These airmen cleaned up an H-bomb disaster. Decades later, they're still fighting for benefits.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

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These airmen cleaned up an H-bomb disaster. Decades later, they’re still fighting for benefits.

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These airmen cleaned up an H-bomb disaster. Decades later, they’re still fighting for benefits.

By Derek Hawkins October 5

On a winter morning in 1966, nuclear weapons fell from the sky over southeastern Spain. ... High above, an American B-52 bomber on a Cold War alert mission had collided with a refueling plane midflight. The impact blew open the aircraft’s belly, sending four hydrogen bombs sailing toward earth. ... Two of the bombs partially detonated near the seaside town of Palomares, blasting craters as big as houses. Although the explosions themselves were non-nuclear, they coated the area in radioactive dust. Both aircraft were destroyed and seven crew members were killed.

The U.S. Air Force assembled 1,600 low-ranking troops and rushed them to Palomares to clean up the mess. Among them was Anthony Maloni, then 21 years old, who arrived in the first wave. ... For weeks, Maloni and his counterparts toiled in the Spanish countryside, collecting wreckage, destroying crops and shoveling soil contaminated by the explosions. Some wore thin surgical masks; others had no protection. They ate local food, drank local water and camped out in nearby tents until their work was done.

Over the following decades, signs of radiation exposure manifested in many of the airmen — everything from hair loss to blood disorders to cancers. ... But when they went to the Defense Department for help, they were systematically turned away, according to a new lawsuit by Maloni and two veterans groups.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Connecticut, alleges that an untold number of the airmen involved in the Palomares cleanup have been denied disability benefits because the Defense Department has refused to turn over medical records and other data that would show the extent of their radiation exposure.
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An unidentified U.S. soldier looks through the material near the B-52 bomber crash site in 1966 in this image taken from 16mm film footage. (National Archives and Records Administration/AP)
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Air Force technicians use rubber gloves while picking up picking pieces of the wreckage and placing them in cardboard boxes in Palomares on Jan. 28, 1966. (Franco Mattioli/AP)
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Derek Hawkins is a reporter with The Washington Post's Morning Mix. Follow @d_hawk

[Oakenshield]

1. Radiation exposure is a nasty business.

Shielding a human being well enough to manage cleanup is pretty much impossible, with the best protection coming from limiting exposure time. Likely the government didn't want to turn over records so as not to alarm the already disgruntled Spanish government of the mess we left in their own backyard. Politicking is no excuse for leaving our Airmen to twist in the wind though. Hopefully this will be challenged.