Several months ago, we learned about a “near-miss” atomic war with the Soviet Union when we discussed Stansilov Petrov’s actions (or rather, his inactions) back in 1983. Not to self-promote too much, but I go back and read that piece occasionally, and I still get goosebumps when I realize, that as a 15-year old kid, I came really close to experiencing a full-blown nuclear exchange.
But for Americans, it’s not the only time the threat of nuclear detonation has been right at the door. During the era of the Cold War (basically the 1950s-1980s), there were thousands of opportunities for disaster, not only from other “nuclear-powered” nations, but from our own country as well. Military preparedness required that nuclear missiles and bombs be tested and carried on aircraft should cataclysm be unleashed. And even testing carried hazards with it.
So it’s bombs and airplanes that make up Today’s History Lesson. A Strategic Air Command Boeing B-52 Stratofortress suffered a structural failure and crashed as it was trying to return to Seymour Johnson AFB in Goldsboro, NC. The incident, which took place just after midnight on January 24, 1961, took the lives of 3 crew members.
But the bomber was carrying a pair of Mk39 Hydrogen bombs that separated from the plane. The parachute of one device deployed and it floated to earth. The second did a free-fall, plowing into a swampy farm field and mostly disintegrating.
When the intact bomb was recovered, it was discovered that all but one of the half-dozen safety switches had failed, only the pilot’s arming switch had not triggered. Each device had a full yield of around 2-3 megatons, far smaller than Tsar Bomba, but still greater than all the bombs released in WWII. An explosion would have been horrific, and some suggested that just such a disaster was a single switch away. But military experts contended that the switches were only part of the safety features built into the bomb, and that it was never in any danger of detonating. Who’s right? Well, the bomb didn’t explode, so…
In spite of the military’s best efforts, the thermonuclear stage of the bomb that broke up was never found. In October of that same year, the United States purchased the land and, to this day, tests it for radiation. None has been detected, but one is left to wonder how close North Carolina came to feeling its full fury…
Joel, thank you for wonderful post! I love that you incorporated the idea of the “close call” into your story, especially that you showed it on a smaller, local scale. I’m becoming more and more interested in the improbability describing sequences of events as though the way they happened is the only way they could have happened. There are so many different roads, so many paths that didn’t get taken, but didn’t get taken by an inch, or a whim, or a single inconsequential decision and I really appreciated your really localized application of that idea. It’s something like the film 13 Days, and more particularly the book “One Hell of a Gamble” about the Cuban Missile Crisis. If the idea of nuclear near-misses is something that interests you, I definitely recommend it. The book is an absolute page-turner; reads like an adventure novel, like a Tom Clancy something. It chronicles Castro, Krushchev and Kennedy’s paths through the crisis and how close we all came to having those very tenuous days totally falling to pieces. So thanks again!
Wishbone,
Thanks for reading, for the kind words, and for your thoughts. I think that, as time goes on and more information becomes available, we’ll learn more and more about the true number of times we stood close to the precipice.
And thanks for the book recommendation. I’m a Tom Clancy fan (having read everything through “The Bear and the Dragon“), so I’ll look for it.
Thanks.
Regards,
Joel