Sally Schnell reprinted with permission from
Poison Fire, Sacred Earth,
TESTIMONIES, LECTURES, CONCLUSIONS,
THE WORLD URANIUM HEARING, SALZBURG 1992
pages 233-234

. . . A B52 loaded with four hydrogen bombs crashed on the sea ice eight to twelve kilometers West of Thule Air Base. All four bombs were destroyed in the crash and the content of plutonium, uranium, tritium and americium was spread over a vast area. We are here talking about 6,000 to 8,000 square miles. The smoke from the burning jet fuel drove South and Southeast towards the Inuit settlement Narssarssuk, eight kilometers from the site of the crash. . . .
Naturally, the Inuit sealers were the first to visit the area of the crash because they could arrive by dog sledge. But they did not know how dangerous it was to be exposed to radiation there. A month later, when the clean-up project on the frozen sea ice started, the Inuits helped the Americans to collect the pieces of the wreckage from the plane and the bombs which were to be transported back to the United States. We don't know anything about the precautions taken by the Americans as to protect the sealers against this extremely dangerous work. Nor do we know anything about what happened to all those American soldiers who came directly from Vietnam to do a no less precarious job at Thule. But we know that none of the Inuits are alive today.
In this dark winter, Thule was frequently ravaged by the very special polar hurricane up to 100 miles the hour. This happened twice just after the crash the 24th of January and the 27th of January. Usually, the wind blows from the Greenland icecap towards the bay, but under certain weather conditions the wind blows from the bay towards the base as it did during that particular month. We have tried to get hold of the weather maps from those days but they are not to be found in these official archives anymore. From the 23rd of January to the 24th of January, 1968, the weather over the Thule Air Base Area is military secret. But nowhere else in Greenland.



Sally Schnell

Sally Schnell, Greenland. Co-founder of the Thule Association.

My name is Sally Schnell. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Board of Listeners, the Heinrich-Boell-Foundation, Ladies and Gentlemen! First of all, I like to express my thanks for inviting us to participate in this World Uranium Hearing here in Salzburg, so that we can share the opportunity to give testimony as witnesses of our experience with the atomic bomb disaster at Thule the 21st of January, 1968. We think it is indeed very important to look into and promulgate the health consequences for all the living beings that are victims of nuclear radiation.

Very few of you would probably know where to find Thule on the world map, but I hope you all know where Denmark is. Thule is the name of the northernmost district of the huge country Greenland, on the 76th latitude somewhat 900 kilometers from the North Pole. Thule, or now Dundas, is also the name of a former settlement of the indigenous people of Greenland, the Inuit. But in 1957 they were transferred to a nearby built village by the name Qanaq at Inglefield Bay about 160 kilometers North of Thule. The reason for this scrupleless transfer was the expansion of the Thule Air Base and the construction of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System. The site of the project was, of course, located at one of the best hunting grounds of the Inuits, namely the Wolstenholme Fjord.

Thule Air Base was constructed in 1951 by North-East Air Command under the U.S. Air Force, according to the agreement between United States and Denmark. In this agreement it was presupposed that the B-52 bombers carrying nuclear weapons and belonging to the Strategic Air Command [SAC] were not supposed to overfly let alone land on Thule Air Base. Through the years the Inuits and the Danish Thule workers have seen this happen many times, although nuclear weapons are not allowed in Greenland and Denmark, and Thule belongs to the Air Defence Wing and not SAC.

The 21st of January, 1968, it happened again, but this time in a form of an aircrash. A B52 loaded with four hydrogen bombs crashed on the sea ice eight to twelve kilometers West of Thule Air Base. All four bombs were destroyed in the crash and the content of plutonium, uranium, tritium and americium was spread over a vast area. We are here talking about 6,000 to 8,000 square miles. The smoke from the burning jet fuel drove South and Southeast towards the Inuit settlement Narssarssuk, eight kilometers from the site of the crash. In this settlement, a group of Inuit sealers and their families lived -- the report says "around 15 people". The first snow samples taken are from Narssarssuk the 28th of January, and analyses show that they emit alpha radiation. The snow samples from the very area of the crash and the Air Base taken both in 1968 and 1987, measured for, and contained, uranium and plutonium by the National Atomic Research Laboratory Riso. That they do every second year. The result shows that the tests, stated in mass concentration, contain about four times more uranium than plutonium. Stated in activity concentration the tests contain about 1,000 times less uranium than plutonium. The measurements also show that uranium content consists of about 50 percent uranium-235 and 50 percent uranium-238. For plutonium, the isotope grouping is about 59 percent plutonium-239 and about five percent plutonium-240. And this comes from four small glasses full with snow that have been hidden at the National Atomic Research Laboratory Riso for several years because they didn't find that it was so interesting to anyone.

Naturally, the Inuit sealers were the first to visit the area of the crash because they could arrive by dog sledge. But they did not know how dangerous it was to be exposed to radiation there. A month later, when the clean-up project on the frozen sea ice started, the Inuits helped the Americans to collect the pieces of the wreckage from the plane and the bombs which were to be transported back to the United States. We don't know anything about the precautions taken by the Americans as to protect the sealers against this extremely dangerous work. Nor do we know anything about what happened to all those American soldiers who came directly from Vietnam to do a no less precarious job at Thule. But we know that none of the Inuits are alive today.

In this dark winter, Thule was frequently ravaged by the very special polar hurricane up to 100 miles the hour. This happened twice just after the crash the 24th of January and the 27th of January. Usually, the wind blows from the Greenland icecap towards the bay, but under certain weather conditions the wind blows from the bay towards the base as it did during that particular month. We have tried to get hold of the weather maps from those days but they are not to be found in these official archives anymore. From the 23rd of January to the 24th of January, 1968, the weather over the Thule Air Base Area is military secret. But nowhere else in Greenland. It is the official opinion that the level of pollution in general was very low. Only four weeks after the crash and before the clean-up and the investigations had really started, the Danish-American Commission of Investigation released the following statement to the press: "It is agreed that under the present circumstances the radioactivity spread in the area does not constitute any danger for human beings or biological species, and nor is there any risk to be expected in the future." Political statements like that were a party to create a false feeling of safety. Moreover, the Thule crash was in 1968 a security political hot potato owing to the Marxist anti-Vietnam demonstrations in all cities in the western world.

The work of loading the fuel tanks with polluted snow was done by Danish Thule workers. And the work of transporting the often leaking tanks and containers and loading the ship with them was done by a Danish stevedoring team. A representative of that team recently told us at the founding convention of the Thule Association that out of a crew of 63 dockers only three were still alive. From among the office personnel in the Transportation Department, Danish Construction Corporation, working in the buildings on the pier, none is alive today. It is also food for thought that after the stevedoring in the summer of 1968, the buildings and everything on the pier were purposely set on fire and destroyed. They were afraid of the polluted pier up there. But then again, no precautions were taken to protect the workers.

Another group of people whom we have never heard mentioned in the different reports is the people living in Dundas, ten kilometers from the Air Base, the former Thule Inuit settlement, now a Danish weather and tele station. We can't tell you how many Danes and Inuits were living there. But recently we found out that six Danes employed by Danish Arctic Contractors and working at J-side (BMEWS) were living there, too. Only one of them is alive today.

When asked about the effectiveness of the control and examination of the personnel, the Thule workers decline that there was any control of importance. It was only the Americans and the health scientist from Riso National Laboratory, who wore irradiation detectors. No protecting dress was ever supplied to the Thule workers. Because of financial reason and maybe political reason, too, in the analyses of the urine tests from 87 Thule workers -- 53 Danish Thule workers and 25 Inuits -- the scientists used threshold limiting values for high radiation and not for low radiation. Therefore, the tests show no presence of plutonium above the limit. It was, therefore, concluded that a possible intake of plutonium must have been less than 300 Becquerel.

Sorry to have taken so much of your time, but I think we all share the same hope for the future. I myself can say I find that I have no need in my children's future and in my grandchildren for nuclear weapons and nuclear energy!

Thank you very much.