UPON HEARING THE ORDER TO BAIL OUT, TAIL GUNNER STEPHEN OARLOCK REACHED FORWARD AND FIRMLY PULLED ON THE D-HANDLE LANYARD THAT WOULD EJECT THE ENTIRE TAIL GUN TURRET ASSEMBLY, ALLOWING HIM SIMPLY TO STEP INTO THE SKY FROM THE DOOMED BOEING B-52F STRATOFORTRESS.
Nothing happened, no matter how hard he pulled on the release. The maintenance crews, preflight crew and Oarlock himself had failed to check for and remove one of the three turret safety pins. Furious communication among the crew resulted in a second order: Come forward now!
Oarlock rotated back his seat, ditched his bulky gear, scrambled through several hatches and began his panicky crawl along the tight starboard bomb bay catwalk. Complying with the two-man rule, the radar navigator, Captain William Hart, stationed himself at the forward hatch to monitor Oarlock’s difficult passage above the cargo: two thermonuclear bombs. Thus ensued Strategic Air Command’s second “Broken Arrow” incident of 1961, this time over the picturesque Sutter Buttes of California’s Central Valley.
As the Cold War warmed in the late 1950s, General Thomas S. Power, commander of the U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command (SAC), implemented an airborne alert program designed to ensure almost immediate U.S. retaliation against its enemies, replacing the prior “launch on warning” policy. SAC began rotating bombers and aerial refueling tankers through continuous flights near the Soviet borders 24 hours per day, seven days a week. Although President Dwight D. Eisenhower did not permit onboard nuclear weapons until October 1959, under the Head Start I and II and Steel Trap I and II testing programs SAC had amassed more than 6,000 B-52 sorties by 1961.
To carry out this new mission, SAC had activated 14 dispersed strategic wings by 1958. Almost all of them
