Pattern for Survival opens with a museum guide leading a wheel chair bound youth through a weapons display. (00:00:55:00) The purpose of this tour? To explain how mankind frequently creates frightening weapons which they struggle to understand.  Such is the dilemma created by atomic bombs, manifested in the film as a mushroom cloud erupts across the screen. (00:02:15:00) As one of the earliest civil defense productions, Pattern for Survival enjoyed a wide distribution, delivering massive amounts of information by presenting lectures, demonstrations, and a hypothetical atomic attack. 

We then cut to the office of William Laurence, a journalist for the New York Times and media expert on nuclear developments who would later anchor the ABC evening news. Writer of multiple books on the atomic bomb and winner of several Pulitzer prizes, Laurence speaks:

“I saw, with my own eyes, the power of the exploding atom! I witnessed the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one. I saw a world blow up in a burst of cosmic fire, a new one born from its ashes! I saw a great city disappear in a mushroom cloud in the fraction of a millionth of a second! I knew at last, man had a weapon that could destroy civilization!” The atomic bomb is the most powerful physical destructive weapon history has ever known! But it is above all a psychological terror weapon!  Does this mean that we are helpless against an attack? There is most definitely a defense against the Atomic bomb! Note very carefully what is to follow!”

– William Laurence

We are then introduced to narrator and CBS radio reporter, Chet Huntley. Huntley then explains the scientific facts of nuclear detonations. We see an animated atom, shaking and ready to burst, releasing fission. (00:05:10:00) The animation outlines the three dangers produced by atomic combustion. Blast, shown removing a chunk of an animated city, fire, igniting the city, and Gamma rays, basking the rubble in a radioactive glow.

Deep underground blast shelters, capable of surviving the fire and heat of the blast are the key to survival. The film advocates these structures for inner city target areas. Anticipating the scenario of a surprise attack, the film relates the concept of ducking into a doorway or sturdy alcove. Accompanying this advice are several amazing animated depictions of proposed blast shelters and men crouched behind shelter in the shadow of an atomic flash. (00:07:45:00)

Later, Huntley returns to the screen again to emphasize the danger of flying glass, In the home as well as the office, a comprehensive survival kit should be kept handy at all time. (00:10:10:00) Suggested supplies include: Lava soap, bottled water, raisins, chocolate, canned goods, campsite table, cookware, and a first aid with sunburn cream along with a Red Cross manual, a pamphlet on atomic warfare, and several local maps. Putting all of this information together, PATTERN FOR SURVIVAL offers a hypothetical attack scenario, depicting the quick action that would be needed after a warning. (00:11:40:00)

Finally, Huntley warns of another mode of attack, one more devastating then even a surprise air-burst.  He speaks of a water-burst, an underwater detonation of atomic devices in port cities and coastal territories. (00:14:00:00) It was believed that an explosion underwater would bring fallout-laced rain pouring down upon major cities. At the end of this segment, a longshoreman watches a water burst mushroom cloud fly into the air (00:15:50:00) before stumbling indoors, narrowly missing the water raining over his work zone. 

PATTERN FOR SURVIVAL was produced in 1951 by Cornell Films.