Two weeks back we published a letter from Kenneth A. Turner of
Macon, who wrote to say he would like to see a plaque erected to
honor the members of a former Army missile base in Jeffersonville
that closed in 1966. What remains of the site is being demolished to
make way for an industrial park, and he thought those long-gone
defenders should be remembered for their service "in very perilous
times."
His letter reawakened memories of a time when we weren't worried
about hijacked planes being flown into our skyscrapers. America was
more concerned about the possibility that Soviet bombers would drop
thermonuclear bombs on our cities and military targets.
The 1960s achieved a particularly high point in the Cold War.
During that time the Soviet Union, in an unbelievably dangerous
move, shipped missiles into Castro's Cuba, 90 miles from the United
States. Americans experienced first-magnitude saber-rattling many
feared would escalate into all-out war. Fortunately, the Soviets
backed down and pulled the missiles out.
In any case, Turner's letter was particularly meaningful for me.
In 1962, I reported to my first Army assignment - a tour of duty
with the 4th Missile Battalion at Robins AFB, a unit designed in
response to the Cold War. I spent three years at battalion
headquarters, where I performed various duties.
The missile unit Turner wrote about was Battery A of the 4th
Missile Battalion, 61st Artillery. It was one of many units deployed
around military installations across the United States under the
command of ARADCOM, an acronym for Army Air Defense Command.
There were two Nike Hercules ground-to-air missile batteries in
Middle Georgia: The second was in Byron, and it, like its sister
unit in Jeffersonville, was intended as a "last line of defense" to
protect the Strategic Air Command's B-52 bombers at Robins.
The missilemen's job was to ensure that in the event of Soviet
bomber attack, Robins' warplanes would have time to deliver our own
particularly nasty version of Armageddon.
Both of the firing batteries were a potent manifestation of Cold
War strategy. Many midstate residents may not have been aware that
those units were armed with powerful missiles designed to carry one
of three different nuclear warheads - as well as high explosive,
non-nuclear tips - which could, if necessary, blast whole squadrons
of enemy bombers out of the air at distances of up to 100 miles and
altitudes far higher than airplanes could fly.
The Army didn't play around: One of the two types of nuclear
warheads we had on hand was more powerful than the atomic bomb
dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. I often wondered what level of
destruction would be inflicted on the ground if one of those
warheads were detonated anywhere near the surface.
I remember expressing this concern to one officer, who explained
that our job was not to protect civilians, it was to shoot down
incoming bombers before they could destroy SAC. That was our
priority, like it or not.
Security was extremely high at the Byron and Jeffersonville
sites; you couldn't just wander in. A high security clearance was
required just to get through the gate at the launch control areas,
the sites which actually controlled the firing of the missiles,
which were located in another high-security area several miles
away.
The actual missiles - each unit had 12 which were boosted by
powerful solid-rocket motors and guided by multiple acquisition,
target tracking and target ranging radars - were capable of
intercepting and destroying incoming targets with a high degree of
accuracy.
A Nike Hercules missile successfully intercepted an incoming
ballistic missile during a test in the 1960s, and the Army had hoped
to develop a more advanced version which could consistently take out
incoming warheads. The program was dropped, however, before the Army
could move ahead with the program.
I hope Turner is successful in getting the plaque honoring the
missilemen. Those fellows worked long, hard hours, and by the time
their firing batteries were shut down in 1966, most of those
soldiers had been sent to a new address in Southeast Asia, a country
called Vietnam.
Phil Dodson can be reached at 744-4239 or at pdodson@macontel.com.
