photohunt

4 Minutes..

The image of a mushroom cloud and the fear of a four minute warning were ingrained in the minds of all those who lived through the Cold War in the United Kingdom.

The mushroom image created by nuclear tests was seen widely throughout the media and illustrated the threat of the Third World War.

In the event of war, Soviet missiles launched against the United Kingdom would be detected by the Ballistic Early Warning station at RAF Fylingdales in North Yorkshire. This would give only a four minute warning before the missiles began to fall on their intended targets.

These four minutes would have allowed the RAF V-bombers to get into the air but were insufficient to allow the public to have received a warning.

The whole concept of survival during a nuclear war was parodied in popular, music, literature, film and television.

For more of this weeks PhotoHunt pictures check out Whistlestop PhotoHunt.

12 Comments CherryPie on May 4th 2012

12 Responses to “PhotoHunt – Zap”

  1. YTSL says:

    Very interesting take on the theme. The idea of nuclear attacks is so horrifying — something that seeing the exhibitions at the museum in Nagasaki truly rammed home. I sincerely hope there never will be nuclear attacks on humans, especially civilian populations, ever again.

  2. Jerry says:

    Cool picture of a scary topic! I bet that that would be an interesting museum to visit.

  3. That is an inspired post!
    What can you ’scoop’ up next weekend?
    ~Sandi

  4. ann says:

    I remember those commercials (public notices) well. That mushroom cloud certainly brought anxiety to many. Great idea for this hard theme!

  5. Lilian says:

    This is a good take on the very difficult theme! I’m still stuck!

  6. james higham says:

    Chilling thought.