Photos of my old Nike Base

Mat

Mat

Member
Only base other than the SF museum still intact. No equipment here other than the permanent mounted gear in the pits. All the internal and topside photos are my C pit where I worked. The photos were sent to me by a photographer who visits old abandoned places. The base is split into two separate sections, one up the highway a 16th of a mile from the launch area where I worked. Every morning we would have roll call and formation then stroll down the highway and do a pick and clean of the area. Then off into our pits and run morning checks. I still have more in pit photos but I couldn't find them, there is a batch that was messed up by win 7 due to a bug when it imported certain formats. You have to convert them to JPGs and then they are fine, so I will find them and add them later. The constant wind and dust from the farmers fields surrounding the base is slowly reducing the expensive concrete on the silos to dust. I last walked up out of my pit that is in this batch some 53 years ago. The rattlesnakes loved to crawl down into the cool pits and often you would find them in the elevator sump. We would just call civil service Fort Worth and they would come out and take care of the snakes, there were a couple times we would find one on our stairway, then we would kill it because it was the only way into the pit. The escape hatch was never used to enter or exit and I would think they were in there too. The missile fuel was ether so I would think they didn't care for the smell but they still persisted in coming in because it was much cooler in the summer. There was no winter time heating in the pits.
Here is the album
https://ibb.co/album/M5n8tG
 
Hey, Mat, that's cool. Loved the pics of "my Pit". I kind of know how you feel. I was a Corpsman at Bethesda Naval Hospital. I worked in the Eye Clinic in the early 70s. Whenever the President go to what's now Walter Reed, they show video of his section of the hospital. That is where the Eye Clinic was in the basement. I used to walk by 'POTUS's VIP area to get to MY Eye Clinic. Thanks for putting your personal touch in the base. Liked the pics of the missiles. All those buildings look like the 1950s.
BTW, i named my new 'Columbia' bike, "Nike". You HAD to have a cool name for your bike.
 
Slightly more than 11,000 lbs, pushing it onto the elevators was a real workout on a slippery shiny floor. Don't be fooled by the photos showing a rusty looking filthy pit. Over 50 years and a lot of water coming in it changed the appearance. All the old sites that were abandoned became very dangerous due to the pit filling with water. All that were not destroyed had the elevator doors welded to protect children from falling into a deep hole full of water. In one photo of my pit you will see a water pump stuck into the sump of the elevator, that was all that was needed to keep it dry. In service time it wasn't necessary because the elevator door seals were always in excellent condition and never leaked. Our sister battery at Fort Walters Mineral Wells is now an Army Reserve space and the pits are still there but welded up. Up on top of the hill is where the high power radar sit, only thing left is the steel bridge work for the radar. I was surprised when I ask helicopter pilots that went to school there if they remembered the radar, none remembered ? Our finance office for the battery was there and we had four medical options. You could drive 12 miles to Cleburn Texas and see a contracted civilian doctor, Drive to Carlwell AFB for sick call, drive to Mineral Wells 90 miles one way.

You could ride the battery ambulance , a big International Harvester van with wooden benches, not one thing inside that even resembled an ambulance. The duty nurse at Carlswell AFB actually refused to accept us one morning because we were late, the battery medic called the Battalion Commander a full colonel and it was about 5 minutes she had a change of heart and never ever refused anyone from my base. ;0)
It was wonderful duty, the only other duty better was my first summer in the 101st TDY at West Point for the whole summer. I had some great times while in the Army and saw some really great places. I loved New York and Joisy and the wonderful people I met. I met a nice girl from Brooklyn and her name was Roseanne Savino. I read last year an obituary for her Father who was 100 when he passed. He was a lawyer and while I was there he bought his first car. In 1966 there was no place to park a car in New York City. Just imagine how much it cost to park one now !

 
when I was stationed at nas whidbey island I worked in an area that was the ground contact point for the p2-p3 aircraft patrolling the pacific coast looking for missile launches. The would call me and I would relay that message by landline to the major commanders, i.e. cincpac,cinclant,sac and the armies nike hercules/zeus missile batteries to shoot down incoming missiles. actually pretty worthless considering the time involved in getting the message sent to all. Like most things I used it has all been dismantled/disgarded
 
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cdestroyer said:
when I was stationed at nas whidbey island I worked in an area that was the ground contact point for the p2-p3 aircraft patrolling the pacific coast looking for missile launches. The would call me and I would relay that message by landline to the major commanders, i.e. cincpac,cinclant,sac and the armies nike hercules/zeus missile batteries to shoot down incoming missiles. actually pretty worthless considering the time involved in getting the message sent to all. Like most things I used it has all been dismantled/disgarded
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Maximum Range was 90 miles and today's standoff cruise missiles would be dropped hundreds of miles from target. Nike was all bundled up and sent to allies who still use it today because it is cheap and lots of spare parts were available. Greece is still using it and Germany may still be using it also. It can lift that 11,000 lbs down range pretty doggone quick even by today's standards. Then of course Nike was always the last defense if the enemy were able to penetrate air defenses past the DEW line. I was always puzzled why Nike defense stopped at Dallas and went no further south except for the east coast. Probably because the enemy would have launched attacks from subs on our southern flanks had a war actually started. When JFK was assassinated it was the only time all Nike batteries were topside and prepared to fight. Every site had at least two sentry dogs that walked perimeter outside the launch area in a double fenced area and several Dog Handlers. If a Nike Site was ready to fire or the chance was great there might be a firing, all traffic around the site was shut down by armed guards and rerouted. We had the old M-1 Carbines. Nice little weapons and later over seas everyone wanted one because they were being distributed to the South Vietnamese and the village defense groups . They came in a nice foil package totally rebuilt and like new.
 
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