Savannah, Ga,
A Missing H-Bomb Lies off Georgia's Coast - but Is It a Danger?
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There seems to be nothing special out here. But beneath the ocean floor near this city, an aluminum cylinder lies entombed in silt. It's like an 11-foot-long bullet with a snub nose and four stubby fins. Written on it, its name: "No. 47782." Enclosed in its metal skin: 400 pounds of conventional explosives and a quantity of bomb-grade uranium.
No. 47782 is an H-bomb - a Mark 15, Mod 0, one of the earliest thermonuclear devices developed by the United States.
It has rested off Savannah since 1958.
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For nearly 10 weeks, Navy divers searched the waters near Tybee Island. The weather was bad, the water cold, the visibility poor. On April 16, 1958, the military declared the bomb "irretrievably lost."
The bomb became one of 11 "Broken Arrows" - nuclear bombs lost during air or sea mishaps, according to U.S. military records.
Four months after Richardson's accident, the Atomic Energy Commission changed its policy, banning the use of nuclear bombs during training.
As Duke was learning all of this, he turned up a copy of the receipt Richardson had signed. Written near the top was the word "simulated." That, according to the Air Force, meant the bomb did not have a detonation capsule. Without it, there was no risk of a nuclear explosion.
That might have been the end of the story if not for another document Duke soon acquired.
This one was a letter, written in 1966 to the chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, recounting the testimony of Assistant Defense Secretary Jack Howard before a 1966 congressional committee.
Howard, the letter says, testified there were four complete nuclear weapons, including detonation capsules, that were missing or lost. Among them: the bomb dropped off Savannah.
Decades later, Howard recanted his testimony after Duke gave the letter to the media and elected officials.
But which version was really true?
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAYAF4XPTD.htmlThanks grizzfan.