Burning Dropping of Unarmed Nuclear Devices

Kevin wrote:

I commend to forum users “Lightning Up” the autobiography of AVM Alan White CB AFC FRAeS (Pen and Sword ISBN 978 1 84884 021 8, published 2009). I found it a most interesting read, and it so happens that one page deals with the Bruggen “occurrence” mentioned above. AVM White was then deputy commander of RAF Germany, so this is ‘horse’s mouth’ stuff. No date is given, but it must have been c1983 (confirmed by an above reference to 1984). The MoD publicly ‘owned up’ to this and other similar accidents and a newspaper article (which, infuriatingly, eludes me at the moment) was published in the 1990s listing them.
I was a little surprised to read of Jaguars being equipped with two WE177s, having understood that policy throughout the RAF was one nuke per aircraft per sortie, with the only exception to have been Skybolt. However, in the AVM’s own words:

“Bruggen represented the serious side of our Cold War defences. Four Jaguars were kept permanently on standby there, each loaded with two tactical nuclear bombs slung under their wings. The hardened aircraft shelters in which they were housed were themselves inside security fences guarded by armed RAP police in watch -towers and at the electronically operated gates across the taxiway leading out of the readiness dispersal. The police had orders to shoot any pilot attempting to taxi out if they had not received the requisite and required coded clearance. By my time in Germany the RAF had been handling nuclear weapons for over twenty-five years without risk or mishap. Orders and instructions were clear and tight, and ground-handling equipment proven - or so we thought.
“One evening I was telephoned by Bruggen’s Station Commander, John Thompson, to say that he had a problem: a bomb being returned from servicing at Aldermaston (nestling in its specially designed carrying-case) had not been properly secured on the low-loader lorry that was transporting it from the delivering Hercules to storage in the Bruggen bomb-dump (the Hercules had been late in arriving, the Station Armament Officer had been called away to deal with something else, and the corporeal driver, on duty longer than he thought he would be, decided that he could get away without strapping the case onto the low-loader as was clearly required by regulations). The bomb, or rather the carrying-case with the bomb in it, had slid off the low-loader as the driver turned a corner and had hit the ground. The case had burst and some slight damage appeared to have been done to the casing of the bomb.
“To cover the possibility of a leakage of radiation John Thompson had sensibly called a 'practice' incident to enable him quietly to establish a cordon on the Station at a safe distance. The laid down procedures required me to acquaint the British Embassy at Bonn immediately of any type of nuclear incident, no matter how trivial, and this I did. The following morning I went down to Bonn to have a word with my point of contact there, the Minister, Christopher Mallaby. Christopher, later HM Ambassador in Bonn, and after that in Paris, was primarily interested in knowing how quickly we could remove the problem from Germany. He was not very happy when I told him that nothing could be done until experts had been whistled up from Aldermaston, and had had time to determine if the bomb could be moved safely.
“There followed a fraught period while it was painstakingly pored over and the warhead carefully X-rayed. Nobody was taking any chances and there were a considerable number of consultations between the experts on the spot and Aldermaston. Finally, after some three weeks of testing and teeth-sucking the bomb was deemed safe for moving, loaded onto a Hercules and shipped out. As it turned out, there never had been any risk of radiation leakage. However, nerves in the Embassy stayed a little frayed until I was able to report that the bomb was well out over the North Sea; the real fear was perhaps not so much of a leakage of radiation, but rather of a leakage to the German Press. The subsequent Board of Inquiry into the incident recommended disciplinary action against six servicemen.
“Incidentally, the especially designed cases in which the bombs were transported had been tested for strength as a condition of their procurement. The requirement was that they survive undamaged a drop of twenty-five feet onto a concrete surface. They had passed this test perfectly but no one seemed to have thought of testing them with a mock-up in them of the heavy article they were designed to contain.”

Understandably, the AVM's memories have become fogged by time. Jaguar never had release to service to carry two NW, and was never equipped to do so. The dual-weapon configuration (Germany) was limited to the Buccaneer but was not used on QRA. As for his comments re the BOI, well, the BOI is attached for all to see and is available at the National Achives together with other related documents.

Attached files raf_bruggen_boi.pdf (801.7 KB) 

The clouded memory- just like the statement in the HAYNES manual on the VULCAN where some former OCU aircrew guy states the Blue Steel on QRA aircraft never had HTP ARGHHH so what was it used to frighten the hell out of me every time I checked the GSE on Q ???
TED

I have to ask why in the Bruggen incident that the whole weapon was transported? Surely it would have been more sensible to move the actual nuclear warhead separately?

We actually had a VC10 divert in to Leuchars one day with a weapon on board.

canberra;128702 wrote:

I have to ask why in the Bruggen incident that the whole weapon was transported? Surely it would have been more sensible to move the actual nuclear warhead separately?

Err....NO!

Welcome back Canberra.

canberra;128879 wrote:

We actually had a VC10 divert in to Leuchars one day with a weapon on board.

Most likely weapon components/material en-route to the USA.

No it had come from McGuire AFB in New Jersey, and as this was 1999 it was Trident bits not 177. And can anyone explain why the whole 177 was moved and not just the warhead?

canberra;128929 wrote:

No it had come from McGuire AFB in New Jersey, and as this was 1999 it was Trident bits not 177. And can anyone explain why the whole 177 was moved and not just the warhead?

1. I'd assumed it was Trident bits.

2. Safer and more practicable to keep it inside the weapon and use the "standard" air transportation hardware/airfreight scheme. No way of just "boxing" it up and tossing it in the back of a C-130.

There's a clue in the official history, RAF Strategic Nuclear Forces (Wynn), to why the warhead was not moved separately. This book mentions the stand-off between the RAF and AWRE over servicing of Green Grass, the 'interim' hydrogen warhead of the Violet Club bomb. AWRE maintained that the RAF should not be allowed to dismantle the weapon -- presumably as it did with the Blue Danube and Red Beard, the nuclear bits of which were removed and stored in the 'hutches' at Faldingworth and Barnham. Green Grass/Violet Club was never officially taken on RAF charge because of this difference of opinion. (Indeed, one AWRE argument was that it did not want the RAF taking hydrogen bombs to bits and finding out how they worked!)
Wynn then leaves the matter up in the air for the remainder of the book. No mention is made of any resolution, and one presumes that AWRE then became wholly responsible for accepting complete bombs from the RAF for overhaul and handing back complete bombs after servicing. That would apply to Yellow Sun Mk 1 (Green Grass), Yellow Sun Mk 2 (Red Snow), Blue Steel (Red Snow)) and the WE177 family. It would also explain the demise of Barnham with the end of Blue Danube and Red Beard, and the coincident 'downgrading' of Faldingworth to the status of 'Scampton bomb dump'.
This conclusion is contradicted by an official picture of Yellow Sun Mk 2 in pieces in what might be an RAF environment. But was that a one-off?

Wasn't sure exactly where to post this but this subject seems to cover the attached story which discusses an incident over North Carolina in the USA in the early 1961

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24183879