Posted on 11/11/2008 8:55:24 AM PST by austrian
The United States abandoned a nuclear weapon beneath the ice in northern Greenland following a crash in 1968, a BBC investigation has found.
Its unique vantage point - perched at the top of the world - has meant that Thule Air Base has been of immense strategic importance to the US since it was built in the early 1950s, allowing a radar to scan the skies for missiles coming over the North Pole.
The Pentagon believed the Soviet Union would take out the base as a prelude to a nuclear strike against the US and so in 1960 began flying "Chrome Dome" missions. Nuclear-armed B52 bombers continuously circled over Thule - and could head straight to Moscow if they witnessed its destruction.
Greenland is a self-governing province of Denmark but the carrying of nuclear weapons over Danish territory was kept secret.
'Darker story'
But on 21 January 1968, one of those missions went wrong. We reunited two of the pilots, John Haug and Joe D'Amario, 40 years on to tell the story of how their plane ended up crashing on the ice a few miles out from the base.
In the aftermath, military personnel, local Greenlanders and Danish workers rushed to the scene to help.
Eventually, a remarkable operation would unfold over the coming months to recover thousands of tiny pieces of debris scattered across the frozen bay, as well as to collect some 500 million gallons of ice, some of it containing radioactive debris.
A declassified US government video, obtained by the BBC, documents the clear-up and gives some ideas of the scale of the operation. The high explosives surrounding the four nuclear weapons had detonated but without setting off the actual nuclear devices, which had not been armed by the crew....
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
this can be a serious danger to world peace. just remember those “bloody” Eskimo now have “the Bomb” ;-)
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Reminds me of an old joke (groaner alert)
Q: Why won’t the Russians attack Eskimos?
A: They heard Eskimos have “icy BM’s”.
Sorry, I had to do it!
Yes.
And I know what a “PAL” is.
And I also know what a “sealed pit” is, too.
And the “4 pound rule”.
The crash was in ‘68.
My brother was stationed there ‘66-’67. Said it got dark six months out of the year and light six months. He hated every second of it.
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