 The latest weapons, coupled with the fighting skill of the American soldier, stands ready on the alert all over the world to defend this country. View the American people against aggression. This is the Big Picture, an official television report to the nation from the United States Army. Now to show you part of the Big Picture, here is Sergeant Stuart Queen. Ignorance breeds fear. To teach soldiers of the United States Army exactly what atomic weapons can and cannot do, and thereby allay any unreasonable fears of the A-bomb, a series of atomic experiments have been held in the barren lands of Nevada during the past several years. Today's Big Picture deals with the latest and most extensive of these experiments. Desert Rock 6. In the spring of 1945, victory in Europe terminated a slow, painful war in the old world. Only weeks later, the centuries-old concepts of war were changed in a blinding instant. Here at Hiroshima was felt the awful impact of man's new, mightiest weapon, the A-bomb. Accompanying the blast were searing heat and atomic radiation, a word in effect new to most of the world's population. In the ensuing years, both the lethal power of the atom and the means of delivering it were improved. Then came atomic artillery. Research and development in several areas promised more powerful warheads, longer-reaching weapons, and simultaneously reduced the defender's chance against them. Today, no one has a greater interest or a greater stake in the development and the use of atomic firepower than the American soldier. Would the ground soldier become obsolete? was a question asked immediately by civilian and military alike. To answer the question and to explore its ramifications, the U.S. Army set up an atomic experiment station at Camp Desert Rock, Nevada. By winter of 1954-55, 31 different atomic devices had been tested. Now in January of 1955, another series of test explosions is scheduled. Instructors are prepared to answer the questions uppermost in the minds of every participant. You are here to participate in an atomic maneuver. Atomic weapons are truly powerful, but they don't mean the end of all life as so many people think. You can live through an atomic attack, and by taking common sense precautions, live to fight another day. This is not a haphazard maneuver. Careful planning for it started months back, involving activity not only here in Nevada, but also in New Mexico and wherever your home stations are. The planning mentioned by the instructor involves a movement of infantry and armored units. Here officers are seen setting up an assumed tactical situation to be presented later to the commanding general of Desert Rock for approval. The plan supposes that an aggressor has seized the west coast of the United States, but our troops have finally stopped him right along this position, ground zero. Here the atomic weapon will be used. Next our troops will attack and seize the target area. Immediately the plans are approved. Army engineers go to work. Across the monotonous terrain to Frenchman's flat, they set up their transits and begin to lay out the exercise area. A few miles away lies a sandy parcel of land called ground zero. No longer an anonymous, desolate stretch of land, ground zero is level, then topped with a series of concentric asphalt circles forming an enormous target. Nearby signal corps men lay communication lines to receive and transmit telephone and teletype messages. At the same time the enormous task of excavating entrenchments for participating soldiers is underway. A mechanical ditch digger does the initial digging, gouging out trenches and foxholes. Next the men who will occupy the positions during the blast finish the entrenchments by adding sandbag reinforcement. Don't worry men, I tried on those foxholes for size myself many times. They'll be big enough and safe enough to hold two infantry soldiers. Let's take a look at a typical atomic explosion. See what happens and find out what there is to be afraid of and what we don't have to fear. First of all, what's our first inkling that an atomic bomb has gone on? That's a tremendous flash of bluish-white light, many times brighter than the sun and a lot closer to you. Whether the bomb went off 5 or 55 miles away, you'll know that it has gone off by this light and that you should take immediate action to protect yourself. As soon as that glare fades, you'll see a ball of fire at the point where the explosion occurred. This fireball turns from white to orange, then to a bright red. A brown smoky-looking cloud soon begins to cover the fireball. This brown cloud rises very rapidly and a stem of dust shoots up from the ground to meet it. This mushroom stem is made up of pulverized pieces of the ground below, the target. When the head of the cloud reaches very cold air, actual ice crystals form an ice cap over the cloud. The cloud itself is still hot and churning. So the ice flows down over the sides, mixing in through the cloud, eventually turning it pure white in color. This white mushroom, zooming up to 40 or 50,000 feet, may be several miles in diameter and be seen from many miles away. Eventually the cloud drifts off and you can't tell it from the other clouds in the sky. Watched from a safe distance, this explosion is one of the most beautiful sights ever seen by man. You're probably saying, so it's beautiful. What makes it so dangerous? Basically, there are only three things to think about. Blast, heat, and radiation. Let's take a look at each of these in turn. Blast from an atomic explosion is just like blast from any other explosion, except it's larger. The wall of air pressure created by this atomic weapon can hurt you and your equipment. The atomic blast pushes on an obstacle like a building for about one second, about a hundred times as long as ordinary high explosive. You might say that where ordinary bombs hit a building sharply and let suction pull out the walls, the atomic bomb leans on a building until it pushes it over. A big worry about blast is being in the way of something that's been caught up in it and thrown at you at hundreds of miles per hour. Or it may pick you up and throw you at a building at the same speed and below the surface of the ground if possible. If you stay down so that the flying debris can sail over you, you can protect yourself completely from atomic blasts. The next thing to consider is how long do you have to get down? The blast and the flying debris arrive at your position at the same time you hear the sound of the explosion. This means roughly about five seconds per mile for the shock wave to reach you. At a mile away, you've still got time to get into a hole. When you see that glare, hit the dirt fast. So much for the blast from an atomic explosion. But what about the heat and flash of the detonation? The fireball is originally more than a thousand times as hot as the surface of the sun. It sends out heat like a huge oven from the very first instant of detonation, right along with the white light. This heat comes out very rapidly. As a matter of fact, you are burned in the first half second. In the half second it takes for our brains to tell our muscles, A-bomb take cover. We have already been burned. But at one mile, which is pretty close to one of these gadgets, ordinary clothing will protect you. Keep your sleeves rolled down and wear a hat. Of course, if you're in the shaded portion of a foxhole at the time of detonation, you are perfectly safe from the heat of the bomb. Anything that casts a shadow will protect you. Now, how far away can you be burned? Generally, within three miles or so of ground zero. But the weather has a lot to do with burn. Cloudy, rainy, snowy, foggy days will give you greater protection from the heat. And so will a smoke screen. You've heard a lot about blindness from an atomic explosion. I'm sure that all of you have looked at the sun sometime during your life. When you did, you got spots in front of your eyes. The blindness from the white light of an atomic explosion is a somewhat magnified version of these spots. These spots will go away and so will normal flash blindness from an atomic explosion. And for you doubting Thomas' who were recalling that we told you not to look at that white light, well, the three or four minutes of sight that you'd lose would prevent you from seeing that magnificent sight immediately afterwards. And now we come to what a lot of people consider the $64 question, radiation. This is the one new effect obtained by the use of an atomic weapon. Truthfully, it's the least important of the three effects as far as the soldier on the ground is concerned. Still, radiation affects the body much as an x-ray does. If enough is received, it can be fatal. From an air burst, however, this fatal dose of radiation can be gotten only fairly close to ground zero, with distances practically never exceeding one mile. Since buildings are destroyed by blast out to a couple of miles and burning occurs maybe three miles away, you can see the radius of fatal radiation is much less. Radiation from the bomb comes in four forms. First, the alpha particle or nucleus of the helium gas atom, then the beta particle or high-speed electron. Next, the gamma ray or energetic x-ray and finally the neutron. Only the last two, the gamma ray and the neutron, travel far enough to be considered in their effect on the human body. These radiations can be stopped by thick substances. Steel, concrete and ordinary dirt offer good protection. As a matter of fact, one inch of steel, four inches of concrete or five inches of dirt will cut out nearly half the radiation you would otherwise receive. Half of this air burst radiation occurs during the first second, the remaining half during the next 89 seconds. So the radiation hazard on the ground is over 90 seconds after the bomb goes off in the air. If you are above ground and get under at the end of one second, you can miss half the radiation completely. So your best available protection from radiation is doing what you do to avoid debris hurtling toward you. You can't feel it, smell it or taste it. Film badges and dosimeters issued to you enable the radiological safety monitor in your unit to read the amount of your exposure. Early the following day the troops pass through the checkpoint to begin a 30-mile orientation drive, their destination ground zero. On the way they pass the control center, a building of many vital functions. During the critical minutes before and after the atomic explosion, the control center communicates with Army personnel in the forward area. By remote control, the center operates hundreds of scientific instruments positioned near ground zero. Many of the instruments are protected and cared for in shelters. Others are placed out in the open above ground. The presence of so many protective and measuring devices is reassuring to the man who will shortly be stationed within the range of the explosion. While at ground zero, equipment is inspected in the display area so that comparisons may be made after the detonation. Not only will tests show the effects of atomic weapons on ground troops, but they will indicate the effects on military equipment and buildings. Test equipment is set up at various intervals from ground zero from two miles to a quarter of a mile. Test equipment is placed above ground unsheltered. Above ground, sheltered and in dug-in positions. A model city is erected that will test the degree of destruction on homes and the effect on their occupants, here represented by mannequins. Food is also to be tested. Meanwhile, advancing from the south are the tanks comprising Task Force Razor 55M48, supported by more than 200 other vehicles. For three days, the men and machines have been traveling through the wastelands of the Mojave and the Death Valley Deserts. Once it reaches the detonation area, Task Force Razor will pause briefly for the explosion, then move forward to encounter and subdue a ghost battalion entrenched in the target area. Despite the grueling trek across nearly 200 miles of desert dust, all vehicles will be operational when they arrive at the test site, thanks to the maintenance crews. As the convoy rapidly approaches the jumping off point for its simulated breakthrough, the moment of explosion is less than a day away. Despite the achievements of the desert crossing, the real significance of Task Force Razor will not be known until it passes ground zero after the blast. Night falls swiftly at Desert Rock, the tension and the excitement mounting. For some of the participating troops, nearby Las Vegas offers an evening's entertainment, a distinct but equally stimulating change from the preparations for the atomic blast. The weekly free show sponsored by the Las Vegas Variety Club comes off on schedule. Before dawn, troops prepare to enter their protected positions. Soon they will join the ranks of more than 30,000 veterans who have taken part in previous Desert Rock exercises. Every man has been thoroughly rehearsed, every position double checked for safety features. In the time that remains before the detonation, the troops receive final instructions from their briefing officer. He first locates ground zero, which lies just over the small hill about five miles beyond the dry lake bed. He then outlines again the schedule of events up to eight hour. Ten minutes before all troops take cover, two minutes before a siren will blow. Every soldier must then place his equipment under cover and squat down, leaning against the forward wall of his foxhole. At the proper instant before each hour, rockets will be fired skyward for measuring purposes. Elements of Task Force Razor stand in readiness. All the tense waiting comes. The minutes and seconds are slipping by. Minus one minute. As the troops are moving forward toward ground zero to see for themselves the effects of nuclear devices. This firsthand experience is one which will be embedded in the memory of every simultaneously the tankmen of Task Force Razor are grinding toward ground zero and beyond. Fighting their way through straps and blocks built in man by the ghost battalion. An inspection of the model city shows the relative strength of construction methods and building materials. Vehicles, weapons and equipment are inspected for damage. They represent an enemy's arms, but they could be our own. Some damage beyond repair, others still usable. Maintenance and supporting forces are given a taste of nuclear warfare as well as the men trained for frontline duty. In reality, such decontamination teams would play a vital role in helping to keep our fighting machine intact. Ground zero has been reached, explored and left behind. One of the 13 successful Desert Rock experiments in this series is history. As an added safety measure, every man is thoroughly brushed and checked with a Geiger counter before he is allowed to return to his campsite. Every individual has received a singular personal impression of course, but most of the participants have formed an opinion in common. But Bert, don't you think that the atomic weapon would be a mighty powerful thing for our soldiers to avoid on a battlefield? Well Al, there's no question about it. It is a powerful weapon. But we have had proven to us in these tests that a soldier can fight and survive on an atomic battlefield if he protects himself adequately. Well Bert, you were out there. How's about some comments on this radiation I hear so much about? Well, there is radiation. There's no question about that. But, well, for example, the other day I was out there at 2,500 yards from ground zero and I received one middle rank in of radiation during that time. And it takes approximately 450 rankins to place one in the critical category, so as you can see I'm still here. To the question what about the ground soldier in the atomic age, Desert Rock experiments give a clear answer. The atom has revolutionized the mechanics of warfare, but the basic element, the fighting man, remains unchanged. No one is more aware of this than the men of the United States Army. It is historical fact that military weakness is an invitation to aggression. By being prepared, our army hopes to avoid a future war. But should war come, it may also become historical fact that the war was won in advance, thanks to the experiments and maneuvers held at Camp Desert Rock. Now this is Sergeant Stuart Queen inviting you to be with us again next week for another look at your army in action in the big picture. The big picture is a weekly television report to the nation on the activities of the army at home and overseas. Produced by the Signal Corps Pictorial Center. Presented by the United States Army in cooperation with this station. You too can be an important part of the big picture. You can proudly serve with the best equipped, the best trained, the best fighting team in the world today, the United States Army.