Operation CHASE

<p>Operation CHASE (an acronym for "Cut Holes And Sink 'Em") was a United States Department of Defense program for the disposal of unwanted munitions at sea from May 1964 until the early 1970s. Munitions were loaded onto ships to be <a href="/facts/Scuttled/kDeqTHM7">scuttled</a> once they were at least 250 <a href="/facts/Mile/e22bY569">miles</a> (400 <a href="/facts/Kilometre/hdQp79QE">km</a>) offshore. While most of the sinkings involved conventional weapons, four of them involved <a href="/facts/Chemical_weapon/AwXDDhAR">chemical weapons</a>. The disposal site for the chemical weapons was a three-mile (5 km) area of the Atlantic Ocean between the coast of the U.S. state of <a href="/facts/Florida/cF245A3Q">Florida</a> and the <a href="/facts/Bahamas/x6VKsUhj">Bahamas</a>. Other weapons were disposed of in various locations in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.  The CHASE program was preceded by the United States Army disposal of 8,000 <a href="/facts/Short_ton/b2fcrxHq">short tons</a> of <a href="/facts/Mustard_gas/e3qWU2Qp">mustard</a> and <a href="/facts/Lewisite/dXNbyngs">lewisite</a> chemical warfare gas aboard the scuttled SS <i>William C. Ralston</i> in April 1958. These ships were sunk by having <a href="/facts/Bomb_disposal/FQJI2y4b">Explosive Ordnance Disposal</a> (EOD) teams open <a href="/facts/Seacock/N9MfB06z">seacocks</a> on the ship after they arrived at the disposal site. The typical <a href="/facts/Liberty_ship/JuXDDY97">Liberty ship</a> sank about three hours after the seacocks were opened.
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Operation CHASE open-in-new

Operation CHASE