The Hostage Air Base – and Its Hydrogen Bombs

American Thinker ^ | July 20, 2016 | Stephen D. Bryen and Shoshana Bryen

[Kaslin]

The United States runs its air operations against ISIS in Iraq from Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. The base, used by other NATO forces as well, is not American. It is Turkish, and the U.S. needs government permission to fly from there. Since the 15 July coup attempt in Ankara, U.S. forces at Incirlik are essentially hostages to the Turkish government. The Turkish base commander and his aides have been arrested; U.S. personnel are confined to base; outside power has been cut off; and while the U.S. has been permitted to resume operations over Iraq and Syria, it is working under adverse conditions, to say the least. Most worrisome, about 50 hydrogen bombs are stored by the U.S. at Incirlik, ostensibly on behalf of NATO. These bombs are "protected" by Turkish troops and to some degree their potential use is shared with the Turkish Air Force.

The deployment goes back more than 50 years, begun as an effort to counter the Soviet military buildup as an offset to quantitatively larger Soviet ground forces facing Europe. But by the mid-1980s the U.S. put more emphasis on "tactical" missiles, largely to counter the Soviet Union's deployment of SS-20's, a short to medium range missile with multiple, independently targeted warheads (MIRV) in the second and third versions of the SS-20. In 1987 the Intermediate and Short-range Missile Nuclear Treaty (INF) was signed and the Russians and the U.S. began removing their missiles. By 1991, all the missiles of concern on both sides were eliminated.

[Portcall24]

“It would not. Those types of weapons cannot go off by accident. There is a specific chain of events that have to occur, and they cannot occur, even if the bomb hits concrete from 50,000 feet.”

You’re right. While I was in Checkmate I served as the XO to the AF Contingency Support Staff (an O-6) in the basement of the Pentagon for 8 years. We only met when there was an emergency. One of the times was the ICBM that exploded near Little Rock. Blew the warhead completely out of the silo. Nothing happened to the warhead other than going for a very short flight.

[Squantos]

Remember ..... they are NOT there for Turkey . They are there for us and giving us access to the Black Sea etc .... The strategic location is key .

[DCBryan1]

One of the times was the ICBM that exploded near Little Rock. Blew the warhead completely out of the silo. Nothing happened to the warhead other than going for a very short flight.

I was a teenager in Little Rock when this happened. We were completely freaked the F**K out. 9MT warhead 40 miles from our house, downwind.

Warhead ended up under this debris and wasn't found for QUITE SOME TIME. Lots of head scratching. Anyways...interesting times. Warhead was sent to Pantex and made into several W88 warheads I believe.

One Airman was killed when he inhaled the flames and suffocated and died half a day after the explosion. Another was wounded

RIP Sr Airman David Livingston

LOCAL AR Story on the TITAN MISSILE Explosion HERE

[rlmorel]

Thank you for your service.

When I was in the USN back in the Seventies, I was assigned to be on a load team. I wasn’t an ordinanceman, I was a jet mechanic but apparently, for nuclear weapons, they had mixed teams of non-ordinance personnel to load the bombs. I am pretty sure they were dummy bombs we practiced with, but it was extremely rigid and structured, with a the guy in charge reading from a checklist, and at each step, it had to be read:
“Insert the Gerblotz pin”, then the person who did it would verify by voice “Gerblotz pin inserted”, and someone other than the person inserting it would visually verify it and say something like “Gerblotz pin insertion verified”, and so on.

The thing that always struck me was the Marines they had stationed around the site (i can’t remember how many, but I seem to think there were four Marines for each bomb, and they were in full gear with M-16, helmet, flak jacket, etc. standing rigidly at port arms the whole time facing outward. They said that nobody was allowed to enter the area while the loading was going on, and that they were authorized to use deadly force. I heard an apocryphal story about a young sailor who unthinkingly ran through the area, and got decked by a Marine who bashed him in the face with his M-16. They took their jobs very seriously.

I do remember thinking “Why do they need them there? We’re on a ship...who is going to interfere with the loading?” I have since wondered what they do now that they apparently don’t have Marine detachments aboard carriers anymore. (I heard they did away with that during the 1990’s)

[rlmorel]

If this stuff interests you, there is a great book about there called "Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima."

Very well written, and talks about a variety of mishaps in the discovery of, nuclear power industry, weapons and military over the years. One is quite humorous, and makes me chuckle every time I read it. This is the dry, Wikipedia account of the Mars Bluff Incident:

On March 11, 1958 a U.S. Air Force Boeing B-47E-LM Stratojet from Hunter Air Force Base operated by the 375th Bombardment Squadron of the 308th Bombardment Wing near Savannah, Georgia, took off at approximately 4:34 PM and was scheduled to fly to the United Kingdom and then to North Africa as part of Operation Snow Flurry.[4][5] The aircraft was carrying nuclear weapons on board in the event of war with the Soviet Union breaking out. Air Force Captain Bruce Kulka, who was the navigator and bombardier, was summoned to the bomb bay area after the captain of the aircraft, Captain Earl Koehler, had encountered a fault light in the cockpit indicating that the bomb harness locking pin did not engage. As Kulka reached around the bomb to pull himself up, he mistakenly grabbed the emergency release pin. The Mark 6 nuclear bomb dropped to the floor of the B-47 and the weight forced the bomb bay doors open, sending the bomb 15,000 ft (4,600 m) down to the ground below.

The way the guy writes about it in the book, the pilot was irritated because the bomb locking pin light wouldn't go on, so the crap rolled downhill to the enlisted crewman, who was sent to the bomb bay to see if he could "wiggle the pin or something" to make the light go green. So this poor schlub goes down there, cussing the pilot, and has to take off his chute, because the opening to the bomb bay was so tight. He gets inside there, and the bomb is huge (something ridiculous like five feet in diameter) so he has no chute, and has to stretch across the top of the bomb, feeling around for "something" he can wiggle to make the light go green for the stupid pilot, and is completely overextended with much of his weight on the top of the bomb, feeling around.

His foot slipped, and he just involuntarily grabbed anything to get his balance, and...what do you think, of all available things to grab by accident, this poor schlub grabbed? The emergency bomb release handle. Which released the bomb.

The bomb fell, hit the bomb bay doors, which seemed to stop the bomb only for the briefest instant, before they tore away and the bomb fell out with him on top of it with no chute, a la Maj. T.J. "King" Kong in Dr. Strangelove.

He frantically grabbed at anything, and managed to grab some thing, and was able to watch the bomb and a canvas bag plummet to the earth. The conventional portion of the bomb blew up when hit the ground, destroying a family's garden, and nobody was seriously hurt. You can still see the crater today on Google Earth by typing in "Mars Bluff". Well, the crew was trying to speak in code to a civilian air traffic controller asking him to communicate with the base to tell them they "laid an egg" , and the ATC had no idea what they were talking about. While they circled up there, they discussed, in depressed tones, about possibly seeking asylum in Cuba, because they sure as Hell couldn't fly back to the base!

[rlmorel]

LOL, I see I misremembered the rank of the “schlub”...he was the low ranking OFFICER on the totem pole!

[Jet Jaguar]

Active Duty ping.

[DCBryan1]

Mars Bluff Crater

[rlmorel]

This was the film (or at least a part of it) that they showed us (I think) A7 Loft Delivery of Weapons

[rlmorel]

Holy crap, how did they ever fit that thing into a B-47???

[rlmorel]

Poor guy. Probably just trying to get through his enlistment...

[justa-hairyape]

Well either Erdogan is making his move soon or Kerry is going have James Taylor serenade him.

Matt Lee‏ @APDiploWriter#SecKerry says US ambassador to #Turkey has been told by Turkish officials that power will be restored to Incirlik "within next day or so."

[LucyT]

[Mark17]

Let's face it. Turkey is or is very close to becoming an Islamist State.

I was at Incirlik in 1982. In my own mind, I thought it was already an Islamic state. I know it wasn't quite like that. It just seemed that way to me.
The reason I hated the place so much, was because there were so many Muzzies there.

[null and void]

No.

I was based in Incirlik in 1980 as a nuclear weapons specialist.

I'd say yes, safely for us, but maybe not so safe for the Turks still nearby...

[Mark17]

Besides Portcall, I think the others were Paddy, Peacock, Paris and Panama. Did I miss any? The only place that I did NOT know people working there, were Portcall and Peacock. I was taking a handoff from Paris one day, and the dude told me the aircraft was popeye. I told him I wouldn’t take the aircraft until the aircraft was in VFR conditions. He was stunned. Later, when I was at Laughlin, I worked with a guy, and I told him his voice sounded familiar, and I asked him if he had worked at Paris. He said he did indeed. Small world, wouldn’t you say?

[Getsmart64]

It takes 45 minutes to get a nuke to the ME via an ICBM. There is NO REASON to keep nukes in the ME

Tactical nukes vs. Strategic nukes. Two different animals.

[Getsmart64]

If you see/hear of C17s/C130s taking off with US dependents and landing at RAF Akrotiri, Avino, or Ramstein, you know shit is about to hit the fan.

All non essential personnel left a month or so ago.

[Talisker]

“IF those weapons were in imminent danger we would already be at Defcon One. “

Under an Obama command?

No, under Israel and Putin, neither of which will allow Turkey/ISIS to obtain B61s, and both of which are prepared to do - whateverittakes - to prevent it.

China probably isn't too keen on it either. Nor the rest of NATO.

Incirlik would be turned into glass first.

[RedWulf]

>If those weapons are in imminent danger of capture, they are already rigged with emergency destruction devices (15 pound shaped charges) and can be destroyed at a moments notice.

>Or at least that’s the way these situations were handled back in my day.

I doubt it works that way in the Obama diversity air force.