In the upper aft section of the B-52, just forward of the vertical stabilizer (tail surface) two huge hoppers held the supply of chaff bundles. A dispenser system ejected the packets of chaff when commanded to do so by the electronic warfare officer (EWO). Dispensing could be controlled to eject just one or two packets or a whole stream, depending upon the size of the radar-confusing cloud and tactics necessary.

Sometimes things didn't always work as planned. If the bombers sat on the flight line during rainstorms, water often leaked into the chaff hopper and soaked the cardboard bundles of chaff. When the airplanes took flight and reached high altitudes the air was well below freezing. The those chaff packets froze into solid blocks of ice.

When the dispenser began ejecting the frozen chaff bundles, the aluminized strips did not scatter. No indeed, they remained as tightly bound frozen blobs and descended to earth still in tact. Fortunately, we chose wide open, unpopulated areas to dispense the chaff. Usually, that is. I am sure that some of those big ice cubes landed in farm pastures, barnyards and even on rooftops.

We never got any reports of people injured or property damaged by the falling ice blocks, but they could have been devastating. We did get reports of livestock eating the scatter foil strips and farmers were pretty unhappy about that.