Why Trump Needs an Ice Island

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Why Trump Needs an Ice Island
US Thule Base


Thule Base


On April 9, 1941, the Danish envoy to the United States, Henrik Kaufmann, who refused to recognize the German occupation of Denmark, signed the Danish-American Agreement on the Defense of Greenland and granted the Americans the right to use bases on Greenland. In Denmark itself, Kaufmann was declared a traitor and did not recognize the Treaty on the Joint Defense of Greenland.



The Americans, busy with their own agenda, ignored this. The agreement was approved by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 7, 1941, but was not ratified by Denmark until 1951. The Americans built 17 bases in Greenland.

Thule, located in northwest Greenland, became one of the most secretive US bases. The base became a key element of US defense, protecting American territory from a possible Soviet attack through the Arctic. It housed an early warning radar station capable of monitoring airspace up to the borders of the USSR, and hosted systems Defense (interceptors and anti-aircraft missiles) and strategic bombers were based there. Thus, in the 1960s, strategic bombers (B-52) with nuclear weapons on board (B-28 bombs with a capacity of 1,45 megatons).

The base is now part of the missile defense system and the United States Space Force and has been renamed Pituffik (the name of a local Inuit settlement).


Boeing B-52G, the same type as the one that crashed

Air crash


The Thule area is famous for being one of the few places on the planet where an atomic bomb has disappeared. In March 2009, Time magazine included the incident in its list of the world's worst nuclear disasters.

Since 1961, the US Air Force Strategic Command had been conducting Operation Chrome Dome, which consisted of constant airborne combat patrols by strategic bombers with thermonuclear weapons on board, ready to strike targets in the Soviet Union. Having strategic aircraft in the air allowed for a significant reduction in the time it took to strike the Soviet superpower. It also eliminated the possibility of aircraft being lost on the ground.

However, in January 1966, there was a plane crash over Palomares, Spain. Then, an American B-52 strategic bomber with thermonuclear weapons on board collided with a tanker aircraft during mid-air refueling. As a result of the disaster, seven people died and four thermonuclear bombs were lost. Three of them fell on land and were found immediately, the fourth, which fell into the sea, was found only after a two-month search. Two bombs that fell near Palomares disintegrated, causing radiation contamination of the area. The disaster led to a serious diplomatic crisis and the cessation of flights of American strategists with nuclear weapons over Europe and the Mediterranean.

Operation Chrome Dome was largely curtailed: the number of sorties was reduced from 24 to four per day. US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara proposed to cancel it completely, since the US nuclear arsenal was based on the land-based Minuteman and sea-based Polaris ICBMs. But the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the US Air Force Strategic Command spoke out against the minister. Therefore, a compromise was made. Now aircraft with nuclear weapons patrolled only the Greenland area.

On the morning of January 21, 1968, a B-52G, tail number 58-0188, belonging to the 528th Squadron, 380th Bomb Wing, strategic air force, took off from Plattsburgh Air Force Base, New York, on a combat patrol. aviation USA. The ship's commander was Captain John Hoag. On board, in addition to the five regular crew members, were the replacement navigator Captain Chris Curtis and the reserve (third) pilot Major Alfred D'Amario.

The third pilot occupied the navigator-instructor's seat on the aft lower deck at takeoff. An Air Force investigation into the incident found that D'Amario, who liked comfort, placed three fabric-covered foam cushions on the underseat heating vent before takeoff and another one shortly after takeoff.

The flight was proceeding normally. After refueling, the captain ordered his second pilot, Captain Leonard Svitenko, to go to rest. D'Amario took his place. The major thought the cabin was cold, so he opened the valve that took air from the engine's air duct into the heating system. However, there was a technical malfunction: the hot air from the engine, which was going into the heating system, was not cooling, and the cold in the cabin began to turn into tropical heat.

The foam cushions folded by D'Amario under the seat caught fire. While they were looking for the source, the fire became strong. As a result, it was not possible to extinguish the source of the fire. At 15:22, the captain requested an emergency landing in Tula. But the situation developed very quickly. A few minutes later, the plane lost power, and there was so much smoke that the pilots could not see the instrument readings.

Hog realized that it was no longer possible to save the plane, and at 15:37 he gave the crew the order to abandon the plane. Six crew members were able to escape. The second pilot Svitenko died.

D'Amario was the luckiest of all, landing right on the base. The search for Captain Curtis lasted the longest, as he left the plane first and landed almost 10 km from the base. He was found only 21 hours later and suffered greatly from hypothermia, but managed to survive, wrapped in a parachute.


Set of four thermonuclear bombs B28

"Broken Arrow"


The unguided strategist flew north for some time, then turned 180° and at 15:39 crashed onto the ice of Severnaya Zvezda Bay, approximately 11 km from the base's runway. The impact detonated the conventional explosive in the fuses of all four bombs.

Fortunately, there was no nuclear explosion, but radioactive components were scattered over a wide area. The explosions and fire destroyed most of the debris, which was scattered over an area approximately 4,8 miles long and 1,6 mile wide. The ignited jet fuel destroyed the ice, and the plane's wreckage sank to the ocean floor.

The incident was classified as a "Broken Arrow," a code used to describe an incident involving nuclear weapons, warheads, or their components that did not create a threat of war.

American and Danish services immediately began work to clean up and decontaminate the area. The project was officially codenamed "Crested Ice." US Air Force General Richard Hunziker was appointed as the head of the operation.

About 2500 people were sent to Greenland to clean up the aftermath of the accident. For nine months, they collected the plane's wreckage and contaminated ice. The bomb fragments were sent for examination to the Pantex nuclear weapons plant (the employees also dealt with the disposal of nuclear weapons) in Texas, the plane's wreckage was sent to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, and the burial tanks were sent to the Savannah River nuclear burial site in South Carolina.

The operation ended on September 13, 1968, when the last tanker of contaminated materials was loaded onto a ship bound for the United States. A total of 6700 m³ of contaminated snow and ice were collected, as well as a large number of various containers of aircraft debris, some of which were also contaminated.

In August 1968, a top-secret expedition was organized to search for the uranium core of one of the bombs on the bottom using the manned vehicle "Star III". The results were classified. Only in 2009, documents were published in Denmark, which made it clear that the main "filling" of one of the bombs had never been found.

As a result of land and underwater searches, one practically intact uranium shell and fragments, together corresponding in mass to two more, were discovered.


An aerial photograph of the crash site. The black spot is ice darkened by burning fuel. The crash site is at the top.

"Ice Worm"


Operation Chrome Dome was finally closed.

It turned out that the Danish government lied to its people. After all, back in 1957, Denmark declared the entire territory of the kingdom a nuclear-free zone. In fact, Copenhagen knew about the deployment of nuclear weapons on Thule. Also, back in 1958, the Americans began Project Iceworm to deploy a network of mobile ICBM launch pads under the Greenland ice sheet.

The Americans were planning to build a 4000-kilometer-long tunnel system and deploy about 600 Iceman-type medium-range ballistic missiles in it, aimed at the USSR. The Iceman missile was developed on the basis of the Minuteman ICBM: the flight range was reduced from 10 km to 6,1 km, the warhead was 2,4 megatons.

American engineers were going to dig tunnels, cover them with arched domes, and then the nature of Greenland itself would take care of the shelter, covering them with snow and ice. According to the plan, the location of the rockets was supposed to change periodically. The launch pads of the rockets were connected by railway tracks.

The project was stopped only because of its complexity – the shifting glaciers were destroying the objects, and this was happening faster than initially expected. Based on this data, the project was closed in 1966. The remains of its structures and waste, including radioactive waste (electricity was supplied by the first mobile nuclear reactor “Alco PM-2A”), were left in place, since it was assumed that they would be buried forever under a layer of snow.

Why does the US need Greenland?


Now Trump's team is planning to take Greenland. Firstly, these are the resources that the US needs to develop and maintain its global leadership. In particular, the ice island contains copper, gold, molybdenum, lead, etc. There are large reserves of the rare mineral cryolite, which is used to produce aluminum.

Secondly, strengthening the strategic positions of the new American empire (America, America above all!). The US will expand access to the Arctic. To the Russian sector of the Arctic.

Thirdly, the Trump-Musk tandem obviously sees a way out of the crisis of the previous development model (the crisis of capitalism, the crisis of the USA) in organizing a large-scale expansion of humanity into space and into those areas of the planet that were previously inaccessible. In particular, this is the Arctic and the depths of the ocean.
7 comments
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  1. +7
    31 January 2025 08: 12
    Thank you!
    Informative!
    I read it with pleasure
  2. +1
    31 January 2025 10: 03
    The Thule base is quite widely represented in literature and Hollywood. "I decided to send you to a luxurious place of service - almost Florida, the sea is nearby. Get directions and go to Thule." Oops. In one humorous novel, the quartermasters of the Thule base, throughout the entire novel, handed over 6 nuclear bombs, in which instead of a nuclear charge there was sand. Laugh, the Russian translator adapted American humor to the Russian language. Laughed until tears. Maybe someone remembers the title of the novel?
  3. 0
    31 January 2025 11: 49
    A good article from Warspot about the FSA base in Greenland. Short and to the point. (Not an ad! It takes a long time to load, at least for me) https://warspot.ru/15481-ledyanoy-cherv-s-atomnym-serdtsem
  4. 0
    31 January 2025 15: 36
    the fourth, which fell into the sea, was found only after a two-month search

    The story of the raising of the bomb is described in the book: Gormz, "Raising Sunken Ships".
  5. 0
    31 January 2025 23: 24
    The author, or the team under his leadership, often wants to be reproached for breaking off the text.
    After all, the beginning and the middle of the publication are read as a single block. And then bam... And not even "to be continued", but simply the text ended.
  6. 0
    1 February 2025 02: 23
    The author forgot to mention the huge deposits of graphite and uranium. Currently, the US buys about 43% of its graphite from China. But this is becoming more and more problematic and the US is looking for a replacement for China.
  7. +1
    1 February 2025 08: 14
    Only a guy who doesn't know the North can capture this piece of ice. Cold -35, polar night, no fresh food or entertainment. Economic activity is possible for several months a year. I was born and raised in the Russian North.