Interesting Facts

Paint scheme carried by B-52F 70173 the night she disappeared on 28 February 1968

When he disappeared, tail gunner MSgt Kermit Casey was 56 minutes shy of the calendar day annotated on his birth certificate...

February 29, 1932

On 28 Feb 1968, and as a former enlisted member of the US Navy Reserve, copilot Lt Bill Causey was the only pilot in the US Air Force authorized to wear both silver pilot wings and the submariner's badge (aka "kissing dolphins") on his flight suit.

After the search had failed to come up with any evidence of a crash, the decision was made to widen the search area using high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. To rule out a hijacking, SR-71 photographic missions were carried out over every runway capable of landing a B-52 in Cuba, Central and the northern part of South America, and the Caribbean. The purpose of this surveillance was to rule out the possibility of a hijacking.

In the early 1970, the last surviving member of the team assigned to investigate the disappearance, authored a magazine article describing his experience as a member of that team. That unpublished article became Chapter 20, Voices from the Sea, in his 2012 book Jet Age Man. 

US Air Force Lieutenant  Colonel (retired) Earl "Mac" McGill's detailed recollections of the investigation team's activities between 29 February and 9 March 1968 were instrumental to the fact finding that led us to where we are today... preparing to locate the wreckage of B-52F 70173 so we can finally be in the position to bring all eight of her missing aircrew members home.

In 1964, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) commissioned the construction and publication of a book  about the command's nuclear-deterrent capability. SAC's purpose in doing this was to publicize their round-the-clock "Peace is Our Profession" efforts at keeping America safe during the Cold War. They knew the US public would be very interested in this information, but their target audience was likely the military leadership in the Soviet Union.

SAC gave the responsibility for building this book to a young Air Force B-52 pilot and established photographer named Clifford B. Goodie. In 1965, his seminal work  "Strategic Air Command: A Portrait" hit book store shelves across America. In 191 pages of black-and-white imagery and detailed word pictures, Goodie described everyday life of SAC professionals, both at work and at home.  

Goodie's creativity in capturing action images of SAC people at their jobs and at home with their families provided an accurate representation of everyday life within a secretive organization created to protect the American way of life. More importantly, this coffee table book served as a powerful deterrent tool during the Cold War.

Salute to Clifford B. Goodie, Lieutenant Colonel, US Air Force (deceased) for a job well done.

Many of the missing B-52 aircrew have Veterans Administration-provided centotaphs in their family cemeteries next to loved ones. Because there are no human remains under/behind a centotaph, the words IN MEMORY OF are always emblazoned at the top of the marker.

As part of our "bring them home" objective, and should the families wish to repatriate their loved ones to the location under a centotaph, the VA will replace each centotaph with new marker that does not contain those words.