Standing Watch:
-the story of-
Deer Park's Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
1961-1965
by
Wally Lee Parker
© Clayton Historical Society — 2006 — all rights reserved
United States Copyright Office Certificate of Registration # TX 6-453-528

I

 

... there were rumors ...

 

               The rumors started in the summer of 1958 — rumors saying inquiries about large tracts of land around the municipal airport were being made — rumors saying government surveyors were crawling all over the Deer Park area, taking measurements and asking questions.

               Something big was going on.

               By summer's end the rumors were saying the military planned to build a multi-million dollar missile base close to Deer Park, with lots of new jobs for the locals.

               Deer Park and Clayton were ripe for rumors.  Just a year before one of the area's major employers, the Clayton brick plant, had shut down.  Any rumor suggesting a chance for economic growth was worth grasping.

               Everyone in the country was nervous.  During the closing months of 1957 the entire nation had been shaken by three troubling events.  For several years the Navy's Vanguard satellite project had promised that the world's first "artificial moon" would be launched in 1958 — and would be American.  But in October of '57, and again in November, the Russians orbited satellites.  America's spirit was bruised again in early December when the much-publicized Vanguard rocket blew up during a test.

               Doctor Edward Teller, creator of the American hydrogen bomb, described this set of events as a "technological Pearl Harbor".  Doctor Teller wasn't just speaking of the damage to American pride.  The rockets that launched the Sputniks were military, and what was shot into orbit could be dropped back to earth.  Satellites or bombs, the Russian's could do either.  No place was safe.

               Unlike the average citizen, steeped in the myth of American technological superiority, not everyone was surprised by Russia's capabilities.  Farsighted scientific, military, and political leaders in Russia and America had understood since the close of World War II that topping a long-range rocket with a nuclear warhead would create the ultimate weapon.  Like the German V-2, once such a device began clawing its way out of the atmosphere, nothing on this Earth could stop it.  While Russian scientists, when speaking of massive "transatlantic rockets", were listened to by the Soviet version of the military/industrial complex, in America such visionaries were fighting an uphill battle.

               In 1946 the Air Force initiated an on-off relationship with a company called Consolidated-Vultee — contracting with them to study and develop systems for long-range rockets.  Over the years, Vultee came up with two exceptionally innovative concepts.

               First was the "steel balloon" design.  Intended to save weight, this design did away with the need for a nose to tail framework.  Rather it pressurized the rocket's vertically stacked fuel tanks — much like blowing up an inner tube — to make them rigid.

               Second was the stage-and-a-half design.  The rocket would lift-off with all its engines firing.  Then, part way through the powered portion of the flight, some of the rocket engines and their associated assemblies would shut down and jettison, again reducing weight.

               In 1951 the inner circles of government, stimulated by a growing suspicion that eventual conflict with a technologically advanced Soviet Union was probable, began to become serious about intercontinental ballistic missiles.  That seriousness was reinforced in 1953 when the Russians, less than a year after Americans exploded the world's first hydrogen device, exploded a hydrogen bomb of their own — a device that was actually more scientifically sophisticated and usable as a rocket delivered weapon than the research device the Americans had detonated.

               By 1954 a flood of classified reports regarding Russian capabilities and intent finally forced the government to act.  The decision was made to build a workable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system as soon as possible.  And certainly build it before the end of the decade — the point at which those privy to that secret intelligence expected the Russians to have a deployable long range missile.

               Since the United States needed a workable system quickly, it was decided all the  parts — rocket engines, warheads, launch systems, guidance systems, transport systems, and support systems — would have to be developed at the same time.  Often several companies, using different approaches, were contracted to solve the same problem.  The first fully developed solution would be fitted into the system, with development and improvements continuing even after the missile became operational.

               The last decade's worth of missile research needed to be pulled into one place and collated.  As this was being done, many members of the original Consolidated-Vultee design team found themselves again working on the project — this time under their company's new name, Convair Astronautics.

               By 1955 the general appearance and overall performance expectations of the Atlas had been solidified.  All that was left was to build it, test it, and then keep reworking the system until it functioned as intended.

               In the summer of 1958, as a workable system began to emerge, the Army Corps of Engineers started looking for land to site the missile bases — looking for land before the design of those bases had been finalized.  And one place they were looking was Deer Park.

               In the second week of January, 1959, the Deer Park Tribune announced that the rumors that began in the summer of `58 were no longer rumors.  The Washington, D.C. office of Congressman Walt Horan had called a press release to the local newspaper saying the Air Force was indeed considering the local airport as a possible missile site.

               The plan called for three missile bases, with each base containing three missiles.  Tentative sites for those bases would be near the towns of Davenport, Deer Park, and in the Long Lake area — with Fairchild Air Force Base as the hub.

               The peak of Dunns Mountain, located about eight miles west by southwest of Deer Park, was also to be purchased — presumably for some type of air defense or missile tracking device.  The actual function of this proposed mountaintop installation remained secret.

               Information obtained from a land surveyor suggested the Air Force was interested in a 250 acre tract, at least part of it overlaying a portion of the existing Deer Park airport.  But the town council had yet to be approached by anyone from the government with any official proposal — meaning that the council, like everyone else, was still in the dark.

               In the January article the Tribune quoted Congressman Horan as saying the Atlas site would be "a big boost to the town of Deer Park".  While the hope of jobs created by a continuing military presence lifted spirits, the joke of the day was that the town would "boom" in more ways than one — since the missile base would surely, in the mind of the locals, become a Soviet target.

               Located about two miles east of downtown Deer Park, the airport had three paved runways laid out in a triangle with the tips overlapping.  The west runway lay in a true north-south direction.  The other two slanted inward, to cross over each other to the east.

               It was this eastern portion of the triangle that raised a few eyebrows when a month later a "civilian" from the Army Corps of Engineers asked the city council to sign a "right of entry" so preliminary construction could begin at the airport.  It was then that the city council was shown a Corps of Engineers map, dated October, 1958, outlining a 20 acre block on top of the southeast/northeast runway intersection as the missile base proper, and another 250 surrounding acres as restricted military space.

               The town's mayor, Earl Mix, told the representative that he wasn't signing anything until the government explained its intention of ruining Deer Park's municipal airport by burying a missile base under it.

               The council decided to act. Letters of protest went out to the Air Force Chief of Staff and every national and state legislator the council could think of.  The city's Chamber of Commerce did likewise.

               In the second week of March, to discuss the issue, the Air Force sent Colonel R. H. Farwell of the Ballistic Missile Division and eight other Air Force officers, plus four men from the Army Corps of Engineers, into a meeting with Earl Mix and two city councilmen.  Apparently unimpressed by this display of "overwhelming force", Mayor Mix told the military that the city had two other nearby tracts of land — one 400 acres, another 600 — and would be willing to sell any part or all of those for a missile site.  But the airport was too important to the city to be negotiated away.

               The Air Force relented, and agreed to look at the other properties.

               When asked why the Air Force had its sights specifically on the airport, Colonel Farwell said the military was originally looking for a thousand acres of level land.  The land around Deer Park's airport was perfect for the military's needs.  As requirements solidified the amount of land needed was reduced and the original selected acreage shrank down to its center — the airport itself.  He went on to say that the airport's potential value to the city hadn't been taken into account during the plan's development.

               By mid April, the military had released its latest plan revisions.  The number of missiles per site had shrunk from three to one, while the number of sites in the Fairchild complex had expanded from three to nine.  Deer Park and Reardon remained as sites.  The Long Lake site was eliminated.  Added to the list of sites were Newman Lake, Sprague, Lemona, Davenport, Wilbur, Egypt, and Rockford — although the Rockford site itself would be just over the Idaho state line.

               Though unexplained at the time, what had prompted the changes in the Air Force's plans were recent advances in the missile's design.

               The typical Atlas D group consisted of three missiles around a single launch control center — just as indicated in Congressman Horan's original message to the Deer Park Tribune.  The Atlas D's onboard guidance system required ground tracking for flight corrections.  Any corrections were calculated by a launch center computer, then radioed to the missile.  The two problems with this system were its vulnerability to radio interference — natural and deliberate — and that the system could only handle one missile at a time — meaning a five minute minimum between each launch.

               Designated Atlas E, the newest version of the missile possessed an advanced onboard computer and inertial guidance system and was totally autonomous from the moment of launch.  The moment it lifted one inch skyward, it was independent of any ground communication — and in fact was incapable of receiving any.

               It was also becoming apparent that the base itself would be autonomous the moment it became operational.  Nothing like a traditional military post, it had little to offer the community in the way of jobs or business.  With that realization, the excitement began to fade.  Little further mention of the missile could be found on the front page of the community newspaper until the fall of 1960.

               Despite the calm, much was going on.  At a location about a mile east of the airport, construction began.  Enough earth was excavated to allow most everything to be built below surface grade.  Two main structures were laid out — a five thousand square foot launch control bunker, and about ten thousand square feet of bunker for the missile and related equipment.  There was also seventy-five feet of corrugated metal tunnel to connect the two. One hundred and thirty thousand cubic yards of concrete, and almost thirty thousand tons of steel went into the eighteen inch thick walls, ceilings, and reinforced doors and hatches.

               Perhaps this lack of news about the construction was deliberate.  After all, the finer details of the missiles and the nine bases surrounding Fairchild were a matter of military secrecy.

               The existence of the earlier version of the Atlas — the D model — was far from secret.  It was the largest rocket in the American arsenal and was on its way to becoming the nation's primary satellite launch vehicle — used to shoot a growing array of hardware into space, as well as being modified to lift the Mercury astronauts into orbit.

               Much of the military's involvement with the D series was taking place at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base, which was the training center for military’s Atlas crews, and the location of the first successful all Air Force launch.

               Master Sergeant Paul Rodriques, USAF Ret. — now of Glendale, Arizona — recalls, "On January 20, 1960, my crew, Unit R01 (Ready Zero One) of the 576th Strategic Missile Squadron launched the first operational Atlas D sent aloft by an all Air Force team.  Personnel from Convair Astronautics and North American Rocketdyne — the builders — had conducted launches before, but this time our team did everything.  We picked up the missile at the San Diego factory and followed through until the re-entry vehicle impacted its target in the Pacific Ocean.  In fact, both the Sector Commander and our Crew Commander had barred all contractors from the area during checkout and launch — just to make sure everyone understood this launch was all ours.

               "Of course, our crew also had the distinction of being the first Air Force unit to have an Atlas blow-up in the gantry.

               "A few months after our first launch, we were conducting a Dual Propellant Loading exercise.  With Convair Astronautics engineers on site, we were filling the missile's tanks with RP-1 — a highly refined form of kerosene — and liquid oxygen.  Apparently some of the liquid oxygen spilled down through the channel used to direct the rocket exhaust away from the gantry.  The bottom of this flame spillway was paved with asphalt.  Liquid oxygen and petroleum products — the tar in the asphalt for example — don't react kindly to each other.

               "We had a television camera mounted on top of the launch control bunker.  I was in the bunker watching the missile on a monitor when the Atlas blew.  One second it was there, the next smoke."

               By August of 1960 most of the residents of the Deer Park and Clayton area spent at least a few minutes of their warm, summer nights watching the sky for the Echo communication satellite.  This 100-foot diameter aluminized balloon had been placed into low orbit and then inflated as the target in a radio-wave bouncing experiment.  Since Echo was so easy to spot, it was the first artificial satellite the majority of Americans actually saw.

               It was also a reminder that technology had evaporated the wide oceans that had once isolated America from the old world.  And now Americans were beginning to view overhead objects such as the contrails of high flying planes with the same uneasiness Europeans had been feeling for decades.

               Within half a dozen weeks of the Echo satellite launch, the town of Deer Park and the military were ready to butt heads again — this time over a highway turnoff.

 

II

 

… first encounter with the town’s citizens …

 

               Another tactical issue regarding the military’s decision to disperse nine Atlas missiles in a rough east/west oval around Fairchild Air Force Base was the problem of transporting a seventy-one foot long and sixteen-foot wide missile over agricultural roads designed for nothing bigger than milk trucks and thrashing machines.  One solution was to add certain unique features to the missile’s trailer.  The other was to rebuild any problem spots in the local road system.

               The Army Corp of Engineers decided one problem spot was the intersection between Crawford, Deer Park’s primary east/west street, and eastern Washington’s primary north/south route, Highway 395.  The Army’s answer was to contract with the Washington State Department of Highways to round the corner for northbound traffic turning east onto Crawford from the two-lane highway — the turn the missile transport from Fairchild would be making.  While this may have been ideal for the military, it raised ire with the locals who had to drive the route every day.

               By late September of 1960 an angry editorial in the Tribune defined the problem.  The redesign required motorists exiting the highway from the north to turn significantly more than ninety degrees to negotiate the new curve.  Individuals caught unaware found themselves drifting into Crawford’s oncoming westbound lane.  Those aware found themselves slowing to a crawl before attempting the turn and immediately becoming a hazard to the southbound traffic behind.

               Within a week of the editorial a representative from the Washington State Highway Department went before the city council to explain.  He said the redesign had been to military requirements.  He suggested a proposal to ease the turn for southbound interstate traffic by widening Crawford even more might create a greater hazard by encouraging lane drift for turning traffic — which the complaints said was already occurring.  A subsequent Tribune article indicated the council found the arguments provided by the Highway Department representative weak.

               The first Deer Park test of the ground transport system was carried out in the second week of January, 1961, and reported by the Tribune under the headline “Dummy Missile Delivered to Local Site”.

               The ‘dummy missile’ was a skeletal metal framework used to check the critical alignments of the bunker’s missile erection equipment.  Covered in canvas for transport, it was delivered to the site on top of a standard Atlas trailer.  But the route chosen was what caught the eye.

               In the early 1950’s Deer Park, like several other small rural communities, had been bypassed during the rebuilding of Highway 395.  The old route diverged from the new interstate in a sweeping right hand curve about half a mile south of the military’s new Atlas friendly intersection.  It had been assumed that the military didn’t use this already curving bypass intersection to avoid negotiating a ninety degree turn in the restricted space of downtown Deer Park.  But the ninety degree turn was exactly the route the ‘dummy missile’ took.

               The local newspaper said the transport was able to negotiate the corner at Main and Crawford in “a short while”.  After this article the missile base practically disappeared from the pages of the Tribune.

               Negotiating local roads was only the last transport problem for the Atlas.  Early on, the missile’s developers recognized that hauling large ICBMs long distances over public highways would be a logistical nightmare.  The answer was the Douglas C-133B Cargomaster heavy-lift aircraft — with cargo bay dimensions exceeding the length and width of the Atlas.

               Powered by four, seven thousand horsepower turboprop engines, the aircraft could lift 150,000 pounds — far more than the 36,000 pound combined weight of the empty rocket and its trailer.

               Designed to be pulled by a big-rig truck tractor, the tubular steel trailer measured just over seventy feet long.  Though a foot shorter than the missile, the fact that the missile’s engine nozzles overhung the rear of the trailer by forty inches allowed the missile’s body to fit comfortably on the trailer.  The trailer carried all the pressurizing equipment necessary to maintain the rigidity of the missile’s fuel-tank airframe.  It also contained the hydraulics necessary to stretch the missile should the pressure system and its backups fail.

               Four wheels on two axles carried the rear of the trailer.  These wheels could be steered when cornering or locked straight for highway travel.  Tillermen reclining in cabins suspended under both sides of the trailer bed just forward of the rear wheels could maneuver the rear of the twelve-foot wide trailer and its sixteen-foot wide cargo around tight corners.             Loaded on the trailer at Convair’s San Diego factory, each missile’s first trip was to Vandenberg AFB. The challenge for the transport crew was squeezing the missile and trailer into the Cargomaster.

               Jack Roberts, Professor of Industrial Engineering at Texas A & M recalls, “At the time I was an Airman 1st Class and Missile Maintenance Technician assigned to the 548th Strategic Missile Squadron at Forbes AFB, Kansas.  We were sending one of our missiles back to Vandenberg for a test launch.  My recollection of the missile loading procedure comes from that operation.

               “To feed the missile into the airplane’s cargo bay we positioned the trailer behind the aircraft with the missile’s nose toward the plane and laid four sets of metal rails underneath the trailer and up the plane’s loading ramp — rails intended to guide the trailer’s castor wheels.

               “We jacked up the rear of the trailer, unpinned the rear wheels, disconnected the brake lines and such, and rolled the wheel assembly away.  Since they protruded below the bottom of the trailer’s frame, we removed the tillerman’s cabins.  Then we lowered the trailer down with its rear-end castors dropping onto the outside set of rails.  The front castors were locked in their full-up position, and then the front of the trailer’s frame was lowered until the front castors dropped onto the inner set of rails.  All this was done to lower the height of the trailer.

               “The heaviest part of the missile sat over the rear wheels of the trailer — where the two outboard booster engines and their nacelles added another three feet to each side of the rocket’s ten foot core.  The fit was so tight we removed whatever protrusions we could.  We removed the booster nacelles from both sides of the rocket.  The nacelles were aerodynamic coverings for equipment extending beyond the normal skin of the missile.  We took off the dorsal steering rocket — the upper vernier protruding from the top of the recumbent tank section.  The second vernier engine — the one protruding from the bottom side of the rocket’s body — was always removed before lowering the missile onto the trailer.

               “The trailer was then slowly cabled in using the airplane’s cargo winch.  As the missile inched forward, the castors rolled onto continuations of our temporary rails which had been permanently mounted into the cargo deck of the aircraft.

               “Unloading the Atlas was a matter of reversing the procedure.

               “I was the only person on the Cargo-master who knew how to operate the trailer’s pressure control system — or how to put the ‘bird’ in stretch if something went wrong.  I had more responsibility at that point than I had ever had before in my life.  Add to that the fact that this was the first time this west Texas farm kid had ever flown, and you can understand why I was scared to death.  Other than those things, both me and the missile did just fine.

               “As for what we did with all the stuff we took off the missile and its trailer — wheel assembly, tillerman’s cabins, nacelles — we may have winched them aboard the C-133 or sent them on another plane.  As soon as the bird was safely shoehorned into the Cargomaster, I was so overwhelmed by my own responsibilities that I didn’t notice anything else.

               “The reason we were taking a missile to Vandenberg is a story cobbled out of the G. I. grapevine and a few official briefings.

               “Just after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the bureaucrats in Washington D. C. worried whether the missiles would have actually worked if President Kennedy had authorized the launch.

               “To test this concern, Secretary of Defense McNamara ordered the serial numbers of all operational Atlas missiles dropped in a hat and one pulled.  The idea was to place a non-nuclear research warhead on this missile, change the guidance boards to rotate westward to a Pacific target instead of over the pole to Russia, and then send a no-notice launch order to whatever crew happened to be rotated to this particular missile at the decided time.  It would be the first test launch of an ICBM out of an actual operational bunker located somewhere within the continental United States.  That somewhere turned out to be Kansas.

               “Needless to say, the politicians in Kansas and all the states to the west, threw a fit.  After all, even if the rocket over-flew the western states perfectly, the jettisoned booster section was likely to come down somewhere short of the Pacific coast.

               “The military modified the test, telling us to take the selected bird to Vandenberg where it would be launched by a Forbes crew.  Once there, the squadron crews were rotated to the Vandenberg launch complex just as they would have been at Forbes.  This went on for almost three months.  Then the crews were ordered to leave the missile and return home.

               “Apparently the politicians got cold feet.  The anti-missile group worried that the missile might work perfectly.  The pro-missile group worried that it might fail miserably.  Neither side wanted to take the risk.

               “Later on, a civilian crew from General Dynamics launched our bird.  We were told that the test warhead splashed down four hundred yards off target.  That was close enough after a six thousand mile flight, especially considering that the real warhead used on the Atlas E was the Mark IV.  We knew the Mark IV was a big warhead, but the exact yield was classified at the time.  We now know it produced a blast equivalent to three million, seven hundred and fifty thousand tons of TNT — nearly four megatons.  As I said, with a blast that big four hundred yards is close enough to any target. ”

               On December 6, 1960, a Cargo-master C-133B from Vandenberg dropped out of Fairchild’s cold winter sky carrying the first of the base’s compliment of Atlas missiles.  Then, on a bright spring day at the end of March, 1961, a ground convoy transporting Deer Park’s Atlas left Fairchild for its first encounter with the town’s citizens.

               Traveling down the highway in the center of a six or more vehicle convoy bracketed by trucks with “Caution Wide Load” signs, the rocket couldn’t be missed.  There wasn’t any pretense of secrecy to it.  If a person somehow mistook the canvas covered body of the rocket for a silage silo or fuel tank, the outline of those three giant rocket nozzles protruding in a horizontal line across the back would leave no doubt.  And the slow speeds necessary for moving any oversize object down a public highway, no more than forty miles an hour tops, certainly gave everyone plenty of time to gawk.

               “There were at least two Air Police vehicles in any highway convoy,” Jack Roberts said.  “Those men were armed with carbines and handguns.  An officer or NCO was in charge of the convoy, and usually had his own radio equipped command car.  Usually there was a maintenance vehicle carrying Missile Maintenance Technicians or Ballistic Missile Analyst Technicians, their tools and tech orders — just in case any work was needed on the missile or its trailer.  And normally we had some local cops as escorts.

               “As for maneuvering the trailer itself, both tillerman positions were equipped with steering wheels, but no brakes.  The tillermen couldn’t see each other across the trailer. Communication between the tillermen, and between the tillermen and the driver was through a headset/microphone intercom system.  For outside communication, the truck driver had a shortwave radio.

               “There were outside intercom plug-ins on the trailer so anyone walking alongside during tight maneuvers could voice communicate with the three men steering the rig.  Most of the time the outside crew used hand signals to communicate with the driver and tillermen.”

               Richard Hodges, a 1964 graduate of Deer Park High, recalls, “I don’t know how I got down to watch the missile negotiate the turn from Highway 395 onto Crawford Street since I was supposed to be in school like everyone else, but there I was, camera in hand.  I recall the State Patrol had to block traffic on 395 to give the transport team time to back the big rig across both lanes and try again.  It was something all the citizens that had gathered to watch were commenting about — how the government spent all that money to reshape the Crawford portion of the intersection and widen Crawford’s Dragoon Creek bridge just a few yards further east, but still managed to not have enough room.

               “On the other hand, after spending my working life as a mechanical engineer, I can appreciate how making something work on paper is only the beginning of any job.”

               Having negotiated the turn, the transport team had a straight shot for the next four miles.  That would take them through the center of Deer Park and due east, straight to the turn off now called Missile Site Road.  While the missileers may have been breathing a sigh of relief, believing that the worse hazards of the thirty some mile journey from Fairchild were behind, there was one more unanticipated danger ahead — the students of Consolidated School District 414.

               An announcement was made at the local high school that the Atlas missile would be parked in front of the Crawford Street middle school (the former high school, and now city hall) for several hours and that we were free to leave the building during assigned study halls to inspect the rocket.  In fact, all the district’s students would have a chance to see the rocket — this included students bussed down from the old Clayton grade school.

               For me it was much more than a chance to dump study hall.  Both science and science fiction had long been an interest of mine, and the Atlas seemed a blending of both.  I would have to say the sight of uncloaked missile was exotic, but not particularly impressive.  By that I mean it was a shell with little else to see.  I understood its potential — that well demonstrated by its use in the space program.  Still, with the rocket lying mute on the trailer, little could be seen to explain the mechanics of that potential.

               Such mechanics were shrouded beneath stainless steel or fiberglass.  Inserts even hid the interiors of the engine throats.  The missile’s inner workings remained a mystery.

               I can vaguely recall a few fatigue-clad airmen keeping watch.  The one notable thing was that most didn’t seem much older than the high school students.  The only firearm visible was the single service revolver on the hip of Deer Park’s sole, full-time police officer.  Other than that, I can’t recall any brass or flash.

               A good collection of students from primary to high school milled around the missile, when, all of a sudden, the airmen, chief of police, teachers, everyone, began yelling for us to get out of the street. With voices lowered to a serious growl, the men walked down the curb and brushed the students onto the sidewalk.

               Within seconds, the street was clear.  The engine on the truck tractor bellowed.  And the missile whipped away to the east.

               “What just happened?” I asked.  “They were supposed to be here for another hour.”

               The answer came back, “Some idiot threw a rock at the missile.”

               Joseph ‘Buddy’ Farris, now an Encephalographic Technologist at Holy Family Hospital in Spokane, recalled the incident.  “I was in the fourth grade, Mrs. Noble’s class, when we marched up to see the rocket.  After the bunch of us had been herded up on the sidewalk and the rocket taken away, I saw that Mister Hegre, my grade school principal, had a second-grader pinned against a tree and was reading him the riot act.

               “Asking around, the version I heard said these two second graders got to daring each other as to whether they could throw a rock all the way over the missile.”

               Since the missile, reclining on its trailer, towered thirteen and a half feet above the street, the challenge was obvious.

               Joe continued, “Apparently, the answer was no and the rock bounced off.  Their defense was that it wasn’t the missile they were aiming at.  That defense didn’t seem to make much difference to the Air Force.”

               Bob Lemley, now retired, was a Ballistic Missile Analyst Technician with Fairchild’s 567th Strategic Missile Squadron and served as a launch crew member at most of the local missile sites.  Bob said, “A good size rock could have dented the thin stainless steel skin of the Atlas.  Since little kids throw little rocks, your Deer Park rock was probably too small to constitute a threat.  But what throwing a rock or even threatening to throw a rock would most certainly have done was make the officer in charge of transporting the rocket as mad as hell.  And I would suspect that that’s exactly what happened.”

 

III

 

… intended for site ‘C’ ...

               Leaving the eastern limits of Deer Park, Crawford Street becomes the Deer Park-Milan Road.  This road runs straight east for the next three miles.  The land around the airport and missile site is formed from relatively flat laying deposits of sandy-silts eroded from the surrounding granite hills — or washed in during the great ice-age floods.  Small groves of pine stand among these dry, open fields.  Sporadic formations of stunted apple trees — survivors from the disastrous Arcadian Orchard experiment of the early nineteen hundreds — dot the area.

               Just as the road begins to twist and drop away into the relative lushness of the Bear Creek drainage, Missile Site Road joins from the north.  A mile up this road is the fenced perimeter of the missile site.

               All nine of Fairchild’s Atlas E sites were built to the same blueprint.  With the below grade portions of the bunkers identical, crews had no trouble adapting as they rotated between installations.

               All nine installations were also laid out to the same compass orientation.

               Referred to as a semi-hardened coffin bunker, the site’s below ground structures were designed to withstand a one megaton blast as close as a mile and a half.   A detonation closer than this could potentially have put the site out of commission.

               In nuclear terms, neither the size nor proximity of such a detonation was particularly great.  The military was well aware of the coffin bunker’s vulnerability.  As the Atlas E’s sites were being brought into operation, construction had already begun on the next generation of Atlas ICBM’s, the hardened-silo based Atlas F series. 

               Silos were superior to the Atlas E’s coffin bunkers in two respects.  First, they were buried deeper, and could withstand a much greater shock.  Secondly, the silo missiles were already standing upright.  If launch commands were received, the missile would first be fueled, then the silo uncapped and the missile elevated aboveground and fired.  With the coffin bunkers, the overhead blast door had to be retracted first, then the missile elevated from its reclining position, fueled, and fired.  Prior to launch the E series missiles were exposed above ground for a much longer period than the F series.

               On the other hand, the missiles housed in bunkers were not as prone to blowing up during fueling as the silo versions.  Perhaps this was because the launch bay, open to the sky during fueling, allowed explosive fumes a greater chance to dissipate.  Or perhaps this was because it was physically harder to carry out maintenance procedures in the deep, cramped confines of a silo.

               Two buildings made up the buried bunker portion of the Deer Park site.  First, the launch operations building.  This 54 by 90 foot building housed the launch control center, communications center, two offices, a mess hall, ready room, battery room, storage room, and power plant.  Only equipment towers and the escape hatch extend above ground.

               “The bunkers didn’t have a mess hall in the truest sense,” former maintenance missileer Jack Roberts recalled.  “It was really just a kitchen not much larger than you would find in a civilian home.  The only difference was that we had two refrigerators so we’d have enough room to keep the foil-pack meals — the military’s interpretation of TV dinners.  There wasn’t much smell in the kitchen since all we did was heat up those foil packs.  Those were consumed quickly and the remains cleared away quickly.  And the mess hall was just a table in the kitchen large enough to seat six people.  It could get noisy with conversation if you had a crowd in there, which wasn’t often.  Usually the kitchen was a quiet area.

               “The launch control room sounded just like a busy office, except for an occasional alarm.

               “The ready room area was always kept dark and quiet in case someone needed to catch some shut-eye — particularly the guards, since they worked in well defined shifts.

               “Two things most noticed about the power room; first, the noise was deafening so you didn’t go in there without hearing protection, secondly, it smelled of diesel.  It did have a good ventilation system, so the smell didn’t become overwhelming, or drift into the rest of the building.

               “About the sound in the power room,” Jim Geoghegan, a Missile Analyst Technician who worked mostly at the Site 9 complex — Reardan — added, “you had to yell to be heard above the noise and through the ear protection.  You could hear that sound throughout the site.  Close by it was loud, then in the Launch and Service Building it was just a background hum or murmur.”

               A 75 foot long and eight foot diameter corrugated metal tunnel ran due south from the southeast corner of the launch operations building to the northwest corner of the Launch and Service Building — the missile’s bunker.

               This much larger building was also surrounded by eighteen inch reinforced concrete walls and ceiling.  Only the launch bay hatch was exposed above ground — leaving very little for any nuclear blast generated shockwave, except one arriving from above, to strike.  This building was designed and equipped to receive, store, monitor, erect, load with fuel, and launch the missile.

               The building was divided into three segments.

               Running full length down the center was the bay in which the missile reclined.  20 feet wide, 20 feet high, and 110 feet long, this section was covered by a nearly full-length hatch, the missile erection door, designed to slide to the side — to the west.

               About this 40 by 105 foot hatch, Jack Roberts recalls, “The overhead door was a steel I-beam framework, about twice as wide as the hatch opening, over which a reinforced concrete cap was poured.

               “To open, this door had to be raised about six inches on rollers sitting atop hydraulic cylinders.  Once the cylinders elevated, an electric motor and gearbox arrangement pulled the door across the rollers to the side.  During routine maintenance procedures, opening this 400 ton cap took about thirty minutes — mostly for the jacking.  During simulated wartime procedures it only took a few seconds.

               “When there wasn’t any urgency, electric powered hydraulic pumps were used to feed oil into the jacks.  But during a countdown, we needed that door off now.  We couldn’t raise the missile to a standing position until the door was clear.  And we couldn’t start fueling until the missile was standing upright.

               “To speed the process we used accumulators to supply hydraulic pressure to the jacks.  An accumulator is a cylinder with a piston in it.  On one side of this piston is hydraulic oil.  High pressure nitrogen is released against the other side of the piston forcing the hydraulic oil out of the cylinder and into the lines running to the overhead jacks — literally slamming the jacking cylinders up.

               “400 tons of concrete and steel jumps 6 inches.  It sounded like a cannon going off.  You could feel the shock.

               “At the same time high pressure gas begins to flow, blast gates begin to slam shut, valves begin to cycle, the overhead door begins to slide to the side, missile erection motors kicked in, and within seconds the bird starts to stand up.

               “In the Launch and Service Building, countdowns were extremely noisy.  Scared the hell out of me the first time I experienced it.

               “There was just too much wear and tear on the equipment to use the rapid open sequence every time we needed the overhead door off.  Besides, recharging the nitrogen used to drive the accumulators was both time consuming and expensive.”

               Before the door could be raised on its hydraulic jacks, the hold down latches used to hook the underside of the door firmly to the launch bay had to be released.

               “The latches were just large pieces of angle iron mounted on hinges high up on the missile bay walls,” Roberts said.  “To lock, they were rotated by hydraulic cylinders so that they overlapped the edges of the overhead door’s perimeter beam.”

               The necessity of latching down a 400-ton door may be difficult to grasp, but so is the actual power of a nuclear explosion.  A nuclear airburst of either sufficient size or proximity to the missile site would create a horrendous down pressure.  This would immediately be followed by a nearly as horrendous vacuum-generated updraft that could potentially suck the 400-ton door up — at the least displacing it enough to disable the slide mechanism so the bay couldn’t be opened, or, at worse, ripping the door completely away, and exposing the missile.

               Getting the missile into and out of the launch bay was a matter of backing its trailer down a paved access ramp located on the north side of the building — a ramp that dropped from ground level to the bunker’s floor.  At the bottom of the ramp was a 20 foot wide, 18 foot high blast door leading into the launch bay.  To gain entrance, this 47 ton, foot and a half thick, fabricated steel door had to be cranked opened.

               Missileer Dick Mellor recalls, “The blast door slid sideways into a pocket in the wall behind the logic units.  The door was hung on rollers, and was moved by a chain drive and hand crank.  It took some six hundred turns to slide the door all the way back.  We never figured out why they hadn’t installed a motor to do that.  Maybe Airmen were cheaper.”

               On the east side of the launch and service building, protected from the missile bay by a blast wall and blast door, was the liquid oxygen room.  This room, 18 feet wide, 72 feet long, and averaging 10 feet in height, contained all the equipment needed for handling the super cold oxidizer for the rocket fuel.

               “The LOX room, being farthest away from everything, was quiet,” Jack Roberts noted.  “And, because the valves and other fixtures protruding into the room from the end of the tunnel housed liquid oxygen tank were covered with ice, it was always chilly.”

               The mechanical and electrical equipment room was situated west of the missile bay.  This area, the largest at 45 feet by 104 feet, contained the various panels of electronic equipment needed for monitoring the condition of the missile, and storing the flight data that would be fed into the missile’s computer before launch.  It also contained the gas charging equipment needed to drive the accumulators lifting the giant overhead door, as well as the equipment needed for handling the modified kerosene rocket propellant.

               Jack said, “The logic units — primitive computers — as well as a lot of other electronic equipment had to be cooled, so there was always the sound of the air-conditioning system’s blowers.  There was a machine hum, part of that from the 400 cycle generator we had running all the time.  And then there was a smell, some say of ozone, rising from all the hot electronic devices.”

               Sergeant Paul Rodrigues reminisced, “Over a period of eighteen years I was associated with the Atlas D, E, and F series missiles, and with the Titan II ICBMs.  All the bunkers and silos had a similar odor.  They had an acrid, metallic smell you could taste.  Warm electronics, rubber, and hydraulic fluid — always hydraulic fluid.  And diesel fuel.

               “I know the last remaining Titan II silo, now a Green Valley, Arizona, tourist attraction, still smells as it did when active in the 1960’s.  I’ve been told that those odors still linger in many of the converted sites.  In fact, the first remark former missileers often make when visiting those sites is that they still smell the same.”

               A blast wall and blast door also protected this room from events, intended or otherwise, that might occur inside the launch bay portion of the Launch and Service Building.

               Installing and removing missiles from each launch complex was an ongoing procedure during the operational life of the Atlas E program.  With a missile on station at all of Fairchild’s nine sites, and one in reserve at the air base, a rotation was begun so one missile could be brought in for major servicing about every thirty days, and yet never leave a launch complex without a missile for more than a few hours.

               As the first Atlas intended for “Site C” was being rushed away from its encounter with Deer Park’s rock throwing student, the complex’s launch bay door would have already been cranked to the side, and the missile erection hatch unlatched, jacked, and retracted in preparation.

               On arrival at the site, the transport trailer was backed down the access ramp into the launch bay.  Guide rails in the floor of the launch bay, mating with guide castors on the trailer, positioned the moving trailer in exact relation to the overhanging erection and launch boom.  For the final alignment, a hydraulic cylinder from the launch boom was connected to the trailer to move it forward or back in fractions of inches, as needed.

               The launcher was a boom style ladder-beam, anchored to the floor in the far south end of the launch bay, and hinged to pivot from its base.  It was designed to lie down over the missile while the missile was still on the transport trailer.  When attached to the missile, it would lift enough to clear the departing trailer.  Once the trailer was clear, the boom lowered to its normal, resting position, with the missile slung beneath.

               The reason for opening the overhead hatch —the launch boom needed to be partially elevated to clear the incoming missile.

               The launcher framework attached to the missile at three points.

               At the warhead end, the north end, was a ring device that swung down from the tip of the boom and snugged itself around the reinforced nose of the missile, snugged just below the point where the re-entry vehicle — the warhead — would later be attached.

               This nose-clamp ring was hinged so the encompassing circle could be broken open and swung away from the erect missile prior to launch.

               If the missile’s tank section, for any reason, began to lose pressure and deflate, two hydraulic stretch struts could be snapped into place between the nose ring and launcher frame.  A few strokes on the pump handles would put the missile into enough mechanical stretch to prevent fuel-tank collapse.

               Two locking clamps fixed into the launch frame held the base of the missile.  Two more clamps, located on the floor of the bay, clamped onto the missile once it stood erect.  All four of these clamps unlatched prior to launch — as soon as both propellant tanks were full.

               An entire ICBM hanging from one tubular steel ladder-beam seems like a flimsy arrangement, but the missile itself only weighted about 18,000 pounds.  And most of that weight was carried at the pivot end of the launcher — in the missile’s engines and mechanics.  The warhead, when attached, added another three thousand pounds to the nose.  But by far the greatest mass was only added after the Atlas had been raised upright — when the liquid oxygen and rocket fuel was loaded.

               Next the missile would be prepared.  Tested and retested.  Everything brought to specifications.  The warhead installed.  The guidance system tuned.  And the missile’s status upgraded to operational.

               Then, beneath this shallow skin of concrete and earth, young men would begin standing watch.  Young men trained, sworn, and determined, if ordered, to send their ordinance skyward.  On that spring day in 1961, little did these young men know that during their tour of duty the world would stand a breath away from the worst mass extinction since the end of the age of the dinosaurs.

IV

 

… a state of readiness …

               “There were five people in a bunker combat crew,” Jim Geoghegan said.  “Other maintenance specialties were occasionally detailed to a bunker for repair work and such — but normally only the combat crew and guards were on site.  The crew and guards transported to the site as a unit, and left together 24 hours later.”

               Ballistic Missile Analyst Technician Dick Mellor added, “We were supposed to be on duty for 24 hours, but you never knew.  One winter my crew was stuck in Site 9 at Reardan for three days after a big blizzard blew drifts over the roads.  We ran out of food and had to have some air-dropped to us.  Finally the Air Force hired a snow-cat to bring in a new crew and take us out.  So our tour actually lasted until we were relieved.”

               “Our shift started with a zero-seven-hundred-hours briefing in Fairchild’s Ready Room,” Jim continued.  “Anything relevant to our time on duty was covered.  Local weather was noted, but only regarding the road trip to the site since local weather, other than extremely high winds or lightning storms, had little impact on our operational status or the missile’s ability to launch.  Upcoming events, new policies, all the routine stuff would be covered.  But we were also kept aware of events happening elsewhere in the world that might have an impact on us — things that the general public didn’t always know.  We were also given the daily password needed to gain entry to the bunker.”

               Bob Lemley described the formalities of the Ready Room.  “The shift uniform was white coveralls with squadron patches and such pinned on — and a blue ascot.  Unless we were expecting visitors, I’d try to lose the damn ascot as soon as I could after reaching the site.

               “The Ready Room’s chairs were set five rows deep.  Each row had nine chairs across — one for each of Fairchild’s nine Atlas missile sites.  The Combat Crew Commanders occupied the first row of seats.  Behind each Commander would sit his Deputy Combat Crew Commander.  Behind him the crew’s Ballistic Missile Analyst Technician followed by the Maintenance Technician and then the Electrical Power Production Technician.

               “The Missile Launch Officers were always officers.  The technicians were Airmen or Sergeants.” 

               Retired Colonel John Voss commented, “I was a Lieutenant during my tour as a Deputy Combat Crew Commander.  Most of the Crew Commanders were Captains, Majors, or even Lieutenant Colonels.”

               Jack Roberts added, “I think a good number of the Crew Commanders were pilots who wanted to get out of flying full time or had medical problems that knocked them off flying status.  Maintenance guys liked the ex-pilots as Commanders because they knew how to work with the enlisted.  Some of the officers from other Air Force positions weren’t as good at dealing with maintenance crews.”

               Master Sergeant Rodrigues said, “At least early on many of the senior officers utilized a short stint as Combat Crew Commanders to enhance their resumes.  It was a position of real responsibility, so wearing a missile badge could help an officer’s career progression — particularly for those who weren’t pilots.”

               “After the briefing,” technician Geoghegan explained, “someone would take our vehicle, most often a dual cab pickup with a camper on the back, pick up our supply of meal packs, then swing by and get the site guards — four of them as I recall.  The guards rode in back and the crew up front.  Crews decided who would actually drive — unless the commander decided otherwise.  Depending on the distance to any given site, the time of year, weather conditions, and the like, the trip out could take up to a couple of hours.”

               “The Deer Park site was a favorite,” John Voss said, “because it was close to the base, and that could save us as much as two hours on the roundtrip drive compared to some of the other sites.”

               “I can’t recall ever stopping anywhere between the base and the site,” Jim continued.  “I don’t know if that was policy, or just that we never had time.  I do remember being waved down one Thanksgiving Day by a farmer on the access road to the Reardon site.  We stopped, thinking it was some kind of emergency.  It turned out the farmer’s wife had made several Thanksgiving pies for us.  Best damn pies I ever had.

               “All the sites had a closed circuit television camera at the main gate, and normally a guard.  This gate was controlled from inside the launch control center.  To gain access, we talked to the control center over a telephone.

               “Changeover began as soon as we were inside the perimeter fence.  The crew commander designated crew members to check all the topside structures and equipment.  We checked all the fuel and oxidizer filler caps leading to underground tanks, making sure they were secure.  We made sure there were no obstructions that would interfere with opening either the missile erection or flame door.  We even inspected the topside area for cleanness.

               “Then we walk down the ramp leading to the big launch bay door.  In the ramp wall, to the right of the big door, was the personnel entry door.  Opened in response to a buzzer, this heavy metal door locked behind us after we entered a small room called the ‘entrapment area’.  In this small space, between two locked security doors, while being observed by a television camera to assure that no one was being held under ‘duress’, we identify ourselves again.  We also had to give the day’s password before launch control would unlatch the inner door.

               “The inner door opened into a corrugated metal tunnel leading west about twenty five feet.  At the end of this tunnel was another small room.  The south exit lead to the Launch and Service Building’s mechanical and electrical equipment room.  The incoming group took the long tunnel north to the Launch Control Building to start the duty changeover.

               “Once inside Launch Control, the crew and guards separated to attend to their own changeover duties.’

               “The crew had another briefing in the control center,” Colonel Voss added.  “Then the missile launch officers exchanged the code cards they wore around their necks, and the 38 caliber revolvers we were required to carry whenever we were in possession of those cards.”

               The Crew Commander’s main job was to insure that the launch complex was maintained in a state of readiness, and that everyone else was doing their job as required.  He controlled access to the bunker, and to the various sections of the bunker.  But perhaps the most important of his duties involved the potential launch of the missile.

               The Crew Commander sat in the left seat at the launch control console during exercises, or an actual countdown.  He was one half of the team that authenticated launch orders.  He would start the countdown to launch, and start the commit to launch sequence.

               Next in line was the Deputy Crew Commander — the other half of the team that would authenticate any incoming launch order.  He manned the right side of the launch control console during exercises or an actual launch.

               Each of Fairchild’s nine ICBM sites was a self-contained weapon system.  While the objective of the weapon system was simple enough — to launch a ballistic missile with the intent of delivering a high powered nuclear device to a target somewhere in Russia — the mechanics of not only the missile but of the missile base itself was complicated in the extreme.  Much of this complexity was monitored through indicators located in the Launch Control Center, or from panels scattered throughout the Launch Building’s equipment room.

               BMAT Bob Lemley stated, “The Ballistic Missile Analyst Technician handled the electronic items on the site and cared for the long row of logic units in the equipment room.  I would monitor those units during the raising or lowering of the missile.  If launch orders were received, practice or real, my job was to stand at that post during fueling.  Before launch, the missile technician and I would have vacated the equipment room, hurried through the long access tunnel into the launch control room — latching the tunnel blast door behind us — to assume duties as directed by the launch officers.  Only after we were in Launch Control would the Crew Commander initiate the launch commit sequence.”

               The Missile Maintenance Technician was responsible for general maintenance on the missile and the systems supporting the missile.  During the raising or lowering of the missile he would monitor the erection mechanism motor control center at the south end of the launch building’s equipment room.

               The crew’s Electrical Power Production Technician, as Airman Russell Beaver explained, monitored the electric power generators and the distribution system for the site.  “The site’s generator room was a large area in the Launch Control Building.  It contained two 150-kilowatt diesel powered generators and related equipment.  My prime duty was to keep the power on.

               “For me, the drill at changeover was a walk-through with the outgoing EPPT and then a review of the logs.  During the shift I took hourly readings of the electrical output and such.

               “I only did routine maintenance.  If any involved repair work needed to be done, a maintenance team was brought in from Fairchild.  That was because the site was completely self-contained — not even an extension cord to the outside world.  So if there was any problem it was critical that it be solved as quickly as possible and the site brought back to a state of ready.

               “The normal power requirements of the site could be handled by one generator.  Peak load occurred when the overhead door and missile erection system was engaged.  At those times, the second generator was placed on line to ensure power continuity should the first generator fail.

               “Heat for the site was supplied by heat-exchangers connected into the diesel engine’s exhaust system.  In the winter, when the site needed more heat, we’d use ‘load banks’ to create more drag on the generators and increase the waste heat produced by the engine.”

               “If an alert sounded my duty was to place the second generator on line, get on the intercom and report the power room status to the Crew Commander, then I’d stand by my post in the generator room.

               “The Power Technician would assist the Analyst Technician and Maintenance Technician whenever ordered.  On the crews I served with I would usually be the second man whenever the ‘two man’ requirement needed to be fulfilled.”

               Colonel Charles Simpson, Executive Director for the Association of Air Force Missileers, stated, “The two man policy requires that anytime personnel are working around nuclear weapons — such as the Atlas warhead — at least two people must be involved.  Each person must be capable of detecting any unauthorized action on the part of the other that might endanger, damage, or compromise the weapon system.

               “There was also a ‘two officer policy’.  Before taking steps to launch a weapon, the ‘execution message’ needed to be authenticated.  This always required two officers.  Some enlisted men referred to as ‘code qualified’ could carry out certain parts of the launch process.  But as the process got underway, both officers had to be involved.”

               Senior Analyst Technician & Instructor Geoghegan added.  “Enlisted men needed to be ‘Emergency War Order’ trained and have a ‘top secret crypto clearance’ to be code qualified.  That meant we were qualified to be the second man in the control center when one of the officers was elsewhere.

               “Whenever the alert tone for incoming messages sounded all personnel except those with ‘crypto clearance’ cleared the room.  If the second officer was out of the area, the code-qualified crewman copied and decoded the message.

               “A ‘Warble Tone’ accompanied all ‘Emergency War Order’ messages sent over the ‘Primary Alerting System’.  This same tone was used for practice, exercise, and real messages.

               “With certain messages, the site ‘Alert Warning’ would be activated, and all crew members would report to their post.  If one of the officers were elsewhere, the enlisted man on duty would remain at launch control console until the second officer returned.

               “Most messages were system test or security upgrades.”

               Colonel Voss explained, “Messages usually came by radio and were copied with grease pencil onto a plastic covered form.  White Dot messages were for practice.  Green Dot were information messages.  Blue Dot alerted us to a change in our Defense Condition — our DEFCON status.  And Red Dot were launch orders.”

               Jim Geoghegan said, “I recall the messages being received by voice.  They were copied by hand, then decoded using a book kept on the launch consol.  This classified codebook was changed often and caution was always exercised to make sure no one except authorize crypto personnel so much as touched it.  The decoding procedure was somewhat complicated and I’m not allowed to explain it in any greater detail.”

               “Each officer wore a plastic laminated card around his neck,” Colonel Voss continued.  “In the event of a Red Dot message, the cards were broken open and the concealed code used to authenticate the launch orders.”

               “The highest rated message I ever received was a Blue Dot raising our Defense Condition during the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

               As part of the bunker crew changeover, the incoming launch officers and technicians first checked the launch control console.  All indicator lights should have been either green or extinguished.  Red meant either a malfunction or a system down for maintenance.  If there was a problem the outgoing commander needed to explain which was being indicated, explain what action had been taken, what action yet needed to be taken, and estimate when the system should be coming back up.

               Both the ‘Start Countdown’ button and ‘Commit Start’ key switch needed to be covered, safety-wired, and sealed.  The only exception would be if these seals had been broken with proper authority.

               Switches needed to be flipped or rotated to their proper settings.  And the gauges indicating the missile’s propellant tanks pressures had to be reading within acceptable limits — 7 to 9 pounds per square inch for the upper liquid oxygen tank and 16 to 18 pounds for the lower synthetic kerosene tank — with a least 5 pounds per square inch difference between the two at all times.

               Jim Geoghegan said, “Each technician went through the site with his counterpart, verifying everything from the functions of the various mechanical and electrical systems, to housekeeping items — and any problem areas, ongoing repairs, and the like.”

               When everything was completed to the satisfaction of the incoming and outgoing commanders, the new commander announced over the intercom that his crew was now on duty.  The outgoing combat crew closely followed the security protocol as they exited the site under the monitoring eye of the new commander.

               After the rush of changeover, as John Voss reported, “We settled into a routine of maintenance rounds, checklists, training exercises, card playing, reading, and TV.”

               And waiting for the Emergency War Orders they hoped would never come.

               The missileers didn’t believe their Atlas E bunkers would be targeted by Russian nuclear weapons.

               Bob Lemley commented, “While our bunkers were only secure to a 25 pound per square inch overpressure, which didn’t give us a whole lot of protection, any effective Russian bomb would have had to have been delivered by airplane.  Their missiles were horribly inaccurate — though initially ours weren’t much better — and would have had a hard time hitting Spokane County, let alone Deer Park.  That at least was the consensus Captain Richard L. Nelson and I came to late one night while manning the control room.  It was speculation, but it passed the time. ”

               Dick Mellor added, “Our missiles would have been long gone before Russian aircraft could over-fly the sites.  And since the bunkers, as a practical matter, were actually a one shot deal, what would be the use of bombing them after the birds had flown?  We all understood that once we pushed the button we were functionally out of a job.  And the only thing left to do was hitch a ride home — assuming we still had a home.  We expected that the Russian tactic would be to carpet bomb all major metropolitan areas with nuclear devices.  The east and west coasts would be pretty well incinerated.  There were no good outcomes, no good scenarios for this kind of war.”  

               The term overpressure is a method of measuring the shock wave force from a nuclear detonation.  One way to visualize it is to imagine a one cubic foot block weighing exactly 144 pounds.  Set on the top of a flat surface, this one cubic foot block will be applying one pound per square inch of pressure on the surface beneath.  Stack 25 of these blocks on top of each other, and they’ll be applying 25 pounds per square inch of pressure on the surface below.  This would be the equivalent of 25 pounds overpressure.

               The actual damage that such pressure can induce is compounded by the fact that the overpressure is applied almost instantaneously, and relaxed in the same manner.  That’s why it’s called a shock wave.

               A twenty five pound overpressure would be like suddenly adding seven and a half million pounds to that portion of the overhead hatch spanning the launch bay itself, and then just as suddenly removing it.

               While the crews had little expectation that an enemy bomber or missile could catch them unaware, the Air Force had provided a system to automatically seal the base in case of a surprise attack.  A blast detector — a phototube that produced a signal if it detected a light twice as bright as the sun — would start a cascade of events resulting in the slamming shut of all blast doors on the site.  It also closed all ventilation shafts to the exterior.  All these systems would reset once the danger had passed — if the danger did indeed pass.

              

V

 

… unperturbed by outside influence or occurrence …

               Less than two months after Deer Park’s first Atlas ICBM assumed its station, then President John F. Kennedy, in a speech before congress, stunned the world with 29 now famous words.  In that speech, he made the space race official and set America on a course that would consume it for the next ten year.  The President said, “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.”

               With the same type of rocket that had sent Allen Shepard into space resting in a bunker just a few miles away, Deer Park felt it was already part of that race — already part of the new world of rockets and space travel.

               True enough — a small part of the future was resting just a few miles away.  But it wasn’t to be found in the fierce blast of rocket engines hurling men into space.  Rather, the shape of things to come resided in a two-foot cube of transistors snuggled into the left side equipment pod of the reclining Atlas rocket.  The technology embedded in that cluster, technology specifically developed for the Atlas ICBM program, would change the world more than anyone could imagine.

               Computer hardware in the early 1950s consisted of giant room size analog devices like the Univac.  Using tubes, consuming prodigious amounts of electricity, and producing vast amounts of waste heat, the only way these computers could be used for guiding ballistic missiles was to leave the computer on the ground and radio instructions to the ascending rocket — as was done with the first of the operational Atlas series — the Atlas D.  From the military point of view, the vulnerability of this radio uplink was unacceptable.

               Wen Tsing Chow, a scientist for the ARMA Division of American Bosch, proposed his own solid-state digital guidance computer design for the Atlas project.  The result was the eight cubic feet of ARMA computer nestled in the missile’s B-2 pod.  In 1954 the same Mister Chow had developed the basic design for the missile’s inertial guidance system.  These two devices, working in tandem, allowed the Atlas E missile complete autonomy once it had risen just one inch above the floor of the launch bay — and also created the most accurate ballistic missile the world had yet seen.

               The missileers are quick to point out that the computing power of the onboard unit, plus all the logic units in the bunker, still didn’t add up to the machine intelligence of a modern, hand held calculator.  But when the computer was given the coordinates of a target and the inertial guidance system tuned so the computer knew precisely where the missile was at blastoff, that primitive brain could carry out its mission with cold efficiency.

               As a matter of policy, crews never knew where their missile was going.

               “On the launch console, in the upper left hand corner, were two buttons marked target A and target B,” Jim Geoghegan said.  “During the launch sequence we were to be told which of those to push.  When pushed, an indicator above the selected button would light.  Since none of us ever recall hearing anything official, it was always a matter of speculation as to what those two buttons actually did.”

               Analyst Technician Dick Mellor recalled, “There was only one programmed target for each Atlas missile.  It wasn’t fed into the guidance system the way it’s done now — as a pre-recorded digital program.  The targeting information was delivered to the site on what were called ‘target constants boards’.  These were plug-in circuit boards, very common today, but at the time they were the first of their kind.  Those two boards installed together programmed for one target.”

               “The constants board was a matrix of diodes mounted in a metal framework”, Bob Lemley added.  “The board wasn’t very big.

               “This was an extremely primitive programming system.  Selected diodes were burned out of the board, leaving the board with a readout sequence that held the target coordinates.

               “Both boards were plainly visible when installed in the guidance alignment unit which stood close to the countdown logic units at the north end of the launch building’s equipment room.”

               Jim Geoghegan continued by saying, “Rumor, not fact, said that target A was a ‘clean’ burst and target B was a ‘dirty’ burst.  Clean meant an air burst that just blew everything away.  Dirty meant a ground burst intended to pick up millions of tons of contaminated debris and scatter it downwind.  That’s just rumor.  We never really knew.”

               The mating of an onboard inertial platform with an onboard digital computer resulted in a system unperturbed by outside influence and occurrence.  Once the rocket became independent of the launch complex it would proceed toward its target and only some type of system malfunction or some type of damage to the missile would prevent it from completing the mission.  The point of irretrievability was the moment the missile became airborne.

               The device that turned the system autonomous was the inertial platform.  This platform was stabilized in space by two fluid suspended gyroscopes.  Once the gyros were spun to speed, and the inertial platform erected, leveled and oriented to true north, no matter what attitude the rocket assumed, the platform remained in the same position it had attained prior to launch.  In a mechanical sense, it remembered where it started.

               The onboard computer needed two things to do its job.  First, it needed a mathematical model of its trajectory from point of takeoff to point of warhead detachment.  The flight program provided this.  The second thing it needed was a constant feed indicating any real world deviation from that mathematical model.  Comparing the two, the computer could manipulate the missile’s flight controls — directing the two vernier steering rockets, and turning the gimbal mounted thrust chambers of the three main engines to bring the rocket back on trajectory.  The inertial platform provided this data.

               Mounted on the inertial platform were three vibrating reed accelerometers.

               “We called them piano wire accelerometers,” Bob Lemley explained.  “Our old Atlas flew in a four dimensional universe.  One dimension was time.  Since time only goes in one direction, all you needed to measure that was a clock.  The other dimensions were forward and back, up and down, left and right.  To measure those you needed three accelerometers — one oriented to measure movement in each direction, each dimension.

               “Try to visualize a weight.  To each side of this weight I attach a thin piano wire.  Then I stretch the wires tight, so that the weight is suspended between.  If the wires are the same length, when I ‘pluck’ them with an electromagnet, they should both vibrate at the same frequency.”

               This apparatus in motion can be visualized by standing with arms forward and apart with the wire/weight apparatus stretched between the hands so that the central weight is positioned directly in front of the eyes.  From the weight, one piano wire would stretch to the left hand, the other to the right hand.  If both hands were quickly moved in either direction, while maintaining the exact distance between them, then, according to Newton’s first law, the weight in the center of the stretched wire would tend to stay at rest — would tend to lag behind.  If the wire/weight apparatus were moved quickly left, the wire on the left side of the lagging weight would become tighter and the frequency of its vibration would increase.  The frequency of vibration in the wire to the right, which would now be under less tension because the central weight is lagging in its direction, would decrease.  This simulates the underlying principle used by the accelerometers fixed to the gyro stabilized inertial platform of the missile.

               “The difference in vibration frequency between the two wires can easily be measured,” Bob continued, “and, through experimentation, a value can be derived for the rate of acceleration for any given difference in frequency.

               “As the missile moved — pitched and rolled, accelerated and decelerated — the masses in the three wire/weight accelerometers — each accelerometer oriented in one of the three dimensions — would try to stay where they were.  And that resistance to motion, changing the vibration frequency in the wires, would be what was being measured."

               After the rocket had been lifted upright, delicate pendulums sensed whether the inertial platform was standing at its zero point.  An optical reader, referencing a star sighting stored in a collimator permanently mounted in a pit in the launch bay floor, read the direction of celestial north.  Using these measurements a set of servo motors moved the platform to its erect and level position, and turn it to the direction of the target.

               These same servos, acting on directions from inertial platform’s gyroscopes, would keep the platform stable during flight.

               “The North Star, Polaris, was used to align the inertial platform,” Dick Mellor said.  “Since you couldn’t just run out and take a quick reading whenever you received launch orders, the alignment had to be mechanically stored in a collimator. The collimator’s alignment was checked every six months — or whenever there was an earthquake strong enough to change the level of the launch bay floor.”

               Bob Lemley explained, “I’ve seen this done with a theodolite, a high quality surveyor’s transit, though I’ve never done it myself.  So I can’t be too terribly specific.

               “First the big door at the bottom of the launch bay ramp was cranked open.  Then, the metal cover over the collimator pit in the launch bay floor just to the west of the missile was opened.  The person using the theodolite needed to be able to shoot Polaris, then vertically flip the theodolite so that the instrument’s sight tube focused directly at the collimator in the pit.”

               At that point an assistant in the pit, following directions from the theodolite operator, would adjust the collimator until it matched the sighting taken by the theodolite.

               Rising out of the launch bay floor, just behind the collimator pit cover, was the inertial guidance sight tube assembly.  The upper end of this telescoping tube attach to the missile’s B-2 pod at the level of the inertial guidance platform.  As the missile was erected, this sixteen inches diameter tube extended.  During countdown, as the inertial guidance system was brought online, the collimator in the pit would send a thin beam of light to the missile through the darkened interior of the sight tube assembly.  This beam would reflect off a target on the inertial guidance platform and return to the collimator.  If the returning beam didn’t fall within certain limits — within a certain target on the collimator — the collimator sensed the error and transmitted a signal to the guidance system to adjust the inertial platform.

               In essence the inertial platform was taking a sighting of the pole star Polaris — a sighting frozen in the adjustments the theodolite team had made to the collimator some time before.  It was a solution derived from the inventiveness of old school engineers — men who used a sensibility drawn from experience to find something that would work.

               Having dispersed Fairchild’s nine missiles around a rough 40 by 75 mile oval, the engineers faced the problem of providing secure, dependable, and redundant lines of communication between those far-flung bunkers and Fairchild.  The most jam and snoop proof system available at the time was line-of-sight microwave transmission.  The only problem, such a system required exactly what made it so secure — a direct line-of-sight between transmitter and receiver.

               In 1958, when the military was first looking at placing three missile bases, each with three Atlas D missiles, near the towns of Davenport and Deer Park and in the Long Lake area, the logical point for transmission between those sites and Fairchild may have been 3,575-foot high Dunns Mountain — southwest of Deer Park.  When the configuration changed to nine single missile Atlas E sites, Lookout Mountain, about six miles southeast, and 475 feet lower than Dunns Mountain, was selected as the relay point for Deer Park.  Possibly this change was due to the necessity of the relay point fitting into an enlarged network of line-of-sight relay points — those points extending not only to the south, to Fairchild, but also to the east and west.

               Robin Feil, a civilian radio communications technician and broadcast engineer stated, “Most of the missile sites were hardwired into their respective communication transceivers.  Because those transceivers needed to be within line-of-sight of either another transceiver or of a relay point, sometimes the hardwire lines were many miles long.  I seem to recall that Deer Park was one of the few sites with its microwave uplink actually on the grounds.  Deer Park’s transmitter/receiver was located just a few hundred feet southeast of the launch bunker.  It would have looked like a concrete pillbox with a white dome on the side facing its distant transceiver.

               “Fairchild’s Atlas bunker microwave communications system formed a very rough figure 8 — two loops with Fairchild at, again very roughly, its center.  The loops were circular and redundant, so that a failure of any one site’s relay station would not break the communication link between the other sites.

               “Microwave communications were the primary means for the Wing Commander, located at Fairchild, to give orders to the Crew Commanders on site.  It also allowed a system for site data such as readiness and security situations to be reported to headquarters.”    

               Deer Park’s link to Lookout Mountain split into three routes once it reached the mountain.  South was the connection into the communication center at Fairchild.  The western spur connected into the Gray’s Butte transceiver, which was also the uplink from Reardon’s site 9.  A link east from Lookout to 3,375-foot Antoine Peak just to the north of Trentwood connected into the uplink from site 2 at Newman Lake.  Both the Gray’s Butte and Antoine Peak’s transceivers sent microwave beams on to the next site in the loop.

               Since there was no telephone landline into the site, and the only other communication system available was the two-way radio, the microwave system provided a dedicated pathway for all the secure high-priority communications.

               With the bunker, personnel, missile, and communications all at ready, Deer Park’s Atlas was ready to add its weight to America’s mass of nuclear deterrent.

VI

 

… generalizations about the effects …

               When Deer Park’s grade-schooler tossed a rock in the direction of the Atlas E, he was throwing the first type of ballistic missile used by humans at what may yet prove to be the last.  From rocks to rockets, artillery’s progression has been punctuated by leaps in destructiveness.  In concept there is little difference between a Roman artillery catapult throwing projectiles of burning resin and the thermonuclear warhead sitting atop a guided missile — except that one might incinerate a wooden ship, the other a modern city.

               Atlas ballistic missile crews were not made aware of the explosive yield of their rocket’s warhead.  They knew the warhead’s power was significantly larger than the bombs used against Japan.  Beyond that, they could only speculate. 

               Both atomic bombs dropped on Japan were classified as fission weapons — meaning the atoms in the core were being split into lighter elements and in the process liberating energy.  The Hiroshima bomb, Little Boy, used 132 pounds of uranium-235 as its fissionable material.  Although only a small amount of that actually converted into energy, it produced an explosion equivalent to fifteen thousand tons of TNT.  The Nagasaki bomb, Fat Man, used 13.6 pounds of plutonium and produced an explosion equivalent to twenty-one thousand tons of TNT.

               Deer Park’s Atlas missile used a warhead designated by the military as type W-38 — believed to have an output of about three million, seven hundred and fifty thousand tons of TNT.  This was a fission/fusion weapon.  Though commonly called a hydrogen bomb, it’s also known as a two-stage Teller-Ulam implosion device.

               Different from the cracking of atoms in fission weapons, the fusion process produces energy the same general way the sun does.  Energy is created by combining two light elements — usually isotopes of hydrogen — into a heavier element.  The byproduct of this conversion is intense radiation. 

               Although the actual designs are classified, the general details of how various types of thermonuclear bombs work have been released.  We know that the hydrogen isotopes used as fusion material in the bomb’s second stage need to be severely heated and compressed to trigger the fusion process.  The only non-theoretical way known to produce that much heat and pressure is to use a Hiroshima or Nagasaki style fission bomb as the initiator.

               This first stage plutonium/uranium trigger, in a shaped radiation implosion, compresses the lithium-deuteride core of the bomb’s second stage.  Lithium is a metal only half as dense as water.  Because of its chemical reactivity, it only occurs in nature in combination with other elements or compounds.  The other fusion material, deuterium, is an isotope of hydrogen that combines with oxygen to form ‘heavy water’.  When overwhelmed by the pressure of the neutrons produced in the atomic blast and then reflected by the inner case of the bomb to compress the lithium-deuteride core from all sides, the lithium part breaks down into tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, and into the element helium.  Under the intense heat and pressure of the blast, the new tritium and original deuterium fuse into more helium, and in the process, liberate an explosive flood of energy.

               The difference between the explosive power of early fission and modern fusion devices is startling.  One way to visualize this difference is to explode each device in the air and measure the diameter of the initial fireball.  This fireball is produced by the outward expansion of a shell of super-heated gas.  The gas is formed when the nuclear explosion sends a wave of radiation outward, compressing and heating the air.  This plasma is initially pushing outward at several million miles an hour — thus the nuclear shockwave.  The fireball itself is defined by the edge of the plasma’s visible luminosity.

               A Hiroshima size blast should produce a fireball about six-hundred and fifty feet across.  The weapon detonated over Nagasaki could have burned a seven-hundred and twenty foot wide hole in the sky.  But the Atlas missile’s W-38 warhead would produce an airburst fireball one mile, six-hundred and twenty five feet in diameter.  This says nothing of the destruction that would radiate outward from the edge of that plasma front.

               If a Russian device of similar size to the Atlas warhead had been detonated above Deer Park’s missile base, certain generalizations about the effects of that blast can be calculated.

               If the airburst had been close enough to the ground for a good portion of the plasma front to contact the earth, energy would have been reflected back into the fireball, increasing its size.  This enlarged fireball could reach a mile and a half across, overrunning the northeastern segments of the municipal airport’s runways.  This fireball would have remained visible for just over eight seconds.  As the fireball rolled overhead, anything organic that had not been buried deep underground would be reduced to superheated powder and either fused into the earth or blow away.

               At two and a half miles from ground zero the outermost zone of ionizing radiation would just brush Deer Park’s eastern city limits.  Assuming an individual could somehow survive the other detonation effects, this radiation, knocking electrons from the atoms inside the living body, would chemically ionize the tissues.  The mortality expectation for an ionized organism could run as high as 90 percent.

               About the same area would be exposed to very high overpressure — overpressure being an expression of the power of the shockwave produced by the blast.  The overpressure at the outside edge of this zone would have decreased to 20 pounds per square inch — meaning every square foot of structure or person facing the blast would be slammed with a punch equivalent to one ton of weight.  Nothing except broken stubs of the heaviest and most anchored portion of any structure would be left standing from this 20 pound boundary inward to ground zero.

               Any number of factors can determine how effective a bomb will be.  The type of target determines the burst altitude, and the burst altitude and weather conditions at the target determine the area over which the destruction will spread.  If the intent was to root out a hardened or buried structure such as the bunker, the incoming ordinance would have been detonated at the surface or slightly above.  If the intention was to cause the maximum damage over the widest possible area, then the bomb would be detonated five to ten thousand feet overhead.

               If the bomb had exploded closes to its optimal altitude for maximum widespread damage, then, seven miles out from the center of the blast, the overpressure would still exceed 4 pounds.  That means the east wall of the old Clayton schoolhouse, at just under seven miles from ground zero, would be hit with a shockwave in the neighborhood of 320 tons.

               Rick Hodges, an experienced mechanical engineer and structural designer, commented, “To put it in perspective, the building codes for this area require designing for a 20 pounds per square foot wind load.  Along the gulf coast of Florida — hurricane country — that number is fifty pounds per square foot.  The indicated 4 pounds per square inch overpressure equals 576 pounds per square foot — over 10 times the design requirement for hurricanes.  In fact, I would guess that the force on the east side of the building would exceed the building’s total weight.  If the building could have somehow managed to hold together, that force could have potentially rip it from the ground and rolled it over like a child’s toy block.  I can’t think of any above ground structure in the Deer Park/Clayton area that could have remained standing against such a shock wave unless it was shielded by intervening hills.”

               The tonnage striking the school is the total calculated against a monolithic wall.  Hit with such a blow, the windows of the old school would have moved inward with the shockwave.  As the shockwave moved into the building through those openings, it would have increased the internal pressure and somewhat countered, somewhat lessened the pressure being exerted on the exterior wall.  Whether this lessening would have allowed any portion of the un-reinforced brick walls of the old school to survive is doubtful.

               Any such calculations of effects at a distance are extremely rough estimates.  The closer to the blast one moves, the less uncertainty exists.

               Though the Riverside school, approximately three miles to the east of the detonation site, is somewhat protected by the land rising to the west, the altitude of the blast — the eye of the airburst fireball being clearly visible from the school — insures that nothing but the foundation would have remained.

               As for any humans or animals in the area, overpressures in excess of five pounds per square inch can rupture eardrums.  At fifteen pounds per square inch irreversible lung damage can occur — the same blast-lung effect often suffered by people too close to a conventional chemical explosion. At greater overpressures the shockwave moving through the body releases energy anytime it moves across any density boundary — such as between muscle and bone or between tissue and air.  This released energy causes hemorrhage of the tissue — causes bleeding in the flesh deep inside the body.

               Accompanying this static overpressure shockwave would be a short-lived dynamic overpressure — a sudden blast of wind.  In the vicinity of Clayton the wind, for several seconds, would blow away from ground zero at between 125 and 150 miles an hour.  This would immediately be followed by a gust nearly as strong in the opposite direction.  The closer to the fireball, the stronger this wind.  This dynamic pulse would pick up and throw objects and creatures, slamming them against each other and against static surfaces.

               As bad as the above may be, it all follows what could potentially be the most or the least widespread of the explosion’s damaging effects — and it all depends on the weather.  If the sky was clear of haze or clouds, regardless of it being day or night, the initial flash of light from the explosion, part of that first flood of radiation, would set the countryside on fire.

               Draw a circle 24 miles in diameter — twelve miles in every direction from ground zero.  At the edge of that circle any exposed human flesh would suffer a third degree burn — would be burned completely through the skin and down to the underlying tissue.  Every foot closer to ground zero would increase the depth of the burn.  Mildly put, in the event of nuclear war and the collapse of effective medical care, any burn covering more than a few inches of skin would likely, over time, be fatal.  Treatment of the infections and the skin grafts necessary to cover such wounds would be non-existent for the vast majority.  The worse the wound, the less time to suffer.

               To give it some perspective, that circle would touch Sacheen Lake in the north, the top of Mount Spokane to the east, the top of Scoop Mountain to the west, and Wandermere Golf Course to the south.

               If the sky were overcast, this burn radius would be severely reduced.

               In cold weather or at night the number of people exposed, due to being inside or heavily dressed, would be relatively small.  But the flash, over much of that circle, would also cause dry, exposed combustibles to burst into flames.  While some burning buildings, haystacks, automobile interiors and the like would be extinguished by the dynamic shockwave’s blast of wind, others would just add fuel to the ensuing firestorm.

               While the likelihood of a 3.75 megaton bomb detonating over Deer Park’s missile bunker was almost nil, the Atlas missile’s warhead would most certainly be falling on a densely populated military, industrial, or civilian target over there — with the same effect.

               Regardless of what the missileers did or didn’t know about the potential energy contained in the Atlas missile’s warhead, one thing the entire world suspected was that the nuclear weapons the Russians had aimed at America — due to the extra lifting capacity of the giant Soviet rockets, and to compensate for the greater margin of targeting error expected from their rockets — were much larger than those America was aiming back.

               To assure that the American warhead could survive the 15,000 mile per hour plunge back into Earth’s atmosphere, an aero-dynamic re-entry vehicle was fitted around the W-38 warhead.  This vehicle was divided into three distinct sections.  The nose was a blunted bullet shape.  Next, a long cylindrical shaft about two and a half feet thick containing the warhead.  Last, an outward flaring tail to give the vehicle a shuttlecock shape — a shape assuring that atmospheric drag would pull and hold the vehicle in a nose first position during reentry.  Systems for arming the warhead were installed in the auxiliary equipment container at the back of the vehicle.

               The entire package was just under 7 feet long and weighed 3,330 pound — 3,080 for the warhead, 250 pounds for the re-entry vehicle.

               Surfaces of the vehicle exposed to heating during reentry were covered with a partially ablating material — meaning the surface would char away, carrying the frictional heat produced by atmospheric drag with it.  Below this skin was an insulating layer.

               The re-entry vehicle was fitted to the missile after the missile was secured to its horizontal launch boom in the launch bay.  The re-entry package arrived at the site on its own specialized transporter.  Backed into the launch bay, it was positioned under the missile’s nose.  The transporter’s hydraulic cradle lifted the payload into position for mating.

               The vehicle was fitted under tension to the missile’s adapter ring.  Once the missile reached separation altitude, and the holding mechanism detached itself, the stored tension would assure a clean separation.  As the re-entry vehicle began moving away from the missile, retro-rockets on the Atlas would back the missile away from the payload.

               As for working in the launch bay when the warhead was attached to the missile, the missileers expressed no concern.  Even in the worst case scenario — a fully fueled upright rocket exploding, and its warhead collapsing into the pool of burning fuel and oxidizer — there was only an infinitesimal chance of a radiation leak.  And no chance at all of a spontaneous nuclear detonation.

               Jack Roberts states, “The munitions people most likely did some radiation testing when installing and removing the warhead.  As for the maintenance crews, I don’t recall us doing routine radiation sweeps of the launch bay.”

               “There was a hand held radiation monitor on site,” Jim Geoghegan recalled.  “We tested once in awhile.  But it never seemed to be an issue.”

               The attitude of the missile maintenance crews seemed to be that the warhead was just something stuck on the front of their rocket, and, as long as it didn’t get in the way of the work, not their concern.

VII

 

… probably to confuse the enemy …

               At a length of 78 feet, from tip of reentry vehicle to end of thrust chambers, the cold, brightly lit metal shape hanging beneath its recumbent launch boom in the chill of the narrow launch bay doubtless could create some uneasy emotions if one were to think too deeply about its actual function.  While the missileers were completely dedicated to their mission, they were also young men who understood what a war requiring the unleashing of this device might mean to the future of themselves and the entire planet.  They understood that a war requiring the unleashing of this device would change the future into something — unfortunate.

               After adjusting to the idea of being in the presence of a mindless machine with such a god-like potential for wrath, the second thing any visitor to the bay would notice was the cleanliness of the surroundings — to military specifications.  As throughout the missile complex, the unpainted concrete floors in the bay had been sealed and waxed.  No oil stains on the floor.  No loose litter or tools.  Nothing out of place or unsecured.

               Jack Roberts recalls, “It was quiet in the launch bay — none of the echoes you might ordinarily expect in a concrete building.  I guess all the equipment in there didn’t give sound a chance to bounce around.  And in the winter it tended to be cold.  I don’t recall any heating in the bay.”

               The machine itself was clean.  The bullet-like cleanliness of its airframe was designed to slip through the lower, denser atmosphere with little resistance.  Most components fixed to the missile outside the line of its bullet shape were housed in equipment pods covered by aerodynamic nacelles.  The stabilizing fins of classical rocket design were gone, unneeded since all steering corrections were made by directing the thrust from the three main and two steering engines.  Machine senses, far quicker than human senses, would keep the rocket standing squarely on the column of its own thrust as it pushed skyward.

               Standing is a word describing our conditioned view of a rocket at rest or in flight.  But a more proper way to think of a rocket, at least the complex ones designed as ICBMs or spacecraft, is as a boat.  Because many of them do stand upright at times, and then spend part of their time in an environment where up and down are little more than mathematical coordinates, it can become confusing.  Though bow and stern easily convert to top and bottom when the rocket is upright, the confusion begins when having to think in terms of right (starboard) and left (port), or dorsal (upper side or back) and ventral (lower side or belly).  And then more confusion is add by nautical terms indicating motions, terms such as yaw, pitch, and roll.  Perhaps the vessel most closely related to the rocket is the submarine, since both operate in three dimensional oceans.

               Regardless of such comparisons, the machine lying in the launch bay was most certainly a sleeping shark-like predator.  Perhaps at least part of the quiet chill the missileers felt it its presence was related to that fact.

               At the nose of the rocket proper was a 48 inch diameter, four foot deep, conical reinforced adapter ring that provided attachment points for the reentry vehicle.  Recessed inside this ring was the domed forward bulkhead of the 18,600 gallon liquid oxygen tank.

               From the leading edge of this adapter ring, and over the next fifteen and a half feet, the missile’s diameter flared at an angle of 10 degrees to the full ten-foot diameter of its two tanks.  Though the length of the oxygen tank was just over forty feet, the aft fuel tank’s domed bulkhead protruded into the interior of the forward oxidizer tank almost four feet — reflecting the fact that the lower tank, full or empty, was always maintained under higher pressure than the upper tank.

               The hardened adapter ring used to mount the warhead was also the point of suspension from which the recumbent launch boom grappled the forward part of the missile.  This boom attachment was also the point at which mechanical stretch could be applied to the airframe if depressurization, by intent or accident, occurred.

               Documents indicate that the thickness of the liquid oxygen tank’s stainless steel skin varied from 0.012 of an inch to 0.038 of an inch — roughly the thickness of one to four standard playing cards.  This is why, without internal pressure or mechanical stretch, the airframe would collapse under its own weight.

               The interior of the LOX tank, as well as the propellant tank behind it, contained a series of ultrasonic sensors running down the full length of each tank.  Each sensor, as the fuel level fell below it, sent a signal to the propellant utilization system.  If the pre-programmed usage ratio between the two tanks became unsynchronized, valves were manipulated to increase flow from one tank and decrease flow from the other tank until the LOX/RP-1 usage returned to the correct balance.  If one or more of those sensors needed attention, the Missile Maintenance Technicians had to enter the tank.

               “Entry into either the liquid oxygen or the propellant tank was a pretty rare event,” Jack reported.  “I was only inside the tanks three or four times.  Because of the extra difficulty of entering the rear tank — the central engine with all its attachments had to be removed — that was always done at the base maintenance shop.  But we could enter the front tank with the missile still hanging beneath the launch boom at the bunker.

               “First the weapons team removed the reentry vehicle from the rocket.  We put a work platform at the nose and covered the overhead, sides, and floor of our work area with 6 mil plastic — forming a contamination control tent of sorts.  A plastic sheet divider was dropped to isolate the adaptor ring from the rest of the tent.

               “To gain access we had to remove the tank’s boil-off valve.  This valve was a large apparatus situated in the center of the domed front of the tank.  Its function was to vent oxygen vapor from the missile.  When upright and fueled, liquid oxygen, growing warmer and evaporating out of its liquid state, would build up the vapor pressure inside the tank.  If this wasn’t vented, the pressure could build high enough to rupture the tank.  The white plume seen drifting away from the top of the missile during fueling is gaseous oxygen escaping through this valve and chilling atmospheric moisture into visible condensation.”

               When liquid oxygen, under normal barometric pressure, warms up to 297 degrees below zero Fahrenheit it begins to boil.  As it turns into a gas, again under normal barometric pressure, it expands to 860 times its original liquid volume.  Though the LOX in the tank wasn’t boiling, the increase in evaporative vapor pressure due to the oxygen being pumped into the tank’s much warmer environment was doubtless substantial.

               “The boil-off valve was closed just before launch.  At launch, high pressure nitrogen was vented into both tanks to help force the contents toward the engine pumps.

               “To remove this valve we would first put the missile into stretch and then release the tank’s internal pressure.

               “The valve was about two and a half feet in diameter.  There were over a hundred screws holding it in place.  We didn’t have electric or air-operated screwdrivers.  Every screw had to be broken loose and threaded out by hand.  And when replacing, each hand driven and individually torqued.

               “The valve didn’t weigh much more than 25 pounds, but it was so awkward it took two of us to handle it.  After removal, we wrapped it in plastic to prevent contamination.  And then we could slide through the opening into the tank.

               “Working inside the oxygen tank was a real pain.  We had to wear moon-suits and breathing apparatus — partly to protect us from the chemicals we were using and partly to protect the tank from us.  And then there were air and safety lines to contend with.

               “In mechanical stretch the tanks deformed, developing very large wrinkles.  About as close as I can come to describing the sensation of walking around the interior is to say that it was like stepping on a big curved steel waterbed.  If we needed to get higher up the walls, we used scaffold boards with the ends heavily padded and wrapped in plastic to span from side to side of the tank.

               “Much of this contamination prevention was due to the specific worry that hydrocarbons might be introduced into the interior of the oxygen tank.  Hydrocarbons — petroleum products — and liquid oxygen do not react well together.

               “When the maintenance was done we wiped down the interior of the tank with trichloroethylene and tested a randomly selected area with a small piece of filter paper.  We sealed this test patch in a plastic bag and passed it through the boil-off valve opening to a lab technician.  He looked for contamination on the patch through a microscope.  If it showed more than so many particles per square inch, regardless of what those particles might be, we had to wipe the whole thing down again.

               “Working in the RP-1 tank — the rocket propellant tank — was not such a clean procedure.  There was always an inch or two of residual fuel sloshing around.  We just wore rubber boots and waded.  Getting into the tank was the headache.”

               The propellant tank, almost 25 feet long, held 11,455 gallons of fuel.  The thickness of its skin varied between 0.027 and 0.038 of an inch.  The intermediate bulkhead, the forward end of the fuel tank, bulged about four feet into the aft end of the liquid oxygen tank.  This intermediate bulkhead was insulated to keep the 300 plus degree below zero LOX from being heating by the fuel — and the super-refined kerosene based fuel from being chilled into jell by the LOX.

                 The power from the two booster engines was transferred to the body of the rocket through a hardened thrust ring girdling the bottom of the fuel tank.  Thrust from the central sustainer engine was transferred through a thrust ring on the truncated bottom of the fuel tank’s downward bulging lower bulkhead.  This also formed the access portal into the fuel tank — and was the reason the central engine had to be removed to gain access to the tank.

               Standing at the rear of the missile, looking at the horizontal line of thrust chambers, the second most innovative design feature of the Atlas missile — after inflatable propellant tanks — was not readily apparent.

               Classic rocket design called for the use of multi-stage vehicles — each stage a complete rocket consisting of fuel tanks and engines.  The Atlas missile’s stage and a half design, at stage separation, only jettisoned the unneeded engines and engine support equipment.  The entire aft end of the rocket, minus the sustainer engine, was designed to slide away.  Both outside booster engines would shut down, but the central sustainer engine would continue burning.  Latches holding the booster section on would slam open, locking pins on hoses and connections would snap open, and the thrust from the sustainer would push the missile away from the loose booster.  The booster section, with a gaping hole in its center where the sustainer engine had once rested, would drop away.

               The coordinate system for knowing where things were located around the circumference of the missile could best be visualized at the rear.  Two lines were drawn — one horizontally through the centers of all three thrust chambers — the other vertically through the center of the sustainer’s thrust chamber.  This divided the missile, down its long axis, into four quarters or quadrants.

               “The quadrants were numbered one through four clockwise, starting at the lower right,” Airman Roberts said.  “That’s why the booster engine on the left, centered on the line between quadrants two and three, was called the B-2 engine — booster-2 engine.  The equipment pod located along that same line just forward of the booster section — the pod containing the computer, inertial guidance system, inverter, batteries, and such — was called the B-2 pod.  I don’t know why they used this particular grid system — probably to confuse the enemy.”

               Most of the equipment inside the thrust section of the rocket was intended to serve one purpose — to turn the liquid oxygen and RP-1 pumped from the forward tanks into enough thrust to lift and accelerate the machine with its fuel and warhead into a ballistic trajectory toward Russia.  This was not a simple task.

               The booster engines each produce 165,000 pounds of thrust.  The central sustainer produces 57,000 pounds.  The two small vernier steering rockets, both located forward of the booster section — one on the dorsal (upper) side of the recumbent missile along the line dividing quadrants three and four, and the other on the ventral (lower) side on the line between the first and second quadrants — each produced one thousand pounds of thrust.  Altogether, this gave the missile 389,000 pounds of lift.

               To get that lift, each booster engine consumed something over 75 gallons of LOX/RP-1 mixture a second.  That rate was maintained until booster shutdown and jettison 140 seconds into the flight.  During its 270 seconds of burn the sustainer engine volatized about 25 gallons a second.  And the verniers, operable for a time period comparable to the sustainer, each burned about half a gallon of mixture a second.  These calculations by BMAT Bob Lemley assume that only a small safety margin of LOX/RP-1 would have been left in the tanks at shutdown.

               Each gallon of liquid oxygen weighed 9.52 pounds.  Each gallon of RP-1 — slightly lighter than kerosene — weighed 6.625 pounds.  The fuel and oxidizer at takeoff weighed slightly over a quarter million pounds.  So the combined weight of missile, warhead, and fuel came in at just under 275,000 pounds — or just over 137 tons.

               The classic problem with two chamber rocket engines — an upper combustion chamber and lower thrust chamber — is heat.  The scorching blast of flame rushing out of the combustion chamber and down the throat of the rocket’s thrust chamber tends to erode away any metal softened by that heat.  In the thrust chamber this erosion can be slowed by cooling the metal in the chamber’s walls through a process called ‘regenerative cooling’.

               As Bob Lemley explained, “The thrust chambers were made of hollow square tubes welded together.  Every other tube was either a ‘down tube’ or a ‘up tube”.  The RP-1, as it came from the turbopump, was sent down the ‘down tubes’ into a collector ring around the outside-bottom of the rocket tube.  The fuel returned from the collector ring though the ‘up tubes’.  This liquid, moving at a very high speed, carried the heat away from the thrust chamber’s walls.  It was then directed into the showerhead injector nozzle at the top of the engine’s combustion chamber.”

               Positioned at dead-center/top of the combustion chamber, the injector plate consisted of concentric rings of injection holes.  Each ring alternated between RP-1 and liquid oxygen.  Besides cooling the surface of the plate, the fuel and oxidizer created a laminar-flow boundary layer as they entered the chamber that further protected the injector plate from burn-through.

               The outside row of holes in the showerhead propellant injector sprayed streams of PR-1 onto the walls of the combustion chamber — a process called ‘spray cooling’.

               Jim Geoghegan added, “The combustion chamber was large enough to disperse the combustion pressure over a large area.  That’s why the turbopumps could push LOX/RP-1 into the chamber at a pressure less than the total thrust pressure being developed by the engine.”

               When used as a rocket’s regenerative cooling agent, the heavy form of kerosene burned in jet planes proved inadequate.  The scorching heat inside the thrust chamber’s cooling tubing caramelize elements out of the jet fuel.  These varnishes tended to collect as sludge in the regenerative tubing and in the showerhead injector plate, clogging the passages, and causing hot spots, burn through, and catastrophic engine failure.  RP-1 — a highly refined fractional form of kerosene — provided a low varnish solution.

               Attempting to spray RP-1 and liquid oxygen together into the combustion chamber before combustion had been initiated caused another set of problems.  As Colonel John Voss pointed out, “I remember a training film presented by engineers from General Dynamics Aerospace.  They took minute amounts of rocket propellant and liquid oxygen, mixed them, and remotely dropped a weight on top.  It sounded like a shotgun going off.  Liquid oxygen and petroleum products are not compatible.  When mixed, the least shock will detonate the concoction.”

               Spray induced turbulence inside the combustion chamber would certainly constitute a shock.  The volume of fuel and oxidizer injected in just a fraction of a second, if shock detonated, would doubtless be enough to blow the chamber apart.  To prevent this, a healthy flame front had to be built at the very beginning of chamber injection.  Creating this front required the sequenced injection of a hypergolic agent.

               A hypergol is a chemical that remains non-reactive to one element of a propellant yet spontaneously ignites upon contact with another.  In the Atlas, the hypergolic charge, or ‘slug’, was added as a ‘burst cartridge’ — a tube filled with the chemical then capped at both ends with a diaphragm designed to ‘burst’ under pressure.  This cartridge was installed in a by-pass from the main fuel line.  A portion of the initial RP-1 flow was diverted into this line.  Pushing through the first ‘burst’ diaphragm, the fuel flow forced the slug of hypergol through the second diaphragm, then through the showerhead injector and into the combustion chamber.  Meeting the incoming spray of liquid oxygen, the hypergolic immediately flashed into flame.  The fuel following the slug maintained the combustion until the main flow of RP-1, having first circulated though the thrust chamber’s regenerative cooling loop, entered the showerhead.  As it sprayed into the combustion chamber, it found a sustained flame waiting.

               Three high-speed turbopumps, one plumbed into the workings for each main engine, drew down the approximately 175 gallons of liquid needed by the missile each second all engines were under power.  The two steering rockets — vernier engines — were plumbed into the turbopump supplying the central sustainer engine.  That way, when the two booster engines dropped away at staging the steering rockets, along with the sustainer engine, would continue to function.

               Turbine style impellers gave the turbopump its name.  In the missile, each turbopump had two impellers working off a common driveshaft axle.  These impellers, fixed on each end of the shaft, were fluid pumps — one for liquid oxygen, the other for the kerosene based fuel.  A third impeller was gear connected to the center of this common axle and used a high-speed stream of combustion gas ducted over its blades to spin the pump’s common axle and drive the impellers on either side.

               To produce this high-speed jet of combustion gas, a gas generator — essentially a small rocket engine in itself — was installed upstream of each turbopump.  Since the same LOX and RP-1 used to drive the big engines was burned in these gas-generators, the problem became how to supply fuel to the gas-generators to produce the exhaust to spin the turbines to pump the fuel into the gas-generators.  The answer was a solid propellant gas generator ignited by an electrically detonated squib.

               Ducting — essentially a closed causeway for exhaust from the gas-generator — ran aft from the generator and through the turbopump’s central impeller, then out an exhaust pipe at the base of the rocket.  A solid propellant gas-generator canister was fixed to the upper portion of this causeway.  Upon ignition, the solid fuel produced the initial blast of pressure needed to spin the turbine to speed.  As the solid propellant gas-generator ignited, pyrotechnic igniters inside the combustion chamber of the liquid fuel gas-generator also ignited.  These slow burning igniters insured that when the LOX and RP-1 being forced forward from the turbopumps reached the liquid fuel gas-generators there would already be an adequate flame inside the combustion chambers to ignite the incoming mixture before turbulence-induced shock and a resultant explosion could occur.

               By time the solid fuel inside the propellant canisters was exhausted, the liquid fuel generators were fully operational.

               Clearly visible at the rear of the rocket, stubby gas-generator exhaust pipes angled out-board from the two booster engines.  A perforated muffler wrapped around the base of the center engine’s thrust nozzle allowed exhaust from the sustainer’s gas-generator to escape.

               During certain procedures, such as Dual Propellant Loading Exercises or Operational Readiness Inspections — times when LOX and RP-1 were pumped into the rocket’s tanks — the solid propellant gas-generators and various pyrotechnic squibs and chemical hypergolics would be removed to prevent even the remotest chance of this engine ignition ladder sequence being accidental started and one or more of the rocket engines igniting.

               With the rocket upright the blast from the engines would be directed into the flame pit directly beneath the base of the launch boom/gantry.  From there the blast would be turned and channeled south through the horizontal flame tunnel.  At the end of this tunnel the blast was angled upward into the open.  When the complex was sealed, the tunnel’s outside opening was capped by a sliding hatch designed to keep explosions — possibly nuclear — occurring above the complex from entering the launch bay through the flame tunnel.

               During the four year operational life of the Atlas E series ICBM no flame tunnel ever sprouted fire and no launch bay endured the ferocious blow-back from an actual launch.  But for two unrelenting weeks deep in the Autumn of 1962, as the nation teetered on the nervous edge of DEFCON 2, the launch crews of the 567th Strategic Missile Squadron waited in near certainty for exactly that.

VIII

 

… a difficult and dangerous effort …

               On Monday evening, October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy, speaking to the nation, explained his intent to impose a naval blockade around Cuba.  Evidence indicated that the Soviet Union had installed missiles on that island capable of delivering nuclear warheads as far north as Washington D.C. — missiles the President viewed as first strike weapons.  There was no illusion as to how serious this blockade might prove to be since the United States itself had twice before declared war over the issue of freedom of passage on the high seas.  As the President noted in his address, “Let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out.”

               As the President began his speech, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent a coded message raising the military’s national alert level to DEFCON 3.

               Shortly after Fidel Castro took power in 1959 the Eisenhower administration began a covert war to destroy the new Cuban government.  The intellectual philosophy driving Castro’s revolution was communistic, and the executive branch worried that a Marxist government providing so much as the appearance of a better life for the common people would foment revolution elsewhere.

               The United States, deep in a cold war with Russia and China, tended to support any government in the western hemisphere that suppressed leftist political activities regardless of that nation’s attitude toward human or political rights.  The amount of hostility this policy created among repressed political and economic groups throughout the Americas self-fulfilled our government’s worry about a successful Marxist regime in Cuba being a beachhead to other revolutions was well founded.

               Adding to this worry, in September of 1960 the Soviet Union, taking full advantage of the tensions between the U.S. and Castro, began pouring military aid into Cuba.  And there was little doubt that at least some of this aid would find its way to guerrilla groups beyond the island.

               Before Batista fled Cuba the Eisenhower administration had provided the dictator with military assistance in his war with Castro’s revolutionaries.  After the revolution succeeded, our executive branch unleashed the CIA with instructions to do whatever necessary to remove Castro and his leftist regime, including forming and supplying counter-revolutionary groups, sabotage of civilian and military targets, and attempting the assassination of key figures in the Cuban government — one being Castro himself.  Kennedy continued this executive policy.

               The CIA proved itself inept at all these tasks.  This became evident to everyone on April 15, 1961, when the CIA, with White House approval, launched the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion.  Within hours CIA propaganda proclaimed most of the island had already fallen to the returning Cuban exiles.  The fact was the Cuban military had been waiting for the invaders, at least partially aware of their plans.

               After the humiliation of the Bay of Pigs, most observers felt the only option left for toppling Castro was direct invasion by the United States military — and declassified documents indicate that was exactly the option being discussed in Kennedy’s White House.  Historians suspect Castro’s decision to allow Russian nuclear weapons onto Cuban soil was a logical continuation of his strategy of shielding Cuba from an American invasion by placing American troops into a face to face confrontation with Russian troops.

               The Soviet Union and Fidel Castro came to a tentative agreement regarding the placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba in late May, 1962.  By August, a high-level interagency group inside our government told the Kennedy administration that there was circumstantial evidence suggesting that short and intermediate range missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads were being shipped to Cuba — a fact that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev denied.  Khrushchev intended to announce the missiles’ existence during a visit to Cuba in December, well after the missiles had become operational.

               On October 14th a U-2 spy plane photographed the first hard evidence of Soviet medium range ballistic missiles in Cuba.

               The scope of the coming confrontation was clearly defined by President Kennedy during his speech of October 22.  “It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”

               The leading edge of any retaliatory response would rise from Atlas installations scattered across the continent — including the bunker at Deer Park.

               “I remember we were briefed about the missiles and saw aerial photos of the Cuban sites at least a week before Kennedy’s speech,” Jim Geoghegan said.

               Now that America’s intended response to the missiles had been clearly stated and a not-to-be-crossed line drawn across the open ocean, the crisis was at hand.

               Master Sergeant Paul Rodrigues recalls October 22, 1962, vividly.

               “My group, the 3901st Strategic Missile Evaluation Squadron Atlas D and E team stationed at Vandenberg, was flying to Fairchild on an assistance visit to the 567th Strategic Missile Squadron.  My group was the same team, Ready Zero One, that had conducted the first all Air Force launch of an Atlas missile.  About 30 minutes prior to landing, we were told there would be a C-123 waiting to return us to Vandenberg for launch duty.  By time we got back to California, things had deteriorated to the point that war seemed inevitable.

               “Crews were already at the consoles and countdowns had begun and were holding — which was risky with the older Atlas D series in use at Vandenberg.

               ”I still don’t believe people understand just how close to war we were.  Nuke laden B-52s were already over-flying Russian territory and reports of Russian Bear Bombers over our air space had been verified.  This was as close to nuclear holocaust as we have ever been.

               “The Ready Zero One crew was given a second set of orders.  After we launched our Vandenberg missiles, we were to report to a secret destination in Arizona.  We were issued sidearms, 30 caliber M-1 carbines, ammo, and emergency rations, and were given detailed instruction on how to get to this destination.  Since we would by that time officially be at war, we were to proceed in uniform and were authorized to use absolutely any means necessary to expedite our mission.  We’d be allowed to take our families, but were never told why we were being sent.

               “After the crisis passed we returned our weapons, notes, and hand drawn maps, and were told to never mention the indicated destination again.

               “Many years later, while on vacation in Arizona, I drove past a small faded tin sign announcing a turnoff to a small desert town 2 miles ahead — to that very same unnamed town.  Curiosity got the best of me.

               “I checked with the town’s historical society — staffed by a lovely lady well into her eighties.  I asked if there were or had even been a military installation outside of town in the specified direction.  The only one she recalled was an old cavalry fort from the days of the Indian wars.  After some inquires she did find one lifelong area resident who recalled that about five or six years after World War II the Army Corp of Engineers did some surveying and blasting in the nearby mountains.  But that was all the locals were aware of.

               “I guess I’ll always wonder why the military wanted an experienced launch crew at that particular location.”

               On October 24th, as Soviet ships approached the Caribbean quarantine line, the Joints Chiefs of Staff order the Strategic Air Command to elevate the Defense Condition once again.  And for the first time in the history of the military’s alert posture, it stood at DEFCON 2 — one step below total war.

               Bob Lemley reported, “I was working my usual site, Launch Facility Number 8 outside of Egypt, Washington, when that second change in Defense Condition message was received via the Strategic Air Command network.  Captain Nelson and I were manning the control room when it came through.  We each copied it, then each decoded what we had copied.”

               With privileged knowledge obtained during each crew’s pre-tour briefing — knowledge as to how close to the brink the world really was — one can only imagine the stress these young men felt.

               Add to that stress the fact that the Atlas ICBM was a difficult missile system.  All liquid fuel rockets are, by nature, terribly complicated applications of physics, chemistry, and engineering.  From the mid-1920s to 30s, rocket design by trial and error began to give way to applied engineering and rigorous data analysis at the hands of men such as Robert Goddard and Werner Von Braun.  Still, advances were most often deduced from mishap.

               Though the inventors responsible for rocketry’s early advances intended the machines for travel through interplanetary space, the device’s practical ballistic applications were obvious to military thinkers — as amply confirmed by the thousand plus German V-2s dropping on England in the last months of World War II.

               As America’s first operational ICBM, the Atlas suffered all the glitches common to new and intricate machines.  Since America was in a race against the intelligence community’s assumption of Russian ballistic missile superiority — superiority in numbers of long range rockets — having scientist go back to the drawing board for a fresh start was the last option.  As systems were developed to solve engineering problems, these systems sometimes contained problems of their own — problems that needed to be addressed by another layer of engineering.  This led to an overlapping complexity the missileers found at times bewildering.  But one thing was certain — if all went well, this machine would definitely fly, would definitely find its target, and would definitely do its job.

 

IX

… mutually assured destruction …

               If we care to listen, history can tell us the various ways the world’s political leaders play apocalyptic games with our lives.  These games are often laid out as scenarios — we do this, and they — the enemy — will do that in response.  Scenarios are guesses made by comfortable men in comfortable rooms calmly factoring the death of billions into a statistical calculation of victory.  In the real world, a positive outcome to a nuclear crisis relies more on the common decency shared by honorable men on both sides — pragmatic men who tend to listen closely to their own lingering doubts — moral men who ultimately gamble on their own human intuition.  And this, far more than the fiction of nuclear disarmament, is our best hope for survival.

               The Cuban Missile Crisis is the classic example of playing this game right up to the edge of the abyss — an abyss first opened in a remote corner of New Mexico’s Alamogordo Bombing Range on the morning of July 16, 1945 — an abyss opened with the eye-scalding flash of the world’s first atomic blast.  “I am become death, destroyer of worlds,” was the quote from Hindu scripture that the bomb project’s scientific director J. Robert Oppenheimer used to clarify what few at the time understood about playing with this particular weapon on the edge of this particular abyss.  The wager being placed on the table was extinction for most if not all of the more complex life forms on the planet.

               If the Cuban Missile Crisis escalated into an all-out nuclear conflagration, the military had various estimates of probable civilian casualties.  We now know that even the most dismal of their estimations fell far short of the truth.  Modern science suggest that after the initial war damage a prolonged nuclear winter and associated catastrophic biosphere collapse would have reduced the human population of the planet to close to zero.  Whether what was left of the race could survive first the technological implosion, then the planet’s environmental ruin, and finally the residual radiation eating away at the species’ genetic heritage is doubtful.

               One thing that should be noted by anyone studying the declassified transcripts of the decision making processes that led up to the Cuban Crisis is how much of the advice being given the President and Premier was based on faulty intelligence, incorrect analysis, or the fraudulent manipulations of data by underlings — manipulations intended to support specific political and strategic prejudgments among those underlings.  In the final analysis the reason the human epoch did not end in the autumn of 1962 was that two men, both of whom understood through firsthand experience the gritty and grisly truth of war — Kennedy in the Pacific, Khrushchev in the Ukraine — decided that so much death, even using the best case scenarios provided them, was not justified.

               The problem for the human race is that the nuclear bomb is the perfect weapon.  It is the final arbitrator.  It can solve all military, political, ideological, cultural, religious, and racial problems by incinerating those problems with the push of a button.  The only thing that tarnishes this convenient solution is the possibility that the problem might have the technological power to do the same in return.

               Mutually assured destruction is the perfect defense against the perfect weapon.  But the only thing that will make this system work is faith in the willingness of the enemy to use their weapons if provoked — and the confidence the opposition has in our assurance that we will do likewise.  For this system to work, this is the only trust between enemies each must have faith in — the only trust that each must actually rely upon.

               It was the job of the young men in the various Strategic Missile Squadron bunkers scattered around Fairchild Air Force Base and across the continent to provide the Soviet Union with the reliable assurance that we would retaliate.

               And if an authentic launch message were received?

               An endless cycle of training covered by mountains of redundant checklists trailed each man through his tour of duty in the bunkers.  Readiness inspections, many unannounced, rattled the routine of standing watch and insured that complacency never had a chance to dull the combat crews’ edge.  The constant evaluation by upper echelons and fellow crewmembers probed for any indication of declining discipline or self-control — any indication that the stress was eating too deeply.  Stress from endless hours of confinement, breathing air vaguely tainted by the taste of diesel fumes and hydraulic fluid, the chatter of dull-witted thinking machines, the hum of generators and power converters — smelling oddly of melted oil and ozone.  Stress from being locked in a vault without windows, whose only view of the outside came through the flickering black and white screens of the security monitors or the ready room’s television.  The stress of being buried in a concrete box that could become the last refuge for survivors of a nuclear war.  All this training, isolation, and waiting in anticipation of one 15-minute crescendo of compressed stress that all hoped would never come.

               But what if it did?

               The tone for an incoming message sounds.  As soon as it is identified as a ‘launch preparation message’ the crew is ordered to launch stations.  Doubtless it would just be just another in the endless cycle of training exercises — except — no such exercises are to be carried out while the nation teeters so close to the edge of an actual war.  Too much chance that a training error could be misconstrued by the enemy and precipitate a real attack.

               As each man reaches his post he pulls on his communication headset and reports to the Commander.

               Grease pencil on plastic clip-board, the Commander and Deputy Commander scribble — decoding the message.  In disbelief, they see the message appear.  But procedure, not belief, is the issue.  Though the message must be wrong, procedure takes president — procedure drilled to perfection through ongoing loops of training repetition.  The officers confer, compare their decoded messages, and agree that they both see the same thing.  An order to launch!

               To insure that the message is genuine, each officer pulls the laminated plastic card from around his neck and breaks it open.  Inside is the message verification code.  They compare this series of letters and numbers with the authentication code sent inside the decoded message.  Both officers agree, the Strategic Air Command has sent the message, it is authentic, and we are at war.

               Over the intercom the Commander, still acting more on momentum then comprehension, demands his “crew report”.  Each man checks the readiness status of the equipment under his watch and reports either “Go” or “Hold”.  If everyone reports “Go”, the Commander lifts the cover over the ‘start countdown’ button, and says, “Start countdown on my mark.  Five — Four — Three — Two — One — Mark!”

               Indicators on the launch control panel glow amber or green and an intricate series of events, the critical ones timed by stopwatches held be the two officers, begin.

               The entire complex rattles as the 400 ton lid over the launch bay jumps upward six inches and is quickly winched to the side.  Though normally described as frightening, whether the crew in a wartime launch would even notice the racket is questionable.

               With the overhead door fully retracted, the launcher begins to rise — slowly for the first 5 degrees or so, then fast.  At about 85 degrees, it slows into ‘creep mode’ — so it won’t overshoot the 90 degree point.  At 90 degrees it stops, and the second set of hold down clamps snap onto the base of the missile.  Then the nosecone clamp opens, retracts about 8 inches, rotates upward about 10 or 15 degrees, and the boom falls back 10 degrees off horizontal, leaving the missile clear for launch.

               The RP-1 and liquid oxygen lines are partially filled while the bird is on its way up.  When it reaches 90 degrees, rapid RP-1 transfer begins.  Some LOX begins to flow to cool down the valves and lines, but rapid liquid oxygen transfer doesn’t begin until the fuel tank is topped off and at flight pressure.

               The Commanders watch the progress of each step in the process on the control console indicators.  Lights change from amber to green with the completion of each designated task.  The men check times against flow charts and stopwatches.  Everything in its order.  Everything on its mark.  There’s too much to follow in the here and now.  There’s little time is left to consider what might be going on in the rest of the world.

               It takes about four minutes to fill the RP-1 tank.  Nitrogen gas brings the tank’s pressure up to the required 55 pounds per square inch.  Just before the rapid filling of LOX tank begins, a ’Crew Recall’ announcement by the Crew Commander brings the two crewmen in the Launch Building back to Launch Control — securing the access tunnel’s blast-doors along the way.  In another four minutes the liquid oxygen tank fills.  Its internal pressure is raised to 53 pounds per square inch.

               When the ‘fuel & LO2 ready’ light on the launch control console changes from amber to green, indicating that both tanks are at capacity, the four hooks holding the missile to the launcher’s base unclamp.

               Before the initiation of countdown, the site’s guards had rushed top-side.  Putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the flame expected from the rising rocket, they take positions around the perimeter of the site.  Their top-side job is to prevent unauthorized intrusions into the site — or any other actions that might endanger the missile.

               In 1962, no enemy action could prevent the Atlas missile from carrying out its mission once it had risen into the upper atmosphere.  But on or near the ground, sabotage was a concern.  One sabotage possibility was perforating the missile’s thin skin with slugs from a high powered rifle.

               Bob Lemley commented, “I asked one of the engineers from General Dynamics Astronautics about this.  He said a few bullet holes would not have depressurized the tanks enough to collapse the missile.  The missile’s pressurization system was designed to compensate for the many hundreds of pounds of propellant being drained from the two tanks each second.  The few pounds lost through bullet holes would be insignificant.”

               “What might cause a problem would be any mixing of the LOX and RP-1 that drained from the perforated tanks.  If that stuff shock detonated, the whole thing could go up.

               “Our defense against that kind of thing was the four top-side guards.  As soon as they detected incoming rounds, their automatic rifles would have been sending a lot of fire outgoing.”

               With the missile upright and loaded, and all the appropriate indicators lit, the Commander instructs the Deputy Commander to leave the launch control console and stand by the remote ‘commit control’ panel.

               Bob Lemley explained, “This second panel was located in the crew’s sleeping quarters — separated from the launch console by walls and doors.  The two officers were in headset communications.  The launch control console’s ‘commit start’ switch was a push button.  The remote ‘commit control’ panel’s switch was a twist-key.  The Deputy Commander needed to twist his switch within three seconds of the Commander’s depression of the console’s ‘commit start’ button to initiate a launch.  The separation of the two panels insured that one man could not start the sequence by himself.”

               With the switch engagements timed correctly, the ‘launch enable’ indicator turned green, and the final one-minute cascade of events toward launch began.

               On his way back to the launch control console, the Deputy Commander might steal a glance at the Ready Room’s television.  The screen that had been covered for so many days with worried men speaking in forced calm, flickers without movement.  A single tone from the speaker.  A single picture on the screen.  The Civil Defense network had been activated.

               Late Octobers in eastern Washington most often come as a dull and dreary chill, wrapped in yellows and browns with an occasional leafy splash of red.  Shorter days growing into longer nights slowly ease the countryside toward winter’s approaching silence.

               In late October of 1962 there was an extra chill, an apprehension in the air.  And not a little disappointment at the direction the world seemed to be taking.  The older citizens, many whom had been through more war than they cared for, shook their heads in sad recognition of the apparent inevitability of conflict.  With their usual lack of forethought, some citizens suggested we attack first and end the Russian problem once and for all.  But most, steeped in a common worry, became a little more considerate of neighbors and strangers alike.

               As the engine start indicator flickers, squibs on the solid-fuel gas generators sputter to red heat, and the powdered chemicals ignites, gasifies, and hammers down the tubular flumes, spinning the turbine pump impellers to speed.  Valves snapped open allowing RP-1 and LOX to surge through the piping toward the rocket’s combustion chambers.  Hypergolic slugs burst under the incoming fuel’s pressure, splash through the showerhead injectors, and burst into flame against the incoming liquid oxygen.

               The rockets thrust chambers shutter as flame pours out, stabbing down as white-hot jets.  The exhaust rushes into the pit beneath the rocket, though the underground flame-tunnel, and up through the flame door opening.  Blast pours around and out the launch bay, billowing up through the overhead hatch in rolling pillows of smoke and fire.  And in the mist of it all, the Atlas strains upward.

               After the missile rises one inch, the launch pad’s sensor detects the absence of weight.  The ‘missile away’ indicator on the launch control console burns green.  All cables and pipes still attached to the bird disconnect.  The missile, now irretrievable, begins its first and final mission.

               As the missile claws its way out of the Deer Park bunker, the sound of its engines pours across the farmland.  An endless thunderclap eating its way through forest and field until long seconds later it begins sliding up the sides of the surrounding mountains and echoing back across the valley.

               People for dozens of miles around step outside, look, trying to find the source of the sound.

               If daylight and clear, they see a contrail rising straight up from the area east of Deer Park.  If night, they see a bright new star rising with growing speed toward heaven.  Either way, they desperately search for some explanation other than the obvious.

               Some, in panic, quickly realize.  Others refuse to understand.

               Still rising straight up, the missile, using its two outboard vernier rockets, rotates around its central axis until its belly aligns toward its target far around the curvature of the Earth.  This is just the first of its ballistic adjustments.

               As the Earth falls further behind the rocket begins to pitch over — begins to tip from vertical, pushed by its dorsal vernier rocket.  The contrail begins an ever sharper curve northwest.

               The first major event in the flight occurs 45 miles downrange, at a speed of 6,500 miles an hour and some 35 miles above the small town of Colville.  About two and a half minutes after takeoff, with 85 percent of its fuel already consumed, the rocket stages — the rocket prepares to drop the section containing the two large, outer booster rockets.

               Propellant lines to the booster section close and the booster engines, without fuel, shut down — though the central sustainer engine, designed to stay with the missile, continues to burn.  When the separation system detaches, the sustainer pushes the missile away from the booster.

               Bob Lemley, who watched Atlas test launches from the Vandenberg training facility, commented, “Staging is still within naked eye viewing distance of the launch point.  Visibility permitting, a puff of smoke can clearly be seen, as well as a few flashes from the tumbling booster section.”

               The actual nature of the ‘puff of smoke’ and ‘flashes’ was not known in 1962.  As the booster broke away from the missile, 21 gallons of fuel and 27 gallons of liquid oxygen left in the jettisoned lines spilled into the near vacuum 35 miles above the Earth.  Essentially boiling at such low pressure, this vaporized mixture expanded in all directions at 600 feet per second.  Since the plume would be traveling at the same speed as the booster when detached, it enveloped the lower section of the rocket before the sustainer engine could push the missile’s body away from the separation point.  At the same time the burning sustainer engine, passing through the expanding fuel/oxygen plume, ignited it.  The expanding plume accounted for the puff of smoke seen by observers — and the igniting flame-front the flashes.

               The tumbling booster section rips apart as it dropped back into the atmosphere, and large chunks of it scatter across British Columbia.

               With the booster section staged, and the weight of so much hardware and fuel gone, the remaining 15 percent of the propellant over the next two minutes is enough to drive the missile to near orbital altitude — into a ballistic trajectory well above the atmosphere.

               When the sustainer engine shuts down, the reentry vehicle separates from the Atlas, and the warhead begins its final arming sequence.  Then it waits for its flaming plunge back to Earth.

               But launch orders were never sent.  And, as events eased into the third week of a conciliatory November, everyone began to see signs of hope.

               On November 20, at 11:21 Eastern Standard Time, after an agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union was finalized, the Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered the Strategic Air Command to lower its alert status to DEFCON 3.  The Cuban Missile Crisis was officially over.

               Two years later, in November of 1964, the Air Force announced the phase-out of all Atlas missiles in its arsenal.  Newer, supposedly less complicated and more reliable missile systems were taking over.  America’s first ICBM, already obsolete, was to be retired.

               Between the 17th of February, and the 31st of March, 1965, all nine of Fairchild’s Atlas missiles bases were taken out of the defensive loop.  By late June, with its official deactivation, the 567th Strategic Missile Squadron, its men and its mission, began their long slide into history.

               The missile itself continued to fly.  As one of the nation’s most reliable launch vehicles for civilian and military orbital payloads, the Atlas continued well into the 1990’s, outliving the majority of its designers, and at least a few of the men who stood watch with it.

               As for the bunkers — the equipment was sold at auction and hauled away.  Eventually the shell of the Deer Park bunker became a factory for manufacturing explosives used in open-pit mining.  Due to security issues related to the nature of the work being done there, tours of the bunker’s shell are difficult to arrange.

               It will take centuries for the sheer mass of concrete used in Fairchild’s nine Atlas missile bunkers to crumble away, though the knowledge of what actually occurred there is already dissipating.  Drawing mild curiosity, these monuments to the ‘cold war’ are already seen as irrelevant artifacts from another century.

               And this new century is already hard at work designing and building weapons more perfect, more ultimate, than those of the last.  The only defense against many of these new weapons will be the ancient tactic of assured retaliation — of mutually assured destruction.  This will mean new generations of young men and women buried deep in armored bunkers — beneath the ground, beneath the sea, above the clouds — vigilantly and endlessly standing watch.

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