Today in History: April 7

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

A B-52 Stratofortress collided with a tanker that was re-fueling it 31,000 feet above the Spanish coast on January 27, 1966. The tanker, which was full of fuel, exploded and its crew was instantly killed. The B-52 broke apart and four of the seven crew managed to parachute to safety. The B-52’s cargo fell onto the coast and into the Mediterranean Sea, however: four hydrogen bombs. Three crunched onto the beach and one splashed down and disappeared beneath the waves.

Fifty years ago today, the hydrogen bomb that landed in the Mediterranean, near Palomares, Spain, was finally retrieved. The three that had hit the ground had each partly detonated, but they did not set off the nuclear explosives inside. A four-mile area was contaminated by the plutonium. All that was known about the fourth bomb was that it too had not detonated, and that it was missing.

Twenty-nine ships, one aircraft carrier, and several submersibles were used over the subsequent six weeks in the search for the missing bomb. In March, it was located and an attempt was made to pull it to the surface, but it was dropped and lost again. Finally, on April 7, it was retrieved. The Spanish fisherman who saw it splash into the sea filed a claim for salvage rights, which the U.S. Air Force did not honor. At the top is a photo of the bomb after it was found.
Read More

Long Ago and …

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

If the photo above is not of the actual car that my family owned in 1979, it is the same model Chevy Malibu station wagon that my memory has chosen to remember as the actual car that my parents drove to cart my sister and ten-year-old me around that summer and every other summer, before 1979 and after. (My memory is not what it used to be: It is better!)

Our family road trips over about two decades included vacations in Vermont (to see family) and weekends on Cape Cod, in Pennsylvania, along the Connecticut shore. We were not a wealthy family, so our family vacations were always road trips to a destination that we could reach in one day or less of driving. My father was the only driver, so this was more than fair. The long(ish) car ride was simultaneously unendurable and somehow, maybe sometimes, the only part of the trip that was worth remembering.
Read More

Today in History: April 6

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

3:00 p.m. EST: Music legend Merle Haggard, whose 79th birthday is noted below, died today, his management company just announced. A song suggestion, “Mama Tried,” is below, and here is another suggestion: type his name in your iTunes and enjoy the stories.
Read More