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CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, 24 January 1968 By George W, Ashworth The Christian Science Monitor Recovery of hydrogen bombs lost beneath the ice' off Greenland will be an extremely difficult and costly task. A B'52 bearing the hydrogen bombs crashed Sunday while attempting an emer gency landing at Thule Air Base on the western side of Greenland. The plane appa rently crashed, into the ice, covering North Star Bay. As the plane burned, the six-tonine foot thickness of ice beneath melted and plunged wreckage to the bottom of the bay, possibly carrying- the hydrogen bomb load The temperature was in the 20’s, below freezing, and the ice quickly closed over the hole. Six of seven crewmen were saved. Full details were not immediately avail able. The Pentagon’s initial reaction was to cast a veil of secrecy around all but the barest facts relating to the incident. ■ But it was clear that a serious difficulty was pos ed. The Air’"For ce says proudly that it has never lost a nuclear weapon despite a number of accidents. Never be fore, however, has'that service had. to cope with such circumstances. In the coming weeks, the ice in the area erations will be .hampered by the lack of light, there'being now only about four hours of twilight daily. During World War II, a B-17 bomber crashed through ice off Greenland in early winteu. It was only about 100 feet down, but weather and ice conditions prevented the start of salvage efforts until warmer In this situation, the conditions are worse, but the urgency of recovery, of at least the The closest parallel in recent times to the current incident was the loss in waters off Spain of one of four bombs being carried by a B-52 when it collided with a refueling tanker and crashed, Three of the bombs scattered on land and were recovered quick ly, However, it was not until nearly three months after the January, 1966, accident that the Navy was able to recover the fourth from the deep waters off the coast. The bomb off Spain was eventually re covered at a depth of about 2,800 feet. The bombs believed lost off Greenland are ap parently in substantially shallower water, but the ice and. weather conditions present prodigious obstacles to a reco'very operation. According to experts, a constant problem, once the bombs are found, would be keep ing the locations and positions of underwater recovery vehicles and the bombs fixed. The Navy has available deep submerg ence craft, such as the Alvin, capable of conducting painstaking searches of the bot tom of the bay. But such vehicles can oper ate a maximum of about 72 hours under water before they must resurface. Any na craft from surfacing when necessary could lead to tragedy. And it is very difficult for such vehicles to find their -way back up. through small openings in the ice. A further problem would be keeping those openings cleared in the extreme .cold of the Arctic Experts believe that the bombs and plane "could not be far from the scene of the crash. Thus the search area is narrowed. But acoustical detection equipment could [encounter difficulties because of undersea obstructions that could easily prolong the According to the Pentagon, th«re is no danger of a nuclear explosion. Thus, with no apparent danger, it may be possible to 1 delay operations cither until the most so phisticated equipment available can be got ten to the isolated site or to delay.while awaiting more favorable weather. With or without delay, however, crews face an extremely difficult and perilous