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By DAN DEARTH
November 10, 2010
dan.dearth@herald-mail.com
Army Sgt. 1st Class William D. Ramsey was sleeping in the early morning hours of Jan. 13, 1964, when he received an emergency call to report to his unit at Fort George G. Meade, Md.
“All they said was to come to the unit to be briefed,” said Ramsey, who now lives in Hagerstown. “When we arrived, they told us what we had — a B-52 down with nuclear weapons.”
It was 3 a.m., when Ramsey and two other soldiers in the 28th Ordnance Detachment jumped into a jeep and began driving west in a blizzard toward the crash site on Big Savage Mountain in Garrett County, Md. As explosive specialists, the 28th’s job was to secure two nuclear bombs that were aboard the aircraft and render them safe.
Ramsey said the snow was so deep on U.S. 40 that they had to stop at the Maryland State Police barrack in Frederick, Md., to put chains on their tires.
