Photos The Cold War

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DIY Radiation Shelter: January, 1962

Fallout Shelter Basics: September, 1959
"Planners figure a family of four could be housed in a room with a seven-by-seven foot floor area. That allows a little more than the 10 square feet per person considered a minimum for comfort. 'Basics' will include beds, food, water, sanitation facilities, lighting and a radio. To alleviate boredom, the designers experimented with variations in lighting. Both incandescents and fluorescents were used. Switching different ones off and on at intervals helped convey a feeling of the passage of time." Read the rest of the story in the September 1959 issue of Popular Science.

Family Foxhole: March, 1951
"You cannot escape an atomic bomb, but there is something practical and patriotic you can do to prepare for atomic attack. A millionaire could not construct a complete A-bomb-proof shelter, but the average house-holder can make a worthwhile refuge room in the average basement. By building your family foxhole, you will also be building the state of mind that can resist the pressures of agression as well as the shocks of actual atomic war." Read the rest of the story in the March 1951 issue of Popular Science.

 

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A US Marine armed with a M14 guards the Capitol building in April 1968 during the MLK assassination riots, Note he's still wearing reversible camo covering.

 

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USS Sicily CVE-118 arrives at the King George V docks in Glasgow Scotland to unload USAF P/F-80 fighters - August 1948
The planes and associated equipment were offloaded, and the planes were towed to a nearby RAF airfield where they were later flown to Germany
The fighters were being transferred from Panama to Germany to support the Berlin Airlift
LIFE Magazine Archives - Walter Sanders Photographer

 

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[uktabber]

Absolutely Fantastic pictures mate, THANKS for sharing.......Great Stuff, keep them coming!!!

 

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Bundeswehr "Panzerbrigade 18" during the cold war.

 

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Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Project 641/Foxtrot class SSK B-59 on the surface trying to evade the US Navy's Allen M. Sumner class destroyer USS Lowry (DD-770).

By this time, US ASW patrols, first from shore-based aircraft and later the Randolph ASW group (including the pictured Lowry, Beale, Bache, Cony, Eaton, Conway, Murray, and Waller), had held the submarine down for almost a full day, trying to communicate and tell them to surface (including throwing hand grenades over the side as signalling charges). This drained the submarine's batteries, and unable to snorkel due to the patrols, the submarine surfaced around 2050 local time on 27 October. This photo was taken the next day or on 29 October, as the submarine remained surfaced almost 48 hours with constant US patrols (including Barry, arriving later).

This was one of four submarines dispatched to Cuba, and one that potentially came closest to turning the crisis into nuclear war. All four submarines had nuclear-tipped torpedoes, with purple-painted warheads. Each was only authorized to launch the torpedoes if the senior officers agreed, and while on most boats that would be the captain and the political officer, B-59 also had the commander of the submarine squadron aboard, Vasily Arkhipov, who also had to concur.

At this point, accounts diverge. Most state that Arkhipov alone opposed launching the torpedo, and as this is the most flashy story it tends to be repeated most often (including a very good exhibit aboard B-39 in San Diego, where they tell the story through different compartments). However, some sources cite crew memoirs that only the CO lost his nerve and both Arkhipov and the political officer talked him down.

 

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Winter 1986.

 

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A Dutch soldier with a Uzi submachine gun, 1960's