February 6

This, the second month of the year should be a time of celebration. At times, it is rather difficult for me to get in the mood for celebrating. There is just too much to worry about. Do you really feel ready to party on down? Before you succumb to the allure of having fun, take a moment or two to consider the fate of the Tybee Bomb (Serial #47782). The Tybee is a perfectly fine (at least one hopes it is) hydrogen bomb which is owned by the United States Air Force. On the 6th of this month in 1958, a search began to find the Tybee Bomb, because on the 5th a B-47, which was piloted by Howard Richardson, was carrying the Tybee Bomb as part of a combat simulation mission. At 2:00 a.m., the B-47 was involved in a collision with an F-86. In an effort to get the plane safely on the ground, Richardson sought and received permission to jettison the hydrogen bomb, which he did. The bomb went into the waters of Wassaw Sound just off Tybee Island, which is off the coast of Georgia near Savannah. That is the last anyone saw of the bomb. Efforts were made to recover it, all of them unsuccessful, and on April 16, recovery efforts were discontinued. It is not very troubling however, because the bomb’s explosive yield is modest, only 1.9 to 3.6 megatons. The Air Force (Those ‘I am from the Government and I am here to help you’ people) calmed the public by saying that everything is just hunky dory so do not worry. Unfortunately, some of the components of the bomb, uranium and plutonium, have half-lives of something in the neighborhood of a gazillion years. Therefore, in spite of the Government’s assurances that there is no danger, I will continue to worry and I suggest that you do the same.