Figure 2. Informational card describing the CURV and its abilities (BACK).
This little diatribe stems from a series of encounters with history that left me thinking about how history is written. The following is based on memories and conversations with my Dad starting sometime around my 7th birthday. It's probably a one-sided look at history, but that's ok.
Now that it's in, I think I'm going to go over everything, add in frames, etc. and really flesh out the detail. In otherwords, this site is under construction.
A little background first. My Dad worked for the US Navy in China Lake, CA. He worked on, among other things, an unmanned submersible called CURV. When the project moved to NOTS in Pasadena, CA he went with it. About the time I was 7 or so, a SAC bomber had the misfortune to collide with, I believe, a tanker while refueling over Spain and dropped, along with a bunch of other things, four H-bombs. Three landed on dry land and one landed in the ocean. Well, my Dad disappeared for a month or so and when he came back we found out that he had helped to recover the bomb that landed in the ocean. He got his picture in LIFE magazine (with the other members of the CURV team) and we got a piece of the parachute that came off the bomb with a lot of signatures on it. He really didn't talk about it too much and we didn't ask because one of the other team members got in trouble for giving an interview to a local newspaper (as kids we were sure that we'd be arrested if we asked questions!).
In any case, life returned to normal until my first encounter with history. We toured the Queen Mary in Long Beach and as part of this we went through Jacques Cousteau's Museum of the Sea. At the end of the museum was a really big submersible called Alvin which, among other things, recovered the H-Bomb off Spain!!!?????!!??. What???? I went home and told my Dad about this and he got a little smile on his face but didn't say too much about it. Over the years, I've heard the Alvin/H bomb connection mentioned a lot and each time I'd ask my Dad about it. Over time he has laid out an interesting story that I'll try to reconstruct here. If there are errors in the details, they are mine. I'll fix them as I can.
|
|
|
The CURV is an unmanned submersible that was used for salvage operations and for recovering torpedoes and missiles from the bottom of the ocean. It was/is a cable controlled device and isn't too far removed from the ROVs used today for all sorts of undersea explorations. When the bombs went down the CURV should have been the obvious choice for salvage operations. Instead the ops area was devoted to a number of manned submersibles (Alvin, Aluminaut, Perry Cubmarine) and the CURV was restricted from entering the search area for approximately 1 month (they were told, essentially, to practice so they spent the time dropping a cylinder overboard and recovering it). The story as my Dad heard it was that a manned recovery would make good PR towards future funding of manned submersibles. In short, the recovery was to be made by a MANNED submersible. However, after the bomb was located, the Alvin didn't have the ability to grasp it and was possibly causing the bomb to slip into deeper water. This, coupled with the uncertainty in DC of what seawater was doing to the bomb during its extended stay on the bottom, decided the issue. The CURV finally got it's chance to go in.
The first attempt resulted in a complete electrical short to the CURV caused by pressure on the cable (I think it occurred at the termination). The team spent a day addressing the problem and went back into the water. Since the other subs had placed a pinger on the bomb, it took about 1 hour to locate the bomb. The bomb was covered by its parachute so the CURV team didn't have a clear view of the bomb itself. Instead of using the CURV's claw to grab the bomb the team instead attached a grappling hook to the parachute. They were now ready to eject the hook and pull the bomb up to the surface but the Admiral involved in the operations requested that another line be placed on the bomb (despite the fact that the bomb weighed quite a bit less than the line's rated weight limit). So the hook was ejected,the topside end of the line was tied off to a buoy, and the CURV was brought back to the surface. After fitting with another hook, the CURV went back down and attached the second hook as well. Again, however, the Admiral wanted yet another line attached. At this point the CURV's pilot got a little exasperated and performed a stunt that my Dad still laughs about. He manuevered the CURV in real close to the shroud and reversed the thrusters. This sucked the shroud up into the CURV's props and the CURV and the bomb became one. The team members then turned to the Admiral and informed him that they couldn't bring the CURV up without the bomb.
|
What followed was an interesting conversation in which it was suggested that the line to the CURV be severed and then both the bomb and CURV could be recovered together (by a manned submersible). At some point I'll include my Dad's best recollection of the conversation but it essentially came down to "Our Washington connections can beat up your Washington connections". The CURV was hoisted to the surface, with the bomb. At the surface, the bomb was tied off, the shroud was cut, and both the bomb and the CURV were brought on board. Finally, a grateful Air Force could take possession of its property. Recovery of the H-Bomb took place over the course of a single night (not counting the day lost to the electrical short) with the CURV being the only submersible in the water. Not too shabby.
As my Dad states it, the Navy informed the entire CURV team that they couldn't publicly discuss the recovery (which led to the aforementioned team member's dip in hot water for talking with the Long Beach Press Telegram). They came back into port and had to watch, silently, as the Alvin came in with a broom in its conning tower (signifying a clean sweep on the mission). And the rest is history.
I've recently acquired a copy of the book 'America's Lost H-Bomb! Palomares, Spain, 1966" by Randall C. Maydew. This book differs from the above account by stating that lines were placed on the bomb over two nights and that it was a predetermined plan that a total of 3 lines were to be placed on the bomb. I'm checking those facts with my dad to see if he agrees.
And now, for something completely different...
During missions to recover torpedoes, etc. off the SoCal coast the CURV team had the habit, when they couldn't find their target, to grab rocks from off the bottom and bring them to the surface. These rocks weighed over 100 pounds and some inevitably found their way into my Dad's garden (great landscaping!). Well I was a budding Marine Biologist way back then and when my Dad pulled some brachiopods off one of the rocks I hit the garden looking for treasure. I succeeded in pulling off a couple of small limpets. At that time I was also volunteering in the lab of Jim McClean at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. I mentioned to Dr. McClean about the limpets and he expressed a strong desire to see them. When I brought them in, and he identified them, it turns out that one of the limpets was the second occurrence of its species and the only intact specimen and the other one was the third occurrence. In any case, the rocks are still in the garden, and the snails are in the LACMNH collections.
Ok, most of these don't actually say the Alvin personally brought the bomb
on board and I am assuming that the words recovery, retrieval, etc. are
claims that the recovery was actually made by the submarines in question and
not that the submarines were merely part of the larger recovery effort. If the
latter meaning was the intended meaning then please disregard the listing (and
let me know).
I also have
to state that most sites that bother to mention the name of the sub that did
the recovery got it right. I've left out personal webpages (of which there
were a few) that recount the success of Alvin in recovering the bomb.
I'll add to this list as I find more examples.
BUT FIRST A WORD FROM ANOTHER SUBMARINE:
Source: Perry Slingsby Systems History Webpage
1965: Perry develops the "Cubmarine" which is used by the U.S. Navy to recover an H-Bomb lost off the coast of Spain.Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram Webpage
OK, a careful reading says that the bomb ended up on the Petrel which was the CURV support vessel. And maybe the word "by" is more properly associated with the word "located" and not the words "hauled aboard" but I'm not used to having to read my newspapers carefully for meaning.Source: ONR website describing various submersibles.
Perhaps ONR's most famous submersible is ALVIN, a three-person deep submergence vessel (DSV). Among some of its most memorable missions are discovery of deep-sea hydrothermal vents and recovery of a missing H-bomb. ONR funded the development of ALVIN in 1962 for almost $10 million.LINKS - CURV.....GAH!!!!! MOST OF THESE ARE BROKEN
SPAWAR Systems Center, San Diego
Dynacon, Inc. BROKE! Directed more towards winch and handling system.
Informational site by ex-Oceaneering employee.
LINKS - Aluminaut
Science Museum of Virginia. This museum exhibits the restored Aluminaut submersible.
LINKS - DSV ALVIN
WHOI ALVIN Page. The definitive source for ALVIN Information.
LINKS - The Lost H-bomb
National Atomic Museum, Albequerque, NM. This museum displays the recovered casing of bomb #4.