A Delta Flight missile
being removed from its silo. ROBERT LYON
|
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The Minuteman ICBM Missile System
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union
successfully launched into orbit the world's first artificial satellite,
Sputnik. Ham radio operators in the eastern United States turned their
dials to lower frequency bands and anxiously listened as the 184-pound
Sputnik emitted a mechanical ". . . beep . . . beep . . . beep . . ."
while passing overhead. Other radio operators quickly recorded the
broadcast and, within hours, Americans in their living rooms heard
Sputnik's transmission via radio and television news flashes. The
message seemed to confirm America's worst fears: the Soviets had
technologically surpassed the United States and gained supremacy of
outer space. The Soviet scientific community wasted little time boasting
about their apparent win. Immediately after the launch, one Muscovite
scientist commented, "Americans design better automobile tailfins, but
we design the best intercontinental ballistic missiles and earth
satellites. " In the United States, one headline proclaimed: "U.S. Must
Catch Up with Reds or We're Dead. "
In truth, the significance of the successful
launching was not so much Sputnik, but the huge Soviet rocket that
hurled the satellite into space. With Sputnik, which is Russian for
"fellow traveler," the Soviets demonstrated the ability of their SS-6
launcher to propel a missile toward a target thousands of miles away.
Four years earlier, the Soviets exploded the "Hbomb. " Now, the
frightening prospect of a Soviet missile delivering a nuclear bomb to an
American city in less than an hour revived what some called a "Pearl
Harbor atmosphere" throughout the United States. At the urging of his
military advisors and under tremendous public pressure, President Dwight
D. Eisenhower reluctantly accelerated America's ICBM program.
The shock of Sputnik abruptly reversed what
Air Force Secretary Donald Quarles had characterized as America's "poor
man's approach" to the ICBM program. Within six months after Sputnik,
the Nation's space research and development budget mushroomed from an
average half billion dollars a year to more than $10.5 billion. Much of
the money went to the development of the Minuteman missile. In 1958,
Congress increased the appropriation for Minuteman from $50 to $140
million. The following year, Congress added two billion dollars to the
Minuteman budget, to be spread out over the next five years.
|
Vice President Richard M. Nixon,
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Secretary of State John Foster
Dulles (left to right) at the Brown Palace Hotel, Denver, Colorado,
August 1952. WESTERN HISTORY DEPARTMENT, DENVER PUBLIC
LIBRARY.
|
Sputnik sparked the development and deployment
of the Minuteman missile. But the origins of the Minuteman missile
program were deeply rooted in the years immediately following World War
II when the world's two superpowers began to engage in the
spiralling arms race of the Cold War.
Origins of the Arms Race
On January 7, 1954, President Eisenhower
delivered his first State of the Union address to the Nation. After
declaring that "American freedom is threatened so long as the Communist
conspiracy exists in its present scope, power and hostility" the
President outlined his plans for defending the Nation against that
threat. "We will not be aggressors," he said, "but we . . . have and
will maintain a massive capability to strike back." Eisenhower's
comments reflected the doctrinal basis behind much of America's
strategic planning during the Cold War era.
President Eisenhower's view of the Soviet
Union was similar to one that had been articulated nearly eight years
earlier by George Kennan, a diplomat at the US embassy in Moscow.
Watching the Soviets surround themselves with a "buffer zone" that
included much of eastern Europe following World War II, Kennan had
argued that these moves resulted from a fanatical Soviet "expansionism"
that was ultimately bent on disrupting American society, destroying the
American way of life, and breaking the international authority of
America. The only way to deal with this threat, Kennan suggested, was
for the United States to adopt a policy of "patient but firm and
vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies."
Although good in theory, containment proved
nearly impossible to put into practice. In order to truly contain the
pervasive Soviet threat, observed one top US official in 1954, the
Nation would need to prepare for combat "in the Arctic and in the
tropics; in Asia, in the near East and in Europe; by sea, by land, and
by air. " But while the Soviet Union had mounted a massive effort to
rebuild its army and replenish conventional weapons after World War II,
America had demobilized at a dizzying rate. Exploiting its position as
the sole possessor of the atomic bomb, the United States pursued what
some observers called a "bargain-basement" defense policy, using nuclear
weapons as stand-ins for foot soldiers.
Fiscally conservative, President Eisenhower
also wanted to keep America's atomic arsenal to the minimum amount
necessary to deter Moscow. The President and his chief economic advisor,
Arthur H. Burns, believed that the Federal government needed to cut
spending, reduce taxes, and balance the budget in order to achieve
steady economic growth. Despite protests from the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Eisenhower continually pressed for large cuts in military spending,
which consumed almost 70% of the national budget at the time he took
office in 1953.
The American ICBM Program
|
Air Force Assistant Secretary for
Research and Development Trevor Gardner (left) and Maj. General Bernard
A. Schriever (right) were key players in the development of
intercontinental ballistic missiles, including the Minuteman. US AIR
FORCE, HISTORY DIVISION.
|
American military planners began developing
ballistic missiles immediately after World War II. But by the late
1940s, America's missile program began to languish, largely because the
Nation's nuclear superiority seemed secure. In 1949, when the Soviet
Union developed its atomic bomb, America responded with an even more
powerful weapon a thermonuclear device that used a small atomic
trigger to initiate a fusion reaction in hydrogen isotopes. Successfully
tested in 1952, the H-bomb seemed to guarantee America's nuclear
superiority. But in August 1953, the Soviets exploded their own H-bomb,
and many US military experts also believed that the Soviets could
deliver their new weapon via an ICBM. For the first time, the Soviets
seemed poised to take the lead in the arms race.
Following the Soviet's successful H-bomb test,
two independent US organizations reevaluated the strategic importance of
ICBMs to national security. As Dr. Bruno Augenstein of the RAND
Corporation observed, "If the Soviet Union beat the United States in a
race for the ICBM, the consequences would be catastrophic." An Air Force
committee headed by Dr. John von Neumann, a Princeton University
mathematics professor, also assessed the arms race. Code-named the
"Teapot Committee," von Neumann's group investigated "the impact of the
thermonuclear [bomb] on the development of strategic missiles and the
possibility that the Soviet Union might be somewhat ahead of the United
States. " In February 1954, RAND and the Teapot Committee released their
reports, both of which reached the same conclusion: recent advances in
thermonuclear technology made an ICBM practical. Furthermore, an ICBM
"could be developed and deployed early enough to counter the pending
Soviet threat if exceptional talents, adequate funds and new
management techniques suited to the urgency of the situation were
authorized."
By May 1954, the Air Force had mapped out a
development plan for the new weapon. In June, Vice Chief of Staff
General Thomas D. White ordered the Air Research and Development Command
"to proceed with the development of an ICBM at the highest speed
possible, limited only by the advancement of technology in the various
fields concerned. " In July, the Air Force established a special project
office to administer the program. Based on the West Coast, the new
agency was consequently called the Western Development Division. Bernard
A. Schriever, a 43-year-old brigadier general, headed Western
Development Division. The Air Force expected the newly-promoted young
general to place a fully operational ICBM weapon system into the hands
of the Strategic Air Command within six years. The Air Force considered
Western Development Division's mission so important to national security
that even its initials, WDD, were classified beyond top
secret.
On August 5, 1954, General Schriever and a
small group of military officers converged on an abandoned parochial
school in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood to begin their work. To
avoid arousing the curiosity of nearby residents, the officers wore
civilian clothes. Journalist Roy Neal, who chronicled the development of
the Minuteman missile system, described what they found:
No sign identified the white schoolhouse as
the Western Development Division.
. . . The windows were frosted and heavily
barred. All outside doors, except one, were locked. The only entrance
was across a chain-link fenced parking lot. A security guard manned the
door... Some of the old-timers recall . . . the comment of the school
boy who was sauntering by the school building.
Eying the frosted glass and steel-barred
windows, he said to a chum, "Boy am I glad I don't go to school here. "
In this inconspicuous but carefully secured
setting, the hand-picked staff of the Western Development Division began
the effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Cold War
Timeline
|
1945
Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
1946
Churchill's iron curtain speech
1947
Truman Doctrine
1948
Communist coup in Czechoslovakia/Berlin Blockade begins
1949
NATO established/USSR explodes atomic bomb/Communist
takeover of China
1950
Sino-Soviet Pact/Korean War begins
1952
US explodes H-bomb
1953
USSR explodes H-bomb
1954
Communist Party outlawed in US
1955
Warsaw Pact/First US Civil defence exercise
1956
Hungarian uprising/Krushchev tells the US: We
will bury you
|
1957
Sputnik
1958
Eisenhower authorizes Minuteman Missile Program
1959
Cuban Revolution
1960
U-2 spy plane shot down by USSR
1961
Bay of Pigs/Berlin Wall built/Eisenhower
warns of military-industrial complex/First
successful Minuteman test flight
1962
Cuban Missile Crisis/Minuteman I
goes on alert
1963
Hot line links US and USSR/Limited Test
Ban Treaty
1964
China detonates atomic bomb
1966
Minuteman II goes on alert
1968
Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia
|
1969
US landing on moon
1970
Minuteman III goes on alert
1972
SALT I agreement
1973
Yom Kippur War: US goes on worldwide alert
1979
SALT II agreement
1983
Reagan proposes Star Wars Strategic
Defense Initiative (SDI)
1989
Eastern European nations break with Moscow/Berline
Wall comes down
1991
Bush and Gorbachev sign START treaty/Minuteman
II system begins deactivating
1993
66th Missile Squadron,
including Delta Flight, inactivated
|
|
First Generation ICBMs: Atlas and Titan
The Western Development Division staff began
its work by reviving a missile project that had originated shortly after
World War II. In 1946, the Air Force had contracted with the Convair
Corporation to design a long-range ballistic missile called the MX-774.
Like many post-war missile projects, the MX-774 lost most of its
government funding after only one year. But, instead of dropping the
project, Convair Corporation continued working on its own, steadily
advancing the state of missile technology. In 1951, the Air Force
acknowledged these efforts by hiring the company to develop plans for a
more advanced missile, called the Atlas.
|
German V-2 missiles, which Adolph
Hitler hailed as Vergeltungswaffe (vengeance weapons), were used
against the Allies during the closing years of World War II. DEUTSCHE
MUSEUM, MUNICH, GERMANY.
|
The Atlas was essentially a highly evolved
version of the German V-2 missile, which Germany had used against the
Allies during the waning years of World War II. Like the V-2, the Atlas
was powered by rocket engines that burned a mixture of liquid fuel and
oxidizer. But while the V-2 had an effective range of only a few hundred
miles, the Atlas had to deliver its payload to a target more than 5,000
miles away. Convair Corporation could have met this requirement by
designing the Atlas as an enormous version of the V-2. Instead,
Convair's engineers sought a more sophisticated solution. Realizing that
a missile's range could be increased by reducing its weight, Convair
equipped the Atlas with an innovative, ultra-light airframe. Convair
assembled the missile from rings of paper-thin stainless steel, stacked
together like stovepipes and welded at the seams to form cylinders. The
cylinders were then inflated with nitrogen gas to give the missile its
structural integrity.
By 1954, the Atlas was the Nation's most
advanced ballistic missile. Nonetheless, the missile was years away from
production. No prototype had been flight tested, and some skeptics
feared that when Atlas's powerful engines were fired for the first time,
the missile's thin-skinned airframe would buckle in on itself, leaving
America's hopes for an ICBM lying on the launch pad like a gigantic ball
of tin foil.
General Schriever and his staff were aware of
these concerns. So while they proceeded with the Atlas program, they
also looked for a backup. In October 1955, the Air Force contracted with
the Glenn L. Martin Company to produce a new ICBM called the Titan. Like
the Atlas, the Titan used liquid propellants, but its advanced two-stage
design allowed for a conventional, and more reliable,
airframe.
|
Atlas missile awaiting test launch
from Cape Canaveral on Christmas Eve, 1958. Inset: Test launch of
the Atlas D missile. The development of the solid-fueled Minuteman
missile accelerated the early retirement of the first generation of
liquid-fueled ICBMs, such as the Atlas D and Atlas E, which the Air
Force deactivated by 1965. US AIR FORCE, inset photo CONVAIR
(ASTRONAUTICS DIVISION), GENERAL DYNAMICS CORPORATION.
|
Still, America's missile program was hampered
by funding problems. In 1956, Air Force Secretary Donald Quarles
rejected the operational budget for the ICBM program, and proposed the
elimination of either Atlas or Titan, which he considered redundant.
That same year, the Air Force lost its most effective missile proponent
when Assistant Secretary Trevor Gardner, the "Missile Czar," announced
his retirement, citing continued cuts to his missile research and
development budgets. Undeterred by Gardner's retirement, Quarles's
austerity campaign continued into 1957 when the ballistic missile
program was slashed by $200 million. In July, the Eisenhower
administration initiated even more cost-saving measures, including
cutting missile deliveries, lowering overtime rates, and delaying
payments to contractors.
Strength in Numbers: The Missile Gap
|
Titan I test launch, Vandenberg Air
Force Base, May 4, 1962. The Titan missile possessed a greater range and
bigger payload than Atlas. Still, the Titan was equally short lived. All
Titan missiles were deactivated by June 1965. US AIR FORCE
|
This frugal economic climate changed
dramatically after Sputnik. In October 1957, when the Soviet Union
announced it had used a liquid-fueled ICBM to launch Sputnik into orbit,
American scientists and politicians feared a significant "missile gap."
Within months, journalists and intelligence analysts began asserting
that the Soviet missile force could outnumber the American arsenal by as
much as 16 to one by 1960. America's growing sense of insecurity was not
lost on Soviet officials, who gleefully announced that their factories
were turning out missiles "like sausages." Facing severe criticism for
allowing the United States to fall behind in the arms race, the
Eisenhower administration poured more money into its missile programs
increasing the Nation's annual space research and development
budget by more than twenty-fold within six months after Sputnik. The
administration also highlighted the development of the Atlas and Titan
missiles. One government spokesperson noted that America's missile
program was being carefully designed, first to "attain perfection," and
then to "develop the ability to produce in volume once that perfection
is achieved. "
But America's first-generation ICBMs were
neither perfect nor mass-producible. A few weeks after Sputnik, the
Wall Street Journal observed that the weaknesses of America's
ICBMs "are so profound that . . . generals are sure [the missiles] will
be discarded altogether after the first half-dozen years." Atlas and
Titan were extraordinarily complex, handcrafted machines, containing as
many as 300,000 parts, each of which had to be maintained in perfect
operating condition. The liquid propellants that powered the missiles'
engines were volatile and corrosive, and could not be placed in the fuel
tanks until immediately before launch. In addition, the missile crews
needed as much as two hours to fuel the missiles. Consequently, instead
of being "stable weapons in a state of permanent readiness," these ICBMs
required "the desperate and constant attention accorded a man receiving
artificial respiration." The missiles were not a "push button affair but
will require a highly-trained crew . . . several times as large as the
largest bombing crew. " Many of these problems could be solved, the
Wall Street Journal suggested, by developing a simplified "second
generation" of missiles powered by solid-fuel rocket engines.
"A lot of work had been done on solids prior
to the initiation of the ICBM program in 1954," recalled General
Schriever in a 1973 interview, "but there were a number of things that
ruled against using solids at that time." Solid propellants in the
mid-1950s could not provide enough power to hurl a thermonuclear warhead
across an ocean. Also, solids were difficult to manufacture. They were
hard to ignite, and there was no way to control their combustion or
direct their thrust after ignition. Given these constraints, the Air
Force believed that liquid-fueled missiles were "the only immediate way
to go ahead. " But the Air Force did not entirely abandon the concept of
a solid-fuel missile. In 1956, Schriever reluctantly approved a
low-level research program "aimed toward the evolution of a high-thrust
. . . solid-fuel rocket." Schriever selected Colonel Edward Hall, Chief
of Propulsion Development for the Western Development Division, to head
the program. According to historian Robert Perry, Hall was a
"near-fanatic" about the potential of solid-fuel missiles.
Weapon System "Q"
|
Colonel Edward Hall spearheaded
the US Air Force effort to develop a solid fueled ICBM. COURTESY EDWARD
HALL.
|
Colonel Edward Hall and his staff of engineers
diligently researched their solid-fuel missile program. Within two
years, Hall's group had solved most of the problems associated with
solid-fuel rocket engines. In August 1957, the Air Force asked Hall to
develop a medium-range, solid-fuel missile to be the land-based
counterpart to the Navy's submarine-launched, solid-fuel Polaris. Within
two weeks, Hall drew up specifications for a remarkable new missile
whose range could be varied by simply assembling its three
interchangeable propulsion stages in different combinations.
The new missile, dubbed "Weapon System Q," was
"the first strategic weapon capable of true mass production," wrote Duke
University historian George Reed. "To Hall, the new missile was the
perfect weapon for a defense policy characterized by minimum expenditure
and massive retaliation; and he urged that this be its chief selling
point." Sputnik made it easy for Colonel Hall to make the sale. A few
days after the Sputnik launch, Hall went to the Pentagon with General
Schriever to build support for the new missile. As they ascended the
ranks of the military hierarchy, Hall refined his plans. By the end of
1957, he determined that "the ICBM version of Weapon System Q would be a
three-stage, solid-fuel missile approximately 65 feet long, weighing
approximately 65,000 pounds, and developing approximately
100,000-120,000 pounds of thrust at launch. " The missile would be
stored vertically in underground silos and "would accelerate so quickly
that it could fly through its exhaust flames and not be significantly
damaged."
In February 1958, Hall and Schriever presented
Weapon System Q to the Secretaries of the Air Force and Defense. "We got
approval . . within 48 hours," Schriever recalled. The officers
immediately renamed the project. On February 28, 1958, the New York
Times reported that the Air Force had been authorized "to produce an
advanced type of ballistic missile . . . called Minute Man."
Minuteman I
US ICBM Size Comparisons
Atlas, Titan I, Titan II, Minuteman
|
|
By the end of March 1958, at least seven of
the Nation's foremost aircraft manufacturers, including the Boeing
Airplane Company, were competing to build the new missile. Although
Seattle-based Boeing had built many of the Nation's largest strategic
bombers, the company had virtually no experience with missiles. Still,
Boeing mounted an all-out effort to win the Minuteman contract,
assigning more than 100 employees to work on the project. When the Air
Force selection board met to examine the proposals, one top official
recalled that "there was no question . . . that Boeing was the right
company for the job." In October 1958, the US government contracted with
Boeing to assemble and test the new missile.
During the next few months, the rest of the
Minuteman missile team came into place. The Thiokol Chemical Company of
Brigham City, Utah, the Aerojet General Corporation of Sacramento,
California, and the Hercules Powder Company of Magna, Utah, all won
contracts to work on the missile's propulsion stages. Minuteman's
guidance and control systems went to the Autonetics Division of North
American Aviation in Downey, California. The AVCO Corporation of Boston
contracted to build the missile's thermonuclear warhead.
Much of the development work for Minuteman
took place in northern Utah. Thiokol and Hercules already operated
plants in the area and, within a few months, Boeing moved into a new
assembly plant that occupied 790 acres at Hill Air Force Base near
Ogden. By the beginning of 1960, Boeing's Minuteman work force had grown
to nearly 12,000, as the company started to assemble the missiles.
Time magazine reported that the desert north of Salt Lake was
"boiling" with activity:
Strange lights glare in the night, making
the mountains shine, and a grumbling roar rolls across the desert. By
day enormous clouds of steam-white smoke billow up . . . and drift over
hills and valleys. Monstrous vehicles with curious burdens lumber along
the roads.
All these strange goings-on mark the
development of the Minuteman, the solid fuel missile that its proponents
confidently expect will ultimately replace the liquid fuel Atlas as the
US. 's standard ICBM.
|
Minuteman I test launch.
Inset: A Minuteman ICBM, ready for testing at the Air Force Missile
Test Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida. US AIR FORCE.
|
According to journalist Roy Neal, the ICBM
program created a new national industry: "Tens of thousands of
industrial and Air Force managers, engineers, and workers [had] to be
trained. New machine tools and test facilities [had to] come into being.
. . . " These efforts changed "the face of America, the make-up of the
Armed Forces and the industries that support them. "
At the end of 1960, the Air Force took the
first Minuteman missile to Cape Canaveral, Florida, for flight testing.
The compact new missile was only six feet in diameter and 53 feet high
about half the size of a Titan. Minuteman's three cylindrical,
steel-cased propulsion stages were stacked one atop the other, with each
stage slightly smaller in diameter than the one beneath it. Each stage
was filled with a rubbery mixture of fuel and oxidizer, molded around a
hollow, star-shaped core. The Minuteman's guidance system occupied a
small compartment above the third stage. The "reentry vehicle" at the
tip was identical to the nose-cone that would eventually contain a
thermonuclear warhead.
Following two aborted launch attempts, the Air
Force successfully fired the first Minuteman missile at 11:00 a. m. on
February 1, 1961. Even the most experienced missile watchers found it to
be "a dazzling spectacle." When the missile's first-stage engine
ignited, there was a loud bang. Then the missile began to rise on a
column of flame and smoke. Unlike the Atlas or Titan missile, which one
observer said left the ground "like a fat man getting out of an easy
chair," the Minuteman missile "shot up like a skyrocket." The missile
performed flawlessly. The three propulsion stages completed their burns
on schedule, then detached themselves and plummeted back to earth, while
the unarmed warhead hurled on toward its assigned destination.
Twenty-five minutes after lift-off, the reentry vehicle splashed down in
the Atlantic Ocean squarely on target 4,600 miles
away.
From his office in Washington D. C. , Air
Force Chief of Staff General Thomas D. White described the launch as
"one of the most significant steps this Nation has ever taken toward
gaining intercontinental missile supremacy." An engineer who witnessed
the event put it another way: "Brother," he said, "there goes the
missile gap."
The "Underground" Air Force
By the time the flight test took place, the
Air Force was already planning for Minuteman missile deployment.
According to historian Jacob Neufeld, the Air Force conceptually
developed its "ideal" ICBM base in 1955, during the early days of the
Atlas program:
The missile would be sited inside fixed,
underground facilities; it was to have a quick launch reaction; it was
to be stored in a launching position; the launch site would require
minimal support; and the launch units were to be self-supporting for two
weeks.
Turning these ideas into reality, however,
proved difficult. During the height of the "missile gap" hysteria, the
Air Force hastily activated the Nation's first Atlas missiles at
Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Here, the Air Force stored the
missiles horizontally in "coffins" concrete-walled, above-ground
enclosures. Before the missiles could be fired, servicemen had to raise
each missile vertically on a launch pad and add fuel. The later Titan
and Atlas F series missiles were stored upright in underground silos
capped with massive "clamshell" doors. But Air Force engineers were
worried that vibrations from the rocket engines might shake the missiles
apart before launch. As a result, the Air Force equipped each silo with
an elevator that raised the missile to the surface for firing. Although
the missiles were stored with their tanks full of fuel, workers still
needed to add volatile liquid oxygen right before launch.
The Air Force took a major step toward
achieving its ideal basing system in 1960 with the development of Titan
II, which used storable liquid propellants. The Air Force could store
Titan II missiles with fully-loaded propellant tanks, and fire them
directly from underground silos. Nonetheless, Titan II missiles still
needed constant attention from an on-site crew.
When Minuteman was added to the Nation's
arsenal, America acquired its first truly pushbutton literally
turn-key missile system. Historian Ernest Schwiebert
noted:
With the successful utilization of solid
propellants, the Minuteman could hide in its lethal lair like a shotgun
shell, ready for instant firing. The operational launcher could be
unmanned, underground, and hardened to withstand the surface burst of a
nuclear weapon. Each launcher housed a single weapon and the equipment
necessary to support and fire it, and required only periodic
maintenance. The missiles could be fired ... at a moment's
notice.
Evolution of ICBM Launch Facilities
|
Just as ICBMs evolved, so did
their launch facilities. The first Atlas missiles were stored upright on
launch pads, where they were vulnerable to attack. Later, the missiles
were kept in horizontal, concrete "coffins" and raised vertically before
launch. Eventually, the Air Force moved ICBMs to underground silos;
elevators lifted them to the surface for launch. Titan II and Minuteman
were the first ICBMs launched directly from underground silos.
|
|
Minuteman Deployment and Site Selection
|
President John F. Kennedy
(center), accompanied by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (far
left), SAC Commander General Thomas S. Power (right), and Lt. General
Howell M. Estes, Jr. (right background) at Vandenberg Air Force Base,
March 1962. US AIR FORCE, HISTORY DIVISION.
|
The Air Force wanted to deploy Minuteman as a
single, immense, "missile farm," equipped with as many as 1,500
missiles. However, the Air Force soon determined that "for reasons of
economy 150 launchers should be concentrated in a single area, whenever
possible, and that no area should contain fewer than 50 missiles."
Consequently, the Air Force organized the Minuteman force into a series
of administrative units called "wings," each comprised of three or four
50-missile squadrons. Each squadron was further subdivided into five
smaller units, called "flights." A flight consisted of a single, manned,
launch control facility, linked to ten, unmanned, underground, missile
silos. The silos were separated from the launch control facility and
from each other by a distance of several miles.
The Air Force initially considered putting
Minuteman missiles as far south as Georgia, Texas, and Oklahoma. But
when early models of Minuteman missiles fell short of their intended
5,500-mile range, the Air Force selected sites in the northern part of
the United States, which was closer to the Soviet Union. In 1960, the
Air Force decided to locate the first Minuteman installation on the high
plains around Great Falls, Montana, at Malmstrom AFB. In the event of a
nuclear accident or attack, the low population density near Malmstrom
AFB would minimize civilian casualties. In addition, the region offered
an established network of roads and, like much of the West, a large
amount of easy-to-acquire public land.
The Air Force began constructing the Nation's
first Minuteman missile field on March 16, 1961. In the spring of 1962,
the Associated Press reported that the Montana silos were being
"rushed to completion," and that the first missiles, each loaded with
"one megaton of death and destruction," would be ready by late summer.
Air Force crews began lowering the weapons into the silos at the end of
July, and Malmstrom AFB's first ten-missile flight was hurriedly
activated on October 27, 1962, at the height of the Cuban Missile
Crisis.
Minuteman Comes to Ellsworth Air Force
Base
Military strategists began planning for a
second Minuteman installation shortly after work got underway at
Malmstrom AFB. In June 1960, the Air Force was authorized to add another
150 missiles to the Minuteman force. By early October, military
strategists had narrowed their search for a new site to three locations
in North and South Dakota. On January 5, 1961, US Senator Francis Case
of South Dakota announced that Ellsworth AFB would be the headquarters
for the Nation's second Minuteman deployment. Located about 12 miles
east of Rapid City, Ellsworth AFB was founded in 1941 as the Rapid City
Army Air Base. The Air Corps used the airfield to train B-17 bomber
crews, and Ellsworth eventually served as home base for many of
America's largest strategic bombers. The base was also headquarters for
a Titan I missile squadron.
The 44th Strategic Missile Wing
|
Typical of all Minuteman
installations, I the forces at Ellsworth AFB were organized into a
missile wing. The 44th Strategic Missile Wing at Ellsworth AFB
was activated in 1963, and was comprised of three 50-missile
squadrons: the 66th, 67th, and 68th Strategic Missile
Squadrons.
Each squadron was further
subdivided into five smaller units, called flights. A flight
consisted of a single, manned, underground launch control center (LCC),
which was linked through a system of underground cables to ten,
unmanned, launch facilities (LF). Each LF held one Minuteman missile
stored in an underground silo. The silos were separated from the LCC and
each other by a distance of several miles.
44th Strategic Missile Wing Map
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Although the Defense Department had not yet
officially authorized the South Dakota Minuteman installation, Senator
Case wanted the land acquired immediately so there would be "no loss of
valuable time" once the project was approved. Local ranchers did not
share Case's sense of urgency. Fearing that the government might offer
below-market prices for their land, the ranchers established the Missile
Area Landowners' Association to negotiate fair prices. The association
assured fellow citizens that its actions would "not necessarily slow the
national defense effort."
While real estate negotiations were underway,
the South Dakota State Highway Department spent $650,000 from the
Federal Bureau of Public Roads to improve 327 miles of roads leading to
the proposed missile sites. By June 1961, Boeing was busy improving the
infrastructure. Anticipating that the project would bring in more than
3,000 workers, the company raced to build mobile home camps and
cafeterias near Wall, Sturgis, Belle Fourche, and Union Center, as well
as in Rapid City.
By early summer, more than three-quarters of
the local landowners agreed to give the government access to their land.
Once the sites were finalized, the Ralph M. Parsons Company, an
architectural and engineering firm from Los Angeles, prepared plans for
the Minuteman installation. The Air Force assigned responsibility for
construction to the US Army Corps of Engineers Ballistic Missile
Construction Office. In July 1961, four of the nation's largest
construction firms submitted bids for the project. The low bid came from
Peter Kiewit Sons Company of Omaha, whose estimate of $56,220,274 was
nearly $10 million below government projections.
A Silo A Day
On September 10, 1961, the groundbreaking
ceremony for Ellsworth AFB's Minuteman installations took place at Site
L-6 near Bear Butte. The festivities started with a bang. While the
Sturgis High School band played, representatives from Boeing, Kiewit,
the Corps of Engineers, and Ellsworth AFB set off an explosive charge to
begin the excavation.
Despite extreme cold, high winds, and heavy
snowfall, construction proceeded at a furious pace through the winter of
1961-62. In mid-December, the Corps of Engineers told reporters that
"men are working seven days a week, three shifts a day on Minuteman
construction. " A Corps spokesman said that crews were "able to dig five
silo emplacements simultaneously. Each takes from four to ten days . . .
" The first squadron, near Wall, was well underway, said the Corps, and
work on the second squadron, near Union Center, had already started. In
February 1962, General Delmar Wilson told the Rapid City Chamber of
Commerce that despite an ongoing labor dispute between Peter Kiewit Sons
and the Ironworkers Union, South Dakota's ICBM deployment suffered fewer
work stoppages than any missile program in the Nation. "We're all out .
. . to assure that our way of life is maintained," stated Wilson. "This
missile project ... is the number one project in the country today. If
this guy in Russia wants to start a show, we'll be there to put a hole
in him to the best of our ability."
By early summer of 1963, the steel fabrication
was finished at all 165 South Dakota sites, and crews were completing
the silos at the rate of one per day. On the last day of June, the first
20 silos were turned over to the Strategic Air Command. On October 23,
the Nation's second wing of Minuteman ICBMs was fully operational. The
work was completed nearly three weeks ahead of schedule.
Construction of a Minuteman LF
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Peter Kiewit Sons of Omaha,
Nebraska, received $56 million from the US Air Force to construct the
150 missile silos and 15 control centers in South Dakota. The Rapid
City Journal described how a Minuteman silo was built: "Conventional
earthmoving equipment scoops an open cut 12 feet deep. A backhoe
perclies on the edge of a large hole in this cut and digs a hole 20 feet
deeper. The remaining 52 feet of depth is `mined' by a clamshell ...
When each hole is at the full depth of 84 feet, a steel `can' 12 feet in
diameter is carefully positioned in it. Reinforced concrete is poured
between the can and earth. " Work began on South Dakota's first
Minuteman silo on September 10, 1961. By 1963, all 150 launchers were
declared fully operational.
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"The Spokes of the Wheel"
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The Air Force excavated lengthy
trenches several miles long to install the underground cables that
connected the underground launch control centers with the distant
missile silos. OMAHA WORLD-HERALD
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US ARMY CORPS OF
ENGINEERS
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Construction of a Minuteman LCF
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Delta One's underground launch
control center (LCC) was constructed as two separate structural
elements. The outside protective shell is 29 feet in diameter and 54
feet in length, and is made of reinforced concrete with four-foot-thick
walls. The shell's interior is lined with 1/4-inch-thick steel plate.
Suspended inside the shell is the second element: a box-like acoustical
enclosure that contains the launch control consoles, communications and
monitoring equipment, and crew accommodations. Delta One's "topside"
structures include sleeping and eating facilities.
US ARMY CORPS OF
ENGINEERS
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Backbone of the US Nuclear
Arsenal
While the Ellsworth AFB sites were under
construction, the Air Force was building several other Minuteman
installations. By the end of 1967, the Nation had 1,000 Minuteman
missiles on alert in six separate deployment areas located throughout
the north-central United States. In addition to the original
installations at Malmstrom AFB and Ellsworth AFB, Minuteman complexes
were deployed at Minot AFB and Grand Forks AFB in North Dakota, Whiteman
AFB in Missouri, and F .E. Warren AFB in Wyoming. In addition, another
squadron was established at Malmstrom AFB. At each installation the Air
Force continued to improve and refine the Minuteman operational
system.
Newly-elected President John F. Kennedy
instigated one of the first significant improvements to the Minuteman
weapon system. Soon after taking office in 1961, Kennedy learned that
even if he ordered a massive nuclear retaliation to a Soviet attack, a
portion of the Soviet's long-range nuclear force would survive to strike
again. As a consequence, the Kennedy administration quickly abandoned
the strategic policy of releasing America's entire nuclear arsenal in
"one horrific spasm." Instead of massive retaliation, Secretary of
Defense Robert McNamara recommended a "flexible response." Should
deterrence fail, McNamara proposed that America's nuclear weapons be
deployed selectively. The first ICBMs would target enemy bombers and
missile sites. The remaining ICBMs would be held in reserve, for
potential use against Soviet cities. McNamara hoped that the threat to
the civilian population would persuade the Soviet Union to end the
conflict. McNamara began retooling America's nuclear forces, including
Minuteman, to reflect the new military strategy.
However, Colonel Edward Hall and his engineers
designed Minuteman to be a fastreacting, mass-attack weapon. Upon
receiving the launch command, the officers at each Minuteman facility
had to fire all ten missiles under their control. A selective launch of
fewer than ten missiles was impossible. In order to conform with the new
defense strategy, Air Force engineers had to redesign Minuteman's launch
control complex. Historian Clyde Littlefield described the
changes:
In order to conform to the new concept,
engineering changes had to be made to allow a combat crew in a control
center to switch targets and to fire one or more missiles selectively,
conserving the remainder for later use.... Greater flexibility in
targeting and firing required a significant extension to the limited
survival time [of each operational site]. The [original] Minuteman
facility design did not provide for the protection of the power
supply.... At a control center, power generators were above the
ground.... When and if these generators stopped functioning, the
operational potential of the system would be reduced to only six hours.
Revised strategic concepts required that the weapon survive at least
nine weeks after an initial enemy attack.
To meet this requirement, the Air Force put
the generators in underground capsules next to each launch control
center. Although the Air Force considered incorporating these generators
into the Minuteman facilities at Ellsworth AFB, construction was already
underway there, making the changes impractical. Consequently, the
generator capsules began with the third Minuteman deployment area at
Minot AFB in North Dakota.
The Next Generations: Minuteman II and
III
By the time planning began for the final
Minuteman deployment area, the Air Force had developed a vastly improved
version of the missile. Called Minuteman II, the new missile offered
improved range, greater payload, more flexible targeting, and greater
accuracy, leading one Air Force spokesperson to estimate that its "kill
capacity" was eight times that of Minuteman I. Minuteman II was deployed
first at Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota. In September 1965, South Dakota
Congressman E.Y. Berry announced that the Ellsworth AFB facilities would
also receive the new missile system. According to Berry, Minuteman II
would help Ellsworth AFB remain "one of the nation's most important
military installations." In October 1971, Boeing began refitting the
Ellsworth silos to accommodate Minuteman II, and completed the project
in March 1973.
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Ellsworth Air Force Base: Delta
Flight, Minuteman II ICBM. HISTORIC ENGINEERING RECORD, NATIONAL PARK
SERVICE (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)
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In May 1964, the Soviet Union displayed a
battery of anti-ballistic missiles in Moscow's Red Square, prompting
concern about the vulnerability of Minuteman I and II missiles. The
following year, the Air Force began to develop an even more advanced
version of the missile. By late summer of 1968, Minuteman III was ready
for testing. Longer and more powerful than its predecessors, Minuteman
III offered an improved guidance system that could be retargeted in
minutes. But, according to the New York Times, the missile's
"most telling advantage" lay in its "revolutionary new warhead: the
MIRV, or multiple independently targeted reentry vehicle." The MIRV
could deliver three hydrogen bombs to widely scattered targets, a
capability that would "render current and contemplated antimissile
defense systems largely inadequate," and "thrust the world into a new
era of weapons for mass destruction."
The Air Force deployed Minuteman III at
Warren, Minot, Grand Forks, and Malmstrom Air Force Bases, and
extensively modified the Minuteman launchers at these locations to
accommodate the new missiles. Each launch tube was equipped with a new
suspension system that could hold the missile absolutely motionless
during the aftershocks of a nuclear attack. The Air Force also installed
a system of seals, filters, and surge arrestors designed to prevent
electronic equipment from being damaged by the powerful electromagnetic
waves generated during nuclear explosions.
In July 1975, when the last of the Nation's
550 Minuteman III missiles was lowered into its silo at Malmstrom AFB,
Montana, only 450 Minutemen II remained in the American arsenal
at Malmstrom, Ellsworth, and Whiteman Air Force Bases. This force
structure remained intact for nearly two more decades.
Evolution of Minuteman Facilities
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The first Minuteman LCCs, such as
Delta One, were dependent on life-support equipment in the above-ground
LCF support building. In later versions, the Air Force buried the
life-support equipment underground to help it better withstand a nuclear
attack.
The Air Force also redesigned the
launch facilities to improve survivability. The power supply unit (shown
to the right of each silo) was buried deeper underground, and
encapsulated in hardened concrete. The Delta Nine site represents the
earliest configuration.
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Deactivation of the Minuteman II Weapon
System
The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989
marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War. On July 31, 1991,
President George Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which placed a limit on the
worldwide number of ICBMs and prescribed a process for their
destruction. The treaty coincided with the end of the Cold War, and the
Air Force's growing disenchantment with the escalating costs of
repairing and maintaining the Minuteman II system. On September 27,
1991, President Bush announced on national television his "plan for
peace." As part of the plan, Bush called for "the withdrawal from alert,
within 72 hours," of all 450 Minuteman II missiles, including those at
Ellsworth AFB.
On December 3, 1991, an Air Force crew arrived
to remove the first of Ellsworth AFB's 150 Minuteman II missiles: Golf
Two (G-2), a launch facility near Red Owl, about 60 miles northeast of
Rapid City. The Rapid City Daily Journal reported on the crew's
progress.
Disarmament began with snow shovels at dawn
... as Airman 1st Class James Comfert and his colleagues cleared the
launch-door rail.... Six hours later, a Minuteman II intercontinental
ballistic missile was stored safely in its transporter/erector truck.
G-2 was just a high-tech hole in the ground.
According to the Rapid City Daily
Journal, the Minuteman deactivation process at Ellsworth AFB would
continue for at least three more years:
First, warheads and guidance systems [will
be] removed. Then the missiles will be pulled. . . . The headframes of
the missile silos will be destroyed and the tubes will be filled with
rubble. The launch control capsules will be buried under rubble and a
thick concrete cap. The land and above-ground buildings at launch
control centers will be sold.
Although all of the Minuteman II facilities at
Ellsworth AFB were slated for demolition, the Air Force, in conjunction
with the National Park Service, selected two representative sites
Launch Control Facility Delta One and Launch Facility Delta Nine
for possible preservation as nationally significant icons of the Cold
War. When the Minuteman II deactivation is completed in the mid-1990s,
these two Ellsworth AFB sites will be the only remaining intact examples
of the original Minuteman configuration.
Delta Nine Missile Pull,
1993
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On September 27, 1991, President
George Bush announced his "plan for peace," which included the
"withdrawal from alert, within 72 hours, of all 450 Minuteman II
intercontinental ballistic missiles." The actual physical removal of the
missiles began in December 1991, when Air Force crews began pulling the
unarmed Minutemen from their silos. Cables were lowered from a
transporter/erector truck and attached to the missile by a crew inside
the silo. The missile was then slowly raised into the truck and secured
for transport.
SAYRE HUTCHISON
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Source: Minuteman Missile Sites:
Special Resource Study, 1995.
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