Please click the icon to follow us on Facebook.on this day at Faro near Goldsboro, North Carolina a hydrogen bomb exploded with two hundred and fifty times the power of the blast that annihilated Hiroshima after a B-52 Stratofortress carrying two Mark 39 nuclear weapons broke up in mid-air, dropping its payload in the process.

During mid-air refuelling the tanker crew advised the B-52 captain, Major W.S. Tullock that his aircraft had a leak in its port wing fuel cell. The problem worsened when the aircraft reached its assigned position and 37,000 pounds (17,000 kg) of fuel was lost in only three minutes. Initially directed to land at Seymour Johnson Air Base, the crew were soon forced to abandon the aircraft altogether. But due to the gyration of the aircraft, the nuclear payload became separated and all six of the arming devices became activated.

In the months of Congressional hearings that followed the tragedy, USAF leaders insisted that the pilot's safe/arm switch should have prevented detonation, ensuring that the bomb was unarmed and could not explode. Problem was that public confidence in the USAF had been shattered, not only by the incident but also revelations of the frequent reoccurences of near misses - three in the three previous years alone when counting the Florence, South Carolina and Tybee Island incidents

Allegedly, President John F. Kennedy also agreed that Goldsboro was an accident waiting to happen, intending to "splinter the USAF into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds". Most probably by re-integrating the command structure back into the United States Army and dismissing the senior leadership team. Unfortunately for the White House, General Thomas White had recently retired, and the incoming Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force was Curtis LeMay (pictured) who decided to pre-empt that end-game by secretly organizing a firing of his own...

And so shortly after assuming office, Lyndon Baines Johnson announced that a major restructure of the Armed Forces would weaken America at a time of high national security alert.