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Islanders little concerned with nuke bomb in harbor
Lincoln Journal Star
01/13/00
BY RUSS BYNUM The Associated Press
http://www.journalstar.com/
TYBEE ISLAND, Ga. - Lost beneath the shallow waters and sand off the Georgia
coast lies a Cold War relic that lingered for decades, a 7,600-pound nuclear
bomb dumped by a crippled Air Force plane.
Nearly 43 years later, questions raised by a former military pilot and a Georgia
congressman have caused the government to consider renewing its search for the
lost bomb near Tybee Island, 12 miles east of Savannah. The bomb is lost in
Wassaw Sound, where the 1996 Olympic sailing competition was held.
The Air Force insists the bomb lacks a key plutonium capsule needed to cause a
nuclear explosion, though it still contains radioactive uranium and the
explosive power of 400 pounds of TNT.
"It's a nuclear bomb," insists Derek Duke, a former Air Force pilot
who's been researching the case for two years. "It's like if I take the
battery out of your car, then I try to convince you it's not a car.
"It needs to be found so it moves from the dark, scary realm of lost and
unknown and we know where and how it is."
Air Force officials aren't so sure. After weighing the potential dangers of
leaving the bomb against the cost of finding it, possibly $1 million or more,
they plan to decide soon whether a new search is warranted.
Duke's own search has revived what had become a largely forgotten tale on Tybee
Island, a beach community of 4,000 where rustic bungalows sit beside $500,000
homes.
In February 1958, a B-47 bomber on a training mission collided with a fighter
jet near Savannah and had to drop the bomb to land safely. It was dumped on the
south side of Tybee's uninhabited sister island, called Little Tybee. The
military spent weeks searching for the sunken weapon, then gave up.
For residents who remembered, the bomb was ancient history by the time the
Olympics came to town. Others had never heard the story, or discounted it as
local myth.
But there's no guarantee the bomb could be found. Experts have warned the Air
Force that tides and strong weather patterns over the years could have moved the
bomb out to sea.
Kingston said he's willing to follow the Air Force's lead for now. But he'd like
to see some effort, if only a small search covering just a few miles.
"Four hundred pounds of TNT to some folks isn't a big deal," he said.
"But if it's your family and your boat that hits it, it is a big
deal."
But an Air Force expert on nuclear weapons who has studied the Tybee Island bomb
said damage from an accidental explosion would be minimal.
Officials believe the bomb sank at least five miles off the coast, beneath 20
feet of water and an additional 15 feet of sand and silt, said Maj. Don Robbins,
deputy director of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons and Counter Proliferation
Agency.
If it exploded, the bomb "would create maybe a 10-foot diameter hole and
shock waves through the water of approximately 100 yards," Robbins said.
"Even boats going over it would not even notice. They might see some
bubbles coming out around them."
The amount of uranium in the bomb's casing is too low to cause a serious
environmental threat, he said.
A month after the Tybee Island incident, in March 1958, a second B-47 dropped a
similar bomb, without its nuclear payload, in Florence, S.C. The resulting
explosion blasted a crater into the ground and injured six people.
Tybee Island residents, known to ride out hurricane warnings at the beachside
bars, haven't been ruffled by the wayward bomb.
"It was all over the newspapers and the radio. But nobody worried about
it," said City Councilman Jack Youmans, 75, who was living on the island
when the bomb was dropped. "If it's there, then it's there. That's
all."
Tybee Island Mayor Walter Parker said he hasn't received a single phone call
from residents about the bomb. And John Mack Adams, an island retiree who writes
about local history, hasn't heard much other than a friend's joke that their
property values might plummet.
"A lot of the locals have lived here all their lives. They look at it kind
of like a crap shoot," Adams said. "These folks don't scare too
easily."
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