In Search of a B-52 Bomber

If some of you out there are like me, you hate what the summer brings to Sag Harbor and the rest of the Hamptons. Crowds, rudeness, ripoffs etc. Ten years ago I had enough of this shit and decided to rent a waterfront cottage for the summer on Moosehead Lake, near the Village of Greenville, Maine. I discovered Greenville accidentally a year earlier, after white water rafting one August on the Dead River. Not wanting to spend another night in a tent, I saw on a map, the Village of Greenville was about 40 miles from my campsite. I drove over and rented a room in the one and only motel. The town is like Sag Harbor was 40 years ago. Population about 2500. They still burn garbage at the dump, and the local drug store has a soda fountain. And all summer long the place is mostly devoid of tourists, unlike Bar Harbor, Freeport and other coastal towns in Maine. Now that I have let out the best kept secret, and the town will be invaded like Sag Harbor was about 30 years ago, I will continue with this story.
I always make a point to drive up to Greenville each summer, a day or so before the 4th of July weekend and all hell arrives in the Hamptons. I do the 12 hour drive up I-95 as I got a lot of shit to carry, and although there are a couple of seaplane bases near my cabin, flying would not be practical due to my need for transporting kayaks, mountain bikes, satellite dishes, Labrador retrievers, etc.
Anyway, there is not a whole lot to do in Greenville, so sometimes I watch the guys in the lumberyard move stuff around on their forklifts. During a chat with one of them, during my first summer at Greenville, he wanted to know if I had visited the B-52 crash site nearby on Elephant Mountain. I said I didn't, and he related the following story. In January of 1963 a B-52 with a crew of half a dozen or more were flying in the area on a weather mission, when their vertical stabilizer tore off due to turbulence. Three were able to bail out before the jet crashed into Elephant Mountain . Two survived the night in minus 30 degree weather and were rescued the next day. The lumberyard worker gave me directions to the crash site a few miles outside of town on land owned by the Scott Paper Company. When I checked it out, I found it unusual that while the Air Force removed their secret equipment, I assume a pair of H-Bombs for example, they left the remains of most of the jet. Walking in the woods, I suddenly found myself in a large debris field from a plane crash 45 years ago. Tires, fuselage, even a leather flight jacket still tangled in the wreckage. It was a little weird to say the least. The site is visited each year by about 2500 people. The local mountain club looks after the site. Don't even think of taking anything from the site. They frown upon such actions as it is considered a shrine!
Some of the B-52 Wreckage from 1963 Crash