America’s Missing Nukes: How the US Has LOST Three Bombs Since 1958 (And Those Are Exactly the Bombs They Told Us About)

Somewhere at the bottom of the Philippine Sea lies an unexploded hydrogen bomb with about 70 times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The 1965 disaster in which the weapon sank to the bottom of the sea is just one of at least three cases in which the US lost nuclear weapons.

According to some sources, the number could be as high as six, and that doesn’t take into account losses by other countries.

USS Ticonderoga

Since 1950, several dozen “Broken Arrow” incidents have occurred involving the accidental launch, theft, detonation or loss of U.S. nuclear weapons.

This includes the 1980 Damascus incident in rural Arkansas, in which a nine-megaton weapon was thrown from its silo by a fuel explosion.

But only three cases of missing nuclear weapons have been documented.

One of the cases of lost nuclear weapons involved a one-megaton B43 thermonuclear bomb that disappeared after a freak accident in the Philippine Sea during the Vietnam War.

The bomb was carried by a Navy A-4E Skyhawk that attempted to land aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga in 1965.

When he docked at the plane lift, he began to roll relentlessly as soldiers whistled, shouted and tried to block the tires.

The pilot on board, Lieutenant Douglas Webster, the aircraft and the aircraft’s cargo have not been seen since.

Retired U.S. Navy Chief Officer Delbert Mitchell, who worked as an aviation ordnance officer aboard the Ticonderoga, told Naval History that he and the other ordnance men “saw the Skyhawk suddenly hit the end of the elevator and fall overboard.”

“We never saw Lieutenant Webster after he climbed into the cockpit or knew what attempts he might have made to get out of the Skyhawk, but we were stunned to see an airplane, a pilot, and a nuclear weapon fall into the ocean.

‘We watched helplessly as the attack plane and its pilot sank into the abyss, while the ship continued to move forward. It was terrible to see a human being die before our eyes, powerless to save him.’

A B43 bomb similar to the missing bomb

Lieutenant Douglas Webster

Another case that is still shrouded in mystery occurred in 1958 during a military exercise at Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia.

A B-47 bomber was involved in a collision during an exercise and threw a nuclear weapon over water so that the bomb would not be involved in an emergency landing.

The 7,600-pound Mark 15 bomb had an explosive yield of up to 3.8 megatons.

B-47 aircrew, from left to right, Major Howard Richardson, Lieutenant Bob Lagerstrom and Captain Leland Woolard

The Boeing B-47 Stratojet collided with an F-65 Saber jet during training and the Stratojet pilot feared the bomb would break loose and detonate.

Pilot Colonel Howard Richardson jettisoned the bomb into the waters of Wassaw Sound.

For two months, crews tried to find the bomb, but it was never dug up – and it became famous among local residents, who dubbed it the “Tybee Bomb.”

Controversy remains over whether the bomb actually had the plutonium core needed to detonate, with the US government having said it did not contain a core.

But a 1966 testimony from Jack Howard suggested the bomb was a “complete nuclear weapon”, although military sources have since suggested this was “a mistake”.

Colonel Richardson has said that he has a signed receipt showing that the bomb did not have an active capsule (which would have allowed it to detonate).

A Mark 15 thermonuclear device

Colonel Richardson later said: ‘What I should be remembered for is landing that plane safely. I think this bomb is why I will be remembered.”

Another major source of ‘lost’ nuclear weapons has been submarines. The Soviet submarine K-219, which sank in 1986, is believed to have carried more than a dozen thermonuclear weapons.

In 1968, the nuclear attack submarine USS Scorpion sank in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, with the loss of 99 lives – and two nuclear-tipped torpedoes.

The submarine and its weapons were never found.

Technical problems with the submarine had led to crew members naming the doomed submarine the ‘Scrapiron’.

A Boeing Stratojet

During a final voyage back to home base, the submarine disappeared and the crew failed to respond to the call sign after the submarine failed to appear at the assigned time.

The wreckage was found on October 29 after imploding under the Atlantic Ocean, with all 99 sailors still on board.

Conspiracy theorists have suggested that the Scorpion was in fact sunk by a Soviet ship – and claim that the large number of submarines sunk in 1968 indicates a secret war being waged beneath the surface.