The history of the Nike Missile Restoration Project | Where's Marty?
Hi Everyone!
It is history now, but the Cold War, 1954 to 1974, was a very real deal.
I would bet many of you reading this were not born yet.
Most likely you were not alive when the Cuban Missile Crisis happened. Google that if you do not know of nuclear missiles placed in Cuba by the Soviets just 90 miles from Florida.
The world was so close to nuclear war that both President Kennedy and Soviet head Nikita Khrushchev slept in their clothes because they were so certain of attack.
Now here is where your neighborhoods come into play in and around Baltimore.
This is a scale model of a NIKE Hercules missile. The actual rocket was 41 feet tall. (Nike was the Greek goddess of victory. Hercules was the Greek god of strength and heroes.)
NIKE missiles were a defensive weapon. Hercules was one of its generational advances. The model is shown sitting on one of 6 launch sites at a base that was in Granite, Maryland. Each site had four nuclear-tipped Hercules missiles ready to launch to blow Soviet bombers headed to Washington out of the sky with a nuclear explosion.
Again the math, it's important. Four missiles were kept underground at each launcher. 6 launchers x 4=24 nuclear missiles in this one location.
There were 19 sites around the area. Do the math. 114 NUCLEAR MISSILES lived around us. If needed a missile was loaded onto an elevator and raised to the surface. It then was pushed along a short span on railroad track to its launcher and raised. On command, it would have been launched. In the picture below you can see the black elevator top outlined by yellow safety paint. You can also see air vents.
In the far upper left corner, you can see the yellow doors open leading to stairs that a crew of five would have used to get thirty feet underground, surrounded by 2-foot thick concrete and protected by steel blast doors. (see below)
In the bunker, the missiles rested until needed. And that resting area is huge, again see below;
And with a push of a red button, the missile would have been raised and ready for thermonuclear war. Dark history but real history being restored by the Maryland Civil Air Patrol.
In the bunker are old signs,and direction, that really bring the gravity of the place home.
the restoration we reported on this morning is ongoing.
If you visit the Maryland Civil Air Patrol website, you can learn more about tours, both open and private. And also how you can help bring this history back to life. Here is the link to the NIKE page, https://mdwg.cap.gov/nike-missile-restoration-project.
Watch our videos from this morning. By studying history, we can maybe learn from it, and as K2 said to me, to stop this messed up "stuff" from ever happening again. Dark but absolutely fascinating history.
Marty B!
