- Joined
- Mar 17, 2023
- Messages
- 525
- Points
- 168
I have photos of my pre RVN service as an Nike Hercules Crewman in D-50 DallasFortWorth Air Defense 1967. I just need to get them uploaded to a separate album so they can be accessed without taking up a lot of space on the forums. I left the base at the end of 67 and shortly after I left the entire system was shut down due to funding shortages caused by the ... cough .. police action in Indo China. The system is still today a deadly anti air missile defense system, designed by Bell Telephone and it had nothing but the best. Electro Mechanical guidance computers for each missile. I just happened to be very lucky and a young photographer took photos of the base as it is today and sent me a large batch. He had more but I never heard from him again. The base is one of two left intact in the Nation, all the others were destroyed or left to rot. The base in San Francisco is still a 100 percent functioning site without actual missiles. All the men working as guides were the same people that manned the bases.. The start of the defense line was extreme northern Alaska. The lowest site was ours and Florida. Houston never had a base and I guess it was because there was no need since the warning time would have been not long enough to intercept any missiles or aircraft. The Nike was a mix of HE and Nuke. I had two Nukes in my pit, as each other pit in the battery had. They were low yield nukes designed to fly above the target and attack from the top , capable of destroying an entire flight of bombers. It weighed in at around just below 12,000 pounds using solid fuel ether engines. Let me just say it could get down range boo coo fast !!! So I will get the photos loaded tomorrow.
