United States Air Force Training Film, 1960, Secret.
Filming Armageddon: Air Force Movies Depict U.S. Preparations for Nuclear War.
The declassified Air Force film shows the crew of a U.S. B52 bomber reaching its “Positive Control” (“fail safe”) point on the way to its target in the Soviet Union. But instead of turning around as usual, they get an order to proceed to their assigned objective. Having received and authenticated a “Go Code” message from U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC), the pilot announces, “We’re going in,” navigating the aircraft low over mountains, lakes, fields, and forests to avoid Soviet air defenses. The dramatic soundtrack swells as the bomber nears its target, unleashes its nuclear payload, and then speeds away to create a “separation distance” between itself and the effects of the resulting explosion. Undamaged by the thermal blast and shockwave, the aircrew heads back home, but not before flying through “the contaminated cloud of another bomb dropped 30 minutes ago” by a different SAC B52.

While this dramatization of a U.S. nuclear strike is reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classic, Dr. Strangelove, it’s actually the climactic sequence of a 1960 SAC training film recently declassified by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Titled “Nuclear Effects During SAC Delivery Missions,” the film’s purpose is to familiarize SAC pilots and crew members with the devastating effects of nuclear weapons detonations and the detailed plans that the command had developed to help the crews evade the dangers of navigating through a nuclear battlefield. The narrator assures trainees that SAC had taken into account the effects of the blasts on U.S. aircrews and had prepared a “workable plan for every sortie to and from the target area.” SAC crewmembers are advised that they can safely navigate the aircraft home “if you follow rigidly your flight plan.”

Today’s posting includes the “Nuclear Effects” film and four other movies produced by SAC and the U.S. Air Force during the 1960s that were declassified in response to requests by the National Security Archive. Published here for the first time, the films reveal how SAC prepared bomber pilots and crews for nuclear war, educated them on the effects of the devastating weapons, and acquainted them with the contents of their “Combat Mission Folders,” which included guidance needed to reach targets and return to base safely.
The film reports from 19651966 also feature an important element of the escalating Vietnam War: the bombing of South Vietnam by SAC B52s conducted under the code name Arc Light. The first Arc Light bombing occurred on June 18, 1965, when SAC dropped highexplosive bombs on National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) fighters. Aimed at disrupting NLF military operations, the Arc Light bombings killed unknown numbers of combatants and civilians, shattered traditional ways of life in the countryside, and created untold numbers of refugees without decisively affecting the course of the war in South Vietnam.

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