Broken Arrows : The Lost Bombs of the Cold War | FULL DOCUMENTARY



1950: Early days of the Cold War. Faced with a potential Red Army invasion of Western Europe, the U.S. army dreamed up a plan of total war against the USSR. In this first episode, we examine the accident that occurred at Mount Kologet in a remote part of Canada on 14 February 1950, the first crash involving a bomber carrying a nuclear bomb. The accident was secret, and would be during forty years. For there were to be many more, and four in 1950 alone – in Quebec, in New Mexico, in Ohio and in California. These were known in military parlance as Broken Arrows.

Documentary: Broken Arrows, the lost Bombs of the Cold War
Directed by: Thierry Piantanida & Thierry Ragobert
Production: Cinétévé

#documentary #freedocumentary #history #brokenarrows #bombs #coldwar

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50 thoughts on “Broken Arrows : The Lost Bombs of the Cold War | FULL DOCUMENTARY”

  1. 15:30 – a bold and untrue statement: “if it wasn’t for John Clearwater, history’s very first broken arrow would never have gone public.” Details were public knowledge since the 1970’s along with dozens of published articles. The crash site was rediscovered in 1997 but Clearwater didn’t visit until 2003 – added nothing new to the story.

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  2. " Operation Dropshot was the United States Department of Defense code name for a contingency plan for a possible nuclear and conventional war with the Soviet Union and its allies in order to counter the anticipated Soviet takeover of Western Europe, the Near East and parts of Eastern Asia expected to begin about 1957. The plan was prepared in 1949 during the early stages of the Cold War and declassified during 1977. Although the scenario included the use of nuclear weapons, they were not expected to play a decisive role.

    At the time, the US nuclear arsenal was limited in size, based mostly in the United States, and depended on bombers for delivery. Dropshot included mission profiles that would have used 300 nuclear bombs and 29,000 high-explosive bombs on 200 targets in 100 cities and towns to wipe out 85 percent of the Soviet Union's industrial potential in a single stroke. Between 75 and 100 of the 300 nuclear weapons were targeted to destroy Soviet combat aircraft on the ground.

    The scenario was devised prior to the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and included the note that the plan would be invalidated if rocketry became a cheap and effective means of delivering nuclear weapons. The documents were later declassified and published as Dropshot: The American Plan for World War III Against the Soviet Union in 1957.[1] Never approved, Dropshot was withdrawn in February 1951 and superseded by Reaper, a plan that anticipated a war in 1954…."
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dropshot

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  3. And by now, the USA had a new president who has told Russia they can go ahead with invading Europe, as long as the NATO partners don't pay their bills and do not reach 2% of the GDP for defense. (My guess is he also wants the increased budgets all to go to the US defense industry, and that buying exclusively European as I would suggest these countries do would be seen as an hostile action. Funny, I wonder how many folks from San Francisco knew they were several time pseudo-nuked because the town has the same hilly appearance as Leningrad…

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  4. The cratering capacity of nuclear weapons, even ground-detonated is NOT large enough to create a 'bay' where an entire US state used to be. That's James Bond- levels of overexaggeration

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  5. I don't believe that we have mastered the energy or the use of atomic energy, we are still very ignorant and in a very early stages of understanding of how to use nature's energies on the atomic scale.
    How do we let the power of such weapons lie in the hands of one man one woman one human being. Given the power of such weapons on the scale of our planet I think that maybe more than one person should have the authority to deploy these weapons. I do understand that there may be instances of which we need extremely quick decisive thinking and the more people we add to the decision process slows it down but given circumstances I think that we should limit it to one person only if it's a surprise attack. Given that we now have the capability to overwhelmingly devastate an enemy any place on the planet with conventional munitions with precision nuclear weapons should be a afterthought. They should be truly a last resort given the technology that we now have. I almost think that we should demonstrate our capabilities in Ukraine pragmatically asked to give no Russian no indication of our strategy or our intended implementation of such weapons in a direct conflict we should be demonstrating the devastating ability of our weapons systems against any modern adversary without the need to Sabre rattle. At least nuclear weapons work every time Russian might launch what 1 and 10 the rest of them will serve to help our side

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  6. I've seen small explosions and listen to him I've watched shock waves rip across the ground we're able to see it hear it and then yeah very interesting on how quick light travels compared to sound.
    So does the shock wave travel at the speed of sound. Where does the shock wave travel just ahead of the sound is it always kind of wondered about that because it always seemed like you get hit by the pressure wave just before you hear the sound but it might be a delay the processing of the situation in the human brain and body

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  7. 12:56 I would imagine that the atomic energy commission would have realized the mission and had wondered about what the fuk happened with the what happened this was a mission that had some of our equipment on board what I mean how come we didn't get a report on what's going on here

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  8. The only country to ever slaughter people with a nuclear weapon was……
    La May was wrong , that is until the US meddled in Ukraine , flying B-52 BOMBERS on the Russian border until 2 1/2 years when they said ENOUGH , this cold war two thirds of the world stand with RUSSIA and so do I against American AGGRESSION , remember that only the US has 800+ military bases world wide , Hitler would be PROUD !!!

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  9. Introduction was well-paced. Painted a good narrative. Interesting facts that at first seemed too broad for the specific incident, but by the end, I realized that the tone you were going for was fear and dread. Nailed it. Good story-telling and information selection.

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