MikeDunnAuthor<p>Today in Labor History February 5, 1958: The U.S. Air Force lost a Mark 15 thermonuclear bomb in the water near Tybee Island, near Savannah, Georgia. The B-47 bomber was on a simulated combat mission. It collided with an F-86 fighter plane, midair, and jettisoned the bomb in order to make an emergency landing without detonating it. Sources vary on whether it was a “dummy” bomb, or if it had a plutonium core. If it was a “dummy” bomb, it still carried 400 lbs of conventional high explosives, enough to do considerable local damage. However, Assistant Secretary of Defense W.J. Howard, told Congress that the Tybee Island bomb was a "complete weapon, a bomb with a nuclear capsule" and one of two weapons lost that contained a plutonium trigger.</p><p>For a truly terrifying history of the history of nuclear weapons systems and accidents involving nuclear weapons in the United States, read Eric Schlosser’s “Command and Control.”</p><p><a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/workingclass" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>workingclass</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/LaborHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>LaborHistory</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/nuclear" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>nuclear</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/bomb" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>bomb</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/atomic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>atomic</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/hbomb" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>hbomb</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/hydrogenbomb" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>hydrogenbomb</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/georgia" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>georgia</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/books" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>books</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/nonfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>nonfiction</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/bookstadon" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>bookstadon</span></a></span></p>