Over the weekend I was thinking about the fun Broken Arrows brought to this young man. Lots of trucks, cranes, missiles, military types all over and I was always a sucker for anything destructive!
And I remembered of a little incident outside of Portland, Oregon. I can not even begin to remember the year or even where in Portland we were - so I had to be mighty young!
Now one of the ways to go to the Portland zoo, back before they build a superhighway straight into there was to drive southwest through Portland and then take this little road that went through a small tunnel. As we reached the tunnel, an Air Force jeep came through and blocked off the roadway. No big deal - that meant the day was about to get more exciting.
My father got out, identified himself and asked what was up. Before the poor MP could even answer - there came this horrendous crash and shriek of metal from the tunnel. Yeah, something big had just made a mess. Dad and the MP took off running - and hey, no one to stop me - I went to! And, what a sight I saw!
Seems a tractor trailer was hauling a missile back towards Portland and had impacted the warhead with the top of the tunnel. The missile was now ejected out of its cradle and lay half on, half off the cradle. The nose cone was mashed horribly. Father let lose a series of oaths you would not have believed!
Dad grabbed the radio, ran for the Portland side of the tunnel and radioed into the Base for a decontamination team, full geared inspectors, a suit for him and two cranes to be brought in from the south. What an exciting day!
Of course, I got to go through decontamination and you know I really do not like stripping in public. Just a modesty issue I have never overcome.
In due course of the day, they found the warhead (which was supposed to have been removed prior to transport!) was intact; very little radiation was evident in the area - other than the roof of the tunnel and ground below; and it took close to a week to extract that puppy from the tunnel and reload onto another carrier - this time with the warhead safely removed!
I never got to see if I glowed in the dark or not. Oh yeah, good times!
Showing posts with label Broken Arrow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Broken Arrow. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Broken Arrow
The night after our being detained by Catalonian Separatists, we headed off again in the cooler night air, continuing on towards Madrid.
Again in a mountainous area, at a bend in the road, you guessed it - another roadblock! Just as the night before, an uniformed officer asked for our papers. Only this guy was really nervous - so nervous that father was actual getting concerned for our safety! Father tried to get a conversation going but the guy just got on his radio and talked so rapidly no one knew what he was saying.
Several minutes later, a military jeep drives up with some - what I am guessing were Spanish MPs. One of them was quite fluent in English and from the car I caught the gist of the conversations - they had managed to drive too close to the shoulder of the road with a tractor trailer hauling a nuke and rolled it.
Father then identified himself, more talking on the radio and they were off - father to inspect said nuke and to supervise the correct reloading to the carrier on the trailer.
Once completed, father returned and we drove on with lots of smiles and hand waving by those still working on the mess they had made.
It was the first time I had ever seen one of the newer missiles and I was impressed. No idea as to which one it was but it was cool to see something you heard about but no one had any pictures of.....
Again in a mountainous area, at a bend in the road, you guessed it - another roadblock! Just as the night before, an uniformed officer asked for our papers. Only this guy was really nervous - so nervous that father was actual getting concerned for our safety! Father tried to get a conversation going but the guy just got on his radio and talked so rapidly no one knew what he was saying.
Several minutes later, a military jeep drives up with some - what I am guessing were Spanish MPs. One of them was quite fluent in English and from the car I caught the gist of the conversations - they had managed to drive too close to the shoulder of the road with a tractor trailer hauling a nuke and rolled it.
Father then identified himself, more talking on the radio and they were off - father to inspect said nuke and to supervise the correct reloading to the carrier on the trailer.
Once completed, father returned and we drove on with lots of smiles and hand waving by those still working on the mess they had made.
It was the first time I had ever seen one of the newer missiles and I was impressed. No idea as to which one it was but it was cool to see something you heard about but no one had any pictures of.....
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
OMG Off Spain
It was my birthday 1966. The family all went to Basle for the winter carnival - my favorite!, to celebrate. Okay it is really my and my mother's birthday, we were born on the same day and knowing my father this was really for her but I will claim it! :^)
On January 17, we headed back for home, up in the little notch where Belgium, Luxembourg and France are all joined together. But, something was wrong on the Swiss - French border, Father was requested to leave the car and go to the guard shack. Very odd.
When he came back, he was really in a state of agitation. Seems the US had lost a B-52 over Spain, equipped with four Hydrogen Bombs! Three had been found, one was missing. Nothing like one of your toys going missing on you. (Not even getting into the whole discussion of how on Earth he and Edvard were able to justify what they had created!)
So, we had a very quiet ride home, were dropped off and father headed for the nearest NATO base for an emergency flight to Spain - in winter - life is really tough. The school was all a buzz over this. News leaks out of Upper Hayford let us know that the bomb had been found almost immediately - but the idiots were going to leave it where it lay because the searchers had broken military search routine in finding it. Wasn't finding it the whole point? But it lay another 9 weeks until it was re-discovered, and then could be properly raised. Father was so angry when he got home, you have no idea..... I have no idea if any of his complaints against the wackos responsible had any effect.
I know from my secret readings in father's books, that things were not going to go well for those poor villagers whom had been contaminated by plutonium when the three bombs, which hit ground, had blown their conventional detonators. I remember at the time reading in the newspaper of villagers kicking sand on the bombs to put the fires out; posing for pictures sitting on the bomb casings, and living life as usual - in a contaminated environment. I never did see any reports come out on their life expectancies or deaths in public sources. Just not news I guess when you have shots of President Johnson holding up his beagles by their ears or whatever. And, I try not to even search on such subjects on the internet lest I draw undesired attention.
Prior to this I had always held the US military in high esteem. But, if you were so anal as to "stick" to a scheduled search and then reprimand those whom broke protocol to find what you were looking for - doesn't this point to a significant problem within the power structure of the military? Until January 1966, I had wanted a career in the US military, like my father, but now I started to watch, listen, remember and think on what I was hearing.....
On January 17, we headed back for home, up in the little notch where Belgium, Luxembourg and France are all joined together. But, something was wrong on the Swiss - French border, Father was requested to leave the car and go to the guard shack. Very odd.
When he came back, he was really in a state of agitation. Seems the US had lost a B-52 over Spain, equipped with four Hydrogen Bombs! Three had been found, one was missing. Nothing like one of your toys going missing on you. (Not even getting into the whole discussion of how on Earth he and Edvard were able to justify what they had created!)
 |
| Father, faced turned from camera |
I know from my secret readings in father's books, that things were not going to go well for those poor villagers whom had been contaminated by plutonium when the three bombs, which hit ground, had blown their conventional detonators. I remember at the time reading in the newspaper of villagers kicking sand on the bombs to put the fires out; posing for pictures sitting on the bomb casings, and living life as usual - in a contaminated environment. I never did see any reports come out on their life expectancies or deaths in public sources. Just not news I guess when you have shots of President Johnson holding up his beagles by their ears or whatever. And, I try not to even search on such subjects on the internet lest I draw undesired attention.
Prior to this I had always held the US military in high esteem. But, if you were so anal as to "stick" to a scheduled search and then reprimand those whom broke protocol to find what you were looking for - doesn't this point to a significant problem within the power structure of the military? Until January 1966, I had wanted a career in the US military, like my father, but now I started to watch, listen, remember and think on what I was hearing.....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)