(A MK15 Nuclear Bomb, the same type as the one lost off the coast of Georgia)
The Claim
There’s been a nuclear bomb sitting at the bottom of the Wassaw Sound bay since 1958.
During the early stages of nuclear weaponry people didn’t really have a good understanding about radiation or its effects, and lots of testing took place to find out how this strange form of energy could be used to kill people.
After Little boy and Fat man, the two first nuclear bombs ever used were dropped on Japan, the world saw just how effective these devices were and began an arms race to make a better version of their own. One of these bombs made was created by the United states and was known simply as the MK 15 Nuclear bomb.
The bomb was 4 metres long and weighed 3,400kg, with 180kg of that weight being made up of conventional high explosives and highly enriched uranium. It was armed with a plutonium trigger and according to a Congressional testimony by then Assistant Secretary of Defence W.J. Howard in 1966, the bomb was “a complete weapon, a bomb with a nuclear capsule.”
In short this means that the device lost was not a test dummy or some kind of half finished project, but a live nuclear bomb capable of wiping out a pretty large area. If it were to detonate on land everything within 1.2 miles would just turn to ash, and anyone within a 15 mile radius would experience intense 3rd degree burns all over their bodies, with the radiation wave travelling for many times that distance and infecting everything it touches.
As for how the bomb became lost it was down to human error during a training flight. A B-47 bomber was on a practise combat flight after taking off from Homestead Air Force Base in Florida carrying a single bomb. At around 2am an F-86 fighter that was also taking part in the exercise crashed into the bomber after the pilot had already ejected from the plane.
This happened at an altitude of 38,000 feet, and the crash sent the bomber spiralling down to an altitude of 20,000 feet before pilot Major Richardson managed to regain control. The bomber was barely holding together and he requested permission to jettison the bomb to avoid it blowing up on an emergency landing. Permission was granted and at a height of 7,200 feet a nuclear bomb was dropped over American territory while the plane was flying at around 230 mph.
Major Richardson was promoted to Colonel and awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for preventing a nuclear device from exploding on US soil. But as for the bomb no one knew where it landed.
Since the plane was travelling so fast and all this happened at night, no one saw the spot were it hit the ground. Its safe to say that it didn’t explode as a nuclear explosion is generally something that the locals would notice, but with the plane off course and in an emergency situation, it couldn’t record its exact position at the time of the drop.
Its believed that the bomb is sitting somewhere in Wassaw Sound, a small bay were the Bull and Wilmington rivers connect to the sea. The reason that no ones found it yet seems to be due to how deep its thought to be buried.
Since the bomb weighed close to 2 tons and was dropped at such a great height, its believed to be anywhere up to 20 feet under the silt at the bottom of the bay, a depth that boat mounted metal detectors cant reach.
It turns out that digging up 20 feet of sea mud across several square miles of bay is just to much work, and they cant exactly go raking up nuclear bombs with a giant digger of some kind as that could end very badly.
There’s been numerous attempts by the military to find the device, but as of yet its still sitting somewhere in the mud just off the coast of Georgia.
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