"John Randolph" wrote in message
...
There was an earlier thread hear about "lost" nukes. I researched the
thread and all the included references and discovered there is one nuke
unaccounted for.

In March 1961 U.S.S. Midway, with CAG-2 embarked, was conducting air
operations off Hawaii during the Operational Readiness Inspection (ORI).
It was common practice in those days for Navy Air Wings to prove that they
could safely load, fly, and land with an operational nuke aboard. That
included AD, A4, and A3 aircraft. The drill was for the nukes to be
brought up from the ship's magazines, carted to the aircraft, and loaded.
Each phase of the operation was observed and graded by qualified
inspecters.

Lt. George Anderson III, son of the Chief of Naval Operations, was
assigned to VA-23 flying A4Ds. He was launched from Midway carrying a live
war reserve nuclear weapon. His flight plan had him landing at NAS
Barber's Point where it would be safely off-loaded and returned to Midway.
Hey, it was the cold war, remember?

Anyway, George got airborne and all went well until he attempted to land
at Barber's Point. His landing gear refused to extend. In those days, when
a nuke was carried by an A4 it was attached to the centerline station. No
way could that aircraft be allowed to land with a nuclear weapon hanging
from the centerline with no landing gear.

Lt. Anderson wad directed to a and area north and west of Ohau where he
was directed to jettison his nuclear weapn. From what I knew at the time,
that area was pre-designated for just that purpose and was an area where
the sea bed was below 10,000'. Problem is that the nuclear material is
going to leak into the sea eventually. I wonder if that's happened yet.

George Anderson, for whatever reason, tried to quit and turn in his wings
later on that deployment. Of course that sent shock waves through the
chain of command. Don Engen, C.O. of VF-21 (my C.O.) was tasked to talk
Anderson out of it.

Somewhere, way, way down in the depths of the Pacific Ocean just of
Hawaiian shores there is a nuclear weapon the nobody can get to. I have to
wonder what kind of damage it might be doing to the environment.

Not much is my guess. Plutonium isnt exactly easily soluble in seawater
at that temperature and there'll be little or no radioactivity detectable
outside the bombcase.

Keith