Synopsis
(1) B-47 a-bomb fell on house in SC, first such accident (2) Los Angeles - automatic control of machine tool production line, using punched tape, developed by Hughes Aircraft Company (partial newsreel).
Uploader's description on archive.org
Details
- Running time
- 1 minutes
Reviews on the Internet Archive
★★★★★ · An Important Bit of Atomic, South Carolina, and Automatic Manufacturing/Computer Technology · HistoryTeacher · 2005-05-08
The first bit is about the bombing of Mars Bluff, South Carolina. A B-47 suffered an electrical fault and toggled off a nulcear gravity bomb through the bomb bay doors, severely damaging several homes and injuring several people. My uncle was the government lawyer that defended the US in the ensuing lawsuit, so there is some family folklore to go with this and thus a personal interest. BTW, I suspect that the "TNT" mentioned was newsreel-eese for "an unknown high explosive agent": I suspect that they use more sophisticated stuff in nuclear weapons than TNT, but that is just a hunch. I dont…
★★★★★ · Trying to Get in Touch with HistoryTeacher · thrillbot · 2009-03-01
HistoryTeacher I'm actually producing a documentary on the Mars Bluff incident for the South Carolina Educational Television Network (The local PBS affiliate). You mentioned that your uncle was the USAF Attorney. I would love to talk to you and if he's willing, interview him for the film. I can be reached via email at mburrows@scetv.org Thanks Matt Burrows
★★★★ · We Have Explosive · Wilford B. Wolf · 2005-04-06
A pair of fascinating of newsreel clips from 1958. The first one is about an unassembled nuclear bomb that dropped from a bomber and on to a house in South Carolina. One thing that I did not know, but TNT is used to trigger the explosion. This TNT caused a massive explosion and injuries, the narrator stresses there was no radiation. (I'm not so sure about that...) It is still a bit creepy to see all the military personel in suits running around with geiger counters and no protective gear at all. The second clip has some great early computer footage of a Computer Aided Manufacturing system…
★★★★ · Responses to comments · canmanbuildsuperman · 2008-02-10
Just a quick response to the comments below: zenaris -- Hiroshima and Nagasaki are inhabitable and have many people living there today. You can even visit the place where the atomic bomb went off. fdungan -- Actually it was an "ordinary atomic bomb" -- it was a Mark 6 plutonium implosion weapon, an improved version of the "Fat Man" bomb that detonated over Nagasaki. Even if it had had its plutonium core inside of it, it would not have detonated in a full nuclear explosion (it would have spread a lot of plutonium around, which would have been bad, but not as bad as a full-blown fission-driven…
★★★★ · History · Htos1 · 2012-06-30
That explosion was just the trigger charge!