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The Strategic Air Command 1958 History
- Nuclear Weapons At Thule Air Base Identified
The final report from the investigation of Greenland's role in the Gold War
does not identify the bombs deployed in Thule. Nor does the U.S. government's
July 1995 letter to the Danish government do so. However, one document released
by the U.S. Air Force in the United States under FOIA provides the details.
The 1958 history of Strategic Air Command was released to the author by the
Air Force only one month after the historical
History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons. The SAC
history contains a complete list of the locations where SAC had nuclear bombs
deployed in June 1958. The list includes 41 locations, including 14 bases in six
foreign countries. One of these is Thule Air Base in Greenland. Moreover, the
list discloses the different types of nuclear bombs stored at each base. The
bombs in Thule were Mk-6 and Mk-36 Mod 1. The Mk-6, which where deployed without
its nuclear capsule, had an explosive yield of up to 180 kilotons. These were
the non-nuclear bombs disclosed by the
U.S. government's letter to the Danish
government. The operational nuclear bombs were the Mk-36, each with a maximum
yield of up to 10 megatons.
U.S. Strategic Nuclear Bombs At Thule Air Base
(1957-1958)
Mk-6 (up to 180 kilotons)
Mk-36 (up to 10 megatons)
The list in the SAC history was released by the Air Force in full after an
appeal of the initial release that deleted all mentioning of the foreign
locations and the details of the type of bombs at each base. After more than 40
years, the Air Force apparently concluded -- and correctly so -- that no
meaningful purpose was served by continuing to classify the information. (A copy
is available for download from the right-hand bar).