Loading summary
Transcript104 lines
- [00:01]
Gordon Carrera
Oh sheet. Honey, chill. It's just laundry. Not that I'm talking about these arm.
- [00:06]
David McCloskey
And hammer power sheets.
- [00:07]
Gordon Carrera
All the power of arm hammer laundry.
- [00:09]
David McCloskey
Detergent in a convenient tossable sheet.
- [00:12]
Gordon Carrera
Oh sheet.
- [00:13]
David McCloskey
That's what I'm saying.
- [00:15]
Gordon Carrera
And arm and hammer power sheets deliver an effective clean at a great price. Think of all the laundry we'll do and all the money we'll save. Oh sheet, Arm and hammer more power to you. Were you carrying nuclear bombs?
- [00:38]
David McCloskey
Major, as you know, I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons aboard an airplane.
- [00:43]
Gordon Carrera
I know that, but I really have to know.
- [00:45]
David McCloskey
I know that, but I'm not allowed to tell you.
- [00:47]
Gordon Carrera
Alright, let me put it another way. I'm sending out rescue parties. I need to know how close they can safely approach the crash site.
- [00:55]
David McCloskey
Major, I wouldn't go in 3,000ft of that son of a.
- [00:58]
Gordon Carrera
That tells me all that I need to know.
- [01:00]
David McCloskey
Well, welcome to the rest is classified. I'm David McCloskey.
- [01:03]
Gordon Carrera
And I'm Gordon Carrera.
- [01:05]
David McCloskey
And that for those who couldn't tell was B52CO pilot Joe DeMario talking to the base commander at Thule Air Force base in Greenland. So we left Joe demario in his parachute actually fleeing a and this is going to sound insane but it's true. Fleeing a burning B52 bomber carrying four thermonuclear weapons over Greenland in 1968. And we left Joe, he was falling out of that plane, he had parachute open, the plane is burning, there's nuclear bombs aboard and he is going to land on Greenland. Gordon. And we are telling in this kind of two parter on the Russia's classified we are telling the secret history of the largest island in the world and future site of my second home once the United States purchases it. I'm very much looking forward to my new life on Greenland. But we are telling a kind of dark underbelly of Greenland's history and its connection to the world of espionage and secret military sites.
- [02:14]
Gordon Carrera
That's right. And this crash in 1968 is a vital part of that history and understanding really Greenland's importance because as we said, part of the reason these nuclear bombers were flying there is because of this radar station which they're monitoring in case the Soviets take it out as a prelude to a first strike on the United States. And the nuclear bombers are there ready for a GOKO to kind of carry out their own attack on the Soviet Union. But after the fire, Joe Di Mario and the others have bailed out the bomber. Joe swings wildly in the Air as he's ejected by his ejector seat from the B52. He's looking down. He's right over the air base. This crucial air base at Thule. Still there, of course, is still very important. He's drifting down. He's hoping to hit soft snow, but instead he slams into hard ice and rolls over onto his back. He tries to release his parachute but his fingers are so cold, despite the fact he's wearing gloves, that his fingers won't kind of work properly to release the parachute. He has to use the flat of his hands to kind of smash the latch and release himself. Walks towards the hangar at the air base. One of the doors slowly opens. These are big, 60ft high steel doors. I mean, he thinks they've spotted it, but it's actually because a truck is coming into the hangar. And then he's taken to the, to the base operations where he has that conversation with the commander that we, we had at the start. So Joe's made it. The rest of the crew. I mean, six of the seven make it down one. It takes 20 hours to rescue him from the ice and he's got pretty.
- [03:44]
David McCloskey
Bad frostbite, we should say it's January, right? I mean, It's January of 1968. So it is completely dark on Greenland and just absolutely bitterly cold. While these guys are out there, the.
- [03:56]
Gordon Carrera
Sun does not rise, period. It doesn't rise at this point at all. And as we heard Last time, the B52 is unattended and flying. And then Joe has seen and heard and felt this blast hitting the base. And the flash alert is sent to US Air Force with the code name Broken Arrow, which means an accident involving nuclear weapons. It's a Sunday afternoon in Omaha, Nebraska.
- [04:23]
David McCloskey
Beautiful town, Beautiful town.
- [04:24]
Gordon Carrera
Home of strategic air command Major General Hunzicker, who is just finishing his lunch. 3pm local time. It's a late lunch, quite a late lunch. Sunday, guess Sunday, but also General. And he gets the call about this crash. And within about four or five hours he and a kind of disaster response team are going to be out on a KC135 heading to Greenland. So they are prepped, ready for this kind of accident and ready to go out there and respond.
- [04:51]
David McCloskey
And that is the start of a mission that is codenamed Crested Ice, which is going to actually end up running for much of, of 1968. And it is yet another. If you listen to the prior episode on the Secret History of Greenland, this is one of many wonderful Arctic code names that just sort of layer this Whole story, I think it's not the best one that we've talked about. Ice worm is probably the best. Crested ice, though, not bad. Give it a solid, solid C. And I guess when they arrive, it's totally dark. It's so cold that their flashlights will actually go dead in about 15 minutes when they're out searching. And the average temperature just to set this up is minus 40. Is that right, Gordon, or is that a. Is that a misprint here that notes one day it's minus 110. So. So sort of a possible dick called.
- [05:42]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah, it's like Texas is at this at the moment.
- [05:44]
David McCloskey
Well, right. And yeah, for those watching, I am still in my. My winter jacket. The temperature has been dropping, actually precipitously outside as we've been recording, and it's falling in my little recording studio as well. So it is very cold in here. So I'm fully in character for this rescue mission.
- [06:02]
Gordon Carrera
For crested ice.
- [06:03]
David McCloskey
For crested ice.
- [06:04]
Gordon Carrera
I mean, interestingly enough, when they were doing this rescue mission because Arctic storms could suddenly kind of descend on the base, so the local Inuits, the local population, actually built igloos for. For the US Military to shelter it. I just love this idea that you've got the US Military, the most advanced in the world, looking for a kind of nuclear weapons and doing a kind of recovery of a crash and having to use locally built igloos to shelter it. It's an interesting insight into how actually the local customs are actually pretty important because they've got no other way of surviving than relying on them in a way.
- [06:37]
David McCloskey
There was no tauntaun to slit open and tuck yourself into for warmth. Isn't that right, Gordon?
- [06:43]
Gordon Carrera
Just another Star wars reference for those, including Becky, one of our producers, who hasn't seen Star wars, which is a bit of a miss, anyway, that's another story. So this is crested ice. This is the search mission. You know, they initially take a helicopter out to look for the wreckage, and what's interesting is they can't see any wreckage from the plane. So at first they think the whole aircraft might have kind of gone through the ice, but actually it's broken up with debris all around, and the debris's almost instantly been covered by snowstorms.
- [07:11]
David McCloskey
I do have a question at this point, Gordon, which is this sounds insensitive, but obviously it's very important to try to rescue the crew. But what has happened to the four thermonuclear weapons that were aboard the B52? I mean, that seems.
- [07:26]
Gordon Carrera
That seems kind of Detail.
- [07:28]
David McCloskey
Where did those things go?
- [07:29]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah, so what, what had happened is the aircraft had, had actually started to shed its skin because it's coming in low at 525 knots. The outer frame literally peels off and then it's coming in quite shallow and it hits 3 foot feet thick ice on the bay at a shallow angle of around 20 degrees. This is about eight miles out on a bay from the base. It's a heavy plane weighing about 410,000 pounds. And because it hits at a shallow angle, three fourths of the momentum is forwards rather than downwards. The plane just kind of splatters along the ice breaking up. You know, the engines are found two miles south of the impact point as the velocity just kind of carries them on, packed full of jet fuel, because as we heard last time, it just done a refuel as well as the weapons. And so what happens is the high explosives of the nuclear bombs actually detonates as they're crushed.
- [08:20]
David McCloskey
What are the high explosives? I do like a good explanation of, you know, nuclear weaponry, Gordon.
- [08:25]
Gordon Carrera
I'll do my best. So there's a primary and the secondary. The primary is designed to trigger the secondary, which is the main charge, if you like. And this is important in this context because what's happened is that the primary is largely, but not exclusively high explosives and some plutonium which goes round the fissile core of the bomb, which is the big bomb. And what's happened is the main bomb bomb is not armed, but the high explosives have detonated around the bomb without actually triggering the nuclear chain reaction inside it. Now, if the bombs had been armed and they could have gone off by the high explosives going off, then, frankly, that could have started World War Three because the US might have seen a nuclear detonation at the base and assumed the Soviets had struck the base. And, you know, it's the start of World War 3, so could have been much worse.
- [09:12]
David McCloskey
And it probably is worth saying that radar that we talked about in the last episode, which can see incoming missiles over the North Pole, can see things that are the size of maybe a tennis ball 3,000 miles away as they're moving at incredible velocities. And the radar that wreaked havoc on Gordon Carrera's pacemaker during his visit when he toured the base, non existent pacemaker. That radar is kind of. I mean, I think it's one of the just prayers mentioning one of the through lines to today, because that station is still there and it is an absolutely critical piece of monitoring the Soviet military, the missile force, space and so this essentially a massive accident like this above, you know, and around sort of that radar station and military base. It has, you know, an incredible effect, I think, on the psychology now in.
- [10:04]
Gordon Carrera
Terms of what happened those to the bombs. I mean, the Pentagon officially says all four bombs were destroyed. Now that is true technically because the high explosives have detonated and the primaries have been destroyed. But I mean, this is the reason I went there in 2008 was to kind of investigate what had happened to this. We'd looked at some declassified documents. Now this is, we should say, disputed because a lot of the documents are still classified. But what seems to have happened, if you piece it together from the documents and accounts at the time, is that they can then find in that search in Crested ice, three of the four secondary nuclear devices. So that is the kind of fissile core of the bomb. They find those three pretty quickly. But the problem is the fourth three.
- [10:50]
David McCloskey
Out of four ain't bad though, right? I mean, that's.
- [10:51]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah, it's a slight problem. By March, they realize that they're missing some parts of the bomb. And the theory is that some of it went under the ice because most of the kind of fuel and debris creates a kind of blackened crust along the ice. But at one point of impact, the ice is shattered in about a 15 meter wide circle and almost instantly freezes over again. But it's pretty clear that some stuff has gone through that hole in the ice. The water's pretty shallow. So actually at this point, the US sends in a sub to look on the seabed about 600ft down to see if they can find these missing components.
- [11:28]
David McCloskey
And this sub looking at, I mean, just the picture of it, I mean, I don't know. I mean, my first thought, Gordon, was it looks like something you'd take for like a three hour tour. It looks like something out of Gilligan's island, this thing that they, they put underneath the water. But I guess it's got this interesting claw attached to it. And it's going to spend a lot of time up there, isn't it, looking around for this thing.
- [11:46]
Gordon Carrera
I mean, it looks like something from Thunderbirds. I think it's been described because it looks like a kind of toy sub, but it is a real.
- [11:52]
David McCloskey
No, it very much looks like a child's bathtub toy.
- [11:54]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah, it does, it does. But they send it down and it's quite clear that they are not finding everything. Now I'm going to acknowledge that when we did the story back 2008, 2009 became a bit of a. Kind of a bit of a thing with Denmark. It doesn't look like there was a whole bomb down there. And when we did our story, the Danish government then commissioned a report to respond to our story, to look into it, basically. And their report basically says there was no missing bomb. And I going to slightly take this opportunity to push back because they set up a straw man, which was. Our story was headlined the Lost Bomb. And as we know, a good title counts. And the report that was commissioned basically goes, no bomb was lost. You know, there was no lost bomb. But if you actually read the kind of full story rather than just the headline, you can see that we're talking about parts of a bomb and not the whole thing because we make clear that, you know, it broke apart when it hit the ice. And actually, when you read the whole of this Danish report, what it confirms is that part of the fissile core of one of the weapons does look to have been abandoned under the ice. Now they call it the Marshall's Baton.
- [12:59]
David McCloskey
Baton.
- [13:00]
Gordon Carrera
Baton.
- [13:01]
David McCloskey
Thank you for our American listeners because.
- [13:03]
Gordon Carrera
It'S about the kind of shape and size of a baton. But, you know, the report itself says that it's the fissile core of the thermonuclear secondary stage of the weapon, probably containing about 8kg of uranium 235. So I would still suggest that's kind of significant if that is abandoned beneath the ice and left behind, even if it's not a whole bomb.
- [13:26]
David McCloskey
You remember the Clancy novel, Sum of All Fears, where there's a missing nuclear weapon. It goes missing after the Six Day War, I believe the Israelis lose it and then pieces of it are recovered and then eventually, I believe, used in. In the United States. I mean, was that a possibility? I guess someone would have to get to it, of course. But was there sufficient material there that you could have actually, if someone had come into possession of it, they would have been able to turn it into a weapon?
- [13:54]
Gordon Carrera
Well, it is interesting because, I mean, I remember at the time talking to a US weapons designer who'd worked on the recovery and they said that classified pieces of the weapon were not recovered, but as they put it, they figured the US couldn't get it, but nor could anyone else because of where it had gone and where it was basically in the most remote place on earth. You could imagine if the US couldn't get it for months with its sub. I think the theory is anyone else who's looking for those classified components wouldn't be able to find it quickly or without them noticing at the nearby base. So I guess the decision is taken. We're just going to have to leave it there. And the risk is relatively low, so something was certainly left behind.
- [14:33]
David McCloskey
There's a bunch of like enriched uranium leaching into the ice then, right?
- [14:38]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah. Which we think is a bit of a problem. Even this Danish report that was commissioned says we cannot provide a final material balance on the nuclear material in the bomb. In other words, they acknowledge that they don't know what happened to all of that uranium and plutonium. And one of the problems is the amount of nuclear material in the bombs is actually classified because that's a kind of secret, which is how much you need to make a bomb. So for that reason it was never clear how much there was and the US has never said. But one of the controversies which has a legacy right through today is the effects for those involved in the cleanup and in the region, because Danish workers as well were involved in collecting some of the debris from the crash. And it's clear some of the plutonium was on the ice, was in the debris had moved into the environment. And half a million gallons of ice is actually shipped back to the us.
- [15:29]
David McCloskey
They're afraid it's contaminated now.
- [15:31]
Gordon Carrera
They're afraid it's contaminated. And some of the Danes involved would fall ill. And I interviewed one who'd, you know, raced to help and a group of them took a case to the European court to say, you know, that they'd fallen ill because of their role in this crash. But the problem is it's almost impossible years later to definitively prove a link between the ill health that they certainly experienced and the crash, you know, to actually prove it becomes very hard for them in their case. And I also visited the town of Kanak, which is the Inuit town, which is about 60 to 90 miles up the coast. And there some of the people also say they felt ill health. And I mean, one of the hunters who I went out with, you know, said he would for years afterwards find seals with their innards kind of almost cooked as if by radiation, with weird deformities amongst the seals. And so they were, you know, convinced that there was a legacy of some of that nuclear material having entered the ecosystem. I mean, the scientists have, have said there's nothing to worry about. And you know, the plutonium would have been diluted in such a large body of water. But there's certainly a feeling amongst locals, Danes who'd been involved in the clear up, and some of those local Inuit residents, that there's been a Cover up about the ill health effects and the legacy from that crash.
- [16:47]
David McCloskey
I guess it begs the question, I mean the dialogue we read up front suggests that of course no one was supposed to know that there were nuclear weapons aboard that plane. But I mean, did the Danes know right off the bat that there was a missing, you know, nuclear bomb? The US tried to keep that secret from Denmark as well.
- [17:05]
Gordon Carrera
Here's the big problem and this I think starts to take us to the, to the present some of the kind of tensions over Greenland because it was a big deal because Denmark had explicitly had a policy at the time of being a nuclear free zone. And Greenland is part of Denmark. It had once been a colony, but from 1953 it's effectively a kind of county of Denmark and it's supposed to be nuclear free. And so within hours of the crash the Danish foreign minister says there are no nuclear weapons in Greenland. The American authority is aware of Denmark's nuclear policy and the Danish government assumes there are no nuclear overflights of Greenland carrying nuclear weapons. And so the Danes are saying publicly that there's no nuclear weapons and that's not possible. And of course there are and this starts to cause some of the problems. But the US is particularly annoyed by this because they actually had a secret deal with the Danish government in 1957 saying that they could store nuclear weapons in Greenland. But this was secret and the Danes had basically not told their own public who were kind of pretty cautious and anti nuclear and worried about setting the Soviet Union. So you know, this is very, very awkward for the Danish government. The fact that there has been a crash and you cannot hide the fact that there's been a crash involving nuclear weapons when Greenland is supposed to be part of this nuclear free zone.
- [18:29]
David McCloskey
And it really seemed like it took a long time for that truth to come out because there were bombs situated for, I mean months at a time at dule in the 50s and in the 60s, a significant number for the Nike Hercules, you know, kind of surface to air missiles that were based there. I like how Gordon, we've approached sort of a Trumpy and anti Dane piece here. But like the Danes were covering this up, weren't they? I mean it was, it was essentially a forward operating base for our sort of nuclear deterrent for much of the Cold War. And they didn't tell their people about it, which I guess makes some sense.
- [19:03]
Gordon Carrera
Again, I don't want to sound too trumpy and about it myself, but I think there was this idea where the, where the Danes were leaning on the Kind of NATO nuclear umbrella to protect them. But we're saying, but we're nuclear free and you know, we don't want any of these nasty nuclear weapons. And that's their public stance. But privately from this 1957 deal, the Prime Minister said, yeah, you can base some nuclear weapons in Greenland if you need to, but just we're not going to tell anybody. So they're basically misleading their own public. And that only comes out in 1995, finally, that there has been this secret deal by the Danes to allow the US to store these weapons. So it takes many decades and is a kind of source of tension, I think, between the US and Denmark and Greenland about the fact there's been, let's say, a bit of misleading, if one were to, you know, be honest, a little bit of covering up about what had really happened in terms of the role that Greenland was playing in the Cold War as this kind of nuclear base effectively at certain points.
- [20:04]
David McCloskey
Well, we love a good cover up on. The rest is classified, don't we? So maybe there. Gordon, let's take a break and when we come back we will bring this story up to the present and talk about what missing nuclear bombs and this incredibly strategic base mean for Greenland now and for the art of the deal. Well, welcome back. We are talking now about the legacy of this horrific Broken Arrow incident, a lost nuclear weapon in Greenland. I mean, part of the legacy of the crash, Gordon, is that it says something about this complex relationship between Denmark and the US and Greenland, even today.
- [20:45]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah, that's right. I think the crash exposed the reality of the relationship. The way the US used it as a military base, the way the Danes had known about it and to some extent covered up some of the things that had happened and the way in which some people in Greenland I think felt that they were being exploited. And what you've seen since then, I think it's one of the factors which has led to a, you know, a greater drive for independence from Greenlanders, from that local population. I mean, at that time of the crash it was technically a Danish county, so part of Denmark itself. 1979, it gets home rule. Later, Greenland becomes self governing. Now the Danes certainly want to see themselves as a kind of benevolent overlords over Greenland. But stories have come out which I think have fueled that desire for independence. I mean, you know, there's a pretty horrific story about a large scale contraceptive campaign in which, you know, devices were fitted into women of childbearing age, sometimes without their consent on the island in the, in the 1960s, you know, of children being taken away from their parents. You know, this is all history from that time. But I think it has fueled the idea amongst Greenlanders that they have been treated as a kind of colony. In some ways, it's kind of dark colonial stuff, but also they have been reliant economically on Denmark. You know, there's a block grant of about half a billion pounds a year for economic help, and in return, they get access to kind of Danish welfare and health system. But that sense of the relationship fracturing, I think, has been growing, and opinion polls are showing that about two thirds of Greenland want independence from Denmark, and that seems to be the pretty strong direction of travel. Now, it's true they may not want the Danes, but it doesn't necessarily. They want to trade one colonial overlord for another, in this case the United States. That's one of the tensions here, is that they want independence rather than necessarily just independence from Denmark and to be in US hands. But I think the drive towards independence is one of the things which is also making the U.S. i think, nervous about the future of Greenland.
- [22:57]
David McCloskey
There's a great line during the first Trump campaign that said, you know, sometimes when you hear what he says, he's not to be taken literally, but oftentimes needs to be taken seriously. You know, I think the Greenland rhetoric is sort of classic Trumpian, right? I mean, number one, it's just. It's helpful for him, I think, to be seen fighting with European prime ministers. That's good politics for him. But you kind of scratch the surface of it and you see that. Well, I mean, in much of the story we've just talked about sheds light on these dynamics, that if Greenland becomes independent, what happens to essentially the military sovereignty that the US Exerts over the island today? What happens with respect to the mineral rights on Greenland? And one of the things we. We alluded to this, I think, briefly in the first episode, but it's possible that Greenland contains a very significant percentage of the world's kind of rare earth minerals, including a lot of the inputs for things like batteries and electric vehicles. And these minerals are deeply embedded into sort of military supply chains. There's even some estimates that Greenland might contain up to a quarter of many of the rare earths on the planet. And that rare issue is much more complicated than just, where are they? It's an issue around refining and production capacity and all of that. So I don't mean to gloss that over, but I think there is this sense that Donald Trump is hitting on a very real Fear maybe that this gigantic piece of land in an increasingly strategic part of the world could fall out of the US's sphere of influence, potentially down the line.
- [24:39]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah, I think that's right. And it's worth saying that there is a competition for control of these critical minerals, these rare earths, with China in particular. And I think the fear is that China, and to some extent Russia could increase their influence over Greenland, particularly as it moves towards more independence and requires economic investment. The danger is for the US that it turns to China and to some extent Russia for that economic support.
- [25:06]
David McCloskey
Well, and right now, this delicate dance, I guess, between the US and Denmark and Greenland, I mean, it plays out in very practical ways with respect to Chinese influence, because China has tried to buy rare earth mining site in Greenland. They tried to underwrite the construction of airports, buy an abandoned naval base in Greenland. And the way the United States was able to block those attempts to sort of build up its influence inside Greenland was to go and pressure the Danish government to pressure Greenland to reject the Chinese offers. And so I think there would be this real concern that maybe not in the next six months, but five, ten years down the road, if Greenland's independent, is the United States able to use that kind of same lever, push the Danes to then push the Greenlanders? And with Denmark out of the picture, I think that question mark gets bigger.
- [26:00]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah, that's right. And all of this is happening as the Arctic returns to being a kind of key theater for competition and kind of great power competition. We talked about how in the early Cold War, they realized how important it was, but it's getting more important again. And that's particularly due to climate change. And I think the impact of climate change on national security is really underappreciated. And the importance of Greenland is a really good example of that, because it is the idea that the melting ice is creating new shipping lanes, new sea lanes, new places in which competition is going to be played out. And the Russians are busy. I mean, they are building up bases in the Arctic. You know, they have this huge kind of stretch of land which is up against the Arctic, and they are busy building bases and moving their ships up there. And the Chinese have also been busy building icebreakers and sailing them up through the Arctic and becoming more involved there, even though they're not classically an Arctic power. So there is this sense that the Arctic is becoming more important, and therefore Greenland and its strategic position is also going to become even more important in the future.
- [27:08]
David McCloskey
The Chinese call it the Polar Silk Road, Gordon, which Is a great word as well. The shipping point is fascinating because it is so, relatively speaking new there sort of season of ice free travel in the Northwest Passage that links the Atlantic and the Pacific runs from July to September. But before 2007 it wasn't open. So not even 20 years ago, you know, you didn't have this, this shipping lane. And between really in the last decade, Arctic shipping kind of in total is up like 40%. Right? So these kind of lanes for commerce, potential lanes of approach from a military standpoint, are more and more open. And again, you know, I think our concept, so many of us, we talked about this in the previous episode. So many of us have this concept of the Arctic as being sort of distant from us. Or when you spread a flat map out and you look at it, you think, well, we're not actually that close to the Russians or the Chinese. But the reality is all of those Russian bases that kind of ring its Arctic region and they have significantly more than, than we do. I think we have five bases on Alaska, just one Petufic, formerly Dule on Greenland. The Russians have, have many more. You know, we should probably think about those bases as really bordering us, you know, in, in many respects. Whereas if you just kind of pin them on a flat map, you would think they're very distant from us, but they're actually because it's a globe, right? It's a sphere. And that is where that positioning of Greenland matters so much. I mean, even the kind of, you know, wild Trumpy quote I read at the beginning of the prior episode where he's talking about Chinese ships and Russian ships, I mean those sea lanes are, are the real deal. If Russia wanted to send crude to China by boat, it used to take a month because they would have to go through the Suez. And now if they send them on those Arctic lands, it takes two weeks. It's a very real impact on shipping costs, on commerce and on the projection of military force.
- [29:17]
Gordon Carrera
And the militaries are certainly busier up there as well as it becomes more important. You've had Russian planes flying over the Arctic. I mean, you've got more submarine activity. And that Greenland, Iceland, UK gap which we mentioned last time, this kind of choke point, you know, it was there for kind of German U boats in, in the Second World War. And it's important for submarines now, for Russian submarines which might be heading towards the atlant. That's often one of the routes that they might go by, you know. So all of this I think suggests that Greenland's military And strategic importance has not diminished. If anything, it's growing. And, you know, it's got that radar there on top of the world, you know, scanning for missile launches and also out into space, which is also a kind of a key battleground increasingly for militaries to operate in and for great power competition. And that radar station is vital. So for all these reasons, I guess what we're saying is there is a reason behind the talk about Greenland. It's not as kind of obscure as people might think when they first heard it. Why would anyone want this kind of big ice sheet? Or why would Donald Trump be talking about it? There are actually national security reasons why the US Might be interested in having or maintaining or increasing control of it in some way, even if buying it in a Trumpy way is not necessarily the most diplomatic way of talking to the Danes or the Greenlanders or others about it.
- [30:41]
David McCloskey
Or maybe Gordon, there could also be spiritual reasons for purchasing it. Right?
- [30:46]
Gordon Carrera
Spiritual reasons.
- [30:47]
David McCloskey
Spiritual reasons for purchasing it. Well, this is where this is disconnected somewhat from the national security conversation. But there is a cluster of people in kind of Trump world, I guess you could say conservatives in the States who would look at Greenland as a new frontier, potentially. Right. We Americans love a good frontier. We like that frontier to sort of remain open for a while so we can send people out to help close it. And I think it does seem like there's some sense of. I don't think this is necessarily why Trump is making these pronouncements. I think it's. It is more connected to the kind of military strategic issues we've been talking about. But there is a sub segment of this story that's also kind of wacky in the sense of wanting to have an open frontier to sort of revive this kind of pioneering spirit. I would say, yeah, the kind of.
- [31:43]
Gordon Carrera
19Th century spirit of a kind of expanding America. I mean, that's something which I think Donald Trump kind of harkens back a little bit to whether it's Panama or Greenland. But also, as you said, I think there's some of the kind of tech bros around him who've had this idea about creating offshore colonies, about, you know, kind of new beginnings. There's an ideology of expansion and frontiers, ism, if that's a word, which I think Greenland kind of captures somehow that there is that kind of strata to it as well, of the thinking and then the reasons why people are kind of captivated by that. But there is also a little bit of it which does feel a bit 19th century imperial. Dare I Say it as a country which threw off its colonial overlords in the 18th century, now seems to be keen to take on its own kind of colonial possessions or at least absorb them into the nation.
- [32:35]
David McCloskey
Well, it would be the first expansion of territory for the United states since the McKinley administration annexed Hawaii. Hawaii was annexed, territory becomes a state. But this would be the first actual new piece of absorbed territory, you know, were Trump able to, to do this deal, which seems unlikely, I say that to, I think just say that you're, you're right and it kind of harkens back to, or it seems to hearken back to this earlier era of kind of more raw kind of colonialism. It is interesting though, when you think about not going to side with the, the tech pros necessarily here, but it is a piece of territory that has 50 plus thousand inhabitants. And if you placed Greenland over the continental US it would stretch from the southern tip of Texas to north of the Canadian border. So you can kind of see how it excites a piece of the imagination around an unsettled piece of land that is potentially going to be more habitable, more important in the future. So it's all that to say that it's this Trumpian show of strength and always good to have a fight with, you know, European Prime Minister over something. But below the surface, Greenland, actually, for those listening in, you know, the UK and in the US I mean, it matters to our kind of collective security. It really does.
- [34:01]
Gordon Carrera
So hopefully what we've showed over these episodes is just how Greenland is more than just a kind of rhetorical flourish for the Trump administration. But actually there is some kind of hard edge security behind it as the Arctic opens up. And the secret history, I think of Greenland, the secret bases, Project Iceworm, you know, the Broken Arrow incident, all tell you that this is actually a place that matters a lot more than you might think it does. So with that, thanks for listening.
- [34:31]
David McCloskey
Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. Now, I've got a question for you listeners. Do you want your brand to be the next NordVPN?
- [34:46]
Gordon Carrera
Now, David, you know that I love NordVPN.
- [34:49]
David McCloskey
I do know this and I love.
- [34:51]
Gordon Carrera
The support that they have been showing the show. But I'm certain some of our listeners have been listening to other adverts on the Rest is Classified and they've thought my brand, my brand would fit here.
- [35:03]
David McCloskey
Well, we can make that happen. You can have your brand right here on the Rest Is Classified and other shows right across the Goal hanger network. Say goodbye to random ads and say hello to your brand and a whole bunch of of lovey feely, caring listeners.
- [35:18]
Gordon Carrera
So it is worth explaining who Goal Hanger are. They are the production company, the maestros behind. The Rest is Classified along with the Rest is history. The Rest is politics, Empire and a whole host of other shows. Now if you want to get your brand out there, they're the people to talk to and they want to hear from you.
- [35:36]
David McCloskey
They do. And that's why they're throwing a gathering in March in Holborn, London for anyone who would like to advertise with us. Various Goal Hanger hosts will be giving talks and it's your chance to meet the people who can get your brand across the Goal Hanger network.
- [35:50]
Gordon Carrera
I'll be there. And if you want to learn more about the Goal Hanger network, you can go to their brand new website, www.goalhanger.com. that's Goalhanger H-A-N-G-E-R.com to read more. And whilst you're there, you can register your interest for the March event. So I'll see you there.
- [36:08]
David McCloskey
There's a double agent, A mole working for Moscow inside the upper reaches of CIA hi, I'm David McCloskey, co host of the Rest Is Classified. And in my latest novel, the Seventh Floor, an operation gone wrong has CIA officer Artemus Proctor convinced there is a mole working for the Russians. But who is it? To find the answer, she will have to dredge up her checkered past in service of CIA investigating a short list of her dearest friends and most cherished enemies. This is a story of modern day espionage tradecraft, a peek at the actual spy war between Washington and Moscow. And most of all, it's a story about what friendship means in a faithless business. The book is available now in hard copy and all good bookshops and also online in ebook and audio formats.
- [36:51]
C
Hi there, I'm Al Murray, co host of we have Ways of Making youg Talk, the world's premier Second World War history podcast from Goal Hanger and I'm.
- [36:59]
D
James Holland, best selling World War II historian. And together we tell the best stories from the war. This time we're doing a deep dive into the last major attack by the Nazis on the west, the Battle of the Bulge.
- [37:12]
C
And what's so fascinating about this story is we've been able to show how quite a lot of the popular history about this battle is kind of the wrong way around, isn't it Jim? The whole thing is a disaster from the start. Even Hitler's plans for the attack are insane and divorced from reality.
- [37:25]
D
Well, you're so right. But what we can do is celebrate this as an American success story for the for ages. From their generals at the top to the gis on the front line. Full of gumption and grit, the bold should be remembered as a great victory for the usa.
- [37:39]
C
And if this sounds good to you, we've got a short taste for you here. Search we have ways, wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks.
- [37:51]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah.
- [37:51]
D
Anyway, so who is Oberheim? Joachim Piper.
- [37:55]
C
But I see his jaunty hat and I just think skull and crossbones. Well, I see his reputation and I think, you know, you, he might be a handsome devil, but the emphasis is on the devil bit rather than the handsome.
- [38:05]
D
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, be that is May. He's 29 years old and he's got, he's got a very interesting career really because he comes from a, you know, a pretty right wing family. Let's face it. He's joined the SS at a pretty early, early stage. He's very. International socialism. He's also been Himmler's adjutant. Yeah, he took a little bit of time off in the summer of 1940 to go and fight with, with the 1st Waffen SS Panzer Division.
- [38:27]
Gordon Carrera
Yep.
- [38:27]
D
Did pretty well. Went back to being Himmler's adjutant, then went off and commanded troops in, in the Eastern Front. Rose up to be a pretty young regimental commander. I mean it's not many people that age are no Besturm Banfuhrer, which is sort of. Colonel.
- [38:40]
C
Yes, I, you see, what must it have been like if you're in, if Himmler's adjutant turns up and he's been posted to you as an officer, do you think? Well, he only got that job because of, because of his connections. For Piper, it must have been always. He's always having to prove himself, surely, because he's, he has turned up.
- [38:56]
D
Up.
- [38:57]
C
He's not worked his way through the ranks of the Waffen ss. He's dolloped in. Having come from head office, as it were. It must be a peculiar position to be in. Right. He's got lots to prove. Right, that's what I'm saying.
- [39:08]
D
Yeah. And he's, he's, he's from a sort of middle class background as well.
- [39:12]
C
Yeah.
- [39:12]
D
But he's got an older brother who's had mental illness and attempted suicide and never, never really recovers and actually has died in. Of TB eventually in 1942. He's got a younger brother called Horse. He's also joined the SS&TOTEN cop Verbanda. And died in a never really properly explained accident in Poland in 1941. Right. Piper gains a sort of growing reputation on the Eastern Front for being kind of very inspiring. Fearless, you know, obviously courageous, you know, all the guys love him, all that kind of stuff. But he's also orders the entire. The destruction of entire village of Krasnaya Pollyanna in a kind of revenge killing by Russian partisans. Yeah. And his unit becomes known as the Blowtorch Battalion because of his penchant for touching Russian villages. So he's got all the gongs. He's got Iron Cross, second Class, first Class Cross of Gold, Knight's Cross. Did very well at Kursk briefly in Northern Italy, actually, then in Ukraine, then in Normandy. He suffers a nervous breakdown. Yeah. And he's relieved of his command on the 2nd of August. And he's hospitalized from September to October. So he's not in command during Operation Lutech. And then he rejoins 1st SS Panzer Regiment as its commander again in October 1944. It's really odd.
- [40:23]
C
I mean, but isn't that interesting, though, because if you're a lancer, if you're an ordinary soldier, you're not allowed to have a nervous breakdown. You don't get hospitalized, you don't get time off. How you could interpret this is. This is a sort of Nazi princeling, isn't he? He's Himmler's adjutant. He's demonstrated the necessary Nazi zeal on the Eastern Front and all this sort of stuff. It comes to Normandy, where they. Where they're losing. Why else would he have a nervous breakdown? He's shown all the zeal and application in the Nazi manner up to this point, and they're losing, you know, and. Because he's a knob, you know, because he's well connected, he gets to be hospitalized. A nervous breakdown. He isn't told like an ordinary German soldier. There's no such thing as combat fatigue, mate. Go back to work.
- [41:00]
D
Yes. And it's a nervous breakdown, not combat fatigue.
- [41:02]
C
Well, yes, of course, but.
- [41:03]
D
But, you know, what's the one SS soldier said of him? Piper was the most dynamic man I ever met. He just got things done.
- [41:10]
C
Yeah.
- [41:10]
D
You get this image I have of him of. Of having this kind of sort of slightly manic energy. Yeah, kind of. He's virulently National Socialist. He's got this great reputation. He's damned if anyone's going to tarnish it. You know, he's a. He's a driver, you know, all those things.
- [41:25]
C
He's trying to make the will triumph, isn't he? He's working towards the Fuhrer. He's imbued with. He knows what's expected of him. Extreme violence and cruelty and pushing his men on. I mean, he's sort of. He's the Fuhrer Princip writ large, isn't he? As a. As an SS officer. Yeah, which is why cruelty and extreme violence are bundled in to wherever he goes, basically.