Titan II Missile Site

[jdm56]

I watched a show about the JFK presidency the other night. It is sobering to realize how close both sides came to pushing the button in '62. Thank God JFK was on his game. Actually, I'm not sure if at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, we even had our Minuteman silos up and running here in MO, yet. They may have been put in later. If they had been here, and the birds had flown, I almost certainly wouldn't be here today. For that matter, neither would a lot of the rest of us, I suppose.[:S]

[picky]

I always find old missile site photos to be very interesting. The way they look reminds me a lot of "the hatch" on the TV show 'Lost'.

By the way, there used to be many underground Nike-Hercules missile sites all around here in the Metro Detroit area from back in the early 1950s. The scary part is that some are still here with homes built not far away. Of course, the missiles and fuel are long gone.......or are they? I remember at one site in particular on Pennsylvania Road (near Fort Street) in Riverview, MI about 25 years ago they excavated a Nike site IFC area (fire control) to make room for a neighborhood. Weeks later, a curious youth strolled through the excavated and cleared site in search of any remnants. Unfortunately, the young man found a wire coming out of the ground that was still live. He was electrocuted and died. Condominiums now occupy the space where the command post once was. It's Riverview-Wyandotte Nike Site D-54 and the missle pits are still there under a city park. The site had 60 Ajax missiles and 24 launchers. They are capped off by concrete and a soccer field exists above the pits. In the park a plaque and an inert, full-sized model of a Nike missle are displayed today (shown in the photo below). The government has washed its hands of the site and the city is deliberating over what to do, if anything, about the remaining possible ground contamination. -Glenn

[Wrench722]

I was at one of the sites one time when a bull dozer cut all the land lines to that missile site. Loss of communications is assumed to be from an attack. The Site Commander and Deputy put in the keys and started getting the missile ready to lanch. They then got on the HF radio and called SAC to find out if the indications they had of an attack were real. Then they went back to normal alert status after being told there was no attack in progress. I was glad my HF radio that I had gone out to repair was working right by that time. Would have been a bummer for WW3 to start because I messed up a repair on a radio.

Bob Crites

That had to almost as scary as when in 1983 Mathew Broderick broke into WOPR at NORAD and almost set of WWWIII. Luckly disaster is narrowly averted when Lightman teaches WOPR to play tic tac toe against itself, resulting in endless drawn games. Realizing that the game is impossible to win, WOPR then cycles through all the nuclear war scenarios it has devised, all of which end with no winner due to mutual assured destruction. WOPR observes that " the only move is not to play" and simply ceases playing. Finally, WOPR decides it would prefer "a nice game of chess."

You may have read about that one.

Hell I would piss on a sparkplug if it would help!

[Wrench722]

I was at one of the sites one time when a bull dozer cut all the land lines to that missile site. Loss of communications is assumed to be from an attack. The Site Commander and Deputy put in the keys and started getting the missile ready to lanch. They then got on the HF radio and called SAC to find out if the indications they had of an attack were real. Then they went back to normal alert status after being told there was no attack in progress. I was glad my HF radio that I had gone out to repair was working right by that time. Would have been a bummer for WW3 to start because I messed up a repair on a radio.

Bob Crites

That had to almost as scary as when in 1983 Mathew Broderick broke into WOPR at NORAD and almost set of WWWIII. Luckly disaster is narrowly averted when Lightman teaches WOPR to play tic tac toe against itself, resulting in endless drawn games. Realizing that the game is impossible to win, WOPR then cycles through all the nuclear war scenarios it has devised, all of which end with no winner due to mutual assured destruction. WOPR observes that " the only move is not to play" and simply ceases playing. Finally, WOPR decides it would prefer "a nice game of chess."

You may have read about that one.

Hell I would piss on a sparkplug if it would help!

[esmith4145]

Hi Bob,

I've been aware of your work for sometime but I never knew you were a Titan II guy. I was a Titan II Electronics Tech from '79-'83. I run a website just for ex 308SMW guys www.308smw.com

sold Klipsch at a Hi-Fi store in upstate NY right after I got out of the service.....

[edwinr]

That was fascinating. Thanks for posting that link.

[Coytee]

Something about that missle gives me the heebie jeebies...

[Daddy Dee]

mee to.

It looks much more benign in pics with a Gemini capsule mounted as the payload.

The 9 megaton nuke package is scary indeed.