October 23, 2024 • 27 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, on January 23, 1961, a B-52 bomber crashed in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Two H-bombs—each 250 times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan, fell to the ground. Earl Smith dismantled those bombs and he's here to tell us the story!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show.
January twenty third, nineteen sixty one, just four days after
President John F. Kennedy was sworn into office, a B
fifty two bomber crashed near Seymour Johnson Air Force Base
in North Carolina. Two h bombs, each two hundred and
(00:34):
fifty times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan
marking the end of World War II, were thrown out
and fell at a velocity of seven hundred miles per
hour and crashed into Goldsboro, North Carolina. Information about this
event was kept classified until twenty thirteen. This is the
(00:54):
true story of that mission, as told by the man
who actually dismantled the highth and bombs in the aftermath
of an accident that could have been the worst man
made disaster in history. Here was Earl Smith with a
true story of the Goldsboro Broken Arrow.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Oh. I graduated high school in nineteen fifty six in Hattan, Alabama,
And like everybody else around there, the day after you
graduate high school, you go to Kalamazoo, Michigan. So I
go to Kalamazoo to visit my brother. I had a
brother and two sisters lived there, and my brother had
a neighbor about my age, and so we decided to
(01:33):
go downtown on a Saturday morning, just food around, and
so there was a recruiter station. I said, let's go
and make that thing. God, I think we're going to join.
So it was in the morning we were down there.
So by three o'clock that afternoon was putting out on
a train for the processing station in the Air Force.
So anyway, when I went back, my brother name was
(01:54):
about to have a heart attack. You say, you did
what I said, I joined the Air Force. No you didn't. Yeah,
I did. I gotta leave it, and I left. We
signed up on a buddy plan. After that, I never
saw my buddy again. So he goes to California for
school and I go to Texas. And the first school
(02:15):
I went to is called munition school, and uh they
give you different tests to see kind of what you
qualified for. So this uh versus assignment. They sent me
to it down to Puerto Rico, Rainy Air Force Base.
So go down down to Puerto Rico there and UH, well,
(02:37):
I'm doing the job and what ammunition maintenance UH called for,
which is basically taking care of the bombs and AMO
in the storage are and loading him on the plane
what have you. Well, the Air Force decided to start
an airborne alert with nuclear weapons. So we had thirty
three B thirty six bombers down there. So they started
(03:01):
what they call Operation Curtain Raiser. Every day at one o'clock,
a plane would leave Raimi and at the same time
another plane would leave North Africa. There's one always always
in the air in five on the ground were five
days on the ground was loaded with neutral weapons, each
one ready to go in ammunition. So anyway, when I
(03:24):
leave Puerto Rico, they formed a new squad and called
a fifty third MMAS which Ammunition Maintenance quatern and we
wound up at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina.
Back then, I you know, I just figured I'd rather
disarm a momb and eat when I was hungry, you know,
but real regulously, you know that back then. But I'm
(03:47):
the same kid that when I was growing up, all
of the neighbor kids older me, they taught me into
turning over neighbors bee hive and stuff like that, and
I thought it was bucketing. Well, the old dug Wells,
I'd do stuff like that. I was a real dry
so I guess hit stems from back from something like that.
I had put in for bomb disposal school. But before
(04:08):
you can get in, you have to, I understand, have
to have a grade of nine year above. I believed
from your nation man for them to put the money
behind you. And it's strictly voluntary. So I received an
appointment after a few months to go to EOD School
in Indiana at Maryland Well. The school, the school, like
I say, was extremely hard. You just literally live from
(04:33):
day to day and hope you can make it through
another day. Because the man when they're in the in
doctor nation. First of all, I take you out in
this field. It's about about a twenty acre field, and
they have everything that's ever been thrown, dropped or projected
from all over the world up to a V one
and V two rocket. It han't got to the big
(04:54):
rockets at the time. And a man tells you, said, gentlemen,
before you graduate this schoo if you're fortunate notugh to
graduate this school, you'll be able to walk up to
any piece of ordinance out here and don't tell me
what it is. What kind of explosive used in it,
what kind of fusion system, and what country is from,
and how to disarm it? Everybody put you every yeah, sure,
(05:17):
uh yeah, I mean it's but before you leave that school.
That's one of the easier things you can do. You
not even got into the the big big missiles and
what have you. But really the nuclear bombs hadn't entered
and hadn't entered my mind. I just never dreaming that
I'd have anything dropped in my lap, like we dropped
in my lap. But once I, uh, I get back
(05:42):
to my base after I graduate, and uh it happened
to be my night on standby. It was January exactly
January the twenty third, nineteen sixty one, when the control
tire called me and they said, and we have a
B fifty two coming in tell number one to eighty
(06:04):
seven with a few leaks in the Bombay area. Well
I knew that was serious because when they go to
let the landing gear down, he possibly have sparks, could
you know, create a fire. And I lived off base,
so it had been a snow on the ground. There's
about ten degrees that night, So I got dressed right
quick and I didn't bother to lace my boots on.
(06:25):
I just wrapped the strings around them ted them. By
the time I got to the base they determined it
he had crashed off base about twelve miles. So General
Moore had already had a helicopter waiting for me, because
the led Man has a first priority on what they
call a broken air. The bomb that fell was Mark
(06:47):
thirty nine bomb, which is actually three point eight megaton
to explosive, and a lot of people don't know how
much a megaton is. If you take a railroad car,
cold car and you load it heaping up with T
and T, it would stretch you all the way across
the United States back in far Chicago. That's only one megaton,
(07:09):
only one megatime. That's three point eight.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
And you've been listening to Earl Smith the true story
of the Goldsborough Broken Arrow. You're going to want to
hear the rest of this story here on our American Stories. Folks,
if you love the stories we tell about this great country,
and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that
(07:35):
all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation,
culture and faith, are brought to us by the great
folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all
the things that are beautiful in life and all the
things that are good in life. And if you can't
cut to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their
free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu
(07:55):
to learn more. And we continue here with our American stories.
And we just learned from Earl Smith. That's just one
(08:16):
of the two hydrogen bombs that fell on Goldsboro, North
Carolina in nineteen sixty one, contained three point eight megatons
of explosives. Here's Earl making that statistic understandable to layman.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
The experts claimed that it would with a fallout and
everything if one of them had going off, or would
killed everybody all the way from New York City all
down Eastern Seaboard to the tip of the Florida Keys,
so pretty much wiping off the whole Eastern Seaboard. It
was two hundred and fifty times stronger than what was
dropped on Hiroshima that was only forty kilotons. So this
(08:56):
thing was it was just just a monster. So when
we get out to the to things, he had a
light under the helicopter and we're flying around and I
see a parachute. I said, my god, they're not supposed
to be connected. Uh so I said, set me down
as close as you can get to it. And the
guy said, but I don't want to get too close,
and said, it don't matter what. You can get me
close as you can. So General Moore tells me. He said,
(09:20):
now you can't touch that bomb or anything until we'll
get permission ATOMAC Energy Commission. I said, no, sir, that's
not the way it works. And that scared me. So
I got off and see what to do. When I
walk up to the ball, when I opened that access
door and saw that red a, I mean, I just
I just turned cold. I mean, it's scariest thing. I
(09:41):
was twenty four years old, and and there's the old Sam.
What am I doing here? You know? That was uh
some I just didn't sign up for. But uh it was.
It was. It was armed and functioning, and and I thought,
I really thought at that point when I couldn't find
it out, I thought I was dying. I mean, it's
(10:02):
funny what you can tell your your mind, you can
tell yourself, and I did. I was pained. I had
the paint in the chest and everything was right around.
I mean, buddy, I knew I was going I was
going fast, but I had to get get done what
I could, and I helped to look over in the distance.
There was about a five mile area that was literally
lit up, parts of the plane burning, and I saw
(10:25):
a hamlet somewhere with the big big cross on it,
and I started to feel better for some reason or other.
You know. So a few hours later, a few hours ever,
in general seemed like an air force showing up, and uh,
General Moore who was a general. Moore was one star general,
and General Sweeney, who was the the uh the commander
(10:48):
of eight Air Force of which I was assigned to. Anyway,
he starts to asking me, what all, what did you
do first? Blah blah blah blah, And I said, well,
so I'm probably in a lot of trouble. He said,
what do you mean. Well, when General Sweeney found out
that I had been told by General Moore that I
(11:08):
had to get permissed for atomic energyctation, he turned to
his aid and said, get General Moore over here. I said,
oh lord, I'm in trouble. So General Moore comes up
and the very words he said to General Moore. He said,
General Moore, if you don't know this man, damn job,
I suggest you have him up to your office about
two to three times a week for coffee and donut
(11:30):
so he can explain to you what the hell he does.
Oh Lord, my heart just sunk because General Moore was
going back to eighth Air Force and here I'm gonna
be stuck on base with this general. And I'm a
little wireman, first class enlisted man, you know. And he
made him look bad, made him look real bad. Nothing
ever came of it, but that was I was more
(11:53):
scared of that than I was the bomb. I wasnt
worried about the bomb. I knew I could take it well.
An hour and a half later, three more of the
eled men, a Sergeant Fletcher and a Sergeant Fincher and
Sergeant Evers. They came out and to pick up and
we proceeded to disarmed the first bomb. And what happens.
(12:18):
Those bombs are so powerful they have to be let
down by parachute because they blow the plane out of
the air. But they can be set up to forty
six hours. This can be that long a delay because
they don't worry about the Russians coming up and disarm them.
Because they don't do exactly the steps is they're supposed
(12:38):
to be, it'll blow up anyway. So we knew that
part too. So you got to do disconnect one c
KT wire and then wait three minutes or so and
then you know it's the steps. You have to do
it exactly. So that's that's the reason for the parachute.
So anyway, we get this, I'm taking care of and
(13:01):
I called out the motor pool for him to get
a to bring a flatbed truck out so they could
get down in the lift to get this bomb to
go back to the base. It's taking care of. Well.
Eight and a half hours after this happened, this Lieutenant
Ravel shows up with a crew from Sack Headquarters right
Patterson Air Force Base, and he comes marching out there
(13:25):
like little Lord Fortnroy taking in charge. Well, the first
thing he did was we we finally found a second bomb,
and that was well, it really took about about three
days before we really got to the park because everything
had to be done. We'd had to be real careful
digging because we get had ninety two that night as
(13:46):
we're alive, and those had to be each one had
to be counted for and put in a little container
and got back to the base. Well when he got
down dug deep enough for the big after body part
where the parachute was still in well, a lieutenant reveled
in his group removed that out of the ground you
have was just that afterbody. Well. I was the lowest
(14:09):
ranking man and on there, so I got the good
duty of getting down in the hole, down in the
muddy water and icy water and everything, reaching down in
the hole and pulling up parts of the bomb and
identifying what each one was. And uh, I reached down
and I got the nuclear core rited up between my
(14:33):
legs and I handed it to somebody I don't remember
who was, but I told him I probably won't ever
have any more kids, and I didn't after that. So
once we got all of that stuff out in a
treatum bottle, then there wasn't really anything else for them to.
You know, that's explosive to where the big the big
diggers couldn't coming in. And uh, the local people wouldn't
(14:58):
drink the water. You were scared of death. I wouldn't
drink the water. So we'll got permission to bring three
of the old timers around. I don'n't remember even what
the names were, but anyway, I took a cup and
poured some water in it and I drank it, and
I said, well, you know when you think I would
drink it if you know? So that kind of gave
him peace of mind. So we never heard any more
(15:19):
thing about that. But they told us to didn't want
the public to know what we were looking for. There
was one a part had which ran about three thousand pounds,
which was you ran him two thirty five and two
thirty eight. It hit hard pan and kept going, and
we were looking for this. That's what all the digging
(15:41):
was going to be about. But they told us to
tell everybody when they would report anybody else, that we
were looking for apart to an ejection seat. It made
a lot of Now that's what we actually had to say.
But one one poor man was a sharecropper and he
looks up and see this humongous parachute was something in it.
(16:03):
He thought the Russians were invading, so he grabbed a
pone of corn bread and some milk and some blankets.
They found him seven hours later under some bushes from
where they were looking for Major Shelton. He was something
who killed him. The body. Three bodies were killed and
two bodies were in the wreckage immediately close to where
(16:24):
the bomb was, but five men survived. One man, Captain Maddox,
he didn't have an ejection seat, so when everybody else ejected,
he said he saw he saw a hole and he
just dove for it, never dreaming he'd get out. So
he made it through and then he hissed to ride
(16:47):
somewhere back to the basis. He'll had a parachute, and
the gate guard was talking about going to arrest him.
Thought he'd stole the parachute. But nobody, to my knowledge,
is ever escape jumping out of a jet, plying and survive.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And you're listening to Earl Smith, and my goodness, what
he was up to that day in North Carolina. Well,
we never knew about it until fairly recently. There's been
a book written about it, a big best seller. It's
being optioned as a movie. The Goldsborough Broken Arrow is
the thriller by Joel Dobson. The book inaccurately recounts the
(17:25):
story from the perspective of Jack Reravelle, and that's why
we're bringing you Earl Smith's account. He was the guy
who did the work, not the guy who wanted the credit.
And we know the difference between those two when it
comes to political theater and show voters. When we come back,
we're going to continue this remarkable story, the story of
how one of the world's greatest man made disasters was
(17:48):
averted here on our American stories. And we continue here
(18:09):
with our American stories. And we love telling you these
stories from history because they're important. In my goodness, these
are the things ordinary Americans do that are well, they're
just extraordinary. Let's return to Earl Smith picking up with
three other men who helped him dismantle the hydrogen bomb
back in nineteen sixty one in Goldsboro, North Carolina.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
They're the real heroes to like I said, they're they're
all dead now. And what had happened before this before
I found out about all this? Somehow, this Lieutenant Revel
had found out the other three guys were dead, so
(18:55):
he thought I was dead too. So he proceeded to
tell the story like how he took care of that bomb,
which was a bunch of crap, I mean, just out
and out blatant lie or something or not, because he
had nothing to do. That bomb was ready to the time
he got shot. Come on, team was taken care of,
ready to go back to the base. And I imagine
(19:17):
he was quite shocked when he find out that I
was still alive. After I come up there, and there
was a lot of publicity about it. After I got
back home, this movie producer called me from Paris, France,
and he said he was making a movie he called
the Cold War and he loved to tell my story
in it. And he said, I'll fly you back up
(19:38):
there and we'll pay all expenses and everything. I said, okay,
So I went back up there in April of that year. Well,
the man who Kurt Keller, who is a Princeville person
is he wants everything to be historically correct and he's
the prayer of the Historical Society for Goldborough. Well, this lieutenant,
(20:01):
when he was telling his story, me or neither of
three of the other guys were ever mentioned about anything,
never mentioned, never mentioned. So that set me on fire
getting everything straight. So that's when I went back the
Kirk Keller invited me up to tell the story. As
a matter of fact, Uh, when we made this movie,
(20:24):
the man who's flying over from Paris, the guy who's
the director or president of historical Society. He said this
Lieutenant Ravel was invited to be a part of it too.
He said, I'll take bets he won't show up. And
guess what he didn't. I was sure hoping the hell
he would, after all that he told and this stuff.
(20:47):
And after three dead men, Sergeant Finchier, Sergeant fletcher In,
Sergeant Evers, with all they'd done, and they they couldn't
offend herself. And the way he did that, I lost
him any respect I ever might have had about him.
And then when they wrote this book, they wrote this book,
(21:07):
I think they ended up being two books. I want
to see one Broken Air over Goldborough. The man that
wrote that. I I finally had talked to him, and
I said, I don't hold you. I I said, first
of all, I asked him where did you get this information?
He said, well from Lieutenant Ravel. I said, well, he
(21:27):
told you a bunch of crap. And then I proceeded
to tell him about what really happened, and he said, well,
I figured he was an officer and a gentleman. And
I said, well, you kind of figured wrong on this one,
because he he w. He wasn't. Uh turned out to
be other than that. But he never showed up when
we went to filming this movie. But that's where it happened.
(21:50):
I I I remember everything just just like it was yesterday.
I don't. I don't, cause when something like that it
is so vivid. I mean something, it's so import you
just don't forget it. But U, like I said, I
never thought we were told and never ever mentioned it.
They say, you don't ever speak of this, You don't
ever you ever, you never never ever ever speak of it.
(22:13):
So that scared this little more. So I kind of
put it out of my mind. You know. Well, first
of all, they said, it's something that bothered me for
many years because they were telling everybody that all the
parts were found. And I knew that piece of uranium
two thirty eight through thirty was still in that ground,
and I didn't know where anything it might have moved,
(22:33):
where it might have finally started doing something to the
water supply. And it bothered me for many years about
the people living down there, and and and uh, but uh,
we were told and h y y, you don't talk
about this, you don't, you know, But they were telling
the Air Force were telling we were looking for a
dejection seat to see what killed uh Major Shelton. And
(22:58):
they spent a little over a million dollar dollars digging
now now, I mean now a million dollars in nineteen
sixty one. It was a lot of money, a lot
of money. So they they let us know where quickly.
You don't talk about it now now. And President Kennedy
had only been in office four days and that was
his first first uh uh speech. I think he had
(23:20):
to make about a press report, I guess, But like
I said, I know there were a lot of generals,
a lot of generals there and uh and a lot
of media had started showing them till they finally had
they welly threatened with it twenty five thousand dollars. Fine,
that's what now. They couldn't keep him out, but that's
that's what they did. But it was Moore, they's hella,
(23:41):
don't you don't say a word about it. Don't say
word about it, you know. So, uh, I don't think it,
uh there is. I thought for a long time I
worried about it. But because when you think about it,
the radiation would have come from from the core and
we got the core out, but this this other's buried
(24:01):
so deep that iranium that's where it comes from, out
of the ground anyway, So so uh they're still on the ground.
They're doing they do regular testing on it. But by
later years I got in I mostly selling RV's up
at Dandy r V up in uh uh Oxford, and
these men came in and they were eld men. So
(24:23):
I mentioned to one of them, I said, you know,
I I was x eod men. I said, I worked
on a little job up in North Carolina. And he looked,
looked at you. You worked on that job. I said yeah,
I said, sure did, I said, I. I was on
stand by. I had to buy myself first, iron I.
He said, you know it's all those Internet and I said, well, no,
(24:46):
I mean so boy. I finally got and got on
there and rest reading all that stuff. My blood blood
started balling all that crap he was telling, you know,
and uh, I mean that not's only just for myself,
for the other man that risk their lives. When you
go out on something like it, you don't know what's
going to happen. But for him to come in and
(25:07):
try to take credit for something somebody else did. It's
just not right. No way in the world. I don't
hold any animosity toward him at the time. I could
broke his neck when I first heard about it. But
you're not supposed to hate. And I mean, this is
(25:28):
the whole thing was just I mean, just like something
something that never it's never happening.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
And you've been listening to Earl Smith telling the story
of disarming a hydrogen bomb. No. Two hydrogen bombs. It
fell on North Carolina back on January twenty third, nineteen
sixty one. This event was kept classified until twenty thirteen.
(25:56):
And by the way, assuming that everyone had died, Lieutenant
Jack were decided to well do what we all know
people like this, did what he thought he could do,
take advantage of an opportunity and take credit for work
done by other men. No surprise that he wasn't showing
up wherever Earl Smith showed up, because my goodness, Earl
(26:16):
would have had detailed memory of disarming that bomb that,
let's face it, Lieutenant Jack Ravell simply couldn't or didn't
have a great story. And by the way, we always
welcome your stories, send them to our American Stories dot com.
And this is just a look. You don't hear a
guy talking about himself in heroic ways. He did what
(26:38):
he was trained to do, and he did it with
a bunch of guys, and a whole bunch of guys died,
probably trying to get this plane to land safely and
not create again what would have been perhaps the worst
man made disaster in human history. Earl Smith's story the
story of a man who disarmed a couple of h
bombs in North Carolina back in nineteen sixty one, the
(27:02):
year of my birth. Here are now American stories
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show.
January twenty third, nineteen sixty one, just four days after
President John F. Kennedy was sworn into office, a B
fifty two bomber crashed near Seymour Johnson Air Force Base
in North Carolina. Two h bombs, each two hundred and
(00:34):
fifty times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan
marking the end of World War II, were thrown out
and fell at a velocity of seven hundred miles per
hour and crashed into Goldsboro, North Carolina. Information about this
event was kept classified until twenty thirteen. This is the
(00:54):
true story of that mission, as told by the man
who actually dismantled the highth and bombs in the aftermath
of an accident that could have been the worst man
made disaster in history. Here was Earl Smith with a
true story of the Goldsboro Broken Arrow.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Oh. I graduated high school in nineteen fifty six in Hattan, Alabama,
And like everybody else around there, the day after you
graduate high school, you go to Kalamazoo, Michigan. So I
go to Kalamazoo to visit my brother. I had a
brother and two sisters lived there, and my brother had
a neighbor about my age, and so we decided to
(01:33):
go downtown on a Saturday morning, just food around, and
so there was a recruiter station. I said, let's go
and make that thing. God, I think we're going to join.
So it was in the morning we were down there.
So by three o'clock that afternoon was putting out on
a train for the processing station in the Air Force.
So anyway, when I went back, my brother name was
(01:54):
about to have a heart attack. You say, you did
what I said, I joined the Air Force. No you didn't. Yeah,
I did. I gotta leave it, and I left. We
signed up on a buddy plan. After that, I never
saw my buddy again. So he goes to California for
school and I go to Texas. And the first school
(02:15):
I went to is called munition school, and uh they
give you different tests to see kind of what you
qualified for. So this uh versus assignment. They sent me
to it down to Puerto Rico, Rainy Air Force Base.
So go down down to Puerto Rico there and UH, well,
(02:37):
I'm doing the job and what ammunition maintenance UH called for,
which is basically taking care of the bombs and AMO
in the storage are and loading him on the plane
what have you. Well, the Air Force decided to start
an airborne alert with nuclear weapons. So we had thirty
three B thirty six bombers down there. So they started
(03:01):
what they call Operation Curtain Raiser. Every day at one o'clock,
a plane would leave Raimi and at the same time
another plane would leave North Africa. There's one always always
in the air in five on the ground were five
days on the ground was loaded with neutral weapons, each
one ready to go in ammunition. So anyway, when I
(03:24):
leave Puerto Rico, they formed a new squad and called
a fifty third MMAS which Ammunition Maintenance quatern and we
wound up at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina.
Back then, I you know, I just figured I'd rather
disarm a momb and eat when I was hungry, you know,
but real regulously, you know that back then. But I'm
(03:47):
the same kid that when I was growing up, all
of the neighbor kids older me, they taught me into
turning over neighbors bee hive and stuff like that, and
I thought it was bucketing. Well, the old dug Wells,
I'd do stuff like that. I was a real dry
so I guess hit stems from back from something like that.
I had put in for bomb disposal school. But before
(04:08):
you can get in, you have to, I understand, have
to have a grade of nine year above. I believed
from your nation man for them to put the money
behind you. And it's strictly voluntary. So I received an
appointment after a few months to go to EOD School
in Indiana at Maryland Well. The school, the school, like
I say, was extremely hard. You just literally live from
(04:33):
day to day and hope you can make it through
another day. Because the man when they're in the in
doctor nation. First of all, I take you out in
this field. It's about about a twenty acre field, and
they have everything that's ever been thrown, dropped or projected
from all over the world up to a V one
and V two rocket. It han't got to the big
(04:54):
rockets at the time. And a man tells you, said, gentlemen,
before you graduate this schoo if you're fortunate notugh to
graduate this school, you'll be able to walk up to
any piece of ordinance out here and don't tell me
what it is. What kind of explosive used in it,
what kind of fusion system, and what country is from,
and how to disarm it? Everybody put you every yeah, sure,
(05:17):
uh yeah, I mean it's but before you leave that school.
That's one of the easier things you can do. You
not even got into the the big big missiles and
what have you. But really the nuclear bombs hadn't entered
and hadn't entered my mind. I just never dreaming that
I'd have anything dropped in my lap, like we dropped
in my lap. But once I, uh, I get back
(05:42):
to my base after I graduate, and uh it happened
to be my night on standby. It was January exactly
January the twenty third, nineteen sixty one, when the control
tire called me and they said, and we have a
B fifty two coming in tell number one to eighty
(06:04):
seven with a few leaks in the Bombay area. Well
I knew that was serious because when they go to
let the landing gear down, he possibly have sparks, could
you know, create a fire. And I lived off base,
so it had been a snow on the ground. There's
about ten degrees that night, So I got dressed right
quick and I didn't bother to lace my boots on.
(06:25):
I just wrapped the strings around them ted them. By
the time I got to the base they determined it
he had crashed off base about twelve miles. So General
Moore had already had a helicopter waiting for me, because
the led Man has a first priority on what they
call a broken air. The bomb that fell was Mark
(06:47):
thirty nine bomb, which is actually three point eight megaton
to explosive, and a lot of people don't know how
much a megaton is. If you take a railroad car,
cold car and you load it heaping up with T
and T, it would stretch you all the way across
the United States back in far Chicago. That's only one megaton,
(07:09):
only one megatime. That's three point eight.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
And you've been listening to Earl Smith the true story
of the Goldsborough Broken Arrow. You're going to want to
hear the rest of this story here on our American Stories. Folks,
if you love the stories we tell about this great country,
and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that
(07:35):
all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation,
culture and faith, are brought to us by the great
folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all
the things that are beautiful in life and all the
things that are good in life. And if you can't
cut to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their
free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu
(07:55):
to learn more. And we continue here with our American stories.
And we just learned from Earl Smith. That's just one
(08:16):
of the two hydrogen bombs that fell on Goldsboro, North
Carolina in nineteen sixty one, contained three point eight megatons
of explosives. Here's Earl making that statistic understandable to layman.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
The experts claimed that it would with a fallout and
everything if one of them had going off, or would
killed everybody all the way from New York City all
down Eastern Seaboard to the tip of the Florida Keys,
so pretty much wiping off the whole Eastern Seaboard. It
was two hundred and fifty times stronger than what was
dropped on Hiroshima that was only forty kilotons. So this
(08:56):
thing was it was just just a monster. So when
we get out to the to things, he had a
light under the helicopter and we're flying around and I
see a parachute. I said, my god, they're not supposed
to be connected. Uh so I said, set me down
as close as you can get to it. And the
guy said, but I don't want to get too close,
and said, it don't matter what. You can get me
close as you can. So General Moore tells me. He said,
(09:20):
now you can't touch that bomb or anything until we'll
get permission ATOMAC Energy Commission. I said, no, sir, that's
not the way it works. And that scared me. So
I got off and see what to do. When I
walk up to the ball, when I opened that access
door and saw that red a, I mean, I just
I just turned cold. I mean, it's scariest thing. I
(09:41):
was twenty four years old, and and there's the old Sam.
What am I doing here? You know? That was uh
some I just didn't sign up for. But uh it was.
It was. It was armed and functioning, and and I thought,
I really thought at that point when I couldn't find
it out, I thought I was dying. I mean, it's
(10:02):
funny what you can tell your your mind, you can
tell yourself, and I did. I was pained. I had
the paint in the chest and everything was right around.
I mean, buddy, I knew I was going I was
going fast, but I had to get get done what
I could, and I helped to look over in the distance.
There was about a five mile area that was literally
lit up, parts of the plane burning, and I saw
(10:25):
a hamlet somewhere with the big big cross on it,
and I started to feel better for some reason or other.
You know. So a few hours later, a few hours ever,
in general seemed like an air force showing up, and uh,
General Moore who was a general. Moore was one star general,
and General Sweeney, who was the the uh the commander
(10:48):
of eight Air Force of which I was assigned to. Anyway,
he starts to asking me, what all, what did you
do first? Blah blah blah blah, And I said, well,
so I'm probably in a lot of trouble. He said,
what do you mean. Well, when General Sweeney found out
that I had been told by General Moore that I
(11:08):
had to get permissed for atomic energyctation, he turned to
his aid and said, get General Moore over here. I said,
oh lord, I'm in trouble. So General Moore comes up
and the very words he said to General Moore. He said,
General Moore, if you don't know this man, damn job,
I suggest you have him up to your office about
two to three times a week for coffee and donut
(11:30):
so he can explain to you what the hell he does.
Oh Lord, my heart just sunk because General Moore was
going back to eighth Air Force and here I'm gonna
be stuck on base with this general. And I'm a
little wireman, first class enlisted man, you know. And he
made him look bad, made him look real bad. Nothing
ever came of it, but that was I was more
(11:53):
scared of that than I was the bomb. I wasnt
worried about the bomb. I knew I could take it well.
An hour and a half later, three more of the
eled men, a Sergeant Fletcher and a Sergeant Fincher and
Sergeant Evers. They came out and to pick up and
we proceeded to disarmed the first bomb. And what happens.
(12:18):
Those bombs are so powerful they have to be let
down by parachute because they blow the plane out of
the air. But they can be set up to forty
six hours. This can be that long a delay because
they don't worry about the Russians coming up and disarm them.
Because they don't do exactly the steps is they're supposed
(12:38):
to be, it'll blow up anyway. So we knew that
part too. So you got to do disconnect one c
KT wire and then wait three minutes or so and
then you know it's the steps. You have to do
it exactly. So that's that's the reason for the parachute.
So anyway, we get this, I'm taking care of and
(13:01):
I called out the motor pool for him to get
a to bring a flatbed truck out so they could
get down in the lift to get this bomb to
go back to the base. It's taking care of. Well.
Eight and a half hours after this happened, this Lieutenant
Ravel shows up with a crew from Sack Headquarters right
Patterson Air Force Base, and he comes marching out there
(13:25):
like little Lord Fortnroy taking in charge. Well, the first
thing he did was we we finally found a second bomb,
and that was well, it really took about about three
days before we really got to the park because everything
had to be done. We'd had to be real careful
digging because we get had ninety two that night as
(13:46):
we're alive, and those had to be each one had
to be counted for and put in a little container
and got back to the base. Well when he got
down dug deep enough for the big after body part
where the parachute was still in well, a lieutenant reveled
in his group removed that out of the ground you
have was just that afterbody. Well. I was the lowest
(14:09):
ranking man and on there, so I got the good
duty of getting down in the hole, down in the
muddy water and icy water and everything, reaching down in
the hole and pulling up parts of the bomb and
identifying what each one was. And uh, I reached down
and I got the nuclear core rited up between my
(14:33):
legs and I handed it to somebody I don't remember
who was, but I told him I probably won't ever
have any more kids, and I didn't after that. So
once we got all of that stuff out in a
treatum bottle, then there wasn't really anything else for them to.
You know, that's explosive to where the big the big
diggers couldn't coming in. And uh, the local people wouldn't
(14:58):
drink the water. You were scared of death. I wouldn't
drink the water. So we'll got permission to bring three
of the old timers around. I don'n't remember even what
the names were, but anyway, I took a cup and
poured some water in it and I drank it, and
I said, well, you know when you think I would
drink it if you know? So that kind of gave
him peace of mind. So we never heard any more
(15:19):
thing about that. But they told us to didn't want
the public to know what we were looking for. There
was one a part had which ran about three thousand pounds,
which was you ran him two thirty five and two
thirty eight. It hit hard pan and kept going, and
we were looking for this. That's what all the digging
(15:41):
was going to be about. But they told us to
tell everybody when they would report anybody else, that we
were looking for apart to an ejection seat. It made
a lot of Now that's what we actually had to say.
But one one poor man was a sharecropper and he
looks up and see this humongous parachute was something in it.
(16:03):
He thought the Russians were invading, so he grabbed a
pone of corn bread and some milk and some blankets.
They found him seven hours later under some bushes from
where they were looking for Major Shelton. He was something
who killed him. The body. Three bodies were killed and
two bodies were in the wreckage immediately close to where
(16:24):
the bomb was, but five men survived. One man, Captain Maddox,
he didn't have an ejection seat, so when everybody else ejected,
he said he saw he saw a hole and he
just dove for it, never dreaming he'd get out. So
he made it through and then he hissed to ride
(16:47):
somewhere back to the basis. He'll had a parachute, and
the gate guard was talking about going to arrest him.
Thought he'd stole the parachute. But nobody, to my knowledge,
is ever escape jumping out of a jet, plying and survive.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And you're listening to Earl Smith, and my goodness, what
he was up to that day in North Carolina. Well,
we never knew about it until fairly recently. There's been
a book written about it, a big best seller. It's
being optioned as a movie. The Goldsborough Broken Arrow is
the thriller by Joel Dobson. The book inaccurately recounts the
(17:25):
story from the perspective of Jack Reravelle, and that's why
we're bringing you Earl Smith's account. He was the guy
who did the work, not the guy who wanted the credit.
And we know the difference between those two when it
comes to political theater and show voters. When we come back,
we're going to continue this remarkable story, the story of
how one of the world's greatest man made disasters was
(17:48):
averted here on our American stories. And we continue here
(18:09):
with our American stories. And we love telling you these
stories from history because they're important. In my goodness, these
are the things ordinary Americans do that are well, they're
just extraordinary. Let's return to Earl Smith picking up with
three other men who helped him dismantle the hydrogen bomb
back in nineteen sixty one in Goldsboro, North Carolina.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
They're the real heroes to like I said, they're they're
all dead now. And what had happened before this before
I found out about all this? Somehow, this Lieutenant Revel
had found out the other three guys were dead, so
(18:55):
he thought I was dead too. So he proceeded to
tell the story like how he took care of that bomb,
which was a bunch of crap, I mean, just out
and out blatant lie or something or not, because he
had nothing to do. That bomb was ready to the time
he got shot. Come on, team was taken care of,
ready to go back to the base. And I imagine
(19:17):
he was quite shocked when he find out that I
was still alive. After I come up there, and there
was a lot of publicity about it. After I got
back home, this movie producer called me from Paris, France,
and he said he was making a movie he called
the Cold War and he loved to tell my story
in it. And he said, I'll fly you back up
(19:38):
there and we'll pay all expenses and everything. I said, okay,
So I went back up there in April of that year. Well,
the man who Kurt Keller, who is a Princeville person
is he wants everything to be historically correct and he's
the prayer of the Historical Society for Goldborough. Well, this lieutenant,
(20:01):
when he was telling his story, me or neither of
three of the other guys were ever mentioned about anything,
never mentioned, never mentioned. So that set me on fire
getting everything straight. So that's when I went back the
Kirk Keller invited me up to tell the story. As
a matter of fact, Uh, when we made this movie,
(20:24):
the man who's flying over from Paris, the guy who's
the director or president of historical Society. He said this
Lieutenant Ravel was invited to be a part of it too.
He said, I'll take bets he won't show up. And
guess what he didn't. I was sure hoping the hell
he would, after all that he told and this stuff.
(20:47):
And after three dead men, Sergeant Finchier, Sergeant fletcher In,
Sergeant Evers, with all they'd done, and they they couldn't
offend herself. And the way he did that, I lost
him any respect I ever might have had about him.
And then when they wrote this book, they wrote this book,
(21:07):
I think they ended up being two books. I want
to see one Broken Air over Goldborough. The man that
wrote that. I I finally had talked to him, and
I said, I don't hold you. I I said, first
of all, I asked him where did you get this information?
He said, well from Lieutenant Ravel. I said, well, he
(21:27):
told you a bunch of crap. And then I proceeded
to tell him about what really happened, and he said, well,
I figured he was an officer and a gentleman. And
I said, well, you kind of figured wrong on this one,
because he he w. He wasn't. Uh turned out to
be other than that. But he never showed up when
we went to filming this movie. But that's where it happened.
(21:50):
I I I remember everything just just like it was yesterday.
I don't. I don't, cause when something like that it
is so vivid. I mean something, it's so import you
just don't forget it. But U, like I said, I
never thought we were told and never ever mentioned it.
They say, you don't ever speak of this, You don't
ever you ever, you never never ever ever speak of it.
(22:13):
So that scared this little more. So I kind of
put it out of my mind. You know. Well, first
of all, they said, it's something that bothered me for
many years because they were telling everybody that all the
parts were found. And I knew that piece of uranium
two thirty eight through thirty was still in that ground,
and I didn't know where anything it might have moved,
(22:33):
where it might have finally started doing something to the
water supply. And it bothered me for many years about
the people living down there, and and and uh, but uh,
we were told and h y y, you don't talk
about this, you don't, you know, But they were telling
the Air Force were telling we were looking for a
dejection seat to see what killed uh Major Shelton. And
(22:58):
they spent a little over a million dollar dollars digging
now now, I mean now a million dollars in nineteen
sixty one. It was a lot of money, a lot
of money. So they they let us know where quickly.
You don't talk about it now now. And President Kennedy
had only been in office four days and that was
his first first uh uh speech. I think he had
(23:20):
to make about a press report, I guess, But like
I said, I know there were a lot of generals,
a lot of generals there and uh and a lot
of media had started showing them till they finally had
they welly threatened with it twenty five thousand dollars. Fine,
that's what now. They couldn't keep him out, but that's
that's what they did. But it was Moore, they's hella,
(23:41):
don't you don't say a word about it. Don't say
word about it, you know. So, uh, I don't think it,
uh there is. I thought for a long time I
worried about it. But because when you think about it,
the radiation would have come from from the core and
we got the core out, but this this other's buried
(24:01):
so deep that iranium that's where it comes from, out
of the ground anyway, So so uh they're still on the ground.
They're doing they do regular testing on it. But by
later years I got in I mostly selling RV's up
at Dandy r V up in uh uh Oxford, and
these men came in and they were eld men. So
(24:23):
I mentioned to one of them, I said, you know,
I I was x eod men. I said, I worked
on a little job up in North Carolina. And he looked,
looked at you. You worked on that job. I said yeah,
I said, sure did, I said, I. I was on
stand by. I had to buy myself first, iron I.
He said, you know it's all those Internet and I said, well, no,
(24:46):
I mean so boy. I finally got and got on
there and rest reading all that stuff. My blood blood
started balling all that crap he was telling, you know,
and uh, I mean that not's only just for myself,
for the other man that risk their lives. When you
go out on something like it, you don't know what's
going to happen. But for him to come in and
(25:07):
try to take credit for something somebody else did. It's
just not right. No way in the world. I don't
hold any animosity toward him at the time. I could
broke his neck when I first heard about it. But
you're not supposed to hate. And I mean, this is
(25:28):
the whole thing was just I mean, just like something
something that never it's never happening.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
And you've been listening to Earl Smith telling the story
of disarming a hydrogen bomb. No. Two hydrogen bombs. It
fell on North Carolina back on January twenty third, nineteen
sixty one. This event was kept classified until twenty thirteen.
(25:56):
And by the way, assuming that everyone had died, Lieutenant
Jack were decided to well do what we all know
people like this, did what he thought he could do,
take advantage of an opportunity and take credit for work
done by other men. No surprise that he wasn't showing
up wherever Earl Smith showed up, because my goodness, Earl
(26:16):
would have had detailed memory of disarming that bomb that,
let's face it, Lieutenant Jack Ravell simply couldn't or didn't
have a great story. And by the way, we always
welcome your stories, send them to our American Stories dot com.
And this is just a look. You don't hear a
guy talking about himself in heroic ways. He did what
(26:38):
he was trained to do, and he did it with
a bunch of guys, and a whole bunch of guys died,
probably trying to get this plane to land safely and
not create again what would have been perhaps the worst
man made disaster in human history. Earl Smith's story the
story of a man who disarmed a couple of h
bombs in North Carolina back in nineteen sixty one, the
(27:02):
year of my birth. Here are now American stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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