Wassaw Sound is a bay of the Atlantic Ocean on the coast of Georgia, United States near Savannah at the mouth of the Wilmington River.
It was the location of an American Civil War naval battle between the CSS Atlanta and Union ships in 1863.
It is the location of a hydrogen bomb lost by a B-47 Stratojet bomber in 1958. This lost hydrogen bomb is also known as the Tybee Bomb. On the night of February 5, 1958, a B-47 Stratojet bomber carrying a hydrogen bomb on a night training flight off the Georgia coast collided with an F-86 Saberjet fighter at 36,000 feet. The collision destroyed the fighter and severely damaged a wing of the bomber, leaving one of its engines partially dislodged. The bomber's pilot, Maj. Howard Richardson, was instructed to jettison the H-bomb before attempting a landing. Richardson dropped the bomb into the shallow waters of Wassaw Sound, near the mouth of the Savannah River, a few miles from the city of Tybee Island, where he believed the bomb would be swiftly recovered.
The Pentagon recorded the incident in a top secret memo to the chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The memo has been partially declassified: "A B-47 aircraft with a nuclear weapon aboard was damaged in a collision with an F-86 aircraft near Sylvania, Georgia, on February 5, 1958. The B-47 aircraft attempted three times unsuccessfully to land with the weapon. The weapon was then jettisoned visually over water off the mouth of the Savannah River. No detonation was observed."
Soon search and rescue teams were sent to the site. Wassaw Sound was cordoned off by United States Air Force troops. For six weeks, the Air Force looked for the bomb without success. Underwater divers scoured the depths, troops tromped through nearby salt marshes, and a blimp hovered over the area attempting to spot a hole or crater in the beach or swamp. Then just a month later, the search was abruptly halted. The Air Force sent its forces to Florence, South Carolina, where another H-bomb had been accidentally dropped by a B-47. The bomb's 200 pounds of TNT exploded on impact, sending radioactive debris across the landscape. The explosion caused extensive property damage and several injuries on the ground. The weapon itself did not detonate.
The search teams never returned to Tybee Island, and the missing H-bomb was declared lost.[ citation needed ]
The bomb was again searched for in 2001 and not found. A new group in 2004 headed by Derek Duke claimed to have found an underwater object which it thinks is the bomb, but the US Army Corps of Engineers discounted the claim, saying the radioactive traces detected by the group were "naturally occurring". [1]
The fake news website World News Daily Report ran a story in February 2015 stating the bomb was found by vacationing Canadian divers and that the bomb had since been removed from the sound. The fake story spread widely via social media. [2]
The sound served as the sailing venue for the 1996 Summer Olympics.
Strategic Air Command (SAC) was a United States Department of Defense Specified Command and a United States Air Force (USAF) Major Command responsible for command and control of the strategic bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile components of the United States military's strategic nuclear forces from 1946 to 1992. SAC was also responsible for strategic reconnaissance aircraft; airborne command posts; and most of the USAF's aerial refueling aircraft.
Tybee Island is a city and a barrier island in Chatham County, Georgia, 18 miles (29 km) east of Savannah. The name "Tybee Island" is used for both the island and the city, but geographically they are not identical: only part of the island's territory lies within the city.
The Boeing B-47 Stratojet is a retired American long-range, six-engined, turbojet-powered strategic bomber designed to fly at high subsonic speed and at high altitude to avoid enemy interceptor aircraft. The primary mission of the B-47 was as a nuclear bomber capable of striking targets within the Soviet Union.
A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unlike tactical bombers, penetrators, fighter-bombers, and attack aircraft, which are used in air interdiction operations to attack enemy combatants and military equipment, strategic bombers are designed to fly into enemy territory to destroy strategic targets. In addition to strategic bombing, strategic bombers can be used for tactical missions. There are currently only three countries that operate strategic bombers: the United States, Russia and China.
The North American B-45 Tornado was an early American jet bomber designed and manufactured by aircraft company North American Aviation. It has the distinction of being the first operational jet bomber to enter service with the United States Air Force (USAF), as well as the first multiengine jet bomber to be refueled in midair.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1958.
Project Brass Ring was a 1950 United States Air Force project designed to deliver an early hydrogen bomb to within 2 miles (3.2 km) of a target using a drone version of the B-47 Stratojet, which would be guided by a mother ship and destroyed in the detonation. This project was given considerable support, due to uncertainty concerning the possible yield of a hydrogen bomb, then estimated to lie between 10 and 40 megatons. Brass Ring was meant to provide an interim nuclear weapons delivery capability while more capable systems were under development. The fear and concern surrounding the Soviet Union's development of its own nuclear weapons capability was the impetus to quickly begin the project. Project Brass Ring was similar in concept to the World War II Operation Aphrodite.
The Tybee Island mid-air collision was an incident on February 5, 1958, in which the United States Air Force lost a 7,600-pound (3,400 kg) Mark 15 nuclear bomb in the waters off Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia, United States. During a night practice exercise, an F-86 fighter plane collided with the B-47 bomber carrying the large weapon.
The 1966 Palomares B-52 crash, also called the Palomares incident, occurred on 17 January 1966, when a B-52G bomber of the United States Air Force's Strategic Air Command collided with a KC-135 tanker during mid-air refueling at 31,000 feet (9,450 m) over the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Spain. The KC-135 was destroyed when its fuel load ignited, killing all four crew members. The B-52G broke apart, killing three of the seven crew members aboard.
The 2nd Bomb Wing is a United States Air Force unit assigned to the Air Force Global Strike Command and the Eighth Air Force. It is stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The wing is also the host unit at Barksdale. The wing was assigned to the Air Force Global Strike Command in February 2010 as part of the reassignment of Eighth Air Force.
The Mark 15 nuclear bomb, or Mk-15, was a 1950s American thermonuclear bomb, the first relatively lightweight thermonuclear bomb created by the United States.
The United States Armed Forces uses a number of terms to define the magnitude and extent of nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents in order to reduce the time taken to report the type of incident, thus streamlining the radio communications in the wake of the event.
The 308th Armament Systems Wing is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the Air Armament Center, stationed at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. It was inactivated on 30 July 2010.
The Mark 17 and Mark 24 were the first mass-produced hydrogen bombs deployed by the United States. The two differed in their "primary" stages. They entered service in 1954, and were phased out by 1957.
The 393rd Bomb Squadron is part of the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri. It operates Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit nuclear-capable strategic bomber aircraft.
On March 10, 1956, a B-47 Stratojet carrying nuclear weapons material disappeared over the Mediterranean Sea.
The 4925th Test Group is a discontinued United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the 4901st Support Wing (Atomic), at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, where it was discontinued on 31 August 1961. Known as "The Megaton Blasters", the 4925th was responsible for the development flight testing of all USAF nuclear weapon delivery systems including conducting live test drops from 1951 though 1956. Following 1956 the group focused on operational methods and equipment for delivering nuclear weapons. It was discontinued when Air Force Systems Command replaced Air Research and Development Command and components of its mission were distributed among other units.
The 1950 Rivière-du-Loup B-50 nuclear weapon loss incident refers to loss of a nuclear weapon near Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec, Canada, during the fall of 1950. The bomb was released due to engine troubles, and then was destroyed in a non-nuclear detonation before it hit the ground.
The 1958 Mars Bluff B-47 nuclear weapon loss incident was the inadvertent release of a nuclear weapon from a United States Air Force B-47 bomber over Mars Bluff, South Carolina. The bomb, which lacked the fissile nuclear core, fell over the area, causing damage to buildings below. Though there was no nuclear detonation, six people were injured by the explosion of the bomb's conventional explosives. The Air Force was sued by the family of the victims, who received US$54,000, equivalent to $547,723 in 2022.
31°56′01″N80°56′59″W / 31.93361°N 80.94972°W
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