OOPS!

OOPS!

(Lloyd Borrett, Thor data, Russian Times, Historical Records Declassified Guide)

(R.L. Ashley, Edwin Bliss Munsell, Solomon H. Wasserman, Eric Schlosser, Frazer Chronicle)

 

There is an effort afoot to develop a data-base that will identify where every bomb was dropped during World War II.  Like many of you, I read a newspaper article about the United States Air Force dropping a hydrogen device on North Carolina back in 1961. Okay so maybe North Carolina isn’t the greatest state in the union, and their college sport teams are called TAR HEELS, but that’s really not a reason to nuke them.

 

The incident is simply further evidence that an unchecked military, devoid of rules and regulations that govern and control it can lead to human frailties and mistakes that can carry a huge impact on civilian life. It’s exactly one of the reasons that government never, ever must be more powerful then the country that it serves.

 

There are chronicled mistakes on the battle-field, excessive force, genocide type action, the unnecessary deaths of civilians, the less then amiable treatment of prisoners, and civilians. Every military force has a bloodied history of unnecessary military blunders that…..after careful inspection might have been intended…..without regard for human life.

 

In January 1961 a B-52 bomber carrying two hydrogen bombs departed for a routine flight along the eastern coast. Shortly after take-off the plane went into some sort of a tailspin, ejecting both devices, and according to reports, one of the devices actually deployed its parachute like a normal bomb run, and the only thing that kept the bombs from detonating was some sort of fail-safe switches onboard the bombs.

 

AND THE NUMBER IS

My question(s) has little to do with the near miss in North Carolina back in the day; rather I’d like to know how many other OOPS are out there. Is our military establishment running A-MUCK, and where we…..as concerned citizens get a record of these types of potential life taking mistakes, and incidents?

 

Are we simply pushing the envelope of the inevitable, when we are either in, or are reading about some bomb dropping, a ship shooting, or a drone making a (mistaken swoop) on some elementary school in Buckley, Wyoming? Where does military protection stop, and become more a threat then the perceived threat? It’s kind of like the friend of my enemy is my friend, is my…..,its about right here that the lines, (for me) gets blurred!

 

I figured that there had to be more than just one, two or three near disasters, and also that there had been a few accidents…..after all, we’re not talking about some simple chemical compound here, it is nuclear materials that can kill either in the blink of an eye, or a decade or two later…..but all the same, an abnormal nuclear does is a killer.

 

What I discovered during the course of my research kind of flabbergasted me; of course there was nothing before the 1940’s, unless Tunguska, Siberia, Russia could be counted as a nuclear accident. The criteria for listing a military accident or disaster was quite simple, (which I always like):

1. There must be well-attested and substantial health damage, property damage, or contamination.

2. The damage must be related directly to radioactive material, not merely (for example) at a nuclear power plant.

3. To qualify as a (military) accident, the nuclear operation/material must be principally for military purposes.

4. To qualify as an (accident/disaster) the damage should not be intentional, unlike in nuclear warfare.

 

The above four qualifiers really made my search simple except for the fact that the number of nuclear accidents, (NOT INCLUDING CIVILIAN ACCIDENTS, OR DISASTERS,) was actually almost overwhelming. Not surprisingly the major number of accidents occurred during the 1950’s and 1960’s when there were 21 in the 50’s, and another 20 in the 60’s. The numbers drop significantly in the 1970’s, 10, and the 1980’s, 7.

 

In the 1990’s, and early 2000’s there has been only one disaster, or an oops in each decade, in other words, technology was being refined, and predictably the number of accidents…..at least that have been reported have dropped.

 

Now I know what an oops means, a mistake, a goof-up, or not doing a job to the best of one’s effort, you do not want your doctor saying oops, your auto mechanic, or your plumber. Anybody with a title sounding official (I think plumber sounds official), you definitely do not want people handling nuclear weapons to have that word in their vocabulary.      

 

But these early accidents, actually pioneers of the atomic age of warfare were costly in loss of life, as an April 1950 accident resulted in the loss of 13 crewmen when a plane crashed with carrying a nuclear device and four detonators.

 

However worse than any accident or disaster in terms of human loss was probably the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands that was the site of 23 U.S. nuclear weapons tests between 1946 and 1958. Bikini Atoll was inhabited for over 3000 years before the U.S.’s 1946 atomic program begin. The peaceful brown skinned islanders lived an idyllic life, producing marketable copra coconut oil, and fished for their lunch, and dinner.

 

HOWEVER THAT ALL CHANGED

The idyllic life of the islanders changed forever shortly after World War II when President Truman directed the Army and Navy officials to secure a site for testing the newest human destroying devise that the U.S. was playing with…..and yes, the military officials, the politicians, and the scientists were doing just that…..playing!

 

After each and every inhabitant of the tinny island was relocated, the world’s emerging leader in mass destruction began in earnest to develop and test their brand new and improved version of their Hiroshima and Nagasaki droppings.

 

The military was ecstatic, and many in the science community felt like they’d be locked in a candy store with access to every kind of chocolate on the face of the earth. Removing of the Micronesian inhabitants from the atoll proved a bit harder than expected, but after Navy Commodore Ben H. Wyatt, military governor of the Marshall Islands implored the islanders to relocate for “the good of mankind, and to end all world wars,” they did acquiesce, dissolving the last hurdle blocking the testing program.

 

Things that happened during the twelve odd years that testing was carried on reads like a Julies Vern futuristic novel. The Bikini Atoll lagoon was designated a ship graveyard by the United States Navy, as during the length of the testing there were 95 ships of all shapes and sizes brought into the waters of the lagoon. Carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, attack transports, landing ships and auxiliary vessels from across the world.

 

The proxy fleet would have made the sixth largest naval fleet in the world, at the time. All the ships in the proxy carried varying amounts of fuel, live ordnance; airplanes were positioned on the aircraft carriers, their wings loaded with ammo. Live animals including goats were positioned on the ships and shore to test for the impact of living creatures…..all in all a bizarre situation.

 

CODE NAME CASTLE BRAVO AND THE RUSKIES

Eight years into testing on the atoll the Castle series begin between February and May 1954, with five at the Bikini site. The Castle series introduced a different mechanism to fuel the bombs, from dry fuel, and a practical fusion weapon. Operation Bravo testing included four dry fuel designs, two wet bombs and a smaller device.

 

On March 1, 1954 a device codenamed Castle Bravo, the first test of a practical bomb, was detonated at dawn, and was the largest nuclear explosion ever created by the United States…..about 1000 times more powerful then each of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in World War II.

 

The scientists and military authorities in attendance at the test were first scared crapless, and then shocked by the size of the explosion. Many of the instruments that were stationed to evaluate the effectiveness of the device were destroyed during the initial detonation.

 

The fallout from the explosion spread traces of radioactive material as far as Australia, India and Japan, and even the United States and parts of Europe. Organized as a secret test, Castle Bravo quickly created an international incident, prompting calls for a ban on atmospheric testing of thermonuclear devices.

 

The good old United States always looking to set records, become the first to do things, and the nation willing to perform grandiose exhibitions did not let her citizens or the world community down. The U.S. became the first country to shun a world-wide call for a unilateral cessation of above ground nuclear testing. The United States detonated 60 additional atmospheric tests until the last detonation on July 22, 1958.

 

Do we need a cool hand at the throttle of our military might…..absolutely, just another in the long line of issues, people, and situations that we…..as Americans need to be aware of…..and be ready to take to the streets in collected protests about any invasions, or for God’s sake, any use of nuclear devices of any kind.

 

STAY VIGILANT MY FRIENDS

HAVE A NICE DAY!