THE SPADGUYS SPEAK

Carrying a Nuke to Sevastopol

You can now carry this web folder in your pocket, in the form of an e-book for Amazon's Kindle reader and its various apps for computers, smartphones, and tablets. Carrying a Nuke to Sevastopol: One pilot, one engine, and one plutonium bomb costs a token $2.99 (a bit more outside the U.S.). It's available at Amazon stores in the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy. If you don't live in one of those blessed countries, then shop at Amazon.com in the U.S. (surcharge applies). For more about the Kindle reader, click here.

The e-book and this folder came out of an article I wrote for Foundation magazine to answer the question: what would it be like to fly a prop-driven Douglas Skyraider carrying a nuclear bomb on the first day of World War III? By great good fortune, I struck up an email correspondence with a dozen "Spadguys." Over the course of four months, they answered my questions and tutored me in the arts of driving a World War II aircraft at an altitude of 50 feet, so as to sneak in beneath enemy radar, then to execute a high-G pullup and "loft" the bomb toward the target, meanwhile doubling back the way you'd come. "Crazy days," as one of them wrote.

At the end, I printed out the emails as a 100-page book for the editors to use for fact-checking. The emails were so fascinating that (with permission) I've posted them here for others to enjoy. Here they are:

• Carrying a Nuke to Sevastopol (the article as published)
• 'Crazy Days': the Spadguys' emails (10 files)
• Second thoughts: letters to the editor

These emails are copyright by the men who wrote them, and no use of them can be made without their permission.

Spad stuff available here or elsewhere:

• Byron Hukee's journal of his tour in Vietnam
• The Able Dogs Skyraider page
• Homepage of the Skyraider Association
• Spad Two goes missing in Laos

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