There'S A Nuclear Bomb Lost Somewhere In The Swampy Coast Of Georgia



    

One of the most powerful weapons of war ever created is still lurking in the waters off the coast of Georgia, waiting to wreak havoc until it disappears into the shallow waters around Tybee Island. For 60 years ago this month, a Mark 15 hydrogen bomb was dropped by a heavily damaged US Air Force bomber. Had the weapon exploded, the explosion would have had an explosive power equivalent to that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Because the explosive contained plutonium that triggered a nuclear explosion, it was able to produce a fireball with a radius of 1.2 miles and, according to the United Nations, cause an explosion up to 1,000 times more energy than the Hiroshima bomb. 

    

If the bomb had had a plutonium trigger, it would have wiped out the city of Savannah, Georgia, and the entire state of Georgia and Florida. Had he missed the trigger, he could have created a giant crater and ripped a hole in the Floridan aquifer, contaminating the primary freshwater source from Georgia to Florida with uranium from the salt water. 

    

In the broadcast version of the report, NPR says there is no evidence that the Savannah nuclear bomb contained significant amounts of uranium or plutonium. Describing the dangers of such materials, it says the leak of the "lost" bomb could easily enter the food chain, putting the population of an entire East Coast at risk. It also says there could be dangers to nearby marine life and acknowledges that conventional explosives could explode in the water if the bomb was disrupted, causing underwater shock waves that endanger people and boats in the area. The report also concludes that, if left undisturbed, atomic bombs do not pose a threat to the environment, but there is a possibility of a nuclear explosion. 

    

The nuclear core of one of the bombs was removed, it is believed, and the alarmed crew may have survived the first attack. Two large nuclear weapons hidden in a bunker at Naval Air Station Savannah, South Carolina, responded to a US Navy attack in the early 1950s, but never returned to their base. While the second bomb was largely recovered, its core has been buried for decades under 200 feet of mud and dirt. 

In return, Kingston asked the Air Force to investigate whether a live nuclear bomb could be lurking off the coast of Georgia. If the authorities knew that the bomb had been recovered by the Soviets, one would suspect they would try to keep it secret, and Duke would certainly have tried. At one point, he believed he had found elevated radiation levels at the suspected site, prompting the Air Force to send its own team to investigate. Is it conceivable, then, that the crew of a Soviet submarine could have reawakened it years ago? Or is it just a ruse by the government to hide the fact that the bad guys are hitting the US with a bomb? 

Schairer sent Boeing a letter with information about what he had found, and when the Air Force was looking for a new nuclear-capable bomber, Boeing was ready. He had helped Boeing design the Flying Fortress, which dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

    

At the time, it was routine for training crews to carry out transports configured for atomic bombs by removing the warhead to prevent a nuclear explosion. Instead, the capsule was still loaded on the ground into the tail of the bomb and the pilot brought it into launch position. Other bombs' parachutes failed, causing them to plunge into muddy fields and break to pieces. The crew took weeks of digging to find the crumpled bomb and its parts, as well as the two explosive capsules, the Air Force said. 

    

There was little public excitement about the search ending because attention had been diverted from a search that had begun after a second bomb containing conventional explosives was accidentally dropped and detonated near Florence, S.C. 

The Mark 39 thermonuclear bomb is about 5 feet long, weighs more than 1,000 pounds and could detonate at a speed of about 1,000 pounds per second, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. Howard, the letter said, had testified that there was evidence that four complete nuclear weapons, including the warhead, were missing or lost. He said the paper trail would show that the lost bomb contained a plutonium capsule and what happened to it. The atomic bomb is still lying somewhere in the waters off Tybee Island and is not entirely harmless. 

    

The other bomb is one that was lost in the Western Pacific in 1965 and has never been found, according to the Navy. The Navy spent more than two months searching for the bomb, but failed to find it, the letter said. 

    

Liane Hansen spoke to defense correspondent Guy Raz about the lost bomb and the people who are still fascinated by the sunken weapon. The Navy spent more than two months searching for the bomb and never found it, but today recommended it be left at its resting place. 

For More Information Watch: https://youtu.be/ThdaqsmAGmQ






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