fall-Out”, summarising the effects of the American “Operation Redwing” nuclear tests of 1956 at Bikini Atoll. Of particular significance are reproductions of the fallout distribution pattern from the “Redwing-Tewa” surface burst test, and a map of the toroidal shaped radioactivity distribution within the actual mushroom cloud, based on data from rockets sent through the mushroom cloud containing radiation meters and radio transmitters. In addition, the report notes that fallout begins to arrive on the ground near ground zero about 15-20 minutes after a 1 megaton land surface burst or 30-40 minutes after a 1 megaton water surface burst.
HO 225/100 “The hazards from direct exposure to fallout in a damaged area”, 1960. Original Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch reference: CD/SA 100. This report is a summary of beta burn risks to skin, involving studies of the concentration of fallout on skin relative to the ground, and estimates of the beta dosage to the skin and the risk of delayed beta radiation burns resulting from that exposure.
HO 225/117, “Experimental determination of protective factors in a semi-detached house with or without core shelters”, 1964. Original Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch reference: CD/SA 117. This report led to the “Protect and Survive” advice because it proved that adequate fallout radiation protection can be assembled in an inner core within a typical British brick-built house (American wood frame houses offer less protection).
"Dr Harold L. Brode in his May 1964 report A Review of Nuclear Explosion Phenomena Pertinent to Protective Construction (the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California, report R-425-PR) had suggested that the transmittivity of the atmosphere is about T = (1 + 1.4R/V)e^{-2R/V}, where R is distance from detonation and V is atmospheric distinct visibility distance. But a later paper of Brode's, A Review of the Physics of Large Urban Fires, co-authored with Dr Richard D. Small, quotes the substantially greater attenuation of thermal radiation suggested by the empirical green light transmission formula, T = (1 + 1.9R/V)e^{-2.9R/V}, from M. G. Gibbons' August 1966 report Transmissivity of the Atmosphere for Thermal Radiation from Nuclear Weapons (U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, USNRDL-TR-1060)."
Dr Brode's May 1964 report A Review of Nuclear Explosive Phenomena Pertinent to Protective Construction, RAND Corp. report R-425-PR cites the source of the thermal transmission formula T = (1 + 1.4R/V)e^{-2R/V} as being a paper by M. G. Gibbons in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Project Harbor (Group B) September 1963 report Future Weapons and Weapon Effects.
Brode also writes on pages 11-12:
"Such degrading factors as attenuating clouds, smoke, haze, fog, dust, or chance shielding by intervening topography, structures, or natural growth further limit the coverage and the exposure at great distances from surface or low-altitude bursts. At a number of miles from low-altitude or surface bursts, even ones of large yield, these combined effects of atmospheric attenuation and obscuration by surrounding terrain features very greatly degrade the thermal loads to exposed surfaces.
"Even closer, at the higher levels, heavy thermal damage to protective structures is not expected, since the duration of the heating is too short for appreciable heat conduction beyond the surface layers of exposed materials. ...
"Inside the fireball the hot air enveloping a protected structure produces a very corrosive environment, but even here, the transient nature of the thermal load works to limit the damage. At typical fireball temperatures, the air itself does not readily transport the radiant energy, and the first vaporized material [evaporation or "blowoff"] from the surfaces forms a protective screen that inhibits the subsequent flow of heat to the remaining solid surface. calculations of thermal damage are necessarily complicated by such obscuration considerations, but observed effects are indeed negligible relative to what simple heat-transfer notions would predict."
According to page 349 of David Edgerton’s book “Warfare State: Britain, 1920-1970” (Cambridge University Press, 2005), Dr R. H. Purcell (mentioned in this blog post as being the Home Office’s Chief Scientific Advisor during the 1950s and up to 1962), was the chief of the Royal Naval Scientific Service from 1962-1968, and was formerly an academic at London University’s Imperial College.
"Ignoring these other volunteer run organizations organized by the Government, and just focussing on the numbers of recruits in the basic Civil Defence Corps, statistics are available which show that the number of members increased from 24,649 by May 1950 (according to the The Times 4 May 1950, p 8) to 205,392 by August 1952 (The Times 15 August 1952, p 3), and peaked at 336,265 by May 1956 (The Times, 2 May 1956, p 6). Membership remained over 300,000 at the time of the Cuban missiles crisis in October 1962, but dropped below 300,000 in 1963, was only 211,570 in November 1964 (The Times, 26 November 1964, p 8), and reached 122,000 by December 1966 (The Times, 15 December 1966, p 6). The Civil Defence Corps was closed in 1968."
However, page 42 of Diane Diacon's 146 pages long book Residential Housing and Nuclear Attack, Building and Social Housing Foundation, published by Routledge, London, in 1984, states:
"In 1961 the Civil Defence Corps had a peak of 375,000 members - membership decreased rapidly thereafter and it was disbanded in 1968. There were 19,000 members of the Auxiliary Fire Service (also disbanded in 1968), 55,000 in the Special Constabulary and 70,000 in the NHS reserve. 4,000 units in the Industrial Civil Defence Service have also since disappeared."
I cannot at this time confirm that the figure just quoted for Civil Defence Corp membership in 1961 is accurate. The published figures in The Times indicated a peak membership in 1956, not 1961.
A concise brief history of the origin of British Civil Defence (initially called Air Raid Precautions, ARP) is given on page 2 of the New Zealand Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management publication CIVIL DEFENCE IN NEW ZEALAND, A SHORT HISTORY:
"The development of a civil defence organisation in Britain can be traced not to natural disaster, but to the introduction of aerial bombing during the First World War. In 1924 an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) subcommittee of the Committee of Imperial Defence was set up to study how to safeguard the civilian population from such bombing. The committee and other such bodies continued to explore the matter until the increasingly threatening international situation in the mid 1930s made urgent the implementation of an air raid protection and civil defence plan. The birth of organized civil defence in Britain came in 1935, with a Cabinet vote of £100,000 for ARP equipment.
"In the same year, an ARP department was set up in the Home Office to co-ordinate the efforts of all the government departments involved with defence against air raids. In 1935 the government also asked local authorities to assist in establishing local ARP organisations, and in 1938 Cabinet Minister Sir John Anderson was given responsibility for the ARP department."
Just an update about the Home Office "Fission Fragments" magazine issue number 21, April 1977: the National Archives page on the file was updated on 1 Jan 2008 to show that from that date, it is no longer being retained in the department on security grounds. So it has now been officially declassified and released under the 30-year-rule.
Another important declassified Home Office publication is: "Police War Duties Manual", H. M. Stationery Office, London, 1965 (originally classified "Restricted: This manual should not be shown to anyone outside the police service").
The introduction on pages 5-6 states:
"The purpose of the Government's defence policy is to prevent war; but until there is general disarmament a possibility of nuclear attack on this country remains.
"If nuclear war should come, casualties and damage would be on a vast scale; but there would also be many millions of survivors. These people would be in urgent need of help which could be given efficiently only if advance planning had taken place and people knew how to look after themselves and others. Survival would depend largely upon the action taken by individual men and women.
"The first need is to have warning of an attack, and on that threat to keep the public calm, advised and supervised, so that they can take such precautions as will ensure maximum survival. The next need is for information about the effects of nuclear bursts. After this, nearly all other home defence measures are based on the need to bring surviving resources and organisations under control with the broad objects, first of maintaining a framework of administration, second of preserving law and order and third of ensuring that food, fuel, drugs and other resources were used to the best advantage.
"There would be little prospect that the communications required for peacetime systems of administration would survive even if the central and local authorities and organisations themselves escaped. The aim of the Government's plans is therefore to decentralise authority to regional seats of government and subordinate controls so that services and resources may be employed most advantageously: first to save trapped and injured persons, then to aid survivors, and later to reestablish an ordered way of life and to reconstruct the country."
Much of the manual is a very concise and useful summary of nuclear weapons effects and protective measures against them, including on page 99 a brief summary of the quantitative effects of underwater bursts in shallow and deep water (this information not included in the unclassified Home Office civil defence publications).
Paragraphs 5.5-5.7 on page 37 states:
"Police forces will require a considerable increase in manpower to carry out their duties. Police strengths will therefore be augmented by the enrolment of temporary constables, who will have the full powers of regular police officers. ... The Special Constabulary and the First Police Reserve will, where possible, be called upon for extended periods of service in war."
Paragraphs 10.42-10.43 on pages 72-73 state:
"Because of the danger from fall-out after nuclear attack, the public should, so far as possible, be kept under cover in their own homes. People who were forced out of their homes because of blast damage or fires would have to find the first available shelter - and this might be no more than temporary cover under some half-ruined building. When the fall-out situation permitted movement to take place, the homeless would be directed by police and wardens out of the damaged areas to places where rest centres could operate. The problem of the homeless, who would be reduced to an appalling condition, both physical and mental, would be enormous.
"The main objects of planning are to provide for the minimum needs of the homeless and to get them billeted quickly. As soon as the fall-out situation permitted, the homeless would have to be brought together in rest centres or exceptionally at preliminary collecting points. It is intended that there should be at least as many prepared rest centres as warden posts. Also auxiliary and improvised rest centres would be established as need arose. Each rest centre would provide shelter and warmth, refreshments, sanitation and washing, first aid, clothing and advice and information, prior to billeting."
I want to publish the review that the British Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch did of Dr Carl F. Dr Miller's 1963 Stanford Research Institute report "Fallout and Radiological Countermeasures". It shows just how important that report was for planning in this country. I read that review around 1992. Later I bought Dr Miller's report from NTIS in microfilm print-out. It is the key report, the only calculation of the actual mass of fallout produced by a surface burst, the fractionation of the different products on the fallout as it condenses while the fireball cools, and the effects of fractionation on the decay rate and decontamination effectiveness. So it answered all the concerns and questions the British Home Office had about fallout and enabled them to formulate their civil defence planning against fallout with a lot more confidence than they would otherwise have had, which eventually led to the U.K./ civil defence assault against Soviet funded WPC propaganda in 1980. The refusal to give in to Soviet propaganda and intimidation caused the Soviet union to go financially and then politically bankrupt (Gorbachev had to cut military spending when it went militarily bankrupt), and they were already morally bankrupt.
I gather from the reports which I read that when Dr Miller moved from NRDL to SRI around 1960, Dr Edward C. Freiling came in to NRDL from outside and took over Miller's former position at NRDL. Freiling initially made a complete mess of the fractionation analysis, publishing a paper in Science journal in 1961 which added confusion by plotting the data in a useless way (Miller corrects Freiling's data in his 1963 report, and in subsequent reports on fractionation Freiling used Miller's 1963 study, citing it). I think the decision was taken to close down NRDL around 1969 when the fractionation question had been sorted out and the fallout from surface bursts was fully understood. To my mind, the fact that Dr Freiling tried falsely to deal with fractionation by an empirical correlation scheme instead of working out the mechanisms for the fission product separation in the fireball, indicates that Dr Miller's model for the mechanisms was unique and extremely important, and probably would not have been done properly by others if he hadn't been so motivated from his field experience of collecting and analyzing fallout.
Accession Number : AD0410522 Title : FALLOUT AND RADIOLOGICAL COUNTERMEASURES, VOLUME 1 Corporate Author : STANFORD RESEARCH INST MENLO PARK CA Personal Author(s) : Miller, Carl F. Handle / proxy Url : http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/AD410522 Report Date : JAN 1963 Pagination or Media Count : 402
Abstract : The major purpose of this report is to outline and discuss these physical processes and the important parameters on which they depend. The data, data analyses, data correlation schemes, and discussions presented here are organized to emphasize size basic principles so that an appropriate methodology can be applied in evaluating the radiological consequences of nuclear war. An explosion of any kind, detonated near the surface of the earth, causes material to be thrown up or drawn into a chimney of hot rising gases and raised aloft. In a nuclear explosion, two important processes occur: (1) radioactive elements, which are produced and vaporized in the process, condense into or on this material; and (2) a large amount of non-radioactive material, rises thousands of feet into the air before the small particles begin to fall back. This permits the winds to scatter them over large areas of the earth's surface. Thus, when the particles reach the surface of the earth they are far from their place of origin and contain, within or on their surface, radioactive elements. Whether they are solid particles produced from soil minerals, or liquid (salt- containing) particles produced from sea water, they are called fallout. The composition of fallout can be described in terms of two or three components. One is the inactive carrier; this consists of the environmental material at the location of the detonation and is the major component in a near-surface detonation. The second component includes all the radioactive elements in the fallout.
The British Home Office report reviewing in great detail Dr Carl F. Miller's 1963 Stanford Research Institute report "Fallout and Radiological Countermeasures volume 1" is:
Here is more information about the U.K. Home Office Fission Fragments journal, edited by Peter R. Bentley and others. Issue 1 was dated March 1961, and the U.K. National Archives at Kew holds issues 1-21 (issue 21 was dated April 1977, and gives information about the 1974 NATO version of Dolan's secret Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Department of Defense manual DNA-EM-1).
According to Fission Fragments issue No. 30 of January 1982, the U.K. Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch (SAB) had ceased to exist as an independent unit of the Home Office as of that date, and had been replaced by a merged group, the Scientific Research and Development Branch (SRDB) within the Police Department of the Home Office, responsible for police science as well as civil defence research.
Fission Fragments No. 31, June 1982, states on p. 3 that the Home Office had placed an order for 79,000 portable digital electronic geiger counters of 0.1-300 cGy/hr in tissue gamma range (0.1-300 rad/hr) PDRM82s and 1,050 fixed versions of the same instrument with external detector heads for shelters. The design for the PDRM82 manufactured by Plessey Controls was scheduled to be finalized in October 1982.
Fission Fragments No. 32 was dated December 1982 (no particularly interesting content).
Fission Fragments No. 33, July 1983 states on page 4:
“All Scientific Advisers will be aware of the publicity surrounding the BMA’s press conference on 3rd March introducing their Report entitled ‘Medical Effects of Nuclear War’. (Since published as a paperback by John Wylie).
“In the Home Office view this report is misleading in two important respects. First it dwells on what can only properly be regarded as one possibility out of many in a future war: a strategic nuclear strike at the United Kingdom aimed at our Conurbations as well as at our military capability to wage war. Secondly, the BMA Report draws attention to discrepancies between US and UK casualty rate predictions. Although SRDB damage and injury models are under review, we do not accept that the US figures are directly applicable to the UK.”
Fission Fragments No. 34 was dated March 1984 (no particularly interesting content).
Fission Fragments No. 35 was dated November 1984 and is an index of the contents from issues 17-34 (there was a previous index of articles from early issues in issue 16). It states on page 1 that issues 1-21 and one article in issue 22, were classified “Restricted”, but not later issues which are unclassified (and have generally far less interesting content).
Fission Fragments No. 36, March 1985 contains an interesting article on pages 10-21 by Professor J. H. Martin of the Department of Medical Biophysics, Dundee University, “Some Recent Publications on Radiological Effects” which criticises Joseph Rotblat’s 1981 book “Nuclear Radiation in Warfare” as follows:
“In Fig 7 (p. 35) NRW shows a curve which is said relates probability of death to dose. This is taken from an American publication, but NRW fails to realise that the curve was obtained for people already ill (leukaemia patients) before irradiation, hence the exceedingly low value of 250 rads for the LD50. In addition, NRW extrapolates the curve to dose values below 100 rads so showing mortality at dose levels where few people would even be sick. It is even suggested (page 36) that the curve could, in practice, be further to the left (i.e., towards lower doses.”
Note that Martin failed to notice that the equation given by Joseph Rotblat’s 1981 book “Nuclear Radiation in Warfare” for specific activity is wrong! Rotblat was poorly informed on his own specialist professional subject, due in part to the bias with which he conducted his Nobel Prize winning propaganda research against the facts.
Fission Fragments No. 37 was dated October 1985, contains an article on “SRDB [Scientific Research and Development Branch] research: blast trials in the USA”, page 49.
Fission Fragments No. 38 was dated September 1986 (no particularly interesting content).
Fission Fragments No. 39 was dated June 1987: announces the September 1986 report by Dr S. Hadjipavlou and Dr G Carr-Hill “A Review of the Blast Casualty Rules Applicable to UK Houses” (Home Office Scientific Research and Development Branch report 34/86).
Fission Fragments No. 40 was dated December 1987 (no particularly interesting content).
Fission Fragments No. 41 was dated July 1988 (no particularly interesting content).
Fission Fragments No. 42 was dated January 1989 (no particularly interesting content).
Fission Fragments No. 43 was dated October 1989 (no particularly interesting content).
Fission Fragments No. 44 was dated December 1990: it discusses the British nuclear test data on fallout gamma radiation shielding by buildings from the 1957 nuclear tests of Operation ANTLER in Australia, which was earlier partially and briefly summarized in Fission Fragments issue 10 of 1967 on pages 21-27, comparing this British fallout shielding data to American Nevada nuclear test fallout gamma shielding data from the report by W. F. Titus, “Operation PLUMBBOB: Penetration into concrete of gamma radiation from fall-out”, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, nuclear weapon test report WT-1477, 1960.
Fission Fragments No. 45 was dated February 1992: this is apparently the last issue of Fission Fragments as the U.K. Cold War civil defence infrastructure was closed down to save money in the economic recession. It contains some interesting fragments of information. E.g., it makes the point clearly that outside (1 m height) in a fallout area, 90% of gamma dose is direct gamma rays coming from fallout on the ground over a wide area around you (so 90% is coming almost horizontally at you from a median distance of 15 metres on smooth ground, less on rough ground) and only 10% of the dose is gamma rays coming down due to Compton effect air scatter, so-called "skyshine". Hence getting in a below-ground open trench which shields virtually all of the predominantly horizontal direct gamma rays, will at most expose you to just the 10% of the radiation from skyshine plus the trivial gamma dose from the relatively small fallout which lands beside you in the trench. In fact, if the trench is narrow, not even all of the skyshine gamma dose will be received because you will be exposed to less than the whole sky, so high levels of protection are possible with knowledge of the fallout gamma dose distribution physics. This issue of Fission Fragments also notes that Health Physics, vol. 52, No. 5, in 1987 was a special issue on the evidence for radiation HORMESIS (“a little radiation dose is good for you”).
Hello Nigel, I'm the same person who asked you for your assistance with the wiki nuclear winter page, I was just wondering, because I can't access it, if you could supply the pdf of this nuclear winter relevant document: Effects of atomic bomb on Hiroshima.Vol. 1 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATLN=6&CATID=3055077&FullDetails=True&j=1&Gsm=2008-08-08
Please respond to this address jleydenco@yahoo[dot]com Thank you, I hope you receive this mail in good health.
Please see page 24 of http://www.quantumfieldtheory.org/Fire_Effects_of_Bombing_Attacks.pdf
"A large proportion of over 1,000 persons questioned were in agreement that a great majority of the original fires were started by debris falling on kitchen charcoal fires, by industrial process fires, or by electrical short circuits [in an era before modern circuit breakers and fire sprinklers]."
It's dangerous for health having a Wikipedia tit for tat argument with religiously dogmatic believers that in the false theory that Hiroshima's firestorm exterminated life on earth. If they can't be bothered to read the report 92 of the USSBS, they're ignorant, and need to first read it before starting a discussion. Also see AD673703 (Jerald Hill, RAND Corp paper P-2414), pages 5 and 9:
"... the burned out areas {Hiroshima} ... were much less than would be predicted by the primary ignition experiments in the Nevada ... not all potential sources ignite because many are shadowed from the thermal radiation and of those which do ignite, many are not close enough to heavier fuels ..."
Also note that the American manuals only consider humidity effects on THIN fuels, not humidity effects on thicker secondary fuels which ignited think fuels must ignite!!!
This error means that they exaggerate the risk ignited paper going on to ignite a piece of wood. If both are damp to the same extent, the thermal flash can dry out and ignite the paper (THIN fuel) far more easily than it can dry out the wood. Simply, the wood won't ignite. The humidity in all river or ocean based cities (almost all cities are near a water source like a river, lake or the coast) is typically 70% or more, compared to under 30% for Nevada.
This has little effect (only a factor of about 2) on ignition energies for paper, but a MASSIVE effect on the chance of igniting thick wood!!
I'm very busy on a quantum gravity paper, but will return to this asap.
I have a set of the atomic air burst explosion damage posters showing streets in London before and after the explosions but they are different pictures to the ones on this site . Do they have any value ? Thanks Mark Marktuney@aol.com
Are the b/w photographs of WWII damage correlated to equivalent nuclear explosion overpressures, or colour artist illustrations? Could you take photos of them please?
The text of the 15 by 10 inch Jaunary 1964 H.M. Stationery Office printed posters shown at the top of this post is:
ReplyDeleteDEFENCE REGULATIONS
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
BILLETING
The Government has announced that the dispersal of people in priority classes from certain large towns shall be put into effect immediately.
The area covered by the ........... Council is a receptopn area to which some of these people are being brought.
Occupiers of housing property in this area are required by law to provide accommodation for any persons assigned to them by the Billeting Officer. Every effort will be made to spread the burden of billeting fairly and equally between households.
It may be necessary to carry out billeting at night as well as day-time. Your co-operation in this emergency is requested.
An allowance will be paid to occupiers for the accommodation provided. To claim this you will need a billeting allowance order form. Watch the bottom of this notice for further information about how to obtain the form.
Clerk of the Council
The poster above, as well as that below, contains spaces to be filled in by hand.
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
DISPERSAL OF CIVILIAN POPULATION
.................... Council
The Government has announced that the voluntary dispersal of the following classes of persons from this area to reception areas in other parts of the country shall be put into effect immediately
1. Children under 18
Children of this age must be taken by their mothers, or by another responsible adult if their mother cannot go. Only in exceptional circumstances will children be allowed to go on their own. (EXAMPLE: if neither of their parents can go because of ill health and there is no one else to take them.)
2. Children between 15 and 18 if still at school full-time
Children in this class may either go with their mothers or on their own. In exceptional circumstances they may go with another responsible adult. (EXAMPLE: a handicapped child whose mother is too ill to go.)
3. Children between 15 and 18 who have left school
Children in this class should go on their own. Only in exceptional circumstances may they be accompanied. (EXAMPLE: if they are handicapped, or if the mother is taking younger children.)
4. Expectant mothers
5. Blind, crippled or aged and infirm people
Only if they are dependent on the help of a person who is a mother of the classes summarised above and who is travelling under the scheme.
...
Clerk of the Council
The leaflet is similar in content to this last poster, and would have been given to each evacuee together with a travel pass.
The 1964 posters can be compared to the July 1939 evacuation leaflet issued when Britain's relations with Nazi Germany were on the verge of WWII:
ReplyDeleteEvacuation
Why and How?
Public Information Leaflet No. 3
Read this and keep it carefully. You may need it.
Issued from the Lord Privy Seal’s Office July 1939
Why evacuation?
There are still a number of people who ask “What is the need for all this business about evacuation? Surely if war comes it would be better for families to stick together and not go breaking up their homes?”
It is quite easy to understand this feeling, because it is difficult for us in this country to realise what war in these days might mean. If we were involved in war, our big cities might be subjected to determined attacks from the air – at any rate in the early stages – and although our defences are strong and are rapidly growing stronger, some bombers would undoubtedly get through.
We must see to it then that the enemy does not secure his chief objects – the creation of anything like panic, or the crippling dislocation of our civil life.
One of the first measures we can take to prevent this is the removal of the children from the more dangerous areas.
The Government Evacuation Scheme
The government have accordingly made plans for the removal from what are called “evacuable” areas to safer places called “reception” areas, of school children, children below school age if accompanied by their mothers or other responsible persons, and expectant mothers and blind persons.
The scheme is entirely a voluntary one, but clearly the children will be much safer and happier away from the big cities where the dangers will be greatest.
There is room in the safer areas for these children; householders have volunteered to provide it. They have offered homes where the children will be made welcome. The children will have their school teachers and other helpers with them and their schooling will be continued.
What you have to do
Schoolchildren:
Schoolchildren would assemble at their schools when told to do so and would travel together with their teachers by train. The transport of some 3,000,000 in all is an enormous undertaking. It would not be possible to let all parents know in advance the place to which each child is to be sent but they would be notified as soon as the movement is over.
If you have children of school age, you have probably already heard from the school or the local education authority the necessary details of what you would have to do to get your child or children take away. Do not hesitate to register you children under this scheme, particularly if you are living in a crowded area. Of course it means heartache to be separated from your children, but you can be quite sure that they will be looked after. That will relieve you of one anxiety at any rate. You cannot wish, if it is possible to evacuate them, to let your children experience the dangers and fears of an air attack in crowed cities.
Children under five:
Children below school age must be accompanied by their mothers or some other responsible person. Mothers who wish to go away with such children should register with the local authority. Do not delay in making enquiries about this.
A number of mothers in certain areas have shown reluctance to register. Naturally, they are anxious to stay by their men folk. Possibly they are thinking that they might wait as well wait and see; that it might not be so bad after all. Think this over carefully and think of your child or children in good time. Once air attacks have begun it might be very difficult to arrange to get away.
Expectant mothers:
Expectant mothers can register at any maternity or child welfare centre. For any further information inquire at your town hall.
The Blind:
In the case of the blind, registration to come under the scheme can be secured through the home visitors, or enquiry may be made at the town hall.
Private Arrangements:
If you have made private arrangements for getting away your children to relatives or friends in the country, or intend to make them, you should remember that while the government evacuation scheme is in progress ordinary railway and road services will necessarily be drastically reduced and subject to alteration at short notice. Do not, therefore, in an emergency leave your private plans to be carried out at the last moment. It may then be too late.
If you happen to be away on holiday in the country or at the seaside and an emergency arises, do not attempt to take your children back home if you live in an “evacuable” area.
Work must go on:
The purpose of evacuation is to remove from the crowded and vulnerable centres, if an emergency should arise, those, more particularly the children, whose presence cannot be of assistance.
Everyone will realise that there can be no question of wholesale clearance. We are not going to win a war by running away. Most of us will have work to do, and work that matters, because we must maintain the nation’s life and the production of munitions and other material essential to our war effort. For most of us therefore, who do not go off to the Fighting Forces our duty will be to stand by our jobs or those new jobs which we may undertake in war.
Some people have asked what they ought to do if they have no such definite work or duty.
You should be very sure before deciding that there is really nothing you can do. There is opportunity for a vast variety of services in civil defence. You must judge whether in fact you can or cannot help by remaining. If you are sure you cannot, then there is every reason why you should go away if you can arrange to do so, but you take care to avoid interfering with the official evacuation plans. If you are proposing to use the public transport services, make your move either before the evacuation of children begins or after it has been completed. You will not be allowed to use transport required for the official evacuation scheme and other essential purposes, and you must not try to take accommodation which is required for the children and mothers under the government scheme.
For the rest, we must remember that it would be essential that the work of the country should go on. Men and women alike will have to stand firm, to maintain our effort for victory. Such measures of protection as are possible are being pushed forward for the large numbers who have to remain at their posts. That they will be ready to do so, no one doubts.
The “evacuable” areas under the government scheme are: London including West Ham, East Ham, Walthamstow, Leyton, Ilford and Barking in Essex; Tottenham, Hornsey, Willesden, Acton and Edmonton in Middlesex; the Medway towns of Chatham, Gillingham and Rochester; Portsmouth, Gosport and Southampton; Birmingham, Smethwick; Liverpool, Bootle, Birkenhead and Wallasey; Manchester and Salford; Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford and Hull; Newcastle and Gateshead; Edinburgh, Rosyth, Glasgow, Clydebank and Dundee.
In some of these places only certain areas will be evacuated. Evacuation may be effected from a few other places in addition to the above, of which notice will be given.
It should be noted that this 1939 leaflet was accompanied with others on food rationing in war:
Civil Defence
Your food in war-time
Public information leaflet no. 4
Read this and keep it carefully. You may need it.
Issued from the Lord Privy Seal’s Office July 1939.
Your food in war-time:
You know that our country is dependent to a very large extent on supplies of food from overseas. More than 20 million tons are brought into our ports from all parts of the world in the course of a year. Our defence plans must therefore provide for the protection of our trade routes by which these supplies reach us, for reserves of food here and for the fair distribution of supplies, both home and imported, as they become available.
What the government has done:
During the last eighteen months the government has purchased considerable reserves of essential foodstuffs which are additional to the commercial stocks normally carried. This is one of the precautionary measures which has been taken to build up our resources to meet the conditions of war. In addition, the necessary arrangements have been made to control the supply and distribution of food throughout the country immediately upon the outbreak of hostilities and to bring in such measures of rationing as may be required.
How can you help?
There are certain ways in which traders and households can help to strengthen our food position at the present time.
In the ordinary way, the stocks of food in any area are based on the extent of local demand, or the size of the local population. In wartime, the amount of stocks in any area might be affected by air raid damage, or the flow of supplies might be reduced temporarily by transport difficulties.
As an additional precaution against difficulties of this kind, traders will be doing a good service now by maintaining, and if possible increasing, their stocks, so far as they can. You, too, as an ordinary householder, will be doing a good service if you can manage to get in some extra stores of food that will keep. These will be a stand-by against an emergency. Of course, there are many of us who cannot do this, but those who can will find, if a strain is put at any time on local supplies, that such reserves will not only be a convenience to themselves but will help their neighbours. By drawing on these reserves instead of making demands on the shops at such a time, they would leave the stocks available for the use of those who have not been able to put anything by.
For those who have the means, a suitable amount of foodstuffs to lay by would be the quantity that they ordinarily use in one week. The following are suggested as articles of food suitable for householder’s storage:
Meat and fish in cans or in glass jars; flour; suet; canned or dried milk; sugar; tea; cocoa; plain biscuits.
When you have laid in your store, you should draw on it regularly for day-to-day use, replacing what you use by new purchases, so that the stock in your cupboard is constantly being changed. Flour and suet in particular should be replaced frequently. You may find it helpful to label the articles with the date of purchase. Any such reserves should be brought before an emergency arises. To try to buy extra quantities when an emergency is upon us, would be unfair to others.
Food supplies for evacuation:
The government evacuation scheme, of which you have already been told, will mean a considerable shift of population from the more vulnerable areas to safer areas. This will lead to additional demands on shops in the reception areas. Traders have been asked to have plans in readiness for increasing the supplies in shops in reception areas to meet the needs of the increased population. It would, however, take a day or two for these plans to be put into full operation.
The government are, therefore, providing emergency supplies for the children and others travelling under the official evacuation scheme. These supplies would be issued to them on their arrival in their new areas and would be sufficient for two days. Those who receive them will be asked not to make purchases, other than small ones, in the local shops during these two days.
Those making their own arrangements to travel, should take food with them sufficient for two days, and should buy in advance, as part of their arrangements, the non-perishable food which they would require. As already said, anyone who, in times of emergency, buys more than normal quantities, would be doing harm, as such buying must draw on stocks, which should be available to others.
National house keeping in war-time:
Central Control:
Should war come, the government would take over responsibility for maintaining the main food supplies for the country, and for distributing them through all the stages down to the consumer. This would ensure that every precaution could be taken against wartime risks. The prices of food would be controlled and supplies directed wherever they were needed.
For this purpose, the existing organisation of the food trades would be used so far as possible, and all food traders – importers, manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers – would work under the direction of the Ministry of Food. The Ministry would act for the benefit of the country as a whole and be assisted by representatives of the various trades.
In each area food control would be in the hands of a local committee, which would be set up at the outbreak of war. The membership of these committees would be chosen to represent the general body of consumers in the area. It would include a few retail traders who possess a first-hand working knowledge of trading conditions.
The principal duty of these local Food Control Committees would be to look after the interests of the consumers. They will also be responsible for supervising retail distribution. Shopkeepers would be licensed to trade by these committees. Ordinarily, all existing shops would receive these licenses. New shops would not be opened unless there was a need for them
Shopkeepers would be instructed that they must not supply excessive quantities to any of their customers, and powers would be taken to prevent people from buying more than their responsible share. Maximum prices would be fixed by the Ministry for each controlled food, and would be shown clearly in shop windows.
Rationing Scheme:
Certain foods, soon after the outbreak of war, would be brought under a rationing scheme similar to that, which was introduced during the latter part of the Great War. In the first instance, rationing would be applied to five foodstuffs – butcher’s meat, bacon, ham, sugar, butter, margarine, and cooking fats. Later, it might be necessary to add other articles.
The object of this scheme is to make certain foodstuffs are distributed fairly and equally and that everyone is sure of his or her proper share.
Before rationing begins application forms would be sent through the post to every householder, who would be asked to give particulars of everyone living in his home. These forms, when filled in, would be returned to the local food office set up by the local Food Control Committee, which would issue the ration books, one for each person.
You would then register at a retail shop of your own choice for each rationed food. This registration is necessary to enable the local committee to know the quantities of rationed foods, which each shop would require. There is no need to register with a shop in peacetime. It is not advisable to do so.
The ration books would have coupons, a certain number for each week. The Ministry would decide how much food each coupon represented, and you would be entitled to but that amount. In the case of meat, the amount would be expressed in money. Thus, you could choose between buying a larger amount of a cheaper cut, or a smaller one of a more expensive cut. In the case of other foods, the amount would be by weight.
For children under six years of age, there would be a child’s ration book, but the only difference would be that a child would be allowed half the amount of butcher’s meat allowed for a grown-up person. On the other hand, the allowance for a heavy worker will give him a larger quantity of meat. For catering and other institutions, special arrangements will be made.
These are the plans for our national housekeeping in wartime. Like all plans for our civil defence they need your help. In wartime, there would be no food to waste, but with your care and co-operation we shall have enough.
There was also a general information summary leaflet:
Civil Defence
Some things you should know if war should come.
Public Information Leaflet No 1
Read this and keep it carefully. You may need it.
Issued from the Lord Privy Seal’s Office July 1939.
If war should come:
The object of this leaflet is to tell you now some of the things you ought to know if you are to be ready for the emergency of war.
This does not mean that war is expected now, but it is everyone’s duty to be prepared for the possibility of war.
Further leaflets will be sent to you to give you fuller guidance on particular ways in which you can be prepared.
The government is taking all possible measures for the defence of your country, and has made plans for protecting you and helping you to protect yourselves, so far as may be, in the event of war.
You, in your turn, can help to make those plans work, if you understand them and act in accordance with them.
No-one can tell when and how war might begin, but the period of warning might be very short. There would be no time then to begin to think what you ought to do.
READ WHAT FOLLOWS, and think NOW.
1. Air Raid Warnings:
When air raids are threatened, warning will be given in towns by sirens and hooters, which will be sounded, in some places by short blasts, or in other places by a warbling note, changing every few seconds. In war, sirens and hooters will not be used for any other purpose than this.
The warning may also be given by the Police or Air Raid Wardens blowing short blasts on whistles.
When you hear the warning, take cover at once. Remember that most of the injuries in an air raid are caused not by direct hits by bombs, but by flying fragments of debris or bits of shells. Stay under cover until you hear the sirens or hooters sounding continuously for two minutes on the same note, which is the signal “Raiders Passed”.
If poison gas has been used, you will be warned by means of hand rattles. Keep off the streets until the poison gas has been cleared away. Hand bells will be rung when there is no longer any danger. If you hear the rattle when you are out, put on your gas mask at once and get indoors as soon as you can.
Make sure that all members of your household understand the meanings of these signals.
2. Gas Masks:
If you have already got your gas mask, make sure that you are keeping it safely and in good condition for immediate use. If you are moving permanently, or going away for any length of time, remember to take your gas mask with you.
If you have not yet received your gas mask, the reason may be that it has been decided in your district to keep the masks in store until an emergency is threatened. If, however, you know that your neighbours have got their gas masks, and you have not got yours, report the matter to your Air Raid Warden.
The special anti-gas helmet for babies and the respirator for small children will not be distributed in any district before an emergency arises.
3. Lighting Restrictions:
All windows, sky-lights, glazed doors, or other openings which would show a light, will have to be screened in war time with dark blinds or blankets, or brown paper pasted on the glass, so that no light is visible from outside. You should obtain now any materials you may need for this purpose.
No outside lights will be allowed and all street lighting will be put out.
Instructions will be issued about the dimming of lights on vehicles.
4. Fire Precautions:
An air attack may bring large numbers of small incendiary bombs, which might start so many fires that the Fire Brigades could not be expected to deal with them all. Everyone should be prepared to do all he can to tackle a fire started in his own house. Most large fires start as small ones.
Clearing the top floor of all inflammable materials, lumber etc., will lessen the danger of fire, and prevent a fire spreading. See that you can reach your attic or roof space readily.
Water is the best means of putting out a fire started by an incendiary bomb. Have some buckets handy. But water can only be applied to the bomb itself in the form of a fine spray, for which a hand pump with a length of hose and special nozzle are needed. If you throw a bucket of water on a burning incendiary bomb it will explode and throw burning fragments in all directions. You may be able to smother it with sand or dry earth.
5. Evacuation:
Arrangements have been made by the government for the voluntary evacuation from certain parts of the London area and of some other large towns of schoolchildren, children below school age if accompanied by their mothers or other responsible persons, expectant mothers, and adult blind persons who can be moved.
Parents in the districts concerned who wish to take advantage of the government’s evacuation scheme for their children have already received or will receive full instructions what to do, if the need arises.
Those who have already made, or are making arrangements to send their children away to relations or friends must remember that while the government evacuation scheme is in progress, ordinary railway and road services will necessarily be drastically reduced and subject to alterations at short notice.
Try to decide now whether you wish your children to go under the government evacuation scheme and let you local authority know. If you propose to make private arrangements to send your children away do not leave them to the last moment.
All who have work to do, whether manual, clerical or professional, should regard it as their duty to remain at their posts, and do their part in carrying on the life of the nation.
6. Identity labels:
In war you should carry about with you your name and address clearly written. This should be on an envelope, card, luggage label, not on some odd piece of paper easily lost. In the case of children a label should be fastened, e.g. sewn, on to their clothes, in such a way that it will not readily become detached.
7. Food:
It is very important that at the outset of an emergency, people should not buy larger quantities of foodstuffs than they normally buy and normally require. The government are making arrangements to ensure that there will be sufficient supplies of food, and that every person will be able to obtain regularly his or her fair share; and they will take steps to prevent any sudden price rises. But if some people try to buy abnormal quantities, before the full scheme of control is working, they will be taking food which should be available for others.
If you wish, and are able to lay in a small extra store of non-perishable foodstuffs, there is no reason why you should not do so. They will be an additional insurance. But you should collect them now and not when an emergency arises.
8. Instructions to the public in case of emergency:
Arrangements will be made for information and instructions to be issued to the public in case of emergency, both through the Press, and by means of broadcast announcements. Broadcasts may be made at special times, which will be announced beforehand, or during ordinary news bulletins.
Finally, and most important to this blog, the precursor of British nuclear age civil defence advice was the booklet, The Protection of Your Home Against Air Raids issued by the British Home Office in 1938 (printed by H.M. Stationery Office, London): this has the same sort of advice in a section on page 8, "How to choose a refuge-room", as the advice issued for fallout sheltering in both the 1963 published Civil Defence Handbook Number 10, Advising the Householder on Protection Against Nuclear Attack, and the 1980 published booklet Protect and Survive.
The reason is that an inner refuge which can protect against bomb case fragments and splinters from conventional chemical explosive bombs, is also generally good protective shielding against gamma radiation from radioactive fallout deposited over a wide area surrounding the house (half the dose comes from fallout beyond a radius of 15 metres on flat ground, so it is a radiation problem with gamma rays reaching you horizontally, and the dose from the small amount of fallout under your feet - even if it can get into your house in the same quantities as the ground deposit concentration outdoors - is trivial).
Background information related to last comment above: 15 million copies of the 1939 "Public Information Leaflets" were printed by the U.K. Government (Lord Privy Seal's Office) and these were delivered to every household in Britain, beginning on 20 July 1939:
ReplyDeletePublic Information Leaflets
No.1: Some Things You Should Know if War Should Come
No.2: Your Gas Mask How to keep it and How to Use it
No.3: Evacuation
No.4: Your Food in War-Time
No.5: Fire Precautions in War Time
No.6: Poison Gas and Food in Your Home
Here's a brief list of some of the Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch civil defence research papers in the British National Archives:
ReplyDeleteMinistry of Home Security, Research and Experiments Department, 1940-1945
Ministry of Works, Scientific Adviser's Division, 1945-1948
Home Office, Scientific Advisers Branch, 1948-1970
Home Office, Research and Scientific Department, 1970-1971
Home Office, Scientific Advisory Branch, 1971-1982
Home Office, Scientific Research and Development Branch, 1982-2005
Home Office, Scientific Development Branch, 2005-present
Home Office records:
HO228 Scientific Advisers' Branch; reports (Z Series), 1948-1966
36 files
The Scientific Advisers' Branch of the Home Office was established in 1948 with responsibility for advising all government departments concerned with civil defence, and advising other divisions of the Home Office on scientific matters generally.
Reports dealing with the effects of possible nuclear war on the civil population and measures intended to mitigate these effects. The majority of pieces are collections of papers given to Civil Defence Regional Scientific Advisers at conferences or meetings. See also HO225-HO227, HO229, HO338 and HO45.
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HO228/2 1948
Scientific Advisers' Branch: USA Naval Technical Mission to Japan; extracts and notes on atomic bombs, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
HO228/3 1948
Scientific Advisers' Branch: crater debris; report.
HO228/4 1948
Scientific Advisers' Branch: note on sampling method.
HO228/5 1948
Scientific Advisers' Branch: radiation hazards from atomic bombs; report.
HO228/6 1948
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some thoughts on the fire problem from atomic bombs; report.
HO228/7 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: notes on the distribution of the population of Greater London.
HO228/8 [1949]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the effect of window opening on the fire risk in domestic property; report.
HO228/9 1950
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the hydrogen bomb; draft note for the director general of training.
HO228/10 1950
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the resistance of concrete to explosions and projectiles; report.
HO228/11 1950
Scientific Advisers' Branch: papers read at the meeting held on 12 Apr 1950 between the staff of the Civil Defence Staff College, the Civil Defence Schools and the Scientific Advisers' Branch on radioactive ground contamination and civil defence; shelter policy and atomic casualties; problems of civilian morale; the potentialities of nerve gas as a chemical weapon agent.
HO228/12 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the zoning of towns for fire susceptibility; report.
HO228/13 1951
Scientific Advisers' Branch: papers read at the meeting held on 6-8 Nov 1950: deaths from the explosion of an atomic bomb more or less powerful than that used at Nagasaki; debris, its distribution and the means of negotiating it; the zoning of towns for fire susceptibility; mustard gas on cities; social and economic effects of German air raids on the UK in World War II; estimates of homeless from atomic, explosive and incendiary bomb attack; the possible economic effects of atomic attack on centres of UK population; the risk of inhaled or ingested fission products compared with the external radiation risk; a problem connected with fallout.
HO228/14 1951
Scientific Advisers' Branch: summary of papers read at the meeting held on 16-17 May 1951; paper on possible trend of future developments in atomic weapons; experimental developments in air raid warnings; regional scientific advisers and technical aspects of reconnaissance; decontamination; some aspects of the debris problem arising from an airburst atomic bomb assumed to burst over Trafalgar Square; respirators and protective clothing for civil defence personnel; an appreciation of radiological hazards in time of war; nerve and mustard gas; the atomic bomb as a fire raiser; memorandum on the use of radiation metering instruments in civil defence operations and training; discussion on practical monitoring and the present position regarding policy and organisation.
HO228/15 1952
Scientific Advisers' Branch: papers read at the meeting held on 7-9 Apr 1952 on lessons from incendiary attacks on Hamburg; fireguards, to be or not to be; assessment of an attack on a city area with mustard gas; shadowgraphs; influence of the height of burst on the effects of an atomic bomb; some chemical warfare problems; combined operations; obstruction by debris in city streets after an atomic attack.
HO228/16 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College, Apr 1953; papers on strategic assumptions for Civil Defence; Civil Defence aspects of the Monte Bello trial; warning systems and the general public; some factors affecting shelter design and policy; the allowable radiation dose in wartime and its implications; civilian behaviour under air attack; implications of FP (fission products) deposition.
HO228/17 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College, 1-3 Jun 1954; papers on impact of hydrogen bomb on civil defence; a theoretical evacuation study; expected scale of types of attack; thermal effects of the British atomic bomb trials; gamma ray penetration at the Woomera tests; Admiralty gamma ray measurements at Monte Bello and Woomera; the work of the Scientific Advisers in the regions; training of radiac officers; radioactive training grounds; biological warfare; hazards of radioactive contamination from a water burst; agricultural problems resulting from a water burst; recent trends in radiac instrumentation.
HO228/18 1955
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at Civil Defence Staff College, 23-25 May 1955; papers on the consequences of a thermonuclear explosion; fallout from a groundburst bomb; the characteristics of residual radioactivity; the fallout and the meteorological problems; the physiological effects of radiation; the contamination of water supplies; hazards to grazing animals in the period immediately following a nuclear explosion; hazards from fallout to vegetation immediately following a thermonuclear explosion; monitoring and plotting of fallout; problems in the fallout area; technical reconnaissance; leader equipment; concluding discussion.
HO228/19 [1956]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the radiation dose to human tissues from natural sources.
HO228/20 1957
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College, 4-6 Jun 1957; papers on civil defence policy; fallout prediction from meteorological information; the work of the Radiobiologist Research Unit; introductory talk on fallout plotting; aerial survey and possible applications to civil defence; report on tests on structures, of atomic trials; radiological work during the BUFFALO atomic trial; thermal radiation; chemical warfare-training of radiac officers.
HO228/21 1957
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a course given to university physics lecturers at the Civil Defence Staff College, 8-11 Jul 1957; papers on nuclear weapons and their effects; blast from nuclear weapons; thermal radiation; biological effects of nuclear radiation; radiological control in the damaged area; control of civil defence forces; protection afforded by buildings against gamma radiation from fallout; meteorological aspects of radioactive fallout; fallout plotting; public control in a fallout area; introductory talk on fallout plotting; problems of water contamination; effects of nuclear weapon attack on agriculture and food; radiological decontamination; trends in radiac instrumentation; radiac fallout simulator; assessment of the protection afforded by buildings against gamma radiation from fallout.
HO228/22 1959
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of the conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College, 20-22 May 1958; papers on the travel and deposition of radioactivity in the Windscale accident; fallout-an analysis of the most recent data; meteorology and the fallout prediction; fallout plotting and reporting up to the regional level; new plans for the control of civil defence operations; the regional scientific organisation in relation to new operational plans; the effects of ionising radiation on human beings; radiation hazards.
HO228/23 1959
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College, 12-14 May 1959; papers on operation of the scientific team at region; training of scientific intelligence officers; local authority training and exercise "Arc"; radiation tolerance doses in civil defence; deployment of civil defence forces into the damaged areas contaminated by fallout; survey of protection against fallout afforded by houses and other buildings; radioactive decontamination; proposed food monitoring organisation; study of "Torquemada" fire problems after a megaton explosion.
HO228/24 1961
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at Civil Defence Staff College, 10-12 May 1960; papers on measurement of deposition and decay rates; food monitoring; the treatment of casualties from heavy dosage; effects of radiation on fertility; structural research for civil defence; display of fallout information in Central Government Headquarters; account of recent trials; the decay of fallout radiation; information derived from nuclear radiation injury from accidents.
HO228/25 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at Civil Defence Staff College 15-17 May 1962; papers on Soviet strategic air threat to the UK; blast effects of high yield weapons; effects of high yield weapons-interference with communications and electrical equipment; high explosive trails at Suffield, Canada; dispersal policy; modern concepts for chemical and bacteriological weapons; local authority controls-ventilation and other problems; training of scientific intelligence officers; planning assumptions for the assessment of food and water hazards. Retained.
HO228/(26) 1963
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College, 28-30 May 1963. (Missing)
HO228/27 1964
Report on conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College 12-14 May 1964: papers on resource evaluation for resource management; damage assessment; emergency planning for continuity of Government; methods of resource analysis in Canada; exercise CINLOG 1965; post attack problems; post attack problems of farming and agriculture in the UK, fallout predictions by probability; biological hazards of exposure to blastwaves; ionising radiation in leukaemia. Retained.
HO228/28 1966
Report of a conference of Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College 13-15 Sep 1965: papers on warning and monitoring organisation; communal shelters survey results; communal shelters; leadership; biological warfare implications for civil defence; chemical weapon defensive equipment; development of improved nuclear burst detector; discussion on training of scientific intelligence officers; use of scientific manpower; ERDs (effective residual doses) and their application to public control; discussion on combined hazards of external and internal radiation; application of input and output economic models.
HO228/36 1951
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report of a conference of the Regional Scientific Advisers for Civil Defence held at the Civil Defence Staff College, 16-17 Oct 1951.
Home Office records:
HO227 Scientific Advisers' Branch and successors; reports (Scientific Advisers/ Police Research Series), 1951-1973
137 files
The series dates from 1950 and deals with the protection of the civil population against the effects of a possible nuclear war. Topics include casualty assessment, effects of fallout, shelter survival requirements, and the fire service. The series also includes discussions with civil defence authorities in the USA, Canada and West Germany.
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HO227/(1) 1960
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the effect of a limit on the travelling distance allowed between private house and communal buildings on the spectrum of protective factors; report. (Wanting, 1997)
HO227/2 [1960]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: refuge space in communal buildings of various classes in a sample of six towns; report.
HO227/3 1960
Scientific Advisers' Branch: passing information direct from Royal Observer Corps group to sub-region; trial 14 Feb 1960; report.
HO227/4 1960
Scientific Advisers' Branch: Advisory Group on Structural Research for Civil Defence, theoretical treatment of blast-induced earth shock; report.
HO227/5 [1960]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: operation of the scientific team at region; report.
HO227/(6) 1960
Scientific Advisers' Branch: estimated casualties from an attack with two 3 megaton bombs on each of 71 different bases, with one 3 megaton bomb on each of 16 cities; report. (Wanting, 1997)
HO227/7 [1960]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the adaptation of basement garages under new office buildings for use as shelters; report.
HO227/8 [1960]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: radiac fallout simulator; report.
HO227/9 1960
Scientific Advisers' Branch: fallout casualty calculations; report.
HO227/10 1960
Scientific Advisers' Branch: structural research for civil defence; notes of a lecture to regional scientific training officers, Sep 1960.
HO227/11 1960
Scientific Advisers' Branch: Hamburg shelters; some notes on occupancy, prepared May 1960.
HO227/12 [1960]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report on war games Nos 1 and 2.
HO227/13 1951
Scientific Advisers' Branch: protection from air attack available in Westminster Hospital; report.
HO227/14 [1961]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: proposals for revised public control drills in a fallout area.
HO227/15 [1961]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the role of civil defence in defence strategy, Commonwealth Advisory Committee on Defence Science; report.
HO227/16 [1961]
The accuracy of the present procedure for issuing black warnings.
HO227/17 [1961]
Ventilation and filtration requirements for local authority control centres.
HO227/18 1961
Transmission of information round the control (Working Party on Sub-regional Controls).
HO227/19 1961
The standard of fallout protection to be provided at regional, sub-regional and area controls. Retained.
HO227/20 1961
Notes on a visit on 20-23 Feb to civil defence departments and establishments in the Federal Republic of Germany.
HO227/21 1961
Provision of scientific staff for regions and sub-regions: Working Party on Sub-regional Controls.
HO227/22 [1961]
Provisional procedures for the scientific team at sub-region.
HO227/23 1961
Attenuation of thermal radiation by the atmosphere.
HO227/24 1961
Science in civil defence.
HO227/25 1961
The proposed used of deposition measurements taken at Royal Observer Corps posts.
HO227/26 [1961]
Royal Observer Corps trainer, user trial.
HO227/(27) 1961
Civil defence studies. (Wanting, 1997)
HO227/28 [1961]
Notes on proposed habitability trials in Tottenham civil defence sub-area control centre.
HO227/29 [1961]
Flight duration for photographic reconnaissance over a fallout area.
HO227/30 1961
Conference of regional fire commanders (designate): some technical aspects of decontamination.
HO227/31 1961
Inter-departmental Committee on Shelter against Fallout: the effect on casualties of moving people from bungalows and pre-fabs into communal refuge.
HO227/32 1960
Note by Scientific Advisers' Branch on washdown installations.
HO227/33 1961
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the effect of exposure on the sensitivity of printing-out paper used in the Home Office ground zero indicator; report.
HO227/(34) 1961
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the safety of underground headquarters; report. (Wanting, 1997)
HO227/(35) 1961
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the effect of high explosive bombs on the estimation of ignition ranges for megaton explosions; report. (Wanting, 1997)
HO227/36 1961
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the effect of peripheral dispersion on casualties from heavy nuclear attack; report.
HO227/37 [1961]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: immediate casualties from 50 and 100 megaton low airbursts on London; report.
HO227/38 [1961]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: safety drill when taking fallout deposition measurements; report.
HO227/39 [1961]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: Deposition measurements - safety; report.
HO227/40 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: basic assumptions for use in the assessment of the radiological hazard to food from fallout; report.
HO227/41 [1962]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: requirements for space, ventilation, heating and lighting in a communal refuge; report.
HO227/(42) 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: preliminary estimates of sand and earth needed for the improvement of private houses, refuge and communal shelters. (Wanting, 1997)
HO227/43 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch; accession lists.
HO227/45 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: civil defence considerations in the design of new buildings; report.
HO227/47 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: space allowance and ventilation in communal refuges; report.
HO227/48 1961
Scientific Advisers' Branch: Scientific Intelligence Officer conference, Sep 1961; report.
HO227/50 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the scientific data and basic information required in preparing for protection by shelter against fallout; summary of presentation to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Shelter Working Party.
HO227/51 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the Soviet strategic air threat to UK; report. Retained.
HO227/53 (1962)
Scientific Advisers' Branch: day and night populations of the administrative county of London; report.
HO227/54 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: deposition measurements in exercise FALLEX 62; report.
HO227/56 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: calculation of the protective factor of simple buildings and shallow basements; report.
HO227/57 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: visit to USA; report.
HO227/60 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: probability of becoming a casualty due to a 3 megaton groundburst weapon having various CEP's as a function of distance from the target; report.
HO227/61 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: annuli for calculation of prompt casualties from groundburst bombs; report.
HO227/62 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some effects of fallout on the operation of mobile fire columns; report.
HO227/(63) 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: neutron-induced activities in soil, an examination of its possible extent from contact burst bombs; report. (Wanting, 1997)
HO227/64 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some calculations and tables on the neutron-induced activity in fallout due to soil and sea water; report.
HO227/65 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: delayed fallout in the casualty area; report.
HO227/66 (1962)
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the use of the BBC for the passage of fallout information; report.
Home Office records:
HO226 Scientific Advisers' Branch; reports (R and M Series), 1952-1969
97 files
The Scientific Advisers' Branch of the Home Office was established in 1948 with responsibility for advising all government departments concerned with civil defence, and advising other divisions of the Home Office on scientific matters generally.
The content of these reports covers aspects of the possible threat to the civil population posed by a future war, especially a nuclear attack, and measures that might be used to mitigate the effects of enemy attack. These reports are mainly the work of individual scientists. They do not define government policy; they are part of the input of the Branch to the policy making process.
Other reports are in HO227 and HO228; related files are in HO338.
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HO226/1 1952
Comments on proposals by Messrs Rendel, Palmer and Tritton, consultants for the strengthening of certain pre cast concrete-lined trench shelters in Westminster; report.
HO226/2 1952
Some requirements for shelter studies; report.
HO226/3 1952
Some basic assumptions needed for shelter planning; report.
HO226/4 1952
Location of vital services under debris; report.
HO226/5 1952
Possible damage to Wandsworth Prison resulting from atomic or high explosive/incendiary bomb attack; report .
HO226/7 1953
Proposed new design of a new shadowgraph, the drum shadowgraph; report.
HO226/9 1952
Use of aerial photographs for civil defence purposes; report.
HO226/(10) [1952-1953]
Long term shelter and evacuation planning; report. (Wanting, 1997)
HO226/11 1953
The construction for training purposes of synthetic air information of high and medium level jet aircraft attacks; report.
HO226/12 1953
Atomic bomb damage to raw material stocks; report.
HO226/14 1953
The worthwhileness of certain due-functioning measures; report.
HO226/15 1953
The vulnerability of cold storage to atomic attack; report.
HO226/16 1953
Atomic attacks and water undertakings: the significance of the ratio of groundburst to airburst weapons; report.
HO226/17 1953
The risk to the civil population from the rocket motors of guided missiles.
HO226/18 1953
The distribution of atomic bombs over the UK so as to affect as many people as possible; report.
HO226/19 1953
The numbers of deaths resulting from an attack on the British Isles with 29 atomic bombs and 27,000 tons of high explosive/incendiary bombs; report.
HO226/20 1953
Marshalling the homeless immediately after atomic attack: minimum size of assembly areas for safety from fires; report.
HO226/21 1954
The question of shock amongst civil defence workers following atomic incidents; report.
HO226/22 1954
A study of potential assembly areas in London and Sheffield; report.
HO226/23 1954
A Royal Observer Corps group synthetic exercise computer; report.
HO226/24 1954
Civil defence high range dose-rate meter logarithmic scale; report on the practical feasibility of using a log scale.
HO226/25 1954
Compilation of track cards for the Royal Observer Corps group synthetic exercise computer; report.
HO226/26 1954
The performance of warning teams under training.
HO226/27 1954
Evacuation and dispersal measures to meet the H bomb threat; report.
HO226/28 1954
The preparation of population contour maps for use by the Civil Defence Joint Planning Staff Working Party on Evacuation; report.
HO226/29 1954
War economy statistics; report.
HO226/(30) [1954]
Some preliminary considerations in regard to the use of underground railways as shelter from the effects of H bombs; report. (Wanting, 1997)
HO226/31 1954
Preliminary considerations in regard to the value of incorporating a steel or reinforced concrete frame in multi-storey buildings; report. See also HO225/63.
HO226/32 1954
Shelters in central high risk areas; report.
HO226/33 1954
The protection afforded by trenches and refuge rooms against radioactive ground contamination; report.
HO226/35 1955
A points scheme for evaluating protection against fallout; report.
HO226/36 1955
Refuge rooms as shelter against radioactive fallout; report.
HO226/37 1955
The protection against fallout provided by Glasgow tenements; report.
HO226/39 1955
Bomb power indicators; report.
HO226/40 1955
Questionnaire on underfloor trench.
HO226/42 1956
The effect of blast pressures likely to result from a nuclear attack on London and the North on the worthwhileness of incorporating strengthening measures in new framed buildings; report.
HO226/43 1956
Some notes on the plotting of fallout at the national level.
HO226/44 1956
Standards of protection for operational premises against fallout.
HO226/45 1956
Casualty rates for a groundburst 10 megaton bomb omitting residual radiation, all in houses; report.
HO226/47 1956
The effect of fallout on general industry; report.
HO226/48 1956
The protection afforded by industrial buildings against gamma radiation from fallout; report.
HO226/52 [1956]
The likely extent of fallout from a nominal groundburst bomb.
HO226/53 1957
The location of a nuclear explosion by means of radar; report.
HO226/54 1957
Effectiveness of gamma radiation spread, over a long period of time, in producing radiation sickness; report.
HO226/56 1956
Notes on civil defence for national survival.
HO226/57 1957
The distribution of fallout information in the UK to organisations requiring it; report.
HO226/(58) 1957
Civil defence for national survival; report. (Wanting, 1997)
HO226/59 [1957]
Physical conditions of wardens and others in zone outside the damaged area; report.
HO226/61 [1957]
Preparation of regional fallout exercises; report.
HO226/62 1957
Conference of Regional Directors of Civil Defence, the display of fallout information at region; report.
HO226/63 1957
Coverage of the UK by fallout from nine 10 megaton ground burst bombs; report.
HO226/64 1957
New civil defence legislation in United States of America; report.
HO226/65 1957
The entry of jets of air through orifices in shelter walls; report.
HO226/66 1957
Some theoretical estimates of the protection in streets and at cross-roads against radiation from fallout; report.
HO226/68 1957
The hazard due to exposure in the open in the damaged area during fallout; report.
HO226/69 1958
Study of "Apocalypse"; casualty estimates for twenty groundburst 1 megaton bombs. Retained.
HO226/70 1958
A survey of methods used for the removal of radioactive contamination from water; report.
HO226/71 1958
Casualties from a heavy nuclear attack on the UK; report.
HO226/74 1958
War time emergency doses of gamma radiation; report.
HO226/75 1959
The contribution of U239 and Np239 to the radiation from fallout; report.
HO226/76 1959
Royal Observer Corps fixed survey meter, probe withdrawal; report.
HO226/78 [1960]
Organisation of the scientific team at area (provisional); report. Closed until 2011.
HO226/79 1962
Problems on deposition sitreps (situation reports).
HO226/80 1961
Exercise ZERO; general brief to directing staff.
HO226/81 [1963]
Using deposition analysis-overlap made easy; report.
HO226/82 [1963]
Protective factors in houses and flats; report.
HO226/83 [1963]
Casualties due to immediate effects of groundbursts; report.
HO226/86 1965
The need for design of radiation monitors for large scale issue to civilians for civil defence purposes; report.
HO226/87 [1966]
Exercise one-directing staff brief; report.
HO226/(88) [1966]
Casualty Savings HDC attack 2; report. (Wanting, 1997)
HO226/92 1968
Notes on radiological decontamination for Scientific Intelligence Officer refresher courses.
HO226/93 1967
Papers read at conference on radiological recovery, Berlin, Oct 1967.
HO226/95 1957
Report of the study of the role of the police in a hydrogen bomb war.
HO226/96 1969
Revised public control scheme; report.
HO226/97 1969
A comparison of the properties of two types of photographic material with regard to their use in ground zero indicator; report.
HO225 Scientific Advisers' Branch; reports (Civil Defence/Scientific Advisers' Branch Series), 1948-1966
131 files
The Scientific Advisers' Branch of the Home Office was established in 1948 with responsibility for advising all government departments concerned with civil defence, and advising other divisions of the Home Office on scientific matters generally.
The content of these reports covers the scientific aspects of the possible threat to the civil population posed by a future war, especially a nuclear attack. They do not define government policy; they are part of the input of the Branch to the policy making process.
Reports dealing with civil defence in a nuclear age are in HO226-HO229, and also see HO338. Earlier HO papers relating to scientific research are in HO45.
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HO225/1 1948
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some aspects of shelter and dispersal policy to meet atomic attack; report.
HO225/2 1948
Scientific Advisers' Branch: preliminary note on the present vulnerability of British cities to fire storms from air attack; report.
HO225/3 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some considerations affecting a points system for the allocation of space in public shelters; report.
HO225/4 1948
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the 'builtupness' of inner London; report.
HO225/6 [1949]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the atomic bomb as a fire raiser: a study of the mechanism of initiation and development; report.
HO225/7 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the relative advantages of open and closed windows during air attack; report.
HO225/8 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the risk of fire from air attack (prepared for the Working Party on Emergency Fire Fighting); report.
HO225/9 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: notes on a possible method of defining 'bulls eye' areas; report.
HO225/10 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the fire risk attendant on the use of blackout curtains during an atomic bomb attack; report.
HO225/11 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: a summary of information on the effect of atmospheric conditions on heat flash, gamma radiation, and blast from an airburst atomic bomb; report.
HO225/14 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the advantage of lying prone in reducing the dose of gamma rays from an air-burst atomic bomb; report.
HO225/15 1949
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some advantages and disadvantages of a multi-standard shelter scheme; report.
HO225/16 1950
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the number of atomic bombs equivalent to the last war air attacks on UK and Germany; report.
HO225/17 1950
Scientific Advisers' Branch: comparison of day and night population distributions of Birmingham; report.
HO225/18 1950
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some means of locating the direction of an airburst atomic bomb explosion; report.
HO225/19 1950
Scientific Advisers' Branch: proposals for defining central key areas; report.
HO225/20 1950
Scientific Advisers' Branch: conference with senior Metropolitan Police officers, 13 Jul 1950, analysis of questionnaires; report.
HO225/21 [1951]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the zoning of towns for fire susceptibility, shortened version issued to the fire service; report.
HO225/22 [1951]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: an analysis of the time taken to distribute air raid warning messages during exercise EMPEROR; report.
HO225/23 1951
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the hazard from inhaled fission products in rescue operations after an atomic bomb explosion; report.
HO225/24 [1951]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: time allowance to be made in issuing air raid warnings; report.
HO225/25 1951
Scientific Advisers' Branch; preliminary report on exercise PINNACLE.
HO225/26 [1951]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some radiological hazards of atomic warfare in relation to civil defence; report.
HO225/29 [1952]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the increase in the number of atomic casualties due to large public gatherings; report.
HO225/30 1952
Scientific Advisers' Branch: atomic warfare in relation to civil defence; lectures given to the staffs of Home Office Regional Scientific Advisers at Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Harwell, 4-6 December 1951.
HO225/31 1952
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the standard of protection of trench shelters; report.
HO225/33 1952
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the influence of accuracy of attack on atomic casualties; report.
HO225/34 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: assessment of the damage and the number of casualties and homeless likely to result from an attack on Glasgow with an atomic bomb; report.
HO225/35 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the distribution of (air raid) warning messages; report.
HO225/36 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch; final report on exercise PINNACLE.
HO225/37 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: atomic warfare in relation to civil defence; lectures given to the staffs of Home Office Regional Scientific Advisers at Atomic Energy Research Establishment Harwell, 1-3 Oct 1952.
HO225/38 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the effect of size of warning district on the duration and frequencies of air raid warning to be expected under a possible all-out attack; report.
HO225/39 1953
Scientific Advisers', Branch: exercise ARDENT: the best possible performance of the air raid warnings organisation against Canberra attacks; report.
HO225/40 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: reservoir dams, Sheffield, danger of breaking from atomic attack on Sheffield; report.
HO225/41 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: gamma ray penetration of grade A concrete shelters, comparison of dosage and casualty estimates; report.
HO225/42 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: estimates, for exercise purposes, of the radioactive contamination of land areas from an adjacent underwater explosion.
HO225/43 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: population movement related to atomic attack: analysis of questionnaires by the Metropolitan and Birmingham police; report.
HO225/45 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: gamma radiation dose rates at heights of 3-3000 feet above a uniformly contaminated area; report.
HO225/46 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: basic studies on the casualties and homeless to be expected from heavy air attacks; report.
HO225/47 1953
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the vulnerability of flour mills to atomic attack; report.
HO225/48 1953-1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the safety-cost relationship for certain types of surface and trench shelters; report.
HO225/49 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the safety-cost relationship of certain basement shelters and comparison with surface and trench shelters; report.
HO225/51 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: assumed effects of two atomic bomb explosions in shallow water off the port of Liverpool; report.
HO225/52 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: fatal casualties likely to result from an air attack on UK cities with 20 atomic or hydrogen bombs of varying power; report.
HO225/54 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some aspects of shelter and evacuation policy to meet H bomb threat; report.
HO225/55 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: provisional estimates of the results of a hydrogen bomb explosion; report.
HO225/56 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: exercise MOMENTUM; report.
HO225/57 1954
Comparison of methods for assessing the effects of area bombing with toxic weapons. Retained.
HO225/58 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: seriously injured casualties likely to result from an attack on UK cities with 20 atomic or hydrogen bombs of varying power; report.
HO225/(59) [1955]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: radiological effects from ground burst atomic bomb; report. (Wanting, 1997)
HO225/(60) [1955]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some published statements on radioactive fallout from hydrogen weapons. (Wanting, 1997)
HO225/61 1955
Scientific Advisers' Branch: neptunium as a residual radiation hazard; report.
HO225/62 1955
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the effective energy of fission product gamma radiation; report.
HO225/63 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: preliminary considerations in regard to the worthwhileness of incorporating a steel or reinforced concrete frame in multi-storey buildings; report.
HO225/64 1954
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the protection afforded by trenches and refuge rooms against radioactive ground contamination; report.
HO225/65 1955
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the probability of radioactive fallout in different parts of the UK; report.
HO225/66 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: a proposed system of radiological control for civil defence operations in an area devastated by a nuclear explosion; report.
HO225/68 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: protection against gamma radiation from fallout; report.
HO225/69 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the penetration of gamma radiation from a uniform contamination into houses: first report on some field trials; report.
HO225/70 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: a comparison between observed and calculated protection against fallout radiation; report.
HO225/71 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: numbers of casualties from a groundburst megaton weapon likely to be personally contaminated by radioactive material; report.
HO225/72 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: casualty estimates for ground burst 10 megaton bombs; report.
HO225/73 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the hazard from inhaled fission products in rescue operations after an atomic bomb explosion; report.
HO225/74 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: durability of coated window glass as a heat radiation shield; report.
HO225/(75) [1956]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the domestic fallout shelter surveyed in Guildford and Halifax; report. (Wanting, 1997)
HO225/(76) [1956]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: a simplified table of predicted factors in normal British houses and flats; report. (Wanting, 1997)
HO225/77 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: a method of assessing the protection afforded by buildings against gamma radiation from fallout; report.
HO225/78 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some long term shelter possibilities; report.
HO225/79 1956
Scientific Advisers' Branch: developments in the UK in relation to a fallout reporting organisation; report.
HO225/80 1956-1957
Scientific Advisers' Branch: Royal Observer Corps post 2/N1 Farnham, Surrey, conditions of the atmosphere when post is sealed for 6 hours, 30 Sep 1956; report.
HO225/82 1957
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the transmission of fallout information to civil defence regions and the manner of its use at Regional Headquarters; report.
HO225/84 1957
Scientific Advisers' Branch: space requirements in sealed shelters.
HO225/87 1957
Scientific Advisers' Branch: some recent information from USA about fallout from groundburst megaton weapons; report.
HO225/88 [1958]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: Royal Observer Corps post 2/N1 Farnham, Surrey, conditions in sealed post under cold weather conditions, 22-23 Jan 1958; report.
HO225/89 1958
Scientific Advisers' Branch: survey of the protection afforded in private houses against radiation from fallout; report.
HO225/90 1958
Scientific Advisers' Branch: Royal Observer Corps 2/N1, Farnham; report of tests carried out 12-13 Jul 1958 to study atmospheric conditions in the post when sealed for 10 hours with four occupants, and to study time required to ventilate the post.
HO225/91 [1958]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the speed and accuracy of reading ground zero indicators; report.
HO225/92 1959
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the deployment of civil defence forces into damaged area contaminated by fallout; report.
HO225/93 [1959]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: mains-independent warning devices; report.
HO225/94 1959
Scientific Advisers' Branch: upwind fallout from megaton explosions; report.
HO225/95 1959
Scientific Advisers' Branch: survey of protection afforded in communal buildings and private houses against radiation from fallout; report.
HO225/96 1959
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the decontamination of residential areas; report.
HO225/97 1959
Scientific Advisers' Branch: uptake of radioactivity in fire hoses; report.
HO225/98 [1960]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: Royal Observer Corps post 2/N1, Farnham, 48 hour trial in closed underground post, fully manned and equipped with hand-operated bellows, 1-3 Dec 1959; report.
HO225/99 [1960]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the decay of fallout radiation; lecture given at Regional Scientific Advisers' Conference, 11 May 1960.
HO225/100 [1960]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the hazards from direct exposure to fallout in a damaged area; report.
HO225/101 1960
Scientific Advisers' Branch: downwind fallout area from groundburst megaton explosions; report.
HO225/102 1960
Scientific Advisers' Branch: notes on radiological filters for civil defence control centres; report.
HO225/103 [1961]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: retention of fallout particles on roof surfaces and their removal by washdown with water; report.
HO225/104 [1961]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the calculation of dose rates from fallout at Royal Observer Corps posts by electronic computer; report.
HO225/106 1961
Scientific Advisers' Branch: probability of occurrence for the whole year of vector means of winds over the British Isles; report.
HO225/107 [1961]
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the calculation of fallout risks; report.
HO225/108 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: assessment of the protection offered by buildings against radiation from fallout; report.
HO225/109 1962
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the fire ranges of nuclear explosions in the 10-100 megaton range; report.
HO225/110 [1962]
Habitability in local authority civil defence control centres; 24 hour trial in Tottenham sub area control on 14-15 Sep 1961.
HO225/111 [1962]
A new gas detector kit.
HO225/112 1962
The estimation of ignition ranges for megaton explosions outside the earth's atmosphere.
HO225/113 1962
Report on road decontamination trials carried out at the Fire Service Training Centre, Moreton in Marsh, on 16 Feb 1962.
HO225/114 1962
Chemical protection against effects of ionising radiations.
HO225/115 1962
Report to NATO Shelter Working Party on Fallout Shelters.
HO225/116 1963
Research on blast effects in tunnels with special reference to use of London tubes as shelters.
HO225/127 1966
Scientific Advisers' Branch: three-day test of a typical UK basement as a fallout shelter with only natural ventilation, occupancy trail in the basement of Civil Defence Centre, Twickenham; report.
HO225/128 1965
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the psychology of fear; report.
HO225/129 1965
Scientific Advisers' Branch: civil defence in tall buildings; report.
HO225/130 1966
Scientific Advisers' Branch: the energy required for ignition with very short exposure times; report.
HO225/131 1955
Scientific Advisers' Branch: report on measurements of transmission of visible radiation at Orfordness.
Home Office records:
HO229 Fission Fragments: Journal of Home Office Scientific Advisers' Branch and Successors
The Scientific Advisers' Branch of the Home Office was established in 1948 with responsibility for advising all government departments concerned with civil defence, and advising other divisions of the Home Office on scientific matters generally.
The journal Fission Fragments was first published by the Scientific Advisers' Branch in 1961, and continues to be produced today by the present Scientific Research and Development Branch for distribution to the volunteer local authority scientific advisers, originally called "scientific intelligence officers". Articles in the journal are mainly written by members of the branch but have also been contributed by local authority scientific advisers and by the former Civil Defence Department of the Home Office: they range across all aspects of civil defence against conventional, nuclear, chemical and biological warfare. Publication is at irregular intervals, depending upon the availability of material and the importance of its early circulation.
HO338:
Scope and content: Registered files of the Scientific Adviser's Branch and its successors relating to the provision of scientific advice within the Home Office and to other Departments involved in civil defence, the sponsoring of scientific research, the training of scientific intelligence officers, the development of computer projects for scientific research, and liaison with civil defence regional scientific advisers. Subjects covered include the effects of radiation and bomb blasts, and equipment for fire fighting. Reports of the Branch are in HO 225- HO 229
Arrangement: The papers in this series are arranged under four subheadings (Office of the Scientific Adviser; Scientific Advisers, Chemical; Scientific Advisers, General, and Scientific Advisers, Nuclear) and then by departmental file number. The inclusion of a date preceding a file number (as in SAN(1961) 3/1/1) indicates that the year in which the file was created was included in the file reference number. Thus the full departmental reference of a file listed as SAN(1961) 3/1/1 would be SAN/61 3/1/1.
Administrative / biographical background: The Scientific Adviser's Branch of the Home Office was established in 1948, most of its staff being taken from the Scientific Advisor's Division of the Ministry of Works, which had itself originated in the Research and Experiments Department of the Ministry of Home Security. In 1970 its title changed to the Research and Scientific Department, in 1971 to the Scientific Advisory Branch, and in 1982 to the Scientific Research and Development Branch. It is responsible for advising all government departments concerned with civil defence and advising other divisions of the Home Office on scientific matters. It sponsors scientific research for the Home Office, liaises with Civil Defence Regional Scientific Advisers and Training Officers, assists in the training of Scientific Intelligence Officers, and develops computer projects relating to scientific research.
There are also important files at other British National Archives sections:
ES1/1
ES Records of the Atomic Weapons Establishment and predecessors
ES 1 Atomic Weapons Research Establishment: Rowley Collection
Record Summary
Scope and content:
Craters: cratering from atomic weapons
Covering dates 1946-1959
ES Records of the Atomic Weapons Establishment and predecessors
ES 1 Atomic Weapons Research Establishment: Rowley Collection
ES1/2:
Record Summary
Scope and content Patent specification for HE lenses
Covering dates 1950-1958
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
ES Records of the Atomic Weapons Establishment and predecessors
ES 1 Atomic Weapons Research Establishment: Rowley Collection
ES1/3:
Record Summary
Scope and content 'Charybdis' underwater explosions: base surge
Covering dates 1947-1955
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
ES1/13:
Weapon design and production: some early progress reports
Covering dates 1947-1951
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Further information about access conditions is available
ES1/14:
Nuclear physics experimental work: nuclear data; fusion shock waves
Covering dates 1947-1954
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Further information about access conditions is available
ES1/19:
Scope and content Types of bomb: hollow or solid core
Covering dates 1950-1951
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Further information about access conditions is available
ES1/20:
Scope and content Weapon progress charts: weapon design and loading
Covering dates 1950-1956
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
ES1/21:
Scope and content Critical mass criticality experiments
Covering dates 1950-1956
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
ES 1/111:
Scope and content Exponent of fission growth: part 1
Covering dates 1953
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Further information about access conditions is available
ES 1/455:
Scope and content Super bomb papers
Covering dates 1946-1953
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Further information about access conditions is available
ES 1/462:
Scope and content Super bomb handbook
Covering dates [c. 1958]
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
ES 1/463:
Scope and content Further consideration of double bomb
Covering dates 1958
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
ES 1/873:
Scope and content US hydrogen bomb
Covering dates 1955-1956
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
ES 1/895:
Scope and content AWRE role in civil defence research programme against atomic warfare
Covering dates 1953-1957
ES 1/1648:
Scope and content Volume 11: damage to ships (test Baker)
Covering dates 1946
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Further information about access conditions is available
ES 1/1656:
Scope and content GRASSHOPPER history: use of air lenses for implosion
Covering dates 1947-1964
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
ES 1/1655:
Scope and content Summary of UK nuclear weapons trials
Covering dates 1965-1966
ES 1/1633:
Scope and content Manual on design of Bikini bombs (the "Tuck Bible")
Covering dates 1946
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Further information about access conditions is available
Former reference (Department) 0683
Note JL Tuck, member of the British mission at Los Alamos
DEFE 16/65
Scope and content Operation Totem: fall-out particles from Totem 1 and 2
Covering dates 1955
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report No T8/55
DEFE 16/61:
Scope and content Operation Totem survey of residual contamination
Covering dates 1956
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report No T4a/55
DEFE 16/67:
Scope and content Operation Totem: thermal measurements
Covering dates 1956
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report No T10/55
DEFE 16/104:
Scope and content Operation Buffalo: measurement of radiation dose rates from fallout
Covering dates 1957
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report No T40/57
DEFE 16/158:
Scope and content Operation Antler: remote measurement of variation with time of gamma dose rate from fallout
Covering dates 1958
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report No T43/58
DEFE 16/165:
Scope and content Operation Buffalo target response tests Biology Group: Part 3a, effects of blast on dummy men exposed in open
Covering dates 1959
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report No T2/59
DEFE 16/156:
Scope and content Operation Antler: aerial survey of radioactivity deposited on the ground
Covering dates 1958
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report No T40/58
DEFE 16/166:
Scope and content Operation Buffalo target response tests Structures Group: effect on field defences, text
Covering dates 1959
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report No T4/59
DEFE 16/411:
Scope and content Determination of U237 production in Operation Totem by FC Hanna
Covering dates 1954
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report No N/M 68
DEFE 16/444:
Scope and content Permanent proving ground trials: CO 60 pellets found at Maralinga
Covering dates 1958
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) 0171/2
DEFE 16/665:
Scope and content Request for return of Cobalt 60 pellets
Covering dates 1963
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) AHP 2/11
DEFE 16/933:
Scope and content Anderson shelters (Operation Hurricane)
Covering dates 1954
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report T/17/54
DEFE 16/935:
Scope and content Penetration of gamma flash into Anderson shelters and concrete cubicles (Operation Hurricane)
Covering dates 1954
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report T/20/54
DEFE 16/947:
Scope and content Thermal radiation intensity-time distribution: photoelectric method (Operation Hurricane)
Covering dates 1954
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report T/68/54
DEFE 16/948:
Scope and content Thermal radiation intensity-time distribution: photographic method (Operation Hurricane)
Covering dates 1954
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report T/69/54
DEFE 16/949:
Scope and content Measurement of total integrated heat output (Operation Hurricane)
Covering dates 1954
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report T/70/54
DEFE 16/953:
Scope and content Effects on a Landrover and generating sets (Operation Totem) [Note by NC: this report was cited and quoted by Philip J. Dolan in the U.S. Department of Defense manual "Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons", 1972 (originally Secret - Restricted Data) together with other British reports because British test procedure was to leave the engine of the vehicle running before and during the nuclear test, which provided valuable information on EMP survivability and the enhanced hazards of the blast wave to a car with the engine running: in one British test, the blast wave damaged the carburettor of a vechicle left with the engine running, causing petrol to leak and set the vechicle on fire.]
Covering dates 1956
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report T/79/54
DEFE 16/969:
Scope and content Target Response Group: effects of blast on dummies and scout car [Like above report, this one is also cited in Dolan's "Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons", 1972].
Covering dates 1959
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report T/6/59
DEFE 16/961:
Scope and content Target response tests: decontamination of radioactively contaminated drinking water in the field
Covering dates 1957
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report T/4/57
DEFE 16/965:
Scope and content Measurement of ground shock and crater [Buffalo R2 surface burst test, 1.5 kt]
Covering dates 1957
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report T/37/57
DEFE 16/972:
Scope and content Target Response Group: cine photography of target response; implementation and results [Operation Antler]
Covering dates 1967
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) Report T/3/66
ES 3/53:
Scope and content Shielding of armoured fighting vehicles against nuclear radiation
Covering dates 1960
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) E1/60
ES 3/53:
Scope and content Shielding of armoured fighting vehicles against nuclear radiation
Covering dates 1960
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) E1/60
ES 3/55:
Scope and content Drag force effects on men in shelters
Covering dates 1961
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) E1/61
ES 3/63:
Scope and content Gamma dose-rate above an infinite plane source
Covering dates 1963
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) E6/63
ES 3/75:
Scope and content Nuclear radiation fields from typical weapons
Covering dates 1965
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) E5/64
ES 3/82:
Scope and content 1/117th scale experiments to assess the effect of nuclear blast on the London Underground system
Covering dates 1966
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) E2/66
ES 4/14:
Scope and content Some aspects of the steady flow problem in radiation hydrodynamics
Covering dates 1954
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O2/54
ES 4/25:
Scope and content Experimental study of the blast wave from a spherical charge of RDX/TNT 60/40
Covering dates 1954
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O13/54
ES 4/35:
Scope and content Decontamination of radioactive clothing: laundry investigations and recommendations
Covering dates 1954
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O23/54
ES 4/47:
Scope and content Attenuation of prompt gamma radiation in the HURRICANE weapon
Covering dates 1954
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) O35/54
ES 4/48:
Scope and content Estimates of the critical thickness of a slab of 95 per cent U235 situated in various thickness of graphite reflectors
Covering dates 1954
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) O36/54
ES 4/76
Scope and content Attenuation of prompt gamma radiation in the HURRICANE weapon, and the variation of apparent time-constant during the period of its measurement
Covering dates 1955
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) O64/54
ES 4/99:
Scope and content Calculation of critical size of depleted U235 core in an infinite uranium tamper
Covering dates 1955
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) O9/55
ES 4/117:
Scope and content Shock waves in air from model charges: Part 5; triple point locus in Mach reflection of the shock at a rigid surface
Covering dates 1955
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O28/55
ES 4/118:
Scope and content Experimental investigation into the interaction of blast waves with a hot layer [obviously this deals with the investigation of the hot, thermal radiation popcorned, desert surface dust cloud when the blast wave travels in it, creating a "precursor" shock wave]
Covering dates 1955
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O29/55
ES 4/119:
Scope and content Hardness of plutonium and plutonium/1.7% gallium alloy
Covering dates 1955
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) O30/55
ES 4/135:
Scope and content Experimental study of the blast wave from a spherical charge of TNT
Covering dates 1956
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O46/55
ES 4/138:
Scope and content Guide to radiological decontamination after a nuclear explosion or radiological attack
Covering dates 1956
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O49/55
ES 4/141
Scope and content Examination of fall-out pellets from TOTEM 2
Covering dates 1956
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O3/56
ES 4/205:
Scope and content Determination of the cross-section of the reaction U238 (N,2n) U237 for 14/5 MeV neutrons
Covering dates 1957
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O12/57
ES 4/273:
Scope and content Bibliography on radiological decontamination and on the nature of weapon fallout
Covering dates 1959
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O7/58
ES 4/308:
Scope and content Determination of (239) U from the (n,Y) reaction of 14/5 MeV neutrons with (238) U
Covering dates 1958
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O46/58
ES 4/361:
Scope and content Theory of radioflash: Part 1; early phase of radioflash; Part 2; overall picture of of radioflash [this is the major British set of papers dealing with the theory of the Electromagnetic Pulse, EMP, from British kiloton yield nuclear tests at Maralinga, Australia]
Covering dates 1959
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O33/59
ES 4/393:
Scope and content Radiological decontamination comparative appraisal of the state of advancement of British and American theory and practice
Covering dates 1960
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O16/60
ES 4/394:
Scope and content Bibiliography on radiological decontamination
Covering dates 1961
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O17/60
ES 4/635:
Scope and content Magnetic and electric fluctuations in the frequency band 0.1 - 10.0 c/s arising from the Starfish high altitude nuclear explosion of 9 July 1962 [these British measurements of the Starfish Prime EMP are not particularly exciting because the waveform and intensity of the long range EMP beyond the horizon was subject to severe modification and interferences before it arrived in Britain and was detected as a chaotic fluctuation; in addition notice that the report is only concerned with the measurement in the frequency band 0-10 Hz, which is the ELH frequency of the MHD-EMP, at very low intensity, not the high frequency microwave component which attains 50 kV/m]
Covering dates 1963
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O68/63
ES 4/636:
Scope and content Electric and magnetic fluctuations in the frequency band 0.1 - 10.0 c/s arising from American and RUssian high altitude nuclear explosions
Covering dates 1963
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O69/63
ES 4/954:
Scope and content Computations of radio-flash from high-yield nuclear bursts in the atmosphere
Covering dates 1967
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) O12/67
ES 4/955:
Scope and content Compton currents and ionisation rate generated in a non-uniform atmosphere by fast, mono-energetic neutrons from a point source
Covering dates 1967
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O13/67
ES 4/1099:
Scope and content Electric fields in flux compression devices
Covering dates 1969
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) O2/69
ES 4/1136:
Scope and content Fallout prediction system for Western Europe
Covering dates 1969
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Open Immediately
Former reference (Department) O39/69
Held by The National Archives, Kew
ES 4/1178:
Scope and content ABM defence of Russia: SSDS ABM committee report
Covering dates 1970
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) O13/70
Scope and content Operation of AWDREY [Atomic Weapons Detection, Recognition and Estimation of Yield electronic computer system which measures the EMP from a nuclear explosion using 1 m long aerials to determine the burst location direction, and also measures the thermal flash rise time to its final peak to help determine the yield] during atomic weapon tests in the atmosphere
Covering dates 1970
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) O35/70
ES 4/1264:
Scope and content EMP fields for inclusion in naval and military equipment specifications. (Paper presented at a meeting of panel N7 of subgroup N held at Defence Research Establishment Ottawa, Ontario, Canada on 14-16 September 1970.)
Covering dates 1971 Feb 01 - 1971 Feb 28
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) O7/71
ES 4/1503:
Scope and content Proceedings of the Seventh UK/US Symposium on Neutron Generators held at AWRE on 2-6 October 1972. Volume 1 and 2
Covering dates 1973 Dec 01 - 1973 Dec 31
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) O53/73
ES 5/1:
Scope and content Some preliminary results from the Monte Bello tests, relevant to defence, including civil defence
Covering dates 1953
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) T1/53
ES 5/2:
Scope and content Operation HURRICANE: directors report; scientific data
Covering dates 1954
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) T1/54
ES 5/3:
Scope and content Operation HURRICANE: directors report; scientific data; top secret section
Covering dates 1954
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) T1a/54
ES 5/5:
Scope and content Canberra flight report October 1953 (Operation HOT BOX) [flying an aircraft through the mushroom cloud of Totem tests in 1953 to measure radiation dose rate a few minutes after burst]
Covering dates 1954
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) T3/54
ES 5/281:
Scope and content Operation ANTLER: Decontamination Group report; Parts 1-3
Covering dates 1960
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) T7/60
ES 5/77:
Scope and content Centurion tank: volume 1 (comprising parts 1, 2 & 3 and appendices 1-7)
Covering dates 1956
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) T78/54
another interesting report:
ReplyDeletePopulation Response to War, Home Office, Scientific Research and Development Branch, London 1983. 12 Volumes Restricted Report No 25/82
Additional reports at the British National Archives:
ReplyDeleteES 6/19:
Scope and content: Radioactive species (other than fission elements) formed in atomic weapons
Covering dates: 01/01/1959 - 31/12/1959
Availability: Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) NR/C15/59
ES 8/7:
Scope and content Operation ICE: interim report on radio-flash measurements
Covering dates 01/01/1959 - 31/12/1959
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) J1/59
ES 10/3:
Scope and content Super bomb: notes on wartime Los Alamos papers
Covering dates 01/01/1954 - 31/12/1954
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 3/54
ES 10/4:
Scope and content Fermi lectures on the super bomb
Covering dates 01/01/1954 - 31/12/1954
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 4/54
ES 10/5:
Scope and content Miscellaneous super bomb notes by Klaus Fuchs
Covering dates 01/01/1954 - 31/12/1954
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) TPN 5/54
ES 10/22:
Scope and content 'Super Bomb Handbook, Part One': information on first Los Alamos report on nuclear weapons
Covering dates 01/01/1954 - 31/12/1954
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) TPN 22/54
ES 10/51:
Scope and content Revised reconstruction of the development of the American thermonuclear bombs
Covering dates 01/01/1955 - 31/12/1955
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 1/55
ES 10/238:
Scope and content Conjectures concerning the precursor: mechanisms
Covering dates 01/01/1956 - 31/12/1956
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) TPN 66/56
ES 10/239:
Scope and content Hydrodynamic models of an expanding core
Covering dates 01/01/1956 - 31/12/1956
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 67/56
ES 10/359:
Scope and content Role of hot sand grains in precursor formation
Covering dates 01/01/1957 - 31/12/1957
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) TPN 10/57
ES 10/447:
Scope and content Absorption of radiation by a body immersed in the fireball of a nuclear explosion
Covering dates 01/01/1957 - 31/12/1957
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) TPN 99/57
ES 10/460:
Scope and content Preliminary study of the gamma dose versus distance results obtained on Operation GRAPPLE
Covering dates 01/01/1957 - 31/12/1957
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 112/57
ES 10/494:
Scope and content U239 production in fission weapon tampers
Covering dates 01/01/1958 - 31/12/1958
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 34/58
ES 10/503:
Scope and content Some aspects of radiation from the fireball
Covering dates 01/01/1958 - 31/12/1958
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) TPN 43/58
ES 10/520:
Scope and content Electromagnetic radiation during the early stages of a nuclear explosion: Part I; weapon asymmetry
Covering dates 01/01/1958 - 31/12/1958
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) TPN 60/58
ES 10/782:
Scope and content Spherical implosions of D-T gas by metal tampers
Covering dates 01/01/1960 - 31/12/1960
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 103/60
ES 10/960:
Scope and content On blowing bubbles in magnetic fields: size of cavity produced in the earth's magnetic field by a nuclear explosion at a great height
Covering dates 01/01/1962 - 31/12/1962
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) TPN 55/62
ES 10/1007:
Scope and content Nature of the CASTLE shots
Covering dates 01/01/1963 - 31/12/1963
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 12/63
ES 10/1008:
Scope and content Correlation of stage interval with weapon design
Covering dates 01/01/1963 - 31/12/1963
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 13/63
ES 10/1105:
Scope and content Limitations on the fireball constant, set by British megaton test results
Covering dates 01/01/1963 - 31/12/1963
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 3/64
ES 10/1106:
Scope and content Megaton-class Redwing devices
Covering dates 01/01/1964 - 31/12/1964
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 4/64
ES 10/1107:
Scope and content Ablative implosion: some thermodynamical principles
Covering dates 01/01/1964 - 31/12/1964
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 5/64
ES 10/1122:
Scope and content Interpretation of early debris motion in the STARFISH event
Covering dates 01/01/1964 - 31/12/1964
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 20/64
ES 10/1136:
Scope and content Methods of calculation of U239/f for an unboosted fission weapon
Covering dates 01/01/1964 - 31/12/1964
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 34/64
ES 10/1303:
Scope and content Computations of radio-flash from high yield nuclear bursts in the atmosphere
Covering dates 01/01/1966 - 31/12/1966
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 17/66
ES 10/1311:
Scope and content Radioflash dependence on the prompt gamma ray decay rate
Covering dates 01/01/1966 - 31/12/1966
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 26/66
ES 10/1319:
Scope and content Review of U237, U239 and U240 relations from the tamper of an unboosted device
Covering dates 01/01/1966 - 31/12/1966
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 34/66
ES 10/1338:
Scope and content Representation of U237/f and tamper fissions
Covering dates 01/01/1966 - 31/12/1966
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 54/66
ES 10/1343:
Scope and content Recent discussions in the US on the theory of radioflash from nuclear bursts
Covering dates 01/01/1966 - 31/12/1966
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 59/66
ES 10/1525:
Scope and content Calculated prompt gamma outputs from a variety of devices
Covering dates 01/01/1968 - 31/12/1968
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 25/68
ES 10/1535:
Scope and content R values
Covering dates 01/01/1968 - 31/12/1968
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 35/68
ES 10/1588:
Scope and content MIKE and CASTLE devices and their later derivatives
Covering dates 01/01/1969 - 31/12/1969
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 18/69
ES 10/1587:
Scope and content Particular calculations on the radioflash [EMP] from multi-stage ground bursts
Covering dates 01/01/1969 - 31/12/1969
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 17/69
ES 10/1648:
Scope and content Nuclear weapon effects on radio and radar
Covering dates 01/01/1969 - 31/12/1969
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) TPN 78/69
ES 10/1710:
Scope and content Alternative kill mechanisms and the corresponding ABM warheads in terminal defence, and their relative blackouts
Covering dates 01/01/1970 - 31/12/1970
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 61/70
ES 10/1735:
Scope and content Radioflash from spark plug tests
Covering dates 01/01/1970 - 31/12/1970
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 86/70
ES 10/1836:
Scope and content Ultraviolet fireball phenomenology from Checkmate photographs
Covering dates 1971 Jan 01 - 1971 Dec 30
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 87/71
ES 10/1866:
Scope and content Survey of experimental data relating to beta patch black-out. Part 1: data from Hardtack and Fishbowl
Covering dates 1972 Jan 01 - 1972 Dec 30
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 10/72
ES 10/1894:
Scope and content Calculation of required zipper [electronic vacuum tube alpha particle accelerator with beryllium target to produce neutrons] source strengths
Covering dates 1972 Jan 01 - 1972 Dec 30
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 38/72
ES 10/1957:
Scope and content Radiation emission from a high altitude nuclear explosion
Covering dates 1972 Jan 01 - 1972 Dec 30
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 101/72
ES 10/2196:
Scope and content Expansion modelling for high altitude nuclear explosions: Part 1; basic piston model number 1
Covering dates 1975 Jan 01 - 1975 Dec 30
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 67/75
ES 10/2204:
Scope and content Comparison of R values with experiment
Covering dates 1975 Jan 01 - 1975 Dec 30
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) TPN 75/75
ES 4/525:
Scope and content Radio flash waveforms
Covering dates 1962
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) O20/62
ES 4/1130:
Scope and content AWRE programs for computing the radio-flash from ground and atmospheric bursts
Covering dates 1969
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) O33/69
ES 1/1105:
Scope and content Radio flash from atomic explosions: protection of missile launching equipment
Covering dates 1959
Availability Closed Or Retained Document, Open Description, Retained by Department under Section 3.4
Former reference (Department) 0323 Pt 3E
WO 195/14436 Physics and Physical Chemistry Committee: Radiological decontamination: An investigation of the absorption on fission isotopes into concrete(PTP(R)15) 1958
WO 195/14479 Physics and Physical Chemistry Committee: Radiological decontamination: Removal of dry fall-out from skin and clothing (PTP(R)16) 1958
WO 195/14611 Physics and Physical Chemistry Committee: note on collaboration with other organisations in the field of radiological decontamination 1959
WO 195/14669 Physics and Physical Chemistry Committee: radiological decontamination, further studies of the removal of dry fall-out from clothing (PTP(R)22) 1959
WO 195/14844 Physics and Physical Chemistry Committee: the decontamination of residential areas 1959
WO 195/14938 Service aspects of personal decontamination prophylaxis and therapy of CW agents 1960
WO 195/14966 Decontamination from CW agents 1960
WO 195/15058 Radiological decontamination clothing trials 1960
WO 195/15302 Radiological decontamination: fallout contamination during a rescue operation(PTP(R)38) 1961
WO 195/15317 Exhaust powered vacuum cleaner for radiological decontamination purposes (PTP(R)40) 1962
WO 195/15331 Radiological Decontamination of clothing (PTP(R)41) 1962
WO 195/15332 Radiological Decontamination: particle retention (PTP(R)42) 1962
WO 195/15337 Radiological decontamination of boots (PTP(R)43) 1962
WO 195/15346 Personal decontamination outfit 1962
WO 195/15348 Radiological decontamination: some basic research adhesion 1962
WO 195/15532 Use of powders in personal decontamination 1962
WO 195/15536 Personal decontamination 1963
WO 195/15537 Decontamination of equipment and stores 1963
WO 195/15647 Fullers earth as a decontaminating powder 1963
WO 195/15654 Progress statement on personal decontamination outfit 1963
WO 195/15669 Radiological decontamination of road surfaces by mechanical sweeper 1963
There are Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch files with declassified information on EMP damage caused by Nevada nuclear tests.
ReplyDeleteHO 338/115:
Scope and content Communications: effects of radiation on radio transmission and equipment
Covering dates 1955-1963
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) SAN 19/1/1
HO 338/116
Scope and content Communications: effects of a nuclear attack on GPO communications
Covering dates 1956-1964
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) SAN 19/3/1
Fire effects of a megaton thermonuclear weapon (taking account of thermal radiation shadowing by the skyline of a city before the delayed blast wave effect arrives):
HO 338/117:
Scope and content Fire Service Study 'Torquemada', 20-22 July 1959
Covering dates 1958-1960
Availability Open Document, Open Description, Normal Closure before FOI Act: 30 years
Former reference (Department) SAN 24/41/1,2
The British National Archives has a catalogue which is available online at:
ReplyDelete"http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/searchthearchives/?source=searcharchives"
For example, searching for "decontamination" brings up 847 results at present (17 April 2007):
"http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/search/quick_search.aspx?search_text=decontamination&SearchButton.x=25&SearchButton.y=9"
Additional National Archive reports on British nuclear tests, Maralinga, Australia:
ReplyDeleteWO 320/1 1956:
British atomic trials, Maralinga, Australia; photographs of Operation BUFFALO, A vehicles, Centurion tank Mk3 and Daimler Scout Car Mk2.
WO 320/2 1956:
British atomic trials, Maralinga, Australia; photographs of Operation BUFFALO, B vehicles, Bedford RLB 3 ton GS 4X4 truck, Rover 1/4 ton GS FFW 4x4 Mk3 truck and 7.62mm FN rifle.
WO 320/3 1957:
British atomic trials, Maralinga, Australia; photographs of Operation ANTLER, targets before and after firings.
DEFE16/57 1955
Operation TOTEM naval radiological measurement final report: part 1, polar distribution of gamma radiation.
DEFE16/58 1955
Operation TOTEM naval radiological measurement final report: part 2, energy of flash gamma radiation.
DEFE16/59 1955
Operation HURRICANE group reports: part 53, radiochemical analysis of a sample of fallout from Monte Bello.
DEFE16/60 1956
Operation TOTEM survey of residual contamination.
DEFE16/61 1956
Operation TOTEM survey of residual contamination.
DEFE16/62 1955
Operation TOTEM: naval radiological measurements final report part 5, protection afforded by a steel box.
DEFE16/63 1955
Operation TOTEM: response of high range quartz fibre dosimeters.
DEFE16/64 1955
Operation TOTEM: radiochemical analysis at Totem neutron flash.
DEFE16/65 1955
Operation TOTEM: fallout particles from Totem 1 and 2.
DEFE16/66 1955
Operation TOTEM: radiation surveys of Totem craters.
DEFE16/67 1956
Operation TOTEM: thermal measurements.
DEFE16/68 1956
Operation TOTEM: dust hazard during operation.
DEFE16/69 1957
Operation TOTEM: measurement of protection against gamma radiation afforded by slit trenches.
DEFE16/70 1957
Operation TOTEM: naval radiological measurements final report part 3, response of fluorescent glass flash gamma dosimeters.
DEFE16/71 1957
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: construction and operation of a field radiological decontamination centre.
DEFE16/72 1957
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: field trials of radiac instruments in a radioactively contaminated area.
DEFE16/73 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: shielding from initial radiation afforded by field-works and armoured fighting vehicles.
DEFE16/74 1957
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: decontamination of radioactively contaminated drinking water in the field.
DEFE16/75 1957
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: Explosives Target Response Group interim report.
DEFE16/76 1957
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: Target Response Structures Group interim report.
DEFE16/77 1957
Operation BUFFALO: Electronics Target Response Group interim report.
DEFE16/78 1957
Operation BUFFALO: meteorological services Vol 1, text.
DEFE16/79 1957
Operation BUFFALO: meteorological services Vol 2, illustrations.
DEFE16/80 1957
Operation BUFFALO: instrumentation Target Response Group interim report.
DEFE16/81 1957
Operation BUFFALO: doses of radiation received by vital organs of a man walking over contaminated ground.
DEFE16/82 1957
Operation BUFFALO: target response, radiac user trials, interim report.
DEFE16/83 1958
Operation BUFFALO: Electronics Target Response Group tests, effect on Radar Type 14 generating sets and test equipment.
DEFE16/84 1958
Operation BUFFALO: Electronics Target Response Group tests, effects on field wireless transceivers, aerials and batteries.
DEFE16/85 1957
Operation BUFFALO: target response tests, effects on communication cables.
DEFE16/86 1957
Operation BUFFALO: Aircraft Target Response Group; interim report.
DEFE16/87 1957
Operation BUFFALO: Biology Target Response Group; interim report.
DEFE16/88 1957
Operation BUFFALO: measurement of beta/gamma ratio of radiations from fallout.
DEFE16/89 1957
Operation MOSAIC: Radiological Group; report.
DEFE16/90 1957
Operation BUFFALO: Decontamination Group; report parts 1-4.
DEFE16/91 1957
Operation MOSAIC: air blast measurements.
DEFE16/92 1957
Operation MOSAIC: theoretical predictions.
DEFE16/93 1957
Operation BUFFALO: Ordnance Target Response Group; interim report.
DEFE16/94 1957
Operation BUFFALO: measurements with phosphate glass and quartz fibre dosimeters in the field.
DEFE16/95 1957
Operation BUFFALO: air sampling in village and airfield area.
DEFE16/96 1957
Operation BUFFALO: measurement of radioactivity of water contaminated by fallout.
DEFE16/97 1957
Operations MOSAIC and BUFFALO: air sampling equipments and techniques.
DEFE16/98 1957
Operation BUFFALO: Materials Target Response Group; interim report.
DEFE16/99 1957
Operation MOSAIC: aircraft decontamination.
DEFE16/100 1957
Design of concrete mixes carrying limestone aggregates at Maralinga.
DEFE16/101 1957
Operation BUFFALO: gamma-ray spectrum of fallout from Buffalo round 1.
DEFE16/102 1957
Operation BUFFALO: gamma radiation measurements.
DEFE16/103 1957
Operation BUFFALO: gamma flash spectrometer.
DEFE16/104 1957
Operation BUFFALO: measurement of radiation dose, rates from fallout.
DEFE16/105 1957
Operation BUFFALO: attenuation and scattering of initial nuclear radiations.
DEFE16/106 1957
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: effect on 1/10th scale surface shelters.
DEFE16/107 1957
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: effect on 1/19th scale storage tank roof panels.
DEFE16/108 1957
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: effect of blast on reinforced concrete slabs and relationship with static loading characteristics.
DEFE16/109 1957
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: effect of earth covers on resistance of trench shelter roofs.
DEFE16/110 1957
Operation BUFFALO: penetration of residual gamma radiation into structures.
DEFE16/111 1957
Operation BUFFALO: radiation survey of ground deposited radioactivity.
DEFE16/112 1957
Operation BUFFALO: remote measurement of variation with time of gamma dose rate from fallout.
DEFE16/113 1957
Operation BUFFALO: aerial survey of radioactivity deposited on ground.
DEFE16/114 1957
Operation BUFFALO: measurements of airborne radioactivity and ground contamination at 15 and 200 miles from ground zero.
DEFE16/115 1957
Operation BUFFALO: naval radiological measurements final report part 1, polar distribution of flash gamma radiation.
DEFE16/116 1957
Operation BUFFALO: atmospheric transmission measurements with a telephotometer.
DEFE16/117 1957
Operation BUFFALO: neutron measurements.
DEFE16/118 1957
Operation BUFFALO: measurement of gamma dose rate and beta/gamma ratio in radioactive cloud.
DEFE16/119 1957
Operation BUFFALO: heat measurements by simple thermal indicators.
DEFE16/120 1958
Operations MOSAIC and BUFFALO: handling, servicing and decontamination of radioactive aircraft.
DEFE16/121 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response test, Biology Target Response Group: part 4a, effect of an atomic explosion on medical supplies.
DEFE16/122 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response test, Biology Target Response Group: part 4b, effect of neutron and gamma irradiation on foodstuffs.
DEFE16/123 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Instrumentation Group: accelerations recorded on target response items.
DEFE16/124 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Instrumentation Group: effects on models and idealised targets.
DEFE16/125 1958
Operation BUFFALO: air shock measurements, rounds 1 and 2.
DEFE16/126 1958
Operation BUFFALO: target response tests, Biology Group; physiological effects of long duration blast waves.
DEFE16/127 1958
Operation ANTLER: theoretical predictions.
DEFE16/128 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: effect of a nuclear explosion on petrol pipelines.
DEFE16/129 1958
Operation ANTLER Target Response Group: use of radiac survey meters nos 2 and 3 in aerial surveys of radioactive areas.
DEFE16/130 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: Explosives Group, final report part 1, Introduction.
DEFE16/131 1958
Operation BUFFALO: measurements of blast pressures associated with various service and civil defence targets.
DEFE16/132 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 8b, effect of a nuclear explosion on jerry can stocks.
DEFE16/133 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 6, effect of thermal radiation from a nuclear explosion on service uniforms.
DEFE16/134 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 2, effect on textiles.
DEFE16/135 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Ordnance Group: part 1, general introduction.
DEFE16/136 1959
Operation KITTENS: fallout measurements, 1955.
DEFE16/137 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 4, effects on rubbers.
DEFE16/138 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 1, general introduction.
DEFE16/139 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 3, effects on plastics.
DEFE16/140 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Explosives Group; final report part 2, mines.
DEFE16/141 1958
Minor trials: particle size distribution in certain TIM clouds.
DEFE16/142 1958
Operation ANTLER: airborne sampling of radioactivity.
DEFE16/143 1958
Operation BUFFALO: theoretical predictions of cloud height and fallout.
DEFE16/144 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 5, effect on paints.
DEFE16/145 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 9a, effects on chemical warfare equipment; part 9b, effects on flame thrower fuel; part 9c, effects on aircraft windscreens.
DEFE16/146 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Materials Group: part 7, effects on packaging materials.
DEFE16/147 1958
Operation BUFFALO: Ordnance Target Response Group; part 3, details of exposure of B vehicles.
DEFE16/148 1958
Operation BUFFALO: attempted decontamination of roofs by washdown.
DEFE16/149 1958
Operation BUFFALO: target response tests, Instrumentation Group; part 3, special instrumentation.
DEFE16/150 1958
Operation ANTLER: gamma dose distance measurements.
DEFE16/151 1958
Operation ANTLER: Target Response Group, neutron induced activity in materials used in items of military equipment Vol 1, text.
DEFE16/152 1958
Operation ANTLER: Target Response Group, shielding from initial radiation afforded by soil.
DEFE16/153 1958
Operation ANTLER meteorological services: Vol 1, text.
DEFE16/154 1958
Operation ANTLER meteorological services: Vol 2, tables and figures.
DEFE16/155 1958
Minor trials: health physics report TIM series 3.
DEFE16/156 1958
Operation ANTLER: aerial survey of radioactivity deposited on the ground.
DEFE16/157 1958
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Ordnance Group: Part 4, details of exposure and guns, mortars and rifles.
DEFE16/158 1958
Operation ANTLER: remote measurement of variation with time of gamma dose rate from fallout.
DEFE16/159 1958
Operation ANTLER: radiological survey operations in Alice Road area.
DEFE16/160 1959
Operation ANTLER: health physics services.
DEFE16/161 1959
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Ordnance Groups: Part 4b, AA guns and rifles.
DEFE16/162 1959
Operation ANTLER Target Response Group: recording techniques used in study of electromagnetic effect on ground radar equipment.
DEFE16/163 1959
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Biology Group: Part 5, entry of fission products into food chains.
DEFE16/164 1959
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Biology Group: Part 5, appendix A, location of sites at which vegetation, soil and rabbits were collected.
DEFE16/165 1959
Operation BUFFALO target response tests Biology Group: Part 3a, effects of blast on dummy men exposed in open.
DEFE16/166 1959
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Structures Group: effect on field defences, text.
DEFE16/167 1959
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Explosives Group final report: Part 3, effect on rocket motors and warheads.
DEFE16/168 1959
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Explosives Group final report: Part 5, demolition explosives and ancillary stores, simulated demolitions, pyrotechnic stores.
DEFE16/169 1959
Operation ANTLER: an attempt at measuring gamma flash spectrum.
DEFE16/170 1960
Operation ANTLER: Decontamination Group report, Parts 1-3.
DEFE16/171 1961
Operation BUFFALO target response tests: Explosives Group final report Part 6, fuses and pistols.
DEFE16/172 1960
Resuspension in the atmosphere of radioactive or other fine particulate material deposited on the ground.
DEFE16/173 1961
Operation AYRES: removal and disposal of a highly contaminated hot box and accessories at Maralinga Range.
DEFE16/174 1961
VIXEN A trials, 1959: experiments to study release of particulate material during combustion of plutonium, uranium and beryllium in a petrol fire.
DEFE16/175 1963
VIXEN A trials, 1959: measurements of dispersion and deposition of beryllium released during combustion in a petrol fire.
DEFE16/176 1963
Decontamination of cloud sampling aircraft.
DEFE16/177 1967
Operation BUFFALO target response tests Ordnance Group: Part 2, details of exposure of "A" vehicles.
DEFE16/178 1963
VIXEN B firings Maralinga Feb-Jun 1961: Contamination Group report.
DEFE16/179 1963
Dispersal of beryllium from experiments involving beryllium and HE.
DEFE16/180 1963
Operation AYRES 2: removal and disposal of a contaminated hot box and accessories at Maralinga Range.
DEFE16/181 1964
VIXEN A field experiments 1961: Part 1 experiments to study release of radioactive material from actinium oxide heated in a petrol fire to temperatures up to 100°C.
DEFE16/182 1965
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Explosives Group final report: Part 7, high explosives initiators and propellants.
DEFE16/183 1964
Operation BUFFALO target response tests, Explosives Group final report: Part 4, artillery, small arms and mortar ammunition.
DEFE16/184 1966
Operation BUFFALO: thermal measurements.
DEFE16/185 1965
Operation ANTLER: air shock measurements.
DEFE16/671 1957
Notes and conclusions on experience arising from 1952 Monte Bello trials.
DEFE16/737 1952-1954
Decontamination of ships following an atomic attack.
DEFE16/933 1954
Anderson shelters.
DEFE16/935 1954
Penetration of gamma flash into Anderson shelters and concrete cubicles.
Additional interesting British National Archives reports
ReplyDeleteADM204/1007 1953:
Radiological decontamination: sea water pre-wetting as a means of minimising contamination.
ADM204/1212 1957:
Relation between water consumption and residual contamination for a ship's pre-wetting system.
ADM204/1216 1957:
Attenuation and scattering of thermal radiation by the atmosphere.
ADM204/1218 1960:
Solubility of some radionuclides from Operations MOSAIC and GRAPPLE fallout.
ADM204/1222 1961:
Shipboard shielding against gamma radiation.
ADM204/2136 1961:
Shielding afforded by HM ships against gamma radiation fallout.
ADM204/2140 1962:
Shielding afforded by ships against gamma radiation from fallout.
ADM204/2149 1957:
Water consumption needed for a pre-wetting system.
ADM204/2150 1954:
Evaluation of ship's pre-wetting installation.
ADM204/2151 1955:
HMS OCEAN radiological trials of pre-wetting system and decontamination of aircraft.
ADM204/2152 1955:
HMS CUMBERLAND evaluation of pre-wetting system.
ADM204/2154 1956:
Penetration of radioactive mist into boilers: preliminary trials.
ADM204/2155 1954:
Evaluation of base surge radioactivity.
ADM204/2156 1952:
HURRICANE: suggested decontamination methods.
ADM204/2157 1954:
Monte Bello, 1952: evaluation of a ship pre-wetting system.
ADM204/2158 1954:
Monte Bello, 1952: evaluation of a pre-wetting system.
ADM204/2159 1953:
Monte Bello, 1952: photochemical measurement of thermal radiation.
ADM204/2160 1954:
Monte Bello, 1952: methods for decontaminating dry surfaces.
ADM204/2161 1954:
Monte Bello 1952: some alpha and beta emissions from contaminated paintwork.
ADM204/2162 1959:
BUFFALO graphic measurements of thermal flux.
ADM204/2167 1956:
MOSAIC: fallout predictions.
ADM204/2168 1956:
MOSAIC: preliminary Naval fallout report.
ADM204/2169 1957:
MOSAIC: fallout on HMS DIANA.
ADM204/2170 1957
MOSAIC: naval fallout measurements.
ADM204/2266 1956:
Fallout pattern from large yield atomic weapon.
ADM204/2267 1956:
Theoretical treatment of effects of 10 megaton weapon on fleet in Scapa Flow.
ADM204/2279 1961:
Operation HURRICANE: growth of fireball and cloud. Retained.
ADM204/2467 1956:
Shielding afforded by Her Majesty's ships against gamma radiation from surface contamination.
ADM116/6084 1952-1954:
Operation HURRICANE: radioactive contamination of Special Squadron ships.
ADM116/6087 1949-1954:
Operation HURRICANE; records of Deputy Chief of Naval Staff.
ADM116/6088 1949-1954:
Operation HURRICANE; records of Deputy Chief of Naval Staff.
ADM116/6089 1949-1954:
Operation HURRICANE; records of Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff.
ADM116/6090 1949-1954:
Operation HURRICANE; records of Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff.
ADM116/6091 1949-1954:
Operation HURRICANE; photographs and maps.
ADM116/6092 1951-1953:
Operation HURRICANE: testing of first British atomic weapon.
ADM116/6093 1952-1953:
Operation HURRICANE: testing of first British atomic weapon.
ADM1/26927 1955-1957:
Suez Canal: effect of nuclear attack (See ADM1/26944).
ADM1/26944 1954:
Suez Canal: effect of nuclear attack (extracted from ADM1/26927). Retained.
AIR2/13772 1962:
Very high yield nuclear weapons effects.
AIR2/13776 1949-1956:
Nuclear weapon tests. Retained.
AIR2/18141 1967-1968:
ACSA(N) Study Group on nuclear weapons effects.
Copy of a comment
ReplyDeletehttp://riofriospacetime.blogspot.com/2007/04/vision.html
"By an amazing coincidence, the configuration resembles a peace symbol with Earth at its centre."
Yes, it's the CND symbol, invented in by Gerald Holtom for the march of the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War from London to Aldermaston, Easter 1958.
CND was unfortunately debunked as being largely run by Moscow-funded 'World Peace Council' Soviet communists, by Paul Mercer's book, “Peace” of the dead: The Truth Behind the Nuclear Disarmers (London, 1986). The worst thing about the Soviet/CND 'peace offensive' attacking civil defence precautions by making false claims about the effects of nuclear weapons, and also the effect it had on Samuel Cohen's invention of the neutron bomb to stop wars and to stop reliance on high yield nuclear weapons, which can cause collateral damage to civilian areas nearby.
I think it's a good thing to have peace, but there are issues about how best to get there. (Simple disarmament was tried in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s, but it just encouraged enemy aggression.)
Nuclear winter has quite an interesting history. It started off with the comet impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. The comet forms a fireball when it collides with the atmosphere, and the thermal radiation is supposed to ignite enough tropical vegetation to produce a thick smoke cloud, freezing the ground and killing off many species.
ReplyDeleteThe best soot to absorb solar radiation is that from burning oil, and Saddam tested this by igniting all of Kuwait's oil wells after the first Gulf War. Massive clouds of soot were produced, but the temperature drop was far less than "nuclear winter" calculations predicted occurred in the affected areas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Kuwait_wells_in_the_first_Gulf_War
The idea that a dark smoke layer will stop heat energy reaching the ground is naive because by conservation of energy, the dark smoke must heat up when it absorbs sunlight, and since it is dark in colour it is as good at radiating heat as absorbing it. So it passes the heat energy downwards as the whole cloud heats up, and when the bottom of the cloud has reached a temperature equilibrium with the top, it radiates heat down to the ground, preventing the dramatic sustained cooling.
Although there is a small drop in temperature at first, as when clouds obscure the sun, all the soot cloud will do in the long run is to reduce the daily temperature variation of the air from day to night, so that the temperature all day and all night will be fairly steady and close to the average of the normal daytime and nighttime temperatures.
The dinosaur extinction evidence, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_Crater, might be better explained by the direct effects of the comet impact: the air blast wave and thermal radiation effects on dinosaurs, and the kilometers-high tsunami. At the time the comet struck Chicxulub in Mexico with 100 TT (100,000,000 megatons or 100 million million tons) energy 65 million years ago, the continents were all located in the same area, see the map at http://www.dinotreker.com/cretaceousearth.html and would all have suffered severe damage from the size of the explosion. Most dinosaur fossils found are relatively close to the impact site on the world map 65 million years ago.
Another issue is that some proportion of the rock in the crater was calcium carbonate, which releases CO2 when heated in a fireball. If there was enough of it, the climatic effects would have been due to excessive heating, not cooling.
The "nuclear winter" idea relies on soot, not dust such as fallout (which is only about 1% of the crater mass, the remainder being fallback of rock and crater ejecta which lands within a few minutes). So it is basically an extension of the massive firestorms theory, which has many issues because modern cities don't contain enough flammable material per square kilometre to start a firestorm even when using thousands of incendiaries. In cases such as Hiroshima, the heavy fuel loading of the target area created a smoke cloud which carried up a lot of moisture that condensed in the cool air at high altitudes, bringing the soot back promptly to earth as a black rain.
Because this kind of thing is completely ignored by "nuclear winter" calculations, the whole "nuclear winter" physics looks artificial to me. In 1990, after several studies showed that TTAPS (Sagan et al.) had exaggerated the problem massively by their assumptions of a 1-dimensional model and so on, TTAPS wrote another paper in Science, where they sneakily modified the baseline nuclear targetting assumptions so that virtually all the targets were oil refineries. This enabled them to claim that a moderate cooling was still credible. However, the Kuwait burning oil wells experience a few years later did nothing to substantiate their ideas. Sagan did eventually concede there were faulty assumptions in the "nuclear winter" model, although some of his collaborators continue to write about it.
More information about the Restricted journal “Fission Fragments”:
ReplyDeleteAccording to the U.K. National Archives page:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATID=7784&CATLN=3&Highlight=&FullDetails=True
“Fission Fragments: Journal of Home Office Scientific Advisers's Branch and successors. The Journal Fission Fragments is produced for distribution to volunteer local authority scientific advisers, originally called 'Scientific Intelligence Officers'. It contains articles on all aspects of civil defence against conventional, nuclear, chemical and biological warfare.
“The journal Fission Fragments was first published by the Scientific Adviser's Branch in [March] 1961, and continues to be produced today by the present Scientific Research and Development Branch, for distribution to the volunteer local authority scientific advisers, originally called 'scientific intelligence officers'. Articles in the journal are written mainly by members of the branch, but have also been contributed by local authority scientific advisers and by the former Civil Defence Department of the Home Office: they range across all aspects of civil defence against conventional, nuclear, chemical and biological warfare. Publication is at irregular intervals, depending upon the availability of material and the importance of its early circulation.”
The National Archives only list issues 1-21, dated March 1961 (issue 1) to April 1977 (issue 21), but this “Restricted” classification journal was still being published in the 1980s by the Home Office Scientific Research and Development Branch (SRDB), London, for example “Fission Fragments” issue No. 37 was published in 1985 containing an article on page 49 concerning “SRDB research: blast trials in the USA.”
***************************
Notes about a few important U.K. Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch research reports on nuclear weapons tests effects and fallout decontamination research:
HO 225/42 (National Archives reference): “Estimates, for exercise purposes, of the radio-active contamination of land areas from an adjacent underwater explosion”, 1953. Original Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch reference: CD/SA 42. This contains a stylised low-classification (restricted) version of the top secret British “Operation Hurricane” fallout pattern from 1952, redrawn in the form of simplified elliptical contours for use in civil defence planning. George R. Stanbury who prepared it had attended the “Operation Hurricane” nuclear test at Monte Bello to measure civil defence effects of the detonation, including blast, heat and nuclear radiation. The text accompanying the fallout pattern tries to justify the fact that the dose rates are much higher than those shown in the 1950 U.S. Atomic Energy Commission book “The Effects of Atomic Weapons” Figure 8.101 (Radiation dosage rate countours at 1 hour after explosion due to fission products from underwater burst) by stating that the American data is for contamination on ships and most of the rainout on the ships immediately ran off the decks and straight back into the sea water (where it was diluted and shielded by the relatively deep water). The British data is for “Operation Hurricane” fallout on islands in the Monte Bello group, Australia, and does not suffer from the problem of the American studies. However, it should also be noted that the British underwater test was 10 miles per hour effective wind (not 5 miles per hour in the case of fallout from the cloud head of the American Crossroads-Baker test), in much shallower depth in much shallower water than the American test, and was actually inside the hull of a ship (below the waterline). Hence, the British “Operation Hurricane” test data is for a situation more that is like a hybrid between a surface burst over mud and a shallow underground burst. “Operation Hurricane” was 25 kt, detonated 2.7 metres below the water line inside a 1,370 ton River class frigate (HMS Plym) anchored in 12 metres deep water, 350 metres off shore from Trimouille Island. Anderson shelters (World War II style outdoor civilian shelters) survived with just a few sandbags displaced on the island, and there are photos showing the ship in the background from the Anderson shelters before the test. The objective of this test was to evaluate the effect of a bomb smuggled near a city on the coast, hidden aboard a ship. The American “Crossroads-Baker” test of 1946 was a 23.5 kt bomb suspended by cable 90 feet below the water surface inside Bikini Lagoon, and hence detonated at mid-depth in 180 feet of water. Baker produced a base surge, Hurricane didn’t because the Hurricane depth of burst (2.7 metres under water) was simply too shallow for base surge formation. To make a base surge, a large bubble of steam must be formed under water. The escaping hot steam condenses into small radioactive droplets which under bulk subsidence, causing the base surge. A burst which is too shallow doesn’t produce a dense-enough cloud of small particles to subside and form a base surge.
HO 225/87 (National Archives reference): “Some recent information from USA about fallout from groundburst megaton weapons”, 1957. Original Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch reference: CD/SA 87. This report is in turn based on data from a September 1957 report by Dr Frank H. Shelton called “Physical Aspects of Fall-Out”, summarising the effects of the American “Operation Redwing” nuclear tests of 1956 at Bikini Atoll. Of particular significance are reproductions of the fallout distribution pattern from the “Redwing-Tewa” surface burst test, and a map of the toroidal shaped radioactivity distribution within the actual mushroom cloud, based on data from rockets sent through the mushroom cloud containing radiation meters and radio transmitters. In addition, the report notes that fallout begins to arrive on the ground near ground zero about 15-20 minutes after a 1 megaton land surface burst or 30-40 minutes after a 1 megaton water surface burst.
HO 225/100 “The hazards from direct exposure to fallout in a damaged area”, 1960. Original Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch reference: CD/SA 100. This report is a summary of beta burn risks to skin, involving studies of the concentration of fallout on skin relative to the ground, and estimates of the beta dosage to the skin and the risk of delayed beta radiation burns resulting from that exposure.
HO 225/117, “Experimental determination of protective factors in a semi-detached house with or without core shelters”, 1964. Original Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch reference: CD/SA 117. This report led to the “Protect and Survive” advice because it proved that adequate fallout radiation protection can be assembled in an inner core within a typical British brick-built house (American wood frame houses offer less protection).
In reference to the paragraph:
ReplyDelete"Dr Harold L. Brode in his May 1964 report A Review of Nuclear Explosion Phenomena Pertinent to Protective Construction (the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California, report R-425-PR) had suggested that the transmittivity of the atmosphere is about T = (1 + 1.4R/V)e^{-2R/V}, where R is distance from detonation and V is atmospheric distinct visibility distance. But a later paper of Brode's, A Review of the Physics of Large Urban Fires, co-authored with Dr Richard D. Small, quotes the substantially greater attenuation of thermal radiation suggested by the empirical green light transmission formula, T = (1 + 1.9R/V)e^{-2.9R/V}, from M. G. Gibbons' August 1966 report Transmissivity of the Atmosphere for Thermal Radiation from Nuclear Weapons (U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, USNRDL-TR-1060)."
Dr Brode's May 1964 report A Review of Nuclear Explosive Phenomena Pertinent to Protective Construction, RAND Corp. report R-425-PR cites the source of the thermal transmission formula T = (1 + 1.4R/V)e^{-2R/V} as being a paper by M. G. Gibbons in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Project Harbor (Group B) September 1963 report Future Weapons and Weapon Effects.
Brode also writes on pages 11-12:
"Such degrading factors as attenuating clouds, smoke, haze, fog, dust, or chance shielding by intervening topography, structures, or natural growth further limit the coverage and the exposure at great distances from surface or low-altitude bursts. At a number of miles from low-altitude or surface bursts, even ones of large yield, these combined effects of atmospheric attenuation and obscuration by surrounding terrain features very greatly degrade the thermal loads to exposed surfaces.
"Even closer, at the higher levels, heavy thermal damage to protective structures is not expected, since the duration of the heating is too short for appreciable heat conduction beyond the surface layers of exposed materials. ...
"Inside the fireball the hot air enveloping a protected structure produces a very corrosive environment, but even here, the transient nature of the thermal load works to limit the damage. At typical fireball temperatures, the air itself does not readily transport the radiant energy, and the first vaporized material [evaporation or "blowoff"] from the surfaces forms a protective screen that inhibits the subsequent flow of heat to the remaining solid surface. calculations of thermal damage are necessarily complicated by such obscuration considerations, but observed effects are indeed negligible relative to what simple heat-transfer notions would predict."
According to page 349 of David Edgerton’s book “Warfare State: Britain, 1920-1970” (Cambridge University Press, 2005), Dr R. H. Purcell (mentioned in this blog post as being the Home Office’s Chief Scientific Advisor during the 1950s and up to 1962), was the chief of the Royal Naval Scientific Service from 1962-1968, and was formerly an academic at London University’s Imperial College.
ReplyDeleteSee:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=PKq5AJJFl0EC&oi=fnd&pg=PR8&dq=%22Edgerton%22+%22Warfare+State:+Britain,+1920-1970%22+&ots=bWrtRW0fDv&sig=FAJQgfMe7DxWv6gBjjkHsPgz5IU#PPA349,M1
It was stated in this blog post that:
ReplyDelete"Ignoring these other volunteer run organizations organized by the Government, and just focussing on the numbers of recruits in the basic Civil Defence Corps, statistics are available which show that the number of members increased from 24,649 by May 1950 (according to the The Times 4 May 1950, p 8) to 205,392 by August 1952 (The Times 15 August 1952, p 3), and peaked at 336,265 by May 1956 (The Times, 2 May 1956, p 6). Membership remained over 300,000 at the time of the Cuban missiles crisis in October 1962, but dropped below 300,000 in 1963, was only 211,570 in November 1964 (The Times, 26 November 1964, p 8), and reached 122,000 by December 1966 (The Times, 15 December 1966, p 6). The Civil Defence Corps was closed in 1968."
However, page 42 of Diane Diacon's 146 pages long book Residential Housing and Nuclear Attack, Building and Social Housing Foundation, published by Routledge, London, in 1984, states:
"In 1961 the Civil Defence Corps had a peak of 375,000 members - membership decreased rapidly thereafter and it was disbanded in 1968. There were 19,000 members of the Auxiliary Fire Service (also disbanded in 1968), 55,000 in the Special Constabulary and 70,000 in the NHS reserve. 4,000 units in the Industrial Civil Defence Service have also since disappeared."
See:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nqYOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PP9&dq=%22J.+K.+S.+Clayton%22+civil+defence&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=0_1&sig=ACfU3U0wAHW6q8RHLSednO0JkqJPvo1yfQ#PPA42,M1
I cannot at this time confirm that the figure just quoted for Civil Defence Corp membership in 1961 is accurate. The published figures in The Times indicated a peak membership in 1956, not 1961.
11 July 2008.
A concise brief history of the origin of British Civil Defence (initially called Air Raid Precautions, ARP) is given on page 2 of the New Zealand Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management publication CIVIL DEFENCE IN NEW ZEALAND, A SHORT HISTORY:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.civildefence.govt.nz/memwebsite.nsf/Files/Short%20Historyof%20Civil%20Defence/$file/Short%20Historyof%20Civil%20Defence.pdf
"The development of a civil defence organisation in Britain can be traced not to natural disaster, but to the introduction of aerial bombing during the First World War. In 1924 an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) subcommittee of the Committee of Imperial Defence was set up to study how to safeguard the civilian population from such bombing. The committee and other such bodies continued to explore the matter until the increasingly threatening international situation in the mid 1930s made urgent the implementation of an air raid protection and civil defence plan. The birth of organized civil defence in Britain came in 1935, with a Cabinet vote of £100,000 for ARP equipment.
"In the same year, an ARP department was set up in the Home Office to co-ordinate the efforts of all the government departments involved with defence against air raids. In 1935 the government also asked local authorities to assist in establishing local ARP organisations, and in 1938 Cabinet Minister Sir John Anderson was given responsibility for the ARP department."
Just an update about the Home Office "Fission Fragments" magazine issue number 21, April 1977: the National Archives page on the file was updated on 1 Jan 2008 to show that from that date, it is no longer being retained in the department on security grounds. So it has now been officially declassified and released under the 30-year-rule.
ReplyDeleteAnother important declassified Home Office publication is: "Police War Duties Manual", H. M. Stationery Office, London, 1965 (originally classified "Restricted: This manual should not be shown to anyone outside the police service").
ReplyDeleteThe introduction on pages 5-6 states:
"The purpose of the Government's defence policy is to prevent war; but until there is general disarmament a possibility of nuclear attack on this country remains.
"If nuclear war should come, casualties and damage would be on a vast scale; but there would also be many millions of survivors. These people would be in urgent need of help which could be given efficiently only if advance planning had taken place and people knew how to look after themselves and others. Survival would depend largely upon the action taken by individual men and women.
"The first need is to have warning of an attack, and on that threat to keep the public calm, advised and supervised, so that they can take such precautions as will ensure maximum survival. The next need is for information about the effects of nuclear bursts. After this, nearly all other home defence measures are based on the need to bring surviving resources and organisations under control with the broad objects, first of maintaining a framework of administration, second of preserving law and order and third of ensuring that food, fuel, drugs and other resources were used to the best advantage.
"There would be little prospect that the communications required for peacetime systems of administration would survive even if the central and local authorities and organisations themselves escaped. The aim of the Government's plans is therefore to decentralise authority to regional seats of government and subordinate controls so that services and resources may be employed most advantageously: first to save trapped and injured persons, then to aid survivors, and later to reestablish an ordered way of life and to reconstruct the country."
Much of the manual is a very concise and useful summary of nuclear weapons effects and protective measures against them, including on page 99 a brief summary of the quantitative effects of underwater bursts in shallow and deep water (this information not included in the unclassified Home Office civil defence publications).
Paragraphs 5.5-5.7 on page 37 states:
"Police forces will require a considerable increase in manpower to carry out their duties. Police strengths will therefore be augmented by the enrolment of temporary constables, who will have the full powers of regular police officers. ... The Special Constabulary and the First Police Reserve will, where possible, be called upon for extended periods of service in war."
Paragraphs 10.42-10.43 on pages 72-73 state:
"Because of the danger from fall-out after nuclear attack, the public should, so far as possible, be kept under cover in their own homes. People who were forced out of their homes because of blast damage or fires would have to find the first available shelter - and this might be no more than temporary cover under some half-ruined building. When the fall-out situation permitted movement to take place, the homeless would be directed by police and wardens out of the damaged areas to places where rest centres could operate. The problem of the homeless, who would be reduced to an appalling condition, both physical and mental, would be enormous.
"The main objects of planning are to provide for the minimum needs of the homeless and to get them billeted quickly. As soon as the fall-out situation permitted, the homeless would have to be brought together in rest centres or exceptionally at preliminary collecting points. It is intended that there should be at least as many prepared rest centres as warden posts. Also auxiliary and improvised rest centres would be established as need arose. Each rest centre would provide shelter and warmth, refreshments, sanitation and washing, first aid, clothing and advice and information, prior to billeting."
I want to publish the review that the British Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch did of Dr Carl F. Dr Miller's 1963 Stanford Research Institute report "Fallout and Radiological Countermeasures". It shows just how important that report was for planning in this country. I read that review around 1992. Later I bought Dr Miller's report from NTIS in microfilm print-out. It is the key report, the only calculation of the actual mass of fallout produced by a surface burst, the fractionation of the different products on the fallout as it condenses while the fireball cools, and the effects of fractionation on the decay rate and decontamination effectiveness. So it answered all the concerns and questions the British Home Office had about fallout and enabled them to formulate their civil defence planning against fallout with a lot more confidence than they would otherwise have had, which eventually led to the U.K./ civil defence assault against Soviet funded WPC propaganda in 1980. The refusal to give in to Soviet propaganda and intimidation caused the Soviet union to go financially and then politically bankrupt (Gorbachev had to cut military spending when it went militarily bankrupt), and they were already morally bankrupt.
ReplyDeleteI gather from the reports which I read that when Dr Miller moved from NRDL to SRI around 1960, Dr Edward C. Freiling came in to NRDL from outside and took over Miller's former position at NRDL. Freiling initially made a complete mess of the fractionation analysis, publishing a paper in Science journal in 1961 which added confusion by plotting the data in a useless way (Miller corrects Freiling's data in his 1963 report, and in subsequent reports on fractionation Freiling used Miller's 1963 study, citing it). I think the decision was taken to close down NRDL around 1969 when the fractionation question had been sorted out and the fallout from surface bursts was fully understood. To my mind, the fact that Dr Freiling tried falsely to deal with fractionation by an empirical correlation scheme instead of working out the mechanisms for the fission product separation in the fireball, indicates that Dr Miller's model for the mechanisms was unique and extremely important, and probably would not have been done properly by others if he hadn't been so motivated from his field experience of collecting and analyzing fallout.
Some vital reports by Dr. Carl F. Miller:
ReplyDeleteAccession Number : AD0476572
Title : BIOLOGICAL AND RADIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF FALLOUT FROM NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS. CHAPTER 1: THE NATURE OF FALLOUT. CHAPTER 2: FORMATION OF FALLOUT PARTICLES
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=AD476572&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
Corporate Author : STANFORD RESEARCH INST MENLO PARK CA
Personal Author(s) : Miller, Carl F.
Handle / proxy Url : http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/AD476572
Report Date : MAR 1964
Pagination or Media Count : 89
Abstract : Contents: The Nature of Fallout; Local Fallout; World-Wide Fallout; Potential Hazards from Fallout; Radioactive Decay; The Standard Intensity and Contour Properties. Formation of Fallout Particles; General Description of Fallout Formation Processes; The Structure and Composition of Individual Fallout Particles; Solubility Properties of Fallout; Radioactive Elements in Fallout; The Condensation Process.
also:
FALLOUT AND RADIOLOGICAL COUNTERMEASURES, VOLUME 1
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=AD410522&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
The major purpose of this report is to outline and discuss these physical processes and the important parameters on which they depend.
Accession Number : AD0410522
Title : FALLOUT AND RADIOLOGICAL COUNTERMEASURES, VOLUME 1
Corporate Author : STANFORD RESEARCH INST MENLO PARK CA
Personal Author(s) : Miller, Carl F.
Handle / proxy Url : http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/AD410522
Report Date : JAN 1963
Pagination or Media Count : 402
Abstract : The major purpose of this report is to outline and discuss these physical processes and the important parameters on which they depend. The data, data analyses, data correlation schemes, and discussions presented here are organized to emphasize size basic principles so that an appropriate methodology can be applied in evaluating the radiological consequences of nuclear war. An explosion of any kind, detonated near the surface of the earth, causes material to be thrown up or drawn into a chimney of hot rising gases and raised aloft. In a nuclear explosion, two important processes occur: (1) radioactive elements, which are produced and vaporized in the process, condense into or on this material; and (2) a large amount of non-radioactive material, rises thousands of feet into the air before the small particles begin to fall back. This permits the winds to scatter them over large areas of the earth's surface. Thus, when the particles reach the surface of the earth they are far from their place of origin and contain, within or on their surface, radioactive elements. Whether they are solid particles produced from soil minerals, or liquid (salt- containing) particles produced from sea water, they are called fallout. The composition of fallout can be described in terms of two or three components. One is the inactive carrier; this consists of the environmental material at the location of the detonation and is the major component in a near-surface detonation. The second component includes all the radioactive elements in the fallout.
and:
Fallout and Radiological Countermeasures. Volume 2
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=AD410521&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
Title : Fallout and Radiological Countermeasures. Volume 2. Corporate Author : STANFORD RESEARCH INST MENLO PARK CA. Personal Author(s) : Miller, Carl F.
Accession Number : AD0410521
Title : Fallout and Radiological Countermeasures. Volume 2
Corporate Author : STANFORD RESEARCH INST MENLO PARK CA
Personal Author(s) : Miller, Carl F.
Handle / proxy Url : http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/AD410521
Report Date : JAN 1963
Pagination or Media Count : 290
Descriptors : *RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION, *FALLOUT, CLEANING, SEA WATER
Subject Categories : RADIO COUNTERMEASURES
RADIOACTIVITY, RADIOACTIVE WASTES & FISSION PROD
The British Home Office report reviewing in great detail Dr Carl F. Miller's 1963 Stanford Research Institute report "Fallout and Radiological Countermeasures volume 1" is:
ReplyDeleteHO 227/74
HO 227 Home Office: Scientific Adviser's Branch and successors: Reports (SA/PR Series)
Fallout and radiological counter-measures Vol 1
Former reference (Department) SA/PR 74
1963
Here is more information about the U.K. Home Office Fission Fragments journal, edited by Peter R. Bentley and others. Issue 1 was dated March 1961, and the U.K. National Archives at Kew holds issues 1-21 (issue 21 was dated April 1977, and gives information about the 1974 NATO version of Dolan's secret Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Department of Defense manual DNA-EM-1).
ReplyDeleteAccording to Fission Fragments issue No. 30 of January 1982, the U.K. Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch (SAB) had ceased to exist as an independent unit of the Home Office as of that date, and had been replaced by a merged group, the Scientific Research and Development Branch (SRDB) within the Police Department of the Home Office, responsible for police science as well as civil defence research.
Fission Fragments No. 31, June 1982, states on p. 3 that the Home Office had placed an order for 79,000 portable digital electronic geiger counters of 0.1-300 cGy/hr in tissue gamma range (0.1-300 rad/hr) PDRM82s and 1,050 fixed versions of the same instrument with external detector heads for shelters. The design for the PDRM82 manufactured by Plessey Controls was scheduled to be finalized in October 1982.
Fission Fragments No. 32 was dated December 1982 (no particularly interesting content).
Fission Fragments No. 33, July 1983 states on page 4:
“All Scientific Advisers will be aware of the publicity surrounding the BMA’s press conference on 3rd March introducing their Report entitled ‘Medical Effects of Nuclear War’. (Since published as a paperback by John Wylie).
“In the Home Office view this report is misleading in two important respects. First it dwells on what can only properly be regarded as one possibility out of many in a future war: a strategic nuclear strike at the United Kingdom aimed at our Conurbations as well as at our military capability to wage war. Secondly, the BMA Report draws attention to discrepancies between US and UK casualty rate predictions. Although SRDB damage and injury models are under review, we do not accept that the US figures are directly applicable to the UK.”
Fission Fragments No. 34 was dated March 1984 (no particularly interesting content).
Fission Fragments No. 35 was dated November 1984 and is an index of the contents from issues 17-34 (there was a previous index of articles from early issues in issue 16). It states on page 1 that issues 1-21 and one article in issue 22, were classified “Restricted”, but not later issues which are unclassified (and have generally far less interesting content).
Fission Fragments No. 36, March 1985 contains an interesting article on pages 10-21 by Professor J. H. Martin of the Department of Medical Biophysics, Dundee University, “Some Recent Publications on Radiological Effects” which criticises Joseph Rotblat’s 1981 book “Nuclear Radiation in Warfare” as follows:
“In Fig 7 (p. 35) NRW shows a curve which is said relates probability of death to dose. This is taken from an American publication, but NRW fails to realise that the curve was obtained for people already ill (leukaemia patients) before irradiation, hence the exceedingly low value of 250 rads for the LD50. In addition, NRW extrapolates the curve to dose values below 100 rads so showing mortality at dose levels where few people would even be sick. It is even suggested (page 36) that the curve could, in practice, be further to the left (i.e., towards lower doses.”
Note that Martin failed to notice that the equation given by Joseph Rotblat’s 1981 book “Nuclear Radiation in Warfare” for specific activity is wrong! Rotblat was poorly informed on his own specialist professional subject, due in part to the bias with which he conducted his Nobel Prize winning propaganda research against the facts.
(continued)
ReplyDeleteFission Fragments No. 37 was dated October 1985, contains an article on “SRDB [Scientific Research and Development Branch] research: blast trials in the USA”, page 49.
Fission Fragments No. 38 was dated September 1986 (no particularly interesting content).
Fission Fragments No. 39 was dated June 1987: announces the September 1986 report by Dr S. Hadjipavlou and Dr G Carr-Hill “A Review of the Blast Casualty Rules Applicable to UK Houses” (Home Office Scientific Research and Development Branch report 34/86).
Fission Fragments No. 40 was dated December 1987 (no particularly interesting content).
Fission Fragments No. 41 was dated July 1988 (no particularly interesting content).
Fission Fragments No. 42 was dated January 1989 (no particularly interesting content).
Fission Fragments No. 43 was dated October 1989 (no particularly interesting content).
Fission Fragments No. 44 was dated December 1990: it discusses the British nuclear test data on fallout gamma radiation shielding by buildings from the 1957 nuclear tests of Operation ANTLER in Australia, which was earlier partially and briefly summarized in Fission Fragments issue 10 of 1967 on pages 21-27, comparing this British fallout shielding data to American Nevada nuclear test fallout gamma shielding data from the report by W. F. Titus, “Operation PLUMBBOB: Penetration into concrete of gamma radiation from fall-out”, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, nuclear weapon test report WT-1477, 1960.
Fission Fragments No. 45 was dated February 1992: this is apparently the last issue of Fission Fragments as the U.K. Cold War civil defence infrastructure was closed down to save money in the economic recession. It contains some interesting fragments of information. E.g., it makes the point clearly that outside (1 m height) in a fallout area, 90% of gamma dose is direct gamma rays coming from fallout on the ground over a wide area around you (so 90% is coming almost horizontally at you from a median distance of 15 metres on smooth ground, less on rough ground) and only 10% of the dose is gamma rays coming down due to Compton effect air scatter, so-called "skyshine". Hence getting in a below-ground open trench which shields virtually all of the predominantly horizontal direct gamma rays, will at most expose you to just the 10% of the radiation from skyshine plus the trivial gamma dose from the relatively small fallout which lands beside you in the trench. In fact, if the trench is narrow, not even all of the skyshine gamma dose will be received because you will be exposed to less than the whole sky, so high levels of protection are possible with knowledge of the fallout gamma dose distribution physics. This issue of Fission Fragments also notes that Health Physics, vol. 52, No. 5, in 1987 was a special issue on the evidence for radiation HORMESIS (“a little radiation dose is good for you”).
Hello Nigel, I'm the same person who asked you for your assistance with the wiki nuclear winter page, I was just wondering, because I can't access it, if you could supply the pdf of this nuclear winter relevant document:
ReplyDeleteEffects of atomic bomb on Hiroshima.Vol. 1
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATLN=6&CATID=3055077&FullDetails=True&j=1&Gsm=2008-08-08
Please respond to this address jleydenco@yahoo[dot]com
Thank you,
I hope you receive this mail in good health.
Hi and thank you very much,
ReplyDeletePlease see page 24 of http://www.quantumfieldtheory.org/Fire_Effects_of_Bombing_Attacks.pdf
"A large proportion of over 1,000 persons questioned were in agreement that a great majority of the original fires were started by debris falling on kitchen charcoal fires, by industrial process fires, or by electrical short circuits [in an era before modern circuit breakers and fire sprinklers]."
It's dangerous for health having a Wikipedia tit for tat argument with religiously dogmatic believers that in the false theory that Hiroshima's firestorm exterminated life on earth. If they can't be bothered to read the report 92 of the USSBS, they're ignorant, and need to first read it before starting a discussion. Also see AD673703 (Jerald Hill, RAND Corp paper P-2414), pages 5 and 9:
"... the burned out areas {Hiroshima} ... were much less than would be predicted by the primary ignition experiments in the Nevada ... not all potential sources ignite because many are shadowed from the thermal radiation and of those which do ignite, many are not close enough to heavier fuels ..."
Also note that the American manuals only consider humidity effects on THIN fuels, not humidity effects on thicker secondary fuels which ignited think fuels must ignite!!!
This error means that they exaggerate the risk ignited paper going on to ignite a piece of wood. If both are damp to the same extent, the thermal flash can dry out and ignite the paper (THIN fuel) far more easily than it can dry out the wood. Simply, the wood won't ignite. The humidity in all river or ocean based cities (almost all cities are near a water source like a river, lake or the coast) is typically 70% or more, compared to under 30% for Nevada.
This has little effect (only a factor of about 2) on ignition energies for paper, but a MASSIVE effect on the chance of igniting thick wood!!
I'm very busy on a quantum gravity paper, but will return to this asap.
I have a set of the atomic air burst explosion damage posters showing streets in London before and after the explosions but they are different pictures to the ones on this site . Do they have any value ?
ReplyDeleteThanks
Mark
Marktuney@aol.com
Are the b/w photographs of WWII damage correlated to equivalent nuclear explosion overpressures, or colour artist illustrations? Could you take photos of them please?
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Nigel