How B-52 Crews Ate, Slept & Survived 24 Hours Airborne Carrying Live Hydrogen Bombs

Two in the morning, well past Thule, Greenland. A tail gunner's lamp finds a square hole in the stabilizer of a B-52 that has real nuclear weapons in its bomb bay, and the pilot has to decide what to do about it. From 1958 to 1968 the Strategic Air Command kept loaded B-52s in the air around the clock. This film goes inside one of those 24-hour sorties with the flight manual and the crews' own words: the box lunch and the frozen dinners, the hot cup, two refuellings, the foam pad behind the pilots, the honey bucket, the gunner alone in the tail, the locked box of targets, October 1962, and what it cost. Chapters: 0:00 Two in the morning, past Thule 1:21 Twenty-Four Hours 3:53 Six Men 5:11 The Ramp 6:43 The Flight Lunch 9:11 The Tanker 12:06 The Bunk 13:50 The Honey Bucket 15:18 The Tail 17:22 The Way Out 18:39 On Station 20:47 The Locked Box 22:32 October 1962 24:05 The Price 26:00 The Panel Sources: Alert Operations and the Strategic Air Command, 1957-1991 (Office of the Historian, HQ Strategic Air Command, 1991) History of Headquarters Strategic Air Command, 1961 (SAC Historical Study No. 89), declassified excerpts Strategic Air Command Operations in the Cuban Crisis of 1962 (SAC Historical Study No. 90), declassified J. C. Hopkins, The Development of Strategic Air Command 1946-1981: A Chronological History (HQ Strategic Air Command, 1982) T.O. 1B-52E-1, Flight Manual, B-52E and B-52F (U.S. Air Force, 1965 printing) USAF Standard Aircraft Characteristics, B-52C and B-52D (1958) Department of Defense, Narrative Summaries of Accidents Involving U.S. Nuclear Weapons, 1950-1980 (1981) H. L. Reese, DoD Nuclear Mishaps, AFRRI Special Report SP86-2 (Defense Nuclear Agency, 1986) Parker F. Jones, Goldsboro Revisited (Sandia Laboratories, 1969), declassified Hans M. Kristensen, U.S. Nuclear Weapons Deployments Disclosed (Nautilus Institute) Col. Francis H. Potter, USAF (Ret.), Operation Chromedome (family memoir site, 2013) Lt. Col. Alex P. Brewer Jr., USAF (Ret.), War Stories: Chrome Dome Bill Robinson, Flying the Chrome Dome (Air & Space/Smithsonian) Tom Jones, Full Retaliatory Response (Air & Space/Smithsonian, 2005) Rebecca Grant, The Perils of Chrome Dome (Air Force Magazine, August 2011), with readers' letters from Ray Shugrue, James E. Bradley, Robert W. Riegel and Richard P. Hoff Peter Grier, The Gunners (Air Force Magazine, January 2012) Maj. Gen. Chris Adams, Inside the Cold War: A Cold Warrior's Reflections (Air University Press, 1999), with Col. John Moser's account Ovidio Pugnale, oral history interview on airborne alert Timothy Karpin and James Maroncelli, the 1961 Yuba City B-52 accident (HistoryNet) Dave Paone, interviews with Bob Connolly and Maj. Ron Poole (The Epoch Times / American Essence) Film (public domain; U.S. government works at the National Archives and the Department of Defense): U.S. Air Force film 'The Air Force Story' (DoD PIN 38551), 1959; U.S. Air Force training film TF 1-5363, 1960 (National Archives 342-TF-5363); U.S. Air Force film outtakes (National Archives 342-USAF-28986A), 1961; U.S. Air Force film report, 1961 (National Archives 342-FR-198); U.S. Air Force film, March 1961 (National Archives 342-USAF-27815); U.S. Air Force film, 7 December 1962 (National Archives 342-USAF-34662); U.S. Army film, 1962 (National Archives 111-LC-46703); U.S. Air Force film SFP 1236 'SAC Command Post', 1964; U.S. Air Force film 'The Strength of SAC', 1966 (DoD PIN 26474); U.S. Air Force film report FR 735, 1966 (National Archives 342-FR); U.S. Air Force training film TF 5746, 1966 (National Archives 342-TF-5746); U.S. Air Force film 'The Indispensables' (National Archives 342-SFP-1797), 1968; U.S. Air Force film report FR 818, 1968 (DoD PIN 20791). Film (public domain, U.S. government works): U.S. Air Force films The Strength of SAC (1966), Nuclear Effects During SAC Delivery Missions (TF 1-5363, 1960), The Indispensables: KC-135 Air Refueling, SAC Command Post (SFP 1236), SAC Film Report No. 4 (1961), SAC film reports (1966, 1968), The BMEWS Mission (1966), The Air Force Story Vol. 2 Ch. 5, President Kennedy at SAC Headquarters (7 December 1962), the Yuba City crash site (1961); U.S. Army film Cuban Crisis (1962). Photographs: U.S. Air Force, DoD and National Archives; pages of T.O. 1B-52E-1; Wikimedia Commons. Thumbnail: illustration made for this film. Photo credits (CC BY / CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons): Acroterion (CC BY-SA 4.0); BriYYZ (CC BY-SA 2.0); Ryan Frost (CC BY 2.0); Seattle Municipal Archives (CC BY 4.0); AF GlobalStrike (CC BY 2.0); Hans-Peter Scholz (CC BY-SA 2.5) Narration: AI voice. Your turn: if you flew airborne alert, pumped the fuel or turned the wrenches, tell us your crew position, your base and the year. One line is enough. The best answers may become a future video. Independent and educational. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Defense or any armed force.