When The US Dropped A Nuke On Itself
By: Oskar Bogdanowicz
Tags: Marsbluff, Nuclear, Bombing, History, Cold War

When The US Dropped A Nuke On Itself

In 1958 the residents of a small town in South Carolina experienced a sight only experienced by residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a falling nuclear warhead.

The subject of today's essay; Mark 6 Nuclear Bomb

In 1958 the world was in the middle of the Cold War. In order to defend themselves nations around the world were arming themselves with more numerous, and more advanced nuclear arsenals capable of incinerating their enemies.

America was very suspicious of the USSR following WW2 and with the war raging in Korea it was seen as inevitable that communism would sweep in and create a Domino effect onto other Asian nations. In order to secure their allies and ensure capitalism prevailed the US started sending nuclear weapons to other trusted nations such as the United Kingdom in order to deter the Soviets from invasion.

The Manhattan project

In 1938 three nuclear physicists working in Berlin discovered nuclear fission. This essentially means an atom of radioactive material splits into two smaller atoms, thereby releasing an explosive burst of energy. This powerful burst of explosive energy and radiation is what scientists would later attempt to replicate on a larger scale for military use.

The following year when the war started many scientists fled from Nazi Germany fearing prosecution. Amongst these were Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner who would make it their mission to inform the US about the danger of nuclear weapons and the possibility of Germany making one first. They created what is now known as the Einstein- Szilard letter which was signed by Albert Einstein and eventually passed onto Franklin D. Roosevelt informing him about the danger of Atomic Weapons.

In 1942 FDR approved the Manhattan Project, a codename for the group of highly skilled individuals with the goal of creating the first Atomic Bomb. On July 16th 1945, Trinity Test made history as the first-ever Atomic detonation. Emboldened by this only 10 days later the US called for Japans surrender, threatening if they did not comply the nation would suffer never seen before destruction.

Trinity Test

Unfortunately for Japan, they refused and so America stuck to their guns and deployed bombers carrying Atomic bombs. On August 6th the Uranium based “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima killing hundreds of thousands. Only three days later the plutonium-based “Fat Man” fell on Nagasaki. In the following months, almost 150,000 people died in Hiroshima with half of that from the initial blast. Approximately 80,000 in Nagasaki also perished, half of those can be directly attributed to the blast alone.

Operation Snow Flurry

During the Cold War, the United States Air Force had to train its pilots' using B-47 Stratojet bombers in order to ensure their accuracy in a combat scenario. Operation Snow Flurry was a collaboration with England to fly those bombers over to England and perform mock bomb drops and analyse the data to improve accuracy.

B47 Stratojet

The bombers were armed with actual nuclear warheads during these missions however they did lack the fissile nuclear cores which would be stored separately on the aircraft. These cores were only inserted into the bombs if the US wished to perform a nuclear strike on another nation.

Dropping an Atomic Bomb on South Carolina

On March 11th 1958 at 4:34 pm a B-47E-LM Stratojet took off from Hunter Air Force base in Georgia en route to the United Kingdom. The bomber was loaded with mock bombs as well as actual nuclear warheads in case the need emerged during their mission which would conclude in a US airforce base in South Africa.

A short while into the journey the bombardier was summoned to the cockpit due to a fault light claiming the bomb harness locking pin was not engaged. This was a great concern as the last thing the crew would want to happen is a bomb get loose inside the bomb bay. The bombardier was then sent down to the bomb bay in order to fix the issue.

In probably the worse case of poor hand placement in the world, the bombardier tried to pull himself up beside the bomb and try to find the safety pin. What he instead grabbed and pulled on with his whole body weight trying to haul himself up was the emergency release pin. This action promptly released the 3.5-ton nuclear bomb onto the bomb bay doors, these quickly give way and let the bomb fall onto Mars Bluff in South Carolina.

Effect of the Bomb

The bomb dropped and the conventional explosives used to detonate the core went off, incinerating the asbestos shed which the weapon landed on. The hole which the impact created was 11m deep and 21m wide, just from the conventional explosives alone. The explosion was so powerful people over 8 miles away in Florence Country reported hearing the explosion.

Aftermath

The blast was devastating for the area as houses within five miles had their windows shattered and residents injured. The weapon had landed on the property of Walter Greg whos whole life was destroyed by this simple mistake as his house was caved in, cars destroyed and livestock killed by the shockwave. Fortunately for the family, they were all fine considering they had just been victim to the US Airforce dropping an Atomic Bomb on their garden.

The Gregg family house

Soon afterwards the Air Force sent personnel to clean up the mess they had created and to ensure no radiation was present at the scene. The Greggs did end up suing and winning $54,000 in compensation equal to around $480,000 today in order to start their lives over. Apparently, after the event, Walter even became friends with the crew of the bomber and would exchange letters with them years after the accident.