Operation Chrome Dome was a

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

-era mission from 1960 to 1968 in which B-52 strategic bomber aircraft armed with

thermonuclear weapon A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...

s remained on continuous airborne alert and flew routes to points on the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

's border.

Background

During the

, General

Thomas S. Power General Thomas Sarsfield Power (June 18, 1905 – December 6, 1970) was a United States Air Force officer who served as commander in chief of the Strategic Air Command. He was an active military flier for more than 30 years. Early career Thomas S ...

initiated a program whereby B-52s performed airborne-alert duty under code names such as '' Head Start'', ''Chrome Dome'', ''Hard Head'', ''

Round Robin Round-robin may refer to: Computing * Round-robin DNS, a technique for dealing with redundant Internet Protocol service hosts * Round-robin networks, communications networks made up of radio nodes organized in a mesh topology * Round-robin schedu ...

'', and ''

Operation Giant Lance Operation Giant Lance was an undercover military operation by the United States in which the primary objective was to apply military pressure towards the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Initiated on October 27, 1969, President of the United Sta ...

''. Bombers loitered near points outside the

to provide rapid first-strike or retaliation capability in case of nuclear war.

Primary mission

The missions in 1964 involved a

B-52D The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is an American long-range, subsonic aircraft, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, which has continued to provide support and upgrades. It has been operated by the ...

that left

Sheppard Air Force Base Sheppard Air Force Base is a United States Air Force (USAF) base located north of the central business district of Wichita Falls, Texas, Wichita Falls, in Wichita County, Texas, United States. It is the largest training base and most divers ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

, and flew across the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

and headed out to the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. The aircraft refueled over the Atlantic heading north to and around

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

. The bomber changed course and flew northwesterly over

Baffin Bay Baffin Bay ( Inuktitut: ''Saknirutiak Imanga''; kl, Avannaata Imaa; french: Baie de Baffin), located between Baffin Island and the west coast of Greenland, is defined by the International Hydrographic Organization as a marginal sea of the Arct ...

towards Thule Air Base,

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

. It then flew west across

Queen Elizabeth Islands The Queen Elizabeth Islands (french: Îles de la Reine-Élisabeth; formerly Parry Islands or Parry Archipelago) are the northernmost cluster of islands in Canada's Arctic Archipelago, split between Nunavut and the Northwest Territories in Northe ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Continuing to Alaska, it refueled over the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

, again heading southeast, and returned to Sheppard AFB. By 1966, three separate missions were being flown: one east over the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, another north to Baffin Bay, and a third over Alaska.

Military units

The following military units were involved: *

Strategic Air Command Strategic Air Command (SAC) was both a United States Department of Defense Specified Command and a United States Air Force (USAF) Major Command responsible for command and control of the strategic bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile ...

Divisions: **

306th Bombardment Wing The 306th Strategic Wing, previously the 306th Bombardment Wing, is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the Strategic Air Command at RAF Mildenhall, Suffolk and was inactivated on 1 February 1992. The wing's missio ...

494th Bombardment Wing 494th may refer to: * 494th Bombardment Squadron, inactive United States Air Force unit * 494th Bombardment Wing, inactive United States Air Force unit *494th Fighter Squadron The 494th Fighter Squadron (494th FS), nicknamed ''the Panthers'', i ...

821st Strategic Aerospace Division The 821st Strategic Aerospace Division is an inactive United States Air Force organization. Its last assignment was with Fifteenth Air Force at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, where it was inactivated on 30 June 1971. The division wa ...

822d Air Division The 822d Air Division is an inactive United States Air Force organization. Its last assignment was with Strategic Air Command (SAC) at Turner Air Force Base, Georgia, where it was inactivated on 2 September 1966. The division was formed to com ...

* Homestead Air Force Base *

Strategic Air Command in the United Kingdom Between 1948 and 1992, personnel and aircraft of the United States Air Force (USAF) Strategic Air Command (SAC) were routinely deployed to bases in England. An informal agreement to base SAC bombers in the UK was reached between US General Ca ...

2nd Bomb Wing The 2nd Bomb Wing is a United States Air Force unit assigned to the Air Force Global Strike Command and the Eighth Air Force. It is stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The wing is also the host unit at Barksdale. The wing was a ...

, 62nd Bomb Squadron Barksdale AFB, Bossier City, Louisiana * Strategic Air Command 42 Bomb Wing Loring AFB, Limestone, Maine * 4126/456th bomb wing Beale AFB Marysville California

Accidents

The program was involved in the following nuclear-weapons accidents: *

1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash The 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash was an accident that occurred near Goldsboro, North Carolina, on 23 January 1961. A Boeing B-52 Stratofortress carrying two 3–4-TNT equivalent#Kiloton and megaton, megaton Mark 39 nuclear bombs broke up in mid-air ...

The Goldsboro Broken Arrow, 2011, *

1961 Yuba City B-52 crash On 14 March 1961 an aircraft accident occurred near Yuba City, California. A United States Air Force Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, B-52F-70-BW Stratofortress bomber, AF Serial No. ''57-0166'', c/n 464155, carrying two nuclear weapons departed from ...

1964 Savage Mountain B-52 crash The 1964 Savage Mountain B-52 crash was a U.S. military nuclear accident in which a Cold War bomber's vertical stabilizer broke off in winter storm turbulence. The two nuclear bombs being ferried were found "relatively intact in the middle of ...

Accident happened while the aircraft was returning to its home base, having already completed its alert mission. *

1966 Palomares B-52 crash The 1966 Palomares B-52 crash, also called the Palomares incident, occurred on 17 January 1966, when a B-52G bomber of the United States Air Force's Strategic Air Command collided with a KC-135 tanker during mid-air refueling at over the Me ...

1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash On 21 January 1968, an aircraft accident, sometimes known as the Thule affair or Thule accident (; da, Thuleulykken), involving a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52 bomber occurred near Thule Air Base in the Danish territory of Greenland. The ...

. The Thule accident signaled the end of the program on January 22, 1968.

References

Informational notes Citations {{reflist

External links