Near Nuclear Launch – Response to the UN – Jan 2016

 

John Bordne United Nations Interview

Seconds to Stop the Final Countdown: the Cuba Missile Crisis in Okinawa

Side-event organized by the permanent Mission of Chile to the UN and the Mayors for Peace.¹

Analysis and Opinion

 George Mindling

“What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we would like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard evidence rigorously and skeptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” -  Carl Sagan

On October 27th, 2015, I received an e-mail from Glenn Jones, a former fellow member of the 1962 TM-76B Mace missile Installation, Checkout and Verification team at Bitburg Air Base, Germany. Glenn forwarded an opinion article published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, dated 25 October 2015, titled “The Okinawa missiles of October” by Aaron Tovish.² While unfamiliar with the article itself, I was well acquainted with John Bordne's story. I first heard it while writing “U.S Air Force Tactical Missiles 1949 – 1969 The Pioneers” with Robert Bolton, of Lawrenceville, Georgia in 2006 and 2007. John Bordne and I communicated often about the TM-76B Mace in Okinawa during that time, not only for the book, but also for my web site about tactical missiles.

I read the article and was struck by several statements I felt weren't correct, or were incredibly exaggerated. Two days later, at the TAC Missileer Reunion in Orlando, I addressed the reunion attendees after the main dinner asking anyone for comments or information, especially veterans of Okinawa. While there were members of the 498th Tactical Missile Group present, no one had heard the story, and many attendees gave it little credence. I wanted to know if perhaps I had been wrong in excluding the story from our book, or if I had been correct in my original assessment.

Charlie Simpson, Colonel, US Air Force (Retired) Executive Director, Association of Air Force Missileers, sent me an e-mail on November 17th, 2015, asking if I had any knowledge about the same article as he had received inquiries from members of his organization. I answered Colonel Simpson;

“Neither Bob (Robert Bolton, Co-author, U.S. Air Force Tactical Missiles 1949 – 1969 The Pioneers) nor I could corroborate any part of the story while we were researching our book several years ago, nor could I find anyone to give it any credence whatsoever. I posted questions about it on the web site, but have had no comments. I mentioned it at our last TAC Missileers convention, which included many 498th TMG vets, and the response was the same. No one had heard about it before, and no one gave it any credibility after I mentioned it. While I wasn't there, I can't swear it didn't happen, but personally, I think it's a case of confused memory. Operation Sunset Lily was true, but this is a whole different tale.

I soon received an e-mail from Joe Perkins, Executive Director of the TAC Missileers Association, asking anyone with any knowledge or information about the Bordne story to contact Travis Tritten, a reporter for the Stars and Stripes in Washington, DC. Tritten asked the TAC Missileers Association for information about the Bordne story. After exchanging e-mails and a lengthy telephone conversation with Tritten, I gave him permission to use any photographs from my web site in the article he was writing about the Bordne story. I agreed to allow the use of any material on my web site as I deemed it in agreement with the intent of the original contributors. Several photographs submitted to me by other members of the 498th TMG were used when the story entitled “Cold War Missileers Refute Okinawa Near-launch³“, was published on December 23, 2015.

My TAC Missile website, http://www.mace-b.com/38TMW/, originally based on the Air Force unit I was assigned to in Germany, has been open to the public since 1996 when I originally hosted it on AOL.com. [Over 617,000 page views, average 47 hits a day] It was moved to its own domain a little over 15 years ago, and has been popular with former missilemen and Air Force veterans ever since. As the site became popular, more and more people contributed stories and photographs to help keep our part of Air Force history alive. One of the early contributors, Robert Bolton of Lawrenceville, Georgia, - also a former Mace missile man – and I became good friends and eventually collaborated on a book based on our experiences with the web site and our personal experiences with the Mace missile system. The book, U.S. Air Force Tactical Missiles 1949 – 1969 The Pioneers, was published in 2008, and was developed from contributions from former missilemen from all aspects of the early cruise missiles.

John Bordne was also one of the other early contributors to the web site, and later the book.⁴ His descriptions of the early days on Okinawa in 1962 with the TM-76B Mace and the launch sites were an integral part of the early deployment story of the Mace B (TM-76B/CGM-13B.) All except one particular part: John maintained that they (the 498th TMG) were at DEFCON 2 during the Cuban Missile crisis and came close to launching missiles during the tense confrontation. While not being able to explain to me what DEFCON 2 meant, his belief was that all of the sites on Okinawa were operational in October, 1962, were ordered to launch their missiles against their assigned targets, and therefore they were at DEFCON 1. I disagreed with his assumption of the DEFCON level, but John was adamant and would not budge. I had no choice but to not include Bordne's story in the book.

I responded to Aaron Tovish's article in December, 2015, on the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists web page:

“I read your article with great interest as I researched John Bordne's story in 2008 for inclusion in my book, U.S. Air Force Tactical Missiles 1949 – 1969 The Pioneers, co-authored with Robert Bolton. We included many of John's comments and photos in the book, but could not corroborate or verify his Cuban Missile Crisis story. In our book's acknowledgments, I thanked John Bordne for his many comments and contributions to the book, but as I also wrote, 'We thank the people who contributed stories and material for this book, much of it derived from or inspired by contributions to the web site. We have endeavored to verify each and every story, confirm or deny every rumor. Many stories were left on the table, but several could not be ignored.' The story about DEFCON 1 at Kadena was one of the stories we left on the table.”

“One basic reason for our exclusion of his story is the lack of proof PACAF went to DEFCON 2 at any time during the Cuban missile crisis. USAFE, under Gen Truman Landon, escalated to DEFCON 3 unbeknownst to NATO Commander, Gen Lauris Norstad, who had been authorized by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to escalate NATO forces at his discretion. Gen Norstad, after discussion with British Prime Minister McMillan, decided not to escalate from DEFCON 4 to DEFCON 3, although Gen Landon had received permission from direct Air Force channels as did all other Air Force combat commands. [Nuclear Weapons Safety – Scott Sagan-Leadership Involvement, pg 103]. The Strategic Air Command was the only U.S. force I found to advance to DEFCON 2, and stayed at that level until Nov 15th. Theater Commands such as USAFE and PACAF were not part of SAC and did not fall under that command. While part of the SIOP at the time, the TM-76B (CGM-13B) was a tactical missile, not a strategic weapon.”

I found no records from the 498th TMG, 313th Air Division, or 5th Air Force to show they escalated to DEFCON 2 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and therefore did not support inclusion of John Bordne's story as a factual component of the book.

I decided to watch the Bordne interview to better understand Aaron Tovish's article. As I watched the video,⁵ I realized I was being forced into a position I had avoided for several years. I quickly began to suspect the purpose and overall integrity of the interview based on irregular, inappropriate, and quite frankly, erroneous statements Bordne made while explaining not only the background to his story, but his Air Force history as well. It appeared to be more theater than substance.

John Bordne and I trained concurrently, though separately, for basically the same system and skills early in our Air Force enlistments. While Bordne was Flight Controls, launch, I was Flight Controls, maintenance. I, too, was half-way through TM-76A Flight Controls class at the Lowry Technical Training Center in Denver, Colorado, early in 1961 when Leonard Estrada, Long Beach, California, and I were selected to move to the first TM-76B Flight Controls mechanic training for first term airmen. All previous TM-76B Flight Controls personnel, both career airmen and NCOs (Non-Commissioned Officers), were factory trained in Baltimore, Maryland, by Martin-Marietta.

Bordne and I were both students at the Combat Tactical Missile School, 4504th Missile Training Wing, Orlando Air Force Base, Florida, during the second half of 1961 although Bordne stated he was assigned to Kadena in the summer of 1961 while I didn't finish training at Orlando until November of that year. Bordne trained as a launch crew member while I was trained in missile maintenance. One of my classmates, Leonard Estrada, and I were both slated for assignment to Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, after graduation, however, at the last moment – after our hold baggage containing our winter uniforms had been shipped to Kadena – our orders were changed and we were both given PCS (Permanent Change of Station) orders for Bitburg Air Base, Germany, to report in January, 1962. I remained in the Mace B program for eight years, serving through all of its numerical designation changes.⁶

I found the cumbersome, ill-recorded video of the October 28, 2015, John Bordne interview tedious to watch, so I converted it to the .mp3 audio format so I could listen to it conveniently. I deleted the first ten minutes of the recording – before the interview actually starts – and have listened to the entire John Bordne interview at least three times. I replayed parts of it many times while taking notes and insuring I understood what Bordne said. I had to research many of the comments, including those that were not necessarily germane to the Okinawa issue, as I knew many of them to be inaccurate Unfortunately, they are indicative of the relative accuracy of the overall interview. I began to question not only the information being presented by Mr. Bordne, but also the purpose of the interview as well.

Bordne's dramatic opening statement "It was hard to believe, that if we had to launch theses missiles, that we were in last minutes of our life, and that within days there would virtually no life left on the planet. I cannot explain the feeling that I had, It is something I only had once and haven't had since then. Bone chilling, numbing feeling" is expectedly as profound as the subject itself. The problems begin about a minute later when he says emphatically, "I did not want to be a missileer, in fact I wanted to fly. At Lackland, the Captain that gave us our assignments stated that we have you slated for missiles because I had taken some college as, in electrical engineering.”

At this point, I made my first replay to make sure I copied the text correctly. The statement is so fraught with basic procedural problems it had to be addressed.⁷ After listening to the entire interview, and reading Bordne's comments posted on the Bulletin of Atomic Scientist web page that contained the article, I realized the story had expanded beyond my initial reading of it some seven or so years ago. I had not heard the part about sending other launch crew members to the adjoining complex to possibly shoot the other launch crew, and had not heard the part about “cracking open” the massive launch bay doors. The first part is preposterous and the second part is impossible. If it had been an actual launch order, an EWO (Emergency War Order), any attempt to prevent a launch would have been considered an enemy action and met with defensive action, including gun fire if necessary, and secondly, the launch bay doors had to be partially open to even start the Mace-B J-33 jet engines as they are “air breathers,” not rockets as mistakenly reported recently by a Japanese news agency. To make the story even more implausible is the thought of raising or lowering the 100 ton launch doors manually.⁸

While I seriously doubt Bordne's personal intelligence knowledge of any Cuban refugees or of the 50 SAM sites in Cuba⁹ he mentions, I cannot prove he was not privy to highly sensitive intelligence data not usually disseminated to enlisted, non-related personnel (E-3's) in the field. I documented the "sabotage" event in Germany he wrote about in the comments section of the on-line article in my book as that is part of the official 38th TMW record. He mentioned the sabotage story to me in an e-mail in 2007 while I was writing the book, and the story was resolved when Robert Bolton and I uncovered the documents that showed the “sabotage” proved to be a contractor error at the worst possible time. As far as the “3 TM-76B sites that were “sabotaged” from the “Road to nowhere,” we only had two sites at Bitburg for a total of 16 launch bays, and we didn't go operational until 1964. Our first missile test insertion was at Rittersdorf, Site VII, still a raw site, in September, 1962¹⁰, the month prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis. While Bordne states these were comments made at a pre-shift briefing, the incorrect assertions simply don't lend credibility to the remainder of his story.

On December 6th, I forwarded Bordne's story to Carlo Croce, a former Mace-B Launch Officer who also served at Kadena from May 1965 to Dec 1966, for clarification of procedures and duties. Carlo contributed much to my book from the 313th Air Division history concerning Operation Sunset Lily, the planned launch of an inert Mace-B from Kadena during the Vietnam conflict, and has experience in other missile systems as well.

Carlo responded:

“We never received mid-shift codes (did get altitude potentiometer settings from 5th AF), and only Target Planning had info on the missile targets. The launch crews had no such information. Target coordinates were provided as data settings during count up and could not be changed without shutting the missiles down and counting back up. The alert crew had no control or knowledge of targets. So obviously there was no call-out of targets during launch.

We had no pouches and no launch keys. The launch key concept was a SAC Minuteman ICBM concept. We did have keys to the locked bookcase that contained the launch authenticator cards. These keys were handed over to the LO and Mech 1 during crew changeover.”

While Carlo disputes many of Bordne's comments, specifically about the presence of launch keys, I would recommend contacting Carlo for his full comments and opinions. Croce did not reinforce any of Bordne's assertions, and contradicted many of them.

My research continues on several statements, but the overall accuracy of John Bordne's interview is poor at best, terrible at worst, and therefore, to me, the overall reliability of his interview is in question. I doubt most of Mr. Bordne's comments could have been made to an audience of his peers without serious disapproval or disagreement. All of the facts are important here, not because they have direct bearing on the claim of an incident that could have launched a nuclear attack, but because they show a potential problem with Mr. Bordne homogenizing past memories into a blend he can express with one sentence, unfortunately with little or no accuracy.

SUMMARY

In my opinion, something out of the normal routine may have occurred during A2C John Bordne's duty shift that day in the launch complex at Kadena, however, I have come to the conclusion the event, as described by John Bordne, is undoubtedly enhanced and exaggerated, quite possibly by simply fading memories of fifty-four years ago. I will leave the reasoning for such enhancements to others.

Aaron Tovish has spent exhaustive hours developing his article and taken extreme care to place disclaimers about the validity of the information presented, but I think an intensive program to research all USAF records, specifically WRAMA (Warner Robins Air Material Area) to determine if PAL (Permissive Action Link) was installed on the PACAF systems as they were on USAFE weapons over a month prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis, should be undertaken before any organization supports the story as anything more than just an “opinion.”

Finally, and perhaps most important in understanding the combat readiness of all operational Mace tactical missiles, including all TM-76B/CGM13B missiles assigned to the 498th Tactical Missile Group in PACAF, the 71st Tactical Missile Squadron and all TM-76A/MGM13A missiles in the 38th Tactical Missile Wing in USAFE, were continually assigned as QRA, or Quick Response Alert missiles – the equivalent of the Victor Alert status for fighter aircraft with nuclear response assignments, regardless of “DEFCON” status. The DEFCON level had no bearing on missile launch status or readiness condition with QRA responsibilities.

The Mace missile alert launch responsibilities did not change because of the Cuban Missile Crisis, or lessen when the crisis was resolved. John Bordne's contention that PACAF or the 498th TMG status was raised to DEFCON 2 is not only incorrect, but immaterial as well. It only serves to confuse what may have actually happened.

George Mindling

January, 2016

Co-author “U.S Air Force Tactical Missiles 1949 – 1969 The Pioneers”

Owner and Webmaster http://www.mace-b.com/38TMW/

Port Charlotte, Florida

1 http://webtv.un.org/watch/seconds-to-stop-the-final-countdown-the-cuba-missile-crisis-in-okinawa/4584615881001

2 http://thebulletin.org/okinawa-missiles-october8826

3 http://www.stripes.com/news/special-reports/features/cold-war-missileers-refute-okinawa-near-launch-1.385439

4 US Air Force Tactical Missiles 1949-1969 The Pioneers pages 234 and 261

5 http://webtv.un.org/watch/seconds-to-stop-the-final-countdown-the-cuba-missile-crisis-in-okinawa/4584615881001

6 My original IC&V (Installation, Checkout and Verification) duties at Bitburg Air Base, Germany, included installing and testing all Flight Controls/Safety and Arming test equipment and support equipment in the Missile Support Area, and later working with cabling crews at both launch sites, 7 at Rittersdorf and site 8 at Idenheim. I worked under the Launch Control Center floor at both complexes at site 7, and pulled cables to both the LCSC and the LAGG consoles. Leonard Estrada and I, along with S/Sgt William Reeves and A1C John Cochran, not only tested and inspected the Flight Controls System, including the Heading Monitor System, in all TM-76B missiles and nose sections in the Missile Support Area, but performed all Safety and Arming checks on each warhead section mounted on each missile at the time of insertion in the launch bays as well. We were responsible for all site dispatches for all Flight Controls/Safety and Arming problems, including the Heading Monitor System. By 1964, our section had grown to seven airmen and two NCOs. Following my four-year assignment at Bitburg, I cross trained to Inertial Guidance system mechanic while assigned to technical school support at Lowry AFB, Colorado, and later served a second tour at Bitburg in both Guidance and Flight Controls. I earned my Master Missileman badge as a Staff Sergeant in 1969 having served solely with the Mace B. I was an Air Force board-certified 7 level technician in Flight Controls and on the AC AChiever inertial guidance system as well.

7 AFQT (Armed Forces Qualification Test – administered to all military recruits) and AQE (Airmen Qualification Examination) scores – Category and enlistment date was determined by AF Recruiting area quotas. Only certain numbers of recruits for each of the four categories were allowed to enlist each month. The categories were Administration, Mechanical, Electronic, and General. Each recruit's category was decided prior to enlistment.

8 http://www.mace-b.com/38TMW/Bitburg/Site_7/jammed.htm

9 There were 24 identified sites, (2 not operational, as of Oct 20,1962 – CIA Documents of the Cuban Missile Crisis 1962, Editor Mary S. McAuliffe, CIA History Staff, October 1992

10 http://www.mace-b.com/38TMW/Bitburg/site_7/insertion.htm

The Jammed Launch Bay Door

 

 "Airman Mindling, Airman Mindling, you have a phone call," the loudspeaker called out from the ceiling of the Bitburg Air Base NCO Club. I was totally surprised as I had never been paged before in my life. The first thing that raced through my mind as I headed for the office that Saturday afternoon was that something had happened back stateside. 

"Hello, this is Airman Mindling!"  

"Mindling, this is Major Shaw, get out to Rittersdorf and see what you can do to fix that damn launch door they jammed open. Get out there as soon as you can!" 

"Yes sir, I'm on my way!" I had no idea what he was talking about as I hung up, just that I had to take my fiancee (and future wife) back to Bitburg or she would again have to wait on me for yet another site dispatch. I raced across the street to our barracks and changed into fatigues in record time, and after dropping Ilse at her mother's apartment on Kyllburgerstrasse, was on my way to Site VII in my green, nearly clapped out 1954 VW. 

I was absolutely floored that Major Shaw, Chief of Maintenance for the 587th Missile Maintenance Squadron, called me, a two striper, to fix a launch site facility problem. How he had picked me was a mystery until I got the site, where, sure enough, one of the huge launch bay doors was stuck about a third of the way up.

"You the hydraulics expert from Flight Controls?" one of the launch crew members asked as I climbed the steps to inspect the jammed door.

"Uhhh, yeah, I'm from flight controls," not wanting to challenge the expert part of the statement. As I crossed to the inside of the launch bay, I checked the huge pistons, then secondly,  the control arm that ran parallel and directly above the two silver, polished exposed pistons. Sure enough, jammed between the control arm bar, used as a sensing switch bar, and the huge, traveling piston arms, was a bent and thoroughly stuck, metal cased PSM-6 multimeter.

Someone had been troubleshooting a circuit during the assembly of the missile that had just been loaded and had thoughtlessly set the standard Air Force issue multimeter on the closest available shelf, the one that was formed by the pistons and the control arm. Then they forgot it was there.

 Hours later, during the final phase of the missile acceptance, the huge 100 ton door was to be raised and closed. The launch crew members in the launch bay, usually including the crew chief, are in direct contact by headset with the Launch officer 60 feet underground in the Launch Control Center. The innocuous grey PSM-6 apparently escaped detection by the launch crew. Apparently every thing had gone well until the door simply stopped. The raising process is as exciting as watching grass grow, and takes almost as long. It took a few moments to realize it had finally jammed. It was stuck just far enough up to prevent a launch, and it couldn't be reversed to go back down.

I disconnected the switch leads, and then shorted them, but they were for the launch prevent position indicator and had no effect on the squealing hydraulic unit. We tried to stop, reset, and even reduce the pressure to the huge cylinders trying vainly to over power the jammed test set.  I had never seen the door system before, but simply tried to logically figure out how to satisfy the signal requirements to stop the door drive system. That didn't work, so we got a bigger hammer. 

We tried knocking, then leveraging the case out from between the arm and the piston to no avail. That was one PSM-6 that was never going to be used again. Time was running out as a command decision was made downstairs: blow the pressure and let the door down, one way or another. 

We all stood by on top and waited for the command, every body standing well clear of the door and it's revetment. At first, it appeared to be slow motion, but when it hit, it could have been heard all the way back to base. It cracked the concrete between the two adjacent bays with its impact. The door was open and the launch and AGE people were trying to figure out how to straighten the control rod. That bay was out of commission for a while, but at least the door was open. 

When I went to see Major Shaw in the Chief of Maintenance's office, he listened intently as I told him what had happened.

After a long pause, he said, "At least it's open!"

He finally managed a wry grin when I told him the PSM-6 wasn't one of ours. 

The damaged revetment at Rittersdorf. The crack on the left had been semi-repaired and filled in, but the crack on the right side remained until Site VII shutdown in 1969. Photo courtesy of Bob Sosenko (rsosenk1@twcny.rr.com)

****  

  The above article was originally posted on the 38^th TMW web page at Mace-B.com, and elicited this response from Launch Crew member Bob Sosenko

I do remember the stuck door and I was there! I certainly don't remember all the details but as I recall we burst a hydraulic line in the power room trying to open that door. Being one of the smaller troops on crew, I got elected to be a gopher and crawl under the steel decking to clean up about 50 gallons of fluid. That actually turned out to be the easy part since everybody else was cleaning red fluid off the walls, ceiling and equipment. What a mess 3,000 psi can make in only a few seconds time..

Now, I'm really guessing here but if memory serves me right, there was a PSM-6 involved and I remember a light haired (maybe blonde), skinny dude (we all were back then..) working feverishly trying to figure out what some dumb-ass launch crew member did to a 100 ton door.....;-) That was you? I'll be damned. That's probably where you remember me from. I was a Mech 1 at the time but being trained in all positions except nukes, I and everyone else was in the bay at some point offering their two cents worth. We had to override the door interlocks so we could get access and that got the guards panties all in a bundle as I remember. When he saw 3 of us in the bay - all armed, he started breathing normal again and stopped hyper-ventilating over the two bay doors being opened (launch and access doors) after you fixed whatever it was.

Bob Sosenko (rsosenk1@twcny.rr.com) 71st TMS

How Not to Pass an ORI

It was overcast, cold and damp with over a foot of snow on the ground when we first arrived at the Missile Support Area in late January, 1962. Located in the Eifel forest some ten miles from the Bitburg Air Base, we had the last of five hangars in the remote compound, the Flight Controls/Guidance Systems Checkout hangar at the top of a small slope.

Entering the hangar for the first time was like a scene from a movie. It was as cold inside the hangar as it was outside. No heating system had been built into the building! The only light pitifully illuminating the crates and wooden boxes that filled the musty hangar was from a row of small windows twenty feet above us that ran down two sides of the building. A missile sat forlornly its launcher in the Flight Controls area, still "wrapped" from the shipment from the Martin-Marietta plant in Maryland. It was hard to tell what was there, much less figure out where it was supposed to go once we uncrated it. The hangar floor, however, was totally unexpected. It was a carefully laid, gray and blue vinyl tile as if in a school building. The hangar had no heat, but a sensitive floor that was obviously going to get a lot of our attention. The adventure we trained forty-six weeks for was about to begin.

It started with our new, shiny, forty-cup, percolator coffee pot. The one we bought by taking a collection from all the airmen who were going to be working in our brand-new maintenance hangar. It was our first, full-team effort as members of the first Air Force Mace "B" guided missile unit in Germany. Our very first duty that day was one for the record books: We were ordered to shovel the snow out of the ditches that ran parallel to the walkway leading to the maintenance office. We were then ordered, all of us, to remove the wet morass of dead leaves and pile them up on the side of the ditches. We were a long, long way from our first Operational Readiness Inspection.

We were the first TM-76B Mace "B" crew in Europe, having been diverted from our original assignment to Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, as we signed out of the 4504th Missile Training Wing in Orlando. The one hundred and fifty of us had just graduated from the Air Force Tactical Missile School. Our assignment orders to Kadena were red-lined and we were handed new orders to report to Bitburg Air Base, Germany, instead.

Of course, all of our winter uniforms and long sleeve fatigues in our hold baggage didn't get diverted, they went to Okinawa just fine. It would be months before the long johns and gloves we bought back in systems school in Denver would arrive in cold, wet Germany. We had to rely on the goodness of the guys in the 36th Supply Squadron that took pity on us and went out of their way to scrounge up field jackets and liners, parkas, and of course, long johns. Almost all of the water-proof cold weather gear we were issued was labeled U.S. Navy. A pretty group we were not. At least we were warm.

There was one bright spot. During the second day or so, one of our sergeants found a power outlet on the wall in the hangar that had live 115 VAC, although 50 cycle, power if we switched on the huge inverter mounted just outside the hangar wall. The power unit was so big, it had its own building built around it after it had been placed on its concrete pad. The ever resourceful sergeant immediately asked for a pickup truck to take him straight to the Base Exchange where he bought a brand new, shiny, all aluminum 40 cup coffee maker! From there to the commissary in the housing area to buy coffee and sugar. Surprise! Both coffee and sugar were rationed items! Back to the Missile Support Area to collect ration cards, then back to the Commissary. Finally armed with enough coffee and sugar to keep the Guidance Systems Checkout guys, Flight Control troops, and the Airframe and Engine guys in the next hangar happy, he headed back to the Missile Support Area out near the Oberweis Highway.

We all stood watching our breath in the cold, dimly lighted air, in our new parkas, as the new pot was carefully filled with water. Our intrepid sergeant, facetiously making a military ceremony out of initiating the maiden pot of coffee, slowly, meticulously added coffee to our new piece of communal equipment. He turned to us and said prophetically, “Well, here goes!” He plugged in the new coffee pot and dramatically turned on the power switch. The lights in the hangar went out immediately. All the lights. Not even the security lights were on. The new, incredibly expensive inverter died, taking the entire hangar’s electrical system with it. Killed by a forty cup coffee pot.

For the next nine – yes, 9 – months, all power to our hangar was supplied by two 50 KW portable generators mounted on 25 foot flatbeds trailers, on at each end of the hangar. We finally got a single 150KW mounted on a trailer outside near where the defective inverter sat, but we had to move it out of the way for the crane that was used to lift out the inverter, once they took the roof off the building. Once the inverter was taken out, the 150KW became our prime source of power and the two 50KW units were relegated to back up duty.

We began receiving the A.C. Spark Plug Inertial Guidance units – they called them AChiever units, the same one used in the Thor ballistic missile – not soon after our power source crapped out. They were temperature sensitive units. The gyros had to be maintained at a specific temperature to prevent catastrophic gyro failure. It was imperative to maintain all the gyros at their required level. That wasn't the problem, however. Being resourceful young, highly trained technicians that we were, we soon had schedules down for maintaining the equipment that was indeed critical.

Except for dodging falling ceiling tiles. The huge slate ceiling tiles randomly began to fall during those first months, shattering when they hit the floor. The first safety action was to require everyone to wear their helmets inside the hangar while once again the German contractors were summoned back to fix yet another problem. In the several weeks it took to get new mounting tabs welded to the hangar ceiling, we wore our full army helmets, not just the liners. We all had gas masks assigned to us as well as the mandatory dosimeters. We kept the gas masks and ammunition in our personal equipment lockers, the dosimeters had to be with us at all times. We each had an M-1 Carbine and two magazines of ammunition assigned to us as well as we all had alert security duties in addition to our maintenance jobs. The carbine rack was just inside the main personnel door. It was not chained or secured, but everyone kept their own ammunition in their respective lockers.

 

A2C Len Calkins models the OSAT dress.
In reality, no white shoe laces or pistols
and we wore the gas masks on our legs for 
mobility when on the missile.

We were back to the original problem of no heat in the building, even though the contractors had started work on some sort of heating system for the hangar. The main guidance system temperature control unit when the guidance system wasn’t installed in the missile was a unit called a "Mod B". It monitored the required power that was used by the gyro heaters. It was an ingenious little power unit that controlled a "Mod C" generator that was used to supply power to the nose section during transportation to and from the launch sites. It also had one massively huge 28 volt DC NiCad battery in it that weighed a ton in case the generator failed. The "Mod B" also had a very, very loud warning horn to let everyone know when the voltage fell below a safe level.

No one on earth could have slept through a power failure, at least not in the beginning. We had no less than twenty nose sections running on our makeshift power grid twenty-four hours a day, and when the generators failed, which they did often, all the Mod B failure warning horns went off at once. By the time we had gone through 72 hours of straight alert duty during the Cuban Missile Crisis, though, it seemed just about everyone could do it. Their wives today probably wonder what's wrong with their husbands who can sleep anywhere, anytime, through any incredible noise. We slept when we could in the few office chairs, or on the concrete floor, with our old WWII M-1 carbines, ready for the imminent invasion of the Red Army. We were all Outside Security Alert Teams, OSAT, to defend our compound in the wet, damp German October weather. When we weren't on post, we were cleaning equipment, eating food taken from the mess hall, or milling around the break room in the Test Equipment Maintenance shop waiting to go back out again. Catching a nap in the two hours off got to be quickly acquired habit. No one went back to base for anything.

When things had slowly resumed normal operations, we were hit with a major setback. Half of our people were pulled out of the squadron, including our Chief of Maintenance, to go to different bases throughout Europe to pull all the active ballistic missiles out of service. It was part of the Cuban Missile Crisis resolution. Some went to Turkey to pull out the Jupiter sites, some went to Italy, whether to pull out Thor sites or the Italian Jupiter sites, I don't know. We were cut to half strength, and didn't get replacements until the next class graduated from Orlando six months later. We eventually found out it was Operation Pot Pie. Everybody knows what happened, but nobody asked where did the Air Force find enough trained missile people to pull off the operation. Surprise! Bitburg had a whole missile maintenance squadron with apparently nothing to do. We were very proud to be "the first" of the Mace B groups in Europe. As it turned out, we would be the only Mace B group in Europe! The people who left never returned to our squadron.

Deactivation - April 30th, 1969.  The Guidance System Checkout console, CGM-13B (TM-76B) Mace,

MSA, Bitburg AB, Germany

We had every guidance unit in our hangar, except the ones that were in the gyro ovens in the Test Equipment Maintenance hangar at the other end of the complex. When the 150KW needed to be refueled, which was once every two days, we had to switch to the back up 50KW generators. Of course, the 150KW failed more than once, so we got to be very, very good at starting the backups and switching over, clearing the Mod Bs, and checking every single unit in an incredibly short time. We were so good at it, when we had a power failure, the NCOs would simply get out of the way.

The problem wasn't just keeping the gyros warm, it was keeping all of the test equipment from failing in the cold hangar. Not many pieces of the Guidance Systems Checker, or even the Flight Controls tester were reliable when the average daytime temperature in the hangar was 37 degrees Fahrenheit.

We were finally given two portable aircraft heaters, the gasoline fueled units usually found on cold, wet tarmacs and runway ramps, pumping hot air into aircraft cockpits through the over-sized, flexible yellow hoses that invariably got wrapped in duct tape. We "modified" the personnel doors at either end of the hangar to allow hose access without keeping the doors wide open. The heaters sat safely 10 or 15 feet outside the hangar, just to the right of the diesel 50KW generator, and the flex tubes ran twenty feet or so inside the hangar. Lo and behold, the hangar actually could be kept warm enough to work in just a field jacket. We built, assembled, tested, painted, and retested every piece of equipment in bearable temperatures.

The portable gas aircraft heaters were the problem. They had to be refueled often. The flexible neck gasoline cans used to carry the gasoline were stored with the standard 55 gallon drums, mounted in hand-made drum holders out behind the hangar. When the heaters ran low on fuel, the smaller refueling cans were filled from the 55 gallon drum and used to pour gasoline directly into the heater’s gas tank. The heaters were shut off, refueled and then powered back up. The system worked safely and efficiently, but not to be tripped up in the upcoming ORI, the Technical Sergeant in charge of the guidance section decided to bypass a potential trouble spot: UGLY CANS!

Worried about the upcoming inspection, he had the red gasoline cans painted yet once again, then had them chained to the gasoline drum stand so they wouldn't get used without his permission. During the "A" shift, the NCO In Charge had a key to the chain. If you needed the cans, he would unlock them, supervise the refueling, then return the cans to their secure location behind the hangar. Unfortunately, he only worked one shift. He did not pass on the key. The only way to the front heater was through the hangar.

The heaters were usually refueled every couple of hours, and was done off-shift with whatever we could find that didn’t leak, from mop buckets to bent butt cans. A butt can, as every GI knows, is simply a bent coffee can. To say carrying gasoline in buckets was as stupid as digging snow out of a ditch to remove dead leaves is an understatement. Here we were, supposedly the "best and the brightest," all AFR 35-1/99-1 certified, carrying open buckets of gasoline through a hangar like a bucket of water. At first, we thought he suspected someone of stealing gas from the 55 gallon drum, but the really odd thing about the gas possibly being stolen was most of the people who had cars that could have benefited from “free” gas were all NCOs who worked day shift.

Invariably it had to happen. It happened to Ray S., one of the power specialists, the AGE troops. He was trying to trickle gasoline into the fuel tank of a still hot, although powered off, heater about 2:00 am one cold, miserable morning when he accidentally sloshed gasoline onto the hot manifold of the heater. The fuel ignited and blasted up the sleeve of Ray's parka. Ray instinctively threw the can of gasoline away from the bucket and the heater. Unfortunately, the full butt can bounced off the front of the hangar, sloshing burning gasoline under the hangar door, whereupon the supposedly "flame retardant insulation" on the inside of the door burst into flame.

Bill Krebs, Ted Jarvi, and Louis Meyers put the fire out with the two, big stand-up fire bottles that stood just inside the hangar. There was a fueled missile sitting not fifteen feet away from the burning door when the accident happened.

Deactivation - April 30th, 1969. The hangar was never repainted.
The scorched wall is plainly visible above the new door insulation.
A missile was sitting in the exact same location during the fire. 

 

The "powers that were" tried to blame the accident on Ray, who was unharmed in the incident, other than his ego and a badly scorched parka sleeve. As soon as the first accident board’s findings were “leaked” to the squadron, however, the “board” apparently changed their minds. The personnel situation at the missile squadron at Bitburg was already so bad an article about the squadron had been printed in the German newspaper, “The Overseas Weekly.” The fire in the hangar with a missile just feet away and the almost mutinous, blistering comments from the troops would not only have have been on the front page of the German newspaper, but may have made international headlines as well.

But then, apparently no one was at fault. Ask the Non Commissioned Officer In Charge, the last time we saw him he had been promoted to Master Sergeant.

The door insulation was replaced by the new silver stuff, but we had a suspicion it was as dangerous as the original material. New crews that came in for the next several years were caught staring at the scorched wall.

When they asked what happened, we simply said, "we did it to pass our first ORI."

I took a photograph of the hangar on the last day of operation, April 30^th, 1969, at the end of my second tour at Bitburg, almost six years after the accident. No one ever repainted the scorched hangar. The area above the hangar door, was still scorched black all the way to the ceiling.

© George Mindling 1999, 2012 – All Rights Reserved