The Day We Lost the H-Bomb: Cold War, Hot Nukes, and the Worst Nuclear Weapons Disaster in History

On the morning of April 2, Alvin dove again, with Rainnie, McCamis, and George Martin inside.

The sub had cruised down to about 2,800 feet when Mac spotted an anomaly — a clod of dirt that seemed out of place. Nearby, they saw some more dirt that looked oddly displaced. Then, suddenly, they saw a parachute, still tightly wrapped around an object that they knew was the bomb. They had been searching for just over a half hour.

The elated crew announced their find to the surface and settled in to wait for another rendezvous with Aluminaut. As they had suspected, the bomb and chute had slid downslope, landing about 120

yards south of its previous position. It was deeper now — resting at about 2,800 feet — but lying on a gently sloping plain that seemed far less precarious. George Martin marveled at the sight; this long-sought object, so far under the sea. To commemorate the occasion, he pulled a 100-peseta note out of his pocket and asked his companions to sign it. Then he sat back, ate the peanut butter and jelly sandwich he had packed for lunch, and wrote a letter to his wife.

Red Moody heard a buzz on ship and asked what was going on. He was told that Alvin

had found the weapon but it was wrapped tightly in the parachute and nobody knew if it was the same bomb or not. Moody laughed. “How many bombs do we have down there?” he asked. “Let's just go get her, but do a better job this time.”

APRIL

16. Hooked

Soon after Alvin found the bomb, a diver named Herman Kunz flew from the United States to Spain and reported to Task Force 65. Kunz was an expert in deepwater rigging and explosive ordnance disposal. He was also the quintessential Navy diver: hard-living, hard-drinking, and tough.

Kunz arrived on the USS Albany and headed down to his quarters, a cramped room already bunking five ensigns. Malcolm MacKinnon, the naval engineer and an old friend of Kunz, showed him the way. Ignoring the lounging ensigns, Kunz began to unpack. MacKinnon watched, stunned, as Kunz opened an aluminum suitcase to display twelve neatly packed bottles of Gilbey's gin, lined up square like soldiers at attention. “Herman!” said MacKinnon. “What the hell are you doing?” Both men knew that liquor — especially that much

liquor was not allowed on a Navy ship. The ensigns looked over, undoubtedly with a mixture of interest and alarm. Kunz shrugged. “I thought I might have to spend time on the beach.”

Before leaving for Spain, MacKinnon and Kunz had visited the Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS) in Pasadena. The supervisor of salvage had told MacKinnon about a torpedo recovery device called CURV, which might be useful in Palomares, and asked him to check it out.

MacKinnon visited CURV and realized that the Navy might need this device in Spain. He told the technicians to prepare CURV for the mission and then headed to Palomares himself.

The engineers and technicians at NOTS had built CURV, which stood for Cable-controlled Underwater Research Vehicle, two years earlier because the Navy needed a better way to recover prototype torpedoes. To test a new torpedo, the Navy used a real weapon but removed the warhead and replaced it with an “exercise head” containing lead weights and pingers. Then it took the modified weapon to the test range off Long Beach and shot it at a target. If all went well, the torpedo completed its full run, using up all its fuel, and then dropped its lead weights. The loss of fuel and weights made the torpedo buoyant. Spent, it floated to the surface, where the Navy could recover it easily.

But test torpedoes didn't always work as planned. Often they sputtered before finishing their test run and, carrying their heavy load of fuel, sank to the bottom. With each sunken torpedo costing close to $100,000—and holding important information about the failure — the Navy couldn't just leave them there and so developed a crude way to recover them. It tracked the torpedo's pinger and, when it located its resting place, sailed a barge to the site. The barge had a moon pool in the center and four mooring winches, one on each corner. When the barge arrived at the torpedo, searchers moored the ship directly over it with three or four anchors. Then they lowered a rectangular frame containing lights, sonar, a wire noose, and a TV camera and looked for the lost torpedo. To move the dangling frame, the captain had to motor the entire barge back and forth. Eventually, if the searchers were in the right place, they would see the torpedo and try to snare it with the noose. The process was long, slow, and awkward; it could take days to recover one torpedo.