Interesting book AND Doc if you get a chance. For me made more so because I was stationed there at LRAFB at the time of the incident tho I have no great war story to tell because I wasn't assigned to SAC at the base. I was on the MAC side.
I remember the VP being in town and his Plane landed at the base, I was assigned to watch some dirt road. I remember finding out there was a problem with a Titan-ll north of the base and when it blew up. We were told there was never a chance the weapon could have detonated but of course that was a Lie. A 25 cent circuit was all that stopped a 9 MT warhead from annihilating central Arkansas.
When they tested that particular war head at Bikini for some reason it blew with almost twice the explosive power it was designed to. I'm glad I knew none of this as a 21yo USAF grunt. USAF then put a blanket on the entire incident and nobody ever talked about it again.
The book brought back many memories and reminded me of the huge arsenals we both had on trip wire at the time. When you around it all the time you dont really think about it. What happened at that silo near Damascus AR. really shows what one small mistake and/or departure from procedure can cause.
One Airman who didnt want to go out of the silo to get the proper tool, it was the end of his shift and he was tired, used another tool "which was authorized up until a few weeks before" and which he then dropped ; The tool then taking an improbable bounce piercing the skin of a Titan-ll and setting off a chain of catastrophic events, each single one being improbable. What are the odds?
An excellent read. And even tho I was stationed there I never knew the entire exact story UNTIL I read it. The book is an all encompassing History of special weapons and their accidents with not only them but the systems used to both support and deliver them.
I remember the VP being in town and his Plane landed at the base, I was assigned to watch some dirt road. I remember finding out there was a problem with a Titan-ll north of the base and when it blew up. We were told there was never a chance the weapon could have detonated but of course that was a Lie. A 25 cent circuit was all that stopped a 9 MT warhead from annihilating central Arkansas.
When they tested that particular war head at Bikini for some reason it blew with almost twice the explosive power it was designed to. I'm glad I knew none of this as a 21yo USAF grunt. USAF then put a blanket on the entire incident and nobody ever talked about it again.
The book brought back many memories and reminded me of the huge arsenals we both had on trip wire at the time. When you around it all the time you dont really think about it. What happened at that silo near Damascus AR. really shows what one small mistake and/or departure from procedure can cause.
One Airman who didnt want to go out of the silo to get the proper tool, it was the end of his shift and he was tired, used another tool "which was authorized up until a few weeks before" and which he then dropped ; The tool then taking an improbable bounce piercing the skin of a Titan-ll and setting off a chain of catastrophic events, each single one being improbable. What are the odds?
An excellent read. And even tho I was stationed there I never knew the entire exact story UNTIL I read it. The book is an all encompassing History of special weapons and their accidents with not only them but the systems used to both support and deliver them.