In 1958, Mars Bluff, a rural community near in South Carolina, experienced a surreal catastrophe when an American B-47 bomber accidentally dropped an unarmed nuclear bomb on a family farm. The bomb, which carried 7,600 pounds of metal and TNT, created a 50-foot-wide crater and obliterated the Gregg family's property. Miraculously, no one was killed.
Speaking to The Post and Courier, Helen Gregg Holladay, six years old at the time, recalled the explosion that leveled their home and nearby pine forest:
Six-year old Helen Gregg Holladay was playing in her yard when the nuclear bomb fell on her family's farm. It landed almost on top of a playhouse just 100 yards from her home. Minutes beforehand, Holladay and her cousin had been at that very spot, she said.Holladay emerged from the bombing largely unscathed, as did her older brother and sister, Walter Jr. and Francis. Their cousin — Ella Davis Hudson — wasn't so lucky. She suffered a deep gash above her eye. Gregg's parents — Walter and Effie — were both injured as well.
The damage fanned out from the family farm.
All that was left of the play place and the pine forest were splinters. The Greggs' house collapsed. A nearby church and several other homes were damaged as well.
The crater is now obscured by overgrowth and littered with debris. It could soon vanish due to encroaching development. Historian Steven Smith and curator Stephen Motte advocate for preserving the crater, emphasizing its historical significance.
Previously:
• Castle Bravo: the chilling history of the 1954 US nuclear bomb test
