Transcript

Declassified: The Lost H-Bombs Of The Cold War

From Timeline - World History Documentaries · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 52 min · 5,535 words · 97 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Declassified: The Lost H-Bombs Of The Cold War", an episode of Timeline - World History Documentaries published January 8, 2026 (52 min, about 5,535 words). It mentions 14 people, works and ideas, including B-52, Operation Broken Arrow, Palomares, Hiroshima, Inola Gay.

What this episode is about

The topic explores the secretive history of the Cold War nuclear arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States, highlighting numerous nuclear accidents known as "broken arrows" and shedding light on newly declassified documents that detail catastrophic events bringing the world to the brink of destruction. It emphasizes the fierce competition for nuclear supremacy, marked by the development and testing of increasingly powerful hydrogen bombs, ultimately leading to a doctrine of mutual assured destruction that defined U.S.-Soviet relations during this tense period.

Key takeaways

  • The Cold War was a game of nuclear poker, where both superpowers held 'ace of bombs'—but not without misdealing.
  • Accidents like the Palomares incident remind us: nuclear deterrence can be a reckless gamble, with humanity as the stakes.
  • Mutual assured destruction kept peace but also cranked up the pressure cooker—one wrong move could roast us all.
  • The irony? The closer we got to nuclear annihilation, the more 'accidents' occurred—fear often breeds folly.
  • Declassified documents transform Cold War myths into reality; our past is a dangerous cocktail of secrets and near-disasters.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Hiroshima, Operation Broken Arrow, Castle Bravo, Inola Gay
  2. – 10:00: B-52, Palomares, Rafael Martinez
  3. – 15:00: Palomares
  4. – 20:00: Palomares, Operation Broken Arrow, New York Times
  5. – 25:00: Palomares
  6. – 30:00: Palomares
  7. – 35:00: B-52, Robert McNamara
  8. – 40:00: B-52, Palomares
  9. – 45:00: B-52, Palomares
  10. – 50:00: B-52

Notable quotes from "Declassified: The Lost H-Bombs Of The Cold War"

  • On August 6th, 1945, the bomber Inola Gay dropped the atom bomb they called Little Boy on Hiroshima.
    about Hiroshima · at
  • The first American hydrogen bomb went off in the Pacific on the Marshall Islands.
    about Marshall Islands · at
  • Mars Bluff in South Carolina, Goldsboro in North Carolina, Yuba in California.
    about Yuba · at
  • The nuclear bombs were expelled from the hold and the plane crashed near the village of Palomares on the Andalusian coast.
    about Palomares · at
  • A dozen ships from the American Six Fleet are now helping the Air Force in the search cenamed Operation Broken Arrow. Cruisers and destroyers with sonar equipment have been trying to.
    about Operation Broken Arrow · at
  • Secretary of Defense Robert McNamera wanted to reduce the number of B-52 warning missions. They were too risky, too costly, and disastrous for the United States public image.
    about Robert McNamara · at
  • On January 21st, 1968, the B-52 on duty, armed with four nuclear bombs, was tirelessly doing its rounds above the base at temperatures of -40°.
    about B-52 · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Harry Truman — Person · Referenced political leader (U.S. President at start of nuclear age) · 1 mention · first at
    Cited as the U.S. president who authorized/oversaw the use of the atomic bomb and used it as leverage against Stalin, framing the early Cold War nuclear deterrence dynamic.
    President Harry Truman had provided devastating proof of American power.
  • Rafael Martinez — Person · Eyewitness journalist (first responder-style witness at crash site) · 1 mention · first at
    Provides on-the-ground testimony from Palomares immediately after the B-52 crash, giving sensory detail and human impact that anchors the narrative beyond policy and strategy.
    A reporter, Rafael Martinez Durban, was among the first at the scene of the crash where three bodies were found.
  • Robert McNamara — Person · Referenced policymaker (U.S. Secretary of Defense) · 1 mention · first at
    Appears in the debate over airborne nuclear alert missions; presented as advocating reductions in risky B-52 warning flights after accidents like Palomares.
  • Leonid Brezhnev — Person · Referenced geopolitical counterpart (Soviet leader) · 5 mentions
    Used to personify Soviet strategic confidence in missiles/rocketry (ICBMs, space race), contrasting U.S. reliance on bomber-based deterrence and highlighting escalation pressures.
    And Leonid Brev, the latest strongman at the Kremlin, knew his missiles, the stars of the first of May parades, had enabled the Soviets to face up to the United States in the Cuba crisis.

Products & tech

  • B-52 — Product · Case study · 7 mentions · first at
    Strategic bomber involved in nuclear accidents during the Cold War.
  • Inola Gay — Product · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
    On August 6th, 1945, the bomber Inola Gay dropped the atom bomb they called Little Boy on Hiroshima.
  • Castle Bravo — Product · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    First test of a practical hydrogen bomb by the United States.
    The Americans tested Castle Bravo, a bomb 150 times more powerful than Hiroshima.

Places & events

  • Operation Broken Arrow — Event · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at
    Code name for nuclear weapon accidents during the Cold War.
  • Palomares — Place · Setting · 11 mentions · first at
    Village in Spain where a B-52 bomber crashed, leading to a nuclear accident.
  • Hiroshima — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
    City in Japan where the first atomic bomb was dropped.
  • Marshall Islands — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Location where the first American hydrogen bomb was tested.
  • Yuba — Place · Setting · 2 mentions
    Location of a nuclear accident during the Cold War.
  • Goldsboro — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Location of a nuclear accident during the Cold War.
    Mars Bluff in South Carolina, Goldsboro in North Carolina, Yuba in California.

Media & podcasts

  • New York Times — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Newspaper that covered the Palomares nuclear accident.
    Back in the States, the first to go to press was the New York Times.

Full transcript with timestamps

The full story of the faceoff between the Soviet Union and the United States after the Second World War has remained secret for more than half a century.

3 2 1 zero. This was the Cold War when two superpowers both had atomic bombs and were threatening each other with total destruction. Dozens of nuclear accidents, they called them broken arrows, had resulted from the deployment of that dreadful weapon. Through censorship and reasons of state, those sensitive dosier were all repressed. But now declassified documents can reveal the facts about those catastrophes that led humankind to the brink of apocalypse. And the lost bombs of the Cold War are finally exploding into sight.

On August 6th, 1945, the bomber Inola Gay dropped the atom bomb they called Little Boy on Hiroshima. and the world entered the nuclear age. President Harry Truman had provided devastating proof of American power. He'd brought Japan to its knees and fired off a warning to Stalin, whose expansionist aims were becoming troublesome. The USSR had millions of troops and thousands of tanks. Since the end of the war, the Red Army had been only partially demobilized.

Truman was counting on fear of the bomb that he alone possessed to hold them in check. He kept on testing more and more bombs and urging his engineers to turn the prototypes into real mass-roduced weapons.

But then the first Soviet nuclear test took America by surprise and thus began the mad race for nuclear supremacy. The first American hydrogen bomb went off in the Pacific on the Marshall Islands. It was 100 times more powerful than the one at Hiroshima. 9 months later, the Soviets had their own. And the race was on. The Americans tested Castle Bravo, a bomb 150 times more powerful than Hiroshima. Kruef's response that Tarbomba was a monster three times again more powerful. The terrifying escalation had reached its peak.

Mutual assured destruction um was a doctrine that both the United States and the Soviet Union operated under that uh we could maintain peace as long as each side was vulnerable to an attack from an from the other side. So they they were both assured of of destroying one another so they wouldn't have any incentive to launch the first strike.

But this was a strategy that placed American bomber crews under intolerable pressure.

We asked the US military during the Cold War to do the impossible. be ready to launch nuclear weapons on a moment's notice and never ever have an accident. That's impossible. We shouldn't have been asking the US military to do that. So to me, the lesson of this is that going on nuclear alerts, that's inherently dangerous. It's very risky. Since the end of the war, there had already been 28 nuclear accidents. Fortunately, without any contamination. Mars Bluff in South Carolina, Goldsboro in North Carolina, Yuba in California.

The risk was at its height in 1966 when the government insisted that American bombers should be permanently in the air and on high alert.

We start flying routinely B-52 bombers with thermonuclear weapons on board. And we did that because strategic command believed that if there was a surprise attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, the bombers on the ground might get destroyed. And for the sake of deterrence, they wanted to have some weapons in the air all the time.

Thus it was that on January 17th, 1966, at a base in North Carolina, four nuclear bombs were loaded onto a bomber plane for a 24-hour mission. Captain Wendorf and Major Messinger knew they might at any moment received the order to drop their dreadful load. It was a show of strength in which the pilots were true American heroes. Good morning.

The plane would cross the Atlantic, fly over the Mediterranean, and head up to the very edge of the communist block to be in position for a nuclear retaliation. On the return flight, they had to refuel in flight over Spain. mile dead ahead. Pilot, roger. Looks good.

At 30,000 ft, approach maneuvers to a tanker aircraft are tricky. The slightest error can prove fatal.

Dropping back telescope 8 ft 10 ft. The telescopic boom was deployed to transfer the 13,000 gallons of highly inflammable jet fuel. But there was turbulence and it all went wrong.

15°. Roger. Moving left. 20° elevation. Break away. Break. The tanker aircraft exploded, killing all four crew members. The bomber was badly damaged and span out of control. Four of the crew managed to eject. The nuclear bombs were expelled from the hold

and the plane crashed near the village of Palomares on the Andalusian coast. A reporter, Rafael Martinez Durban, was among the first at the scene of the crash where three bodies were found. People were already there from the village. And my first impression, I don't know what upset me more, the sight or the smell. It was a mixture of jet fuel,

rubber, smoke, and burnt flesh. The undercarriage had landed just yards from a school where 20 or more children were at their lessons. It's a miracle they were all right. Four members of the B-52 crew survived and were looked after by the locals. It was the first nuclear accident on European soil. A few hours later, the arrival of US Air Force mine clearance teams caused quite a stir. They'd never seen a helicopter before in Palmarees. The teams immediately started searching for the four bombs and were astonished not to find them there in the wreck.

With help from the locals, they found three of them scattered here and there in the village. These declassified photos show that the first had landed in a dry riverbed, apparently intact thanks to its parachute. But that wasn't the case with the two others. Two of those weapons the parachute did not deploy on. So when the weapons impacted the ground, the 300 lb of high explosive in those weapons exploded, scattering the active material over the area. This extraordinary footage shows the mine clearers recuperating fragments of the bombs.

There was no nuclear explosion, but the bombs had released a large quantity of plutonium and the contamination was enormous. As for the fourth, it was nowhere to be found. And that immediately put things on the highest alert. We had a few take off.

For the US Air Force, it was vital not to drop their guard and let the Soviets take advantage of this accident. The government decided to continue its deterrent overflights.

24 hours after the accident, the Americans bomber start again overflying Spain with nuclear arms. In some point, someone in the Franco range say, "Okay, that's absolutely crazy. No, we still we don't know what is happening." So and state we have other nuclear armaments over flying in Spain. So they request officially to cancel overflies with nuclear armament over Spain.

President Johnson was unhappy about this and tried his best to change Franco's mind. Their two countries were bound by a 1953 agreement. American forces had paid $1.5 billion dollars to be allowed to install five military bases in Spain. Since they were halfway to the Soviet Union, they were strategically useful when it came to nuclear deterrence. They were home to 12,000 GIS in a permanent state of alert. Two of those bases immediately sent 300 soldiers to Palomares. In the afternoon, the buses full of soldiers arrived.

We knew they were Americans because they were all black. We'd never seen a person of color before.

The men were sent straight off to search for the missing bomb. They could at any point have been exposed to radioactive debris, but they wore no protection. But wherever they went, the Geiger counters went crazy.

The contamination from the bombs had formed two long parallel corridors. They covered an area equivalent to 200 football fields. Here in this region, there are strong southeast winds and they spread the radioactive dust and this was an inhabited area with crops too. Urgent action was called for and the first thing was to stop any more of the dust from spreading.

The local people still had no idea how serious the situation was. Later they came around with this device for the radioactivity. They had this little window at the back and they put this thing there and it was full of radioactivity.

They didn't say anything about bombs. They just said not to touch anything and not to go out at all. But everyone was already outside to find out what was going on.

I didn't know it was a nuclear bomb. I just didn't know. We didn't know much back then about nuclear bombs. After 5 days spent systematically searching the whole area, the military realized that the bomb must have fallen in the sea.

The United States Sixth Fleet was stationed in the Mediterranean, so was ordered to locate and recover it as quickly as possible. It must not fall into foreign hands. The stunned residents of Palomares were experiencing all the power of Uncle Sam and they have never forgotten it. All the tools they brought. The sheer cost of it, the equipment they had, you just can't imagine. It was incredible. Within days, a military camp had been set up on the beach at Palomares. Commando teams of divers were combing the whole coast.

And state-of-the-art US submarines had been called in to search the open sea. However, all this activity ended up catching the attention of the press. One of the first decision that the the Americans and the Spaniardians decid took was don't close completely the area. They don't evacuate the area. So that allowed also for the journalists to come to the area and then talk to the people.

In Palomares, there were reporters everywhere. They were interviewing people and talking to witnesses. It wouldn't take them long to find out things the military would rather cover up. Back in the States, the first to go to press was the New York Times. Franco was furious that he couldn't control this often sensationalist foreign press coverage.

A dozen ships from the American Six Fleet are now helping the Air Force in the search cenamed Operation Broken Arrow. Cruisers and destroyers with sonar equipment have been trying to locate the lost bomb and also screening the approaches against enemy spies. Spanish civil guards and secret police called in the area around the American camp and Palomaris. But Colonel Skip Young, the information officer, wouldn't even admit there was an Hbomb missing. No comment was as talkative as he would get. Also the the Soviets used the Palomaris incident to criticize United States and Spanish and and Franco regime.

And the propaganda went wild with images like this of an arrogant American officer leaving a trail of death. But this was the Cold War and no holds were barred. So the Soviets incited Western European communists to protect against the dangers of imperialism and more and more concerned citizens were joining in at Polyaris. It was a publicity nightmare for the Air Force. They they released what had happened. The Air Force tried to get rid of the problem as quickly as they could.

The decontamination operation began. The crops were all covered in radioactive fallout. They had to be destroyed. People in Palomaris made their living from tomatoes and overnight they lost their livelihood.

Their crops had all become nuclear waste. The military's method for getting rid of them was simple, but not a particularly good idea.

You can't burn something that's radioactive because if you do, the smoke becomes radioactive and you create another problem altogether. This declassified footage gives a glimpse behind the scenes of the huge clearup. They'd given up on the burning now. All the plants were thrown into speciallymade drums. But then there was the soil itself. It too was contaminated.

The sheer volume of it was enormous. They'd already used thousands of drums. The US government was getting worried about the expense of it all and trying to limit the cost. There is clear documents where they renegotiate between the Spanish and the Americans and was difficult because was not so other part of the of of the land. So they agreed to uh to let some contamination there. Eventually, the Spanish agreed to lower the permitted levels of radioactivity. That's where the real problems began for Palomares. In return, the Americans, who'd been intending to just leave everything there, agreed to take all the waste back to the United States.

Another enormous expense for the government. But there was more to it than that. Professor Moreno has come across a document that proves that the Americans deliberately cheated to keep the cost down.

Also, we realized that in some of the the places the only thing they do was to put the the contamination on the bottom. They put it on on 1 m deep um from the surface because they thought those lands never will be, you know, removed. When the soil had been turned over, it no longer set off the geer counters. On the surface, it was all clean, and its owner even got a certificate of non-contamination. But when the land was again cultivated, the radioactivity was still there, a veritable time bomb for the future.

But it was the lost bomb that the Spanish were worried about now. It could ruin the tourist season, the country's main source of income. So the Minister of Information and Tourism attempted an audacious bit of public relations.

But it was no use. Everyone was worried about that radiation and the PR stunt was a failure. That summer, Palomaris Beach was deserted.

That bomb was driving the politicians mad, but the kids just made fun of it all while dancing the twist. No not even love your TV.

Yet for folks at Palomares, it wasn't so much fun. In the eyes of the world, they were like plague victims, and you could see the worry on their faces. So, General Wilson decided to call the heads of all the families together. He called for unity against the communist menace and extolled the friendship between Spain and America. The villagers, intimidated, didn't dare to object. The meeting didn't solve anything. All they were told was to do what the authorities said and not go into the fields. That was the only advice they were given.

So, of course, rumors were rife and people were getting more anxious by the hour. First, the farmers, then the fishermen lost their only source of income. People just didn't want to eat fish. They said it was contaminated, so the boats just didn't go out. So then hunger reared its head. Serious hunger. And those totally peaceful people got angry and they marched on the military base because they'd been hungry for over a week. Their children, too. The military realized they'd underestimated the financial consequences of the accident on the villagers.

To cut people's losses, the Americans bought a part of the local harvest and used it to feed the troops. So, the men were eating tomatoes with every meal. Over the following days, they gave the poorest villagers odd jobs to do. And the soldiers moved to see the villagers in such distress handed out their own rations to them.

All it took to restore peace to Palomares was a fistful of dollars. But by early April, despite 80 days of undersea searching, the fourth bomb still hadn't been found, and Washington didn't want to keep on paying. Admiral Guest ordered his search teams to go over their results again to make sure they hadn't missed anything. And indeed, one witness had been overlooked. After the accident, Spanish police had questioned a fisherman. While out at sea pulling in his nets, Simo Orts had seen a strange parachute off in the distance.

With no hesitation, he pointed out exactly where in an area that hadn't yet been searched. One last chance. The submarine set off on the hunt just one more time.

And one last dive into unknown waters. Waters that turned out to be dangerous. A submarine had to descend through a crumbling gorge where the walls threaten to bury it at any moment. Then suddenly at a depth of 2,500 ft, they made out a white shape. It was a parachute with still attached to it the bomb.

They brought it up from the abyss and onto the deck. It seemed intact, so it hadn't contaminated the sea. After three long months of searching, this was a considerable technical achievement.

The 8th of April was Easter. I think it was Good Friday. They took us to Garucha and put us all on a boat.

They didn't tell us anything. And we saw a ship pass by with the bomb on deck. It was going so slowly that we could take photos. Then it disappeared. This press circus was proof that the mission had been a success. First the Spanish, then the international press celebrated a triumph for the US Navy.

Their work done, the Americans packed their bags and left the people of Palomares to grapple with the aftermath of an event whose consequences they didn't yet fully understand. 50 years later, the children have all grown up and the village is a thriving seaside resort.

But an open wound remains. The contaminated land, 40 ectars in all, has never been cleaned up despite repeated promises from the United States.

Every time I go by there, where the radiation is so strong, I feel like I'm getting a dose of it. I don't think it'll ever go away. We're absorbing it every day. I'm always a bit scared.

All the time. departure. With the accident at Pelomarez, the US Air Force lost its right to overfly Spain and that put a big dent in its deterrent capabilities.

A worrying situation for President Johnson. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamera wanted to reduce the number of B-52 warning missions. They were too risky, too costly, and disastrous for the United States public image. But the generals didn't agree. For 20 years, their bombers had confronted those Soviet missiles. They represented all the military might of America. And Leonid Brev, the latest strongman at the Kremlin, knew his missiles, the stars of the first of May parades, had enabled the Soviets to face up to the United States in the Cuba crisis.

And they were also driving the space race. And there too, thanks to the power and reliability of its rockets, the USSR was in the lead. The first satellite and the first man in space were both communist. Then in 1967, the Soviets launched a new intercontinental missile capable of carrying a nuclear payload over 6,000 miles. American science was way behind. We had put all of our eggs in the basket of bombers flying flying warheads around.

America caught up, but its B-52s were still on the front line. Curtis Lame, the chief of the air force at the time, said that that threat required us to go on a much higher state of alert, creating number of dangers, but we did that in order to try to reinforce our threat of retaliation.

Pilot radar ahead. So, the US Air Force would now stretch its bombers and their crews to the limits to concentrate on a region that was crucial to America's security. Normally you perceive the Cold War as an east-west conflict, but when you look at the Arctic, you and you observe the the the globe from the top, you will see that the Arctic actually is in the middle of the the shortest distance between the United States and the Soviet Union. So in the era of long-d distanceance bombers, the Arctic was predisposed to play a key role.

Actually, the United States had the foresight to put into place in the far north a huge warning system all around Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. A chain of 65 radars that stretched for over 3,000 m. The gigantic Thuli air base on the Danish island of Greenland had become an outpost of the western world. Sitting at the edge of a frozen sea that only thawled out for 2 months a year. Its giant radar was running 24 hours a day and its sensors could detect a Soviet missile thousands of miles away. We also knew, however, that it might be the first place to be attacked because one thing you would do if you were um the Soviet Union initiating a war is try to take out American radar.

The radar was under surveillance by bomber flights in relay over the base both day and night. on a secret mission. Baptized Thuly Monitoring.

They could report back to the strategic command that Tulie is under attack or Tuli is just not operating and there's some kind of severing of the communications line. On January 21st, 1968, the B-52 on duty, armed with four nuclear bombs, was tirelessly doing its rounds above the base at temperatures of -40°. Some of the crew were off duty for a few hours and complaining of the cold. So, the co-pilot turned up the heating. That's when the unthinkable happened. Three cushions that had been left in front of a heating vent caught fire.

The smell of burning alerted the pilot, but the fire had spread rapidly. Thick smoke filled the cockpit. The aircraft had to be abandoned and it was every man for himself.

unpiloted. Now, the American bomber would crash with all its bombs into the frozen sea. The base was alerted. They had to find the men before they died of cold. [screaming] The local Inuit formed another team. At its head, a Danish civilian in charge of logistics, Jen Zingler.

We hear that it is a B-52 with nuclear weapons that had crashed on the ice. There was no way to get out there. The fire trucks they are constructed to to to drive on a runway and they cannot drive on on on our t guys and get my dogs and my people ready. And my theory was that our dogs would smell and warn us and may help us to find survivors even if they were unconscious. While the DNE was rushing to the scene of the crash, Fule's fire brigade searched the area around the base for survivors. Mario Schmidt was their chief.

We found one of the pilots. He was freezing. His arm was really like ice. Another had a broken leg. But we found them all and took them to the hospital. After 10 hours out on the ice, Jen Zingler got back to base. It had been quite a feat to get to the crash site, and he was keen to get to headquarters to give his report to General Huner in charge of the accident. But once there, he found a summit meeting in progress. And I came into a room where there was a number of high rank officers. So there were kick a quick glance around.

And then in the middle sits here a wildl looking blueeyed two star general with a face like a Roman statue arrogant and he looks at me so down his nose and said okay stranger let me hear your story I reported short and then he looked at me and said god damn it I don't believe a word of your story and then he turned around and talked to his staff officers. I felt really pissed. A young captain came with a sort of a meter. So I put up my boot and he put his instrument there and it went sort of and then he turned to the general said it's true. He has been out there and then suddenly the whole atmosphere changed.

Now, Strategic Air Command's war machine was gearing up. It was highly likely that the four bombs had leaked radioactivity twice as much as at Palomares. Never before had there been a nuclear accident like this one.

But the US Air Force just wasn't prepared to handle a catastrophe of this amplitude. And President Johnson wanted at all costs to avoid a diplomatic crisis with Denmark.

Spain had allowed the air force to fly nuclear weapons above its soil. Whereas in Greenland, controlled by the Danes, the Danish did not approve over flights with nuclear weapons.

Danish leaders knew that to handle this crisis, they had to get on with their American counterparts. However, it was impossible to keep the accident secret because they had thousands of people working at the base.

No one wanted to make the same mistakes as at Palomares, so a press conference was called straight away. This was a first. The US military wasn't used to this kind of communiciveness, especially on such a thorny subject.

Jen's Zingler enthralled the journalists with his exploits out on the ice. They'd come from all over the world and knew nothing of life in the Arctic.

Very slow down this this area actually east. But the man in charge, General Huner kept it brief.

How much is still on the ice, I don't know. I haven't completed our investigation. How that's going to happen, I don't know right now because I don't know the extent of the contamination. The press felt let down. Had they come so far just for this one?

But the aerial photography of the gigantic black stain left by the B-52 spoke for itself.

A monstrous cocktail of burnt jet fuel and radioactive material all frozen into the ice. When General Hunziker and his men went to inspect this frozen swamp, they were astonished to find nothing but tiny pieces of the plane. The aircraft and weapons hit with such a force. The aircraft apparently at the time was doing close to 700 miles an hour, way above its design limits. But it did hit the ice more or less intact with all that destructive power. When it hit the 3-ft thick sheet of ice, the aircraft had just disintegrated. As for the bombs, who knew whether they'd broken up, too.

One thing was sure, some of them must have broken up. Just look at the contamination. Hundreds of employees at the base were roped in to collect all the debris scattered over dozens of square meters of the Arctic landscape. No one told them about the danger of radioactivity. They had geiger measures and they found some very hot spots. I saw instruments reading over 2 million counts per minute. That's a huge dose. Well above the permitted limits even for a brief exposure.

Further off, they discovered larger fragments. Were they from the bombs? Experts had to examine them all one by one to determine their function and their origin. They were looking for clues like the serial numbers inscribed on every component. And thus, three bombs were identified with no room for doubt. That much is confirmed by the declassified documents. But there was no trace of the fourth one.

By the beginning of March, nearly all the debris had been recovered. Time for the cleanup. The experts said they had two months to clean up the ice before it starts to thaw. They carefully outlined the contaminated zone. It covered nearly 2 1/2 square miles.

There was a huge dispersal of radioactive material there. And they could track the wind pattern to where everything had been blown up in the air had traveled down that wind pattern. and they knew where it was. And the Air Force there in their cleanup efforts removed the top 6 in of the ice and snow. Huge quantities. In just 60 days, they skimmed off over 10,000 tons of ice. Never had the Arctic seen such a vast undertaking.

The contaminated ice was stored back at the base in some old tanks. The year goes on, the sun comes up and it gets thor and some of the tanks were leaking. They were old and they were leaking and the contaminated snow inside the tanks turns into water. It leaks out. It has to be handled maybe two or three times, move from one tank to another. This is where Danes have had a chance to be uh contaminated.

The workers were the most exposed. They had to be checked each day. They checked us with the geer counter.

They burnt all our clothes. We couldn't keep them. They came to the barracks. They put cotton buds up my nose. We were so stupid. When the thing buzzed, we just laughed. We were so ignorant. We didn't even know what was happening. That's me on the right with the cap.

Those are all Danish firemen and Americans posing in front of the barracks there.

A lot of the Danish workers there developed illnesses from the radioactivity. A lot of them died, sometimes very young. They created an association to try to get compensation. Each one of them got a lump sum of €7,000 from the government. Nothing from the Americans, not a dime. The survivors didn't have any illusions about the upcoming anniversary of the accident.

What will we do for the 50th? There won't be any more than 50 of us. We're going to eat and drink. Of course

and then we'll stop because we've had enough. For us who were there, just saying the name tle makes us feel nauseous. In 1968, once they'd cleared up all the ice, the Americans came up with a secret plan

in the summer 1968 to get a submarine that could operate uh below 200 m. a tool. They would never have done that unless that it was important to them. A declassified document from the Atomic Energy Commission shows that the US Air Force was still looking for the fourth bomb.

For weeks and weeks, they were combing the bay. And to their surprise, they found that there was an area covered with metallic debris. They could prove from photos taken by the submarine that it all did indeed come from the B-52. Bits of the fuselage and the landing gear had sunk when it crashed. So why didn't the famous lost bomb? The mission was cut short without finding it and they gave up trying.

My theory is that it will it has been released from its hold inside the airplane gone through the uh gone through the ice and sank to the bottom.

What's still down there in the water? Each of these bombs contained over 2 lbs of plutonium. Is that poisonous relic of the Cold War still lurking down at the bottom of the North Star bay? Fule was the 30th nuclear accident in less than 20 years. But faced with a Soviet threat, the strategists kept on insisting that the B-52s should keep on flying their deadly rounds.

President Johnson knew what he wanted for the US to turn towards using missiles instead. But they too caused their share of catastrophes. It would take another 20 years to put an end to the Cold War. For the bombers, there would be no more warning missions. Their long reign was at an end. By the spring of ' 68, both the superpowers had international troubles. A wind of change was blowing

for the Soviet Union. It was a wake-up call. Their empire was breaking up. In Czechoslovakia, Russian tanks put an end to all the hopes of the Prague Spring. But all over the Eastern block, the thirst for democracy was growing.

In the United States, it was the Vietnam War that was changing hearts and minds. A war for freedom supported by the American people had turned into an imperialist adventure, and defeat was already in sight.

Everywhere the young generation was rising up against the old order. They saw the Cold War for their elders a necessary evil as a threat to the whole human race. They were dreaming of freedom and love. Maybe it was just a dream. The nuclear weapons weren't going to just disappear. But for the time being, the young just wanted some peace.

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Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Declassified: The Lost H-Bombs Of The Cold War"?

Rafael Martinez (Guest), Professor Moreno (Guest), Jen Zingler (Guest).

What is "Declassified: The Lost H-Bombs Of The Cold War" about?

The topic explores the secretive history of the Cold War nuclear arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States, highlighting numerous nuclear accidents known as "broken arrows" and shedding light on newly declassified documents that detail catastrophic events bringing the world to the brink of destruction. It emphasizes the fierce competition for nuclear supremacy, marked by the…

What is mentioned in this Timeline - World History Documentaries episode?

14 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including B-52, Operation Broken Arrow, Palomares, Hiroshima, Inola Gay, Marshall Islands. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Declassified: The Lost H-Bombs Of The Cold War"?

The episode runs 52 min; the transcript is about 5,535 words in 97 timestamped sections.

More from Timeline - World History Documentaries

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.