| It all started with our new coffee pot.
The forty cup, industrial strength, percolator coffee pot we bought by taking a collection
from all the people who were going to be working in the Guidance and Flight Controls shop.
It was our first team effort as members of the first Mace "B" unit in Europe, immediately
before being ordered to shovel snow out of the ditches that ran parallel to the walkway leading to
the maintenance office.
When we first got to the Missile Support Area in late January, 1962, it was less than inspiring.
We had the last hangar up the hill, the Flight Controls/Guidance Systems
Checkout hangar. When we walked in the first time it was cold and damp, with no heat.
No heat system had been built into the building! The musty, dimly lit hangar was filled with wooden boxes of all
shapes and sizes. One missile sat forlornly on its launcher in the Flight Controls area, still
"wrapped" from the flight from Dover, Delaware.
It was hard to tell what was there, much less figure out where it was supposed to go once we uncrated it. We were the first TM-76B
Mace "B" crew in Europe, having been diverted from our assignment to Kadena
Air Base, Okinawa at the last moment before shipping out from the 4504th
Missile Training Wing in Orlando. Of course, all of our winter uniforms
and long sleeve fatigues didn't get diverted, they went to Okinawa just
fine. It would be months before the long johns and gloves we bought back
in Denver would arrive in cold, wet Germany. We had to rely on the goodness
of the guys in the 36th Supply Squadron that took pity on us and went out
of their way to scrounge up field jackets and liners, parkas, and of course,
long johns. We had a lot of U.S. Navy cold weather gear. A pretty group
we were not.
There was one bright spot. During the second day or so, T/Sgt Loring E. Bennett found an outlet in the hangar that had live 120
VAC, although 50 cycle, power if we switched on the huge inverter mounted
just outside the hangar wall. It was so big, it had its own building built
around it. The ever resourceful Sgt Bennett immediately asked for a pickup
truck to take him back to the air base. He went straight to the Base Exchange
and bought a brand new, shiny, all aluminum 40 cup coffee maker! From there
to the commissary in the housing area to buy coffee and sugar. Surprise!!!
They were both rationed items! Back to the Missile Support Area to collect
ration cards, then back to the Commissary.
Armed with enough supplies to keep our GSC & F/C troops, and the Engine & Airframe guys in the next hangar happy, he headed
back to the MSA. With great ceremony, water, then coffee was added to our
new piece of equipment. While we all stood around in our parkas, watching
our breath in the cold, dimly lighted air, Sgt Bennett plugged in the new
coffee pot. The lights went out immediately. All the lights. Not even the
security lights were on.
For the next nine (Yes, 9) months,
all power to our hangar was supplied by two 50 KW portable generators mounted on 25 foot flatbeds
trailers, on at each end of the hangar. We finally got a single 150KW mounted
on a trailer outside near where the defective inverter sat, but we had
to move it out of the way for the crane that was used to lift out the inverter,
once they took the roof off the building. Once the inverter was taken out,
the 150KW became our prime source of power and the two 50KW units were
relegated to back up duty.
That wasn't the problem, however. Being resourceful young,
highly trained technicians that we were, we soon had schedules down for
maintaining the equipment that was indeed critical. We began receiving
the A.C. Spark Plug Inertial Guidance units not soon after our power source
crapped out. They were sensitive units. The gyros had to be maintained
at a specific temperature to prevent catastrophic gyro failure. If the
suspension fluid cooled, the viscosity thickened, causing loss of spin
speed. It was imperative to maintain all the gyros at their designed level.
We were back to the original problem of no heat in the building,
even though the contractors had started work on some sort of heating system for the hangar.
The main guidance system temperature control unit
was a unit called a "Mod B". It monitored and if needed, supplied the required
400 cycle, 3 phase that was used by the gyro heaters. It was an ingenious
little power unit with a built in generator that was used to supply power
to the nose section during transportation to and from the launch sites.
It also had one massively huge 28 volt DC NiCad battery in it that weighed
a ton in case the generator failed. The "Mod B" had a warning horn to let
every one know when the voltage fell below a safe level.
In the beginning, no one could sleep through a Mod B failure,
especially since they all usually went off at once. By the time we had gone through
72 hours of straight alert duty during the Cuban Missile Crisis, though, just
about anyone could do it. Sleeping in the missile's plenum chamber was reserved
for ranking airmen, and even they could still snore right through the incredible, almost deafening
noise. Their wives today probably wonder what's wrong with their
husbands who can sleep anywhere, anytime. We slept when we could in chairs, or on the concrete
floor, with our M-1 carbines, ready for the imminent invasion of the Red Army. We were all Outside Security
Alert Teams, OSAT, to defend our compound in the wet, damp German October weather. When we
weren't on post, we were eating, or milling around the break room in the TEMS shop waiting to go back out again.
Catching a nap in the two hours off got to be quickly aquired habit.
No one went back to base for anything.
When things had slowly resumed normal operations, we were hit with a major setback. Half of our people were pulled, including our Chief of Maintenance, to go to different bases throughout
Europe to pull active missiles out of service. Some went to Turkey to pull out the Thor sites,
some went to Italy, whether to pull out Thor sites or the Italian Jupiter sites, I don't know.
We were cut to half strength, and didn't get replacements until the next class graduated from Orlando
six months later.
We had every guidance unit in our hangar, except the ones that were in the gyro ovens in the
TEMS/MEMS hangar at the other end of the complex. When the 150KW needed
to be refueled, which was once every two days, we had to switch to the back up
50KW generators. Of course, the 150KW failed more than once, so we got
to be very, very good at starting the backups and switching over, clearing
the Mod Bs, and checking every single unit in an incredibly short
time. We were so good at it, we actually impressed our NCO's. When we had
a power failure, they would simply get out of the way.
The problem wasn't keeping the gyros warm, it was keeping
all of the test equipment from failing in the cold hangar. Not many pieces
of the Guidance Systems Checker, or even the Flight Controls tester were
reliable when the average daytime temperature in the hangar was 37 degrees
F.
We were finally given two portable aircraft heaters, the
gasoline fueled units found dumping hot air into aircraft cockpits through
the oversized flexible yellow hoses that invariably got wrapped in duct
tape. We "modified" the personnel doors at either end of the hangar to
allow hose access without keeping the doors wide open. The heaters sat
safely 10 or 15 feet outside the hangar, just to the right of the diesel
50KW generator, and the flex tubes ran twenty feet or so inside the hangar.
Lo and behold, the hangar actually could be kept warm enough to
work in just a field jacket. We built, assembled, tested, painted, and retested every piece of equipment in bearable temperatures. We were very proud to be "the first" of the Mace B groups in Europe. As it turned out, we would be the only Mace B group in Europe!
In addition to building our own area, we were also
assigned duties on IC&V (Installation, Checkout and Verification) Teams
to build and test the equipment being installed in the Launch Sites. (That
is another story). As time passed, we were becoming more and more
prepared for our first ORI, our Operational Readiness Inspection. Of course,
we were still years away from launching anything, but that didn't stop
the inspections.
The gas heaters were the problem. The refueling,
flexible neck gasoline cans were stored with the 55 gallon drums, mounted
in hand made drum holders out behind the hangar. When the heaters ran low
on fuel, the smaller refuelling cans were filled from the 55 gallon drum
and carried to the heaters. The heaters were shut off, refueled and then
powered back up. The system worked safely and efficiently, but not to be
tripped up in the upcoming ORI, the intrepid T/SGT NCOIC of GSC (no, it
wasn't Sgt Bennett) decided to bypass a potential trouble spot: UGLY CANS!
With the upcoming inspection, he had the gasoline cans painted, then chained
to the drum stand so they wouldn't get used and scratched up . Refueling
the heater units was then done with mop buckets and bent butt cans. A butt
can, as every GI knows, is a bent coffee can.
During "A" shift the NCOIC had a key to the chain.
If you needed the cans, he would unlock them, then supervise the refueling,
then return the cans to their secure location behind the hangar. Unfortunately,
he only worked one shift. To say carrying gasoline in mop buckets and butt
cans was not high tech is an understatement. Here we were, the "best and
the brightest," all AFR 99-1 certified, carrying gasoline like milk.
It was the only way to stay warm.
Invariably it had to happen. It happened to Ray S., one
of the AGE troops. He was trying to trickle gasoline into the fuel tank
of a still hot, although powered off, heater about 2:00 am one cold, miserable
morning when gasoline accidentally sloshed onto the hot manifold of the
heater. The fuel ignited and blasted up the sleeve of Ray's parka.
Ray instinctively threw the can of gasoline away from the bucket and the
heater. Unfortunately, the full butt can bounced off the front of the hangar,
sloshing burning gasoline under the hangar door, whereupon the supposedly
"flame retardant insulation" on the inside of the door burst into flame.
The photo you click on to get here was taken almost
six years after the accident, but no one ever repainted the scorched hangar.
Look at the area above the hangar door, it is still scorched black all
the way to the ceiling. Bill Krebs, Ray and I forget who else was on duty,
put the fire out with the two big stand up fire bottles that stood just
inside the hangar. There was a fueled missile sitting not 15 feet away,
exactly like the photo, when the accident happened.
The insulation was replaced by the new silver stuff, but
we had a suspicion it was as dangerous as the original material. New crews
that came in for the next several years were caught staring at the damaged
wall. When they asked what happened, we simply said, "we did it to pass
our first ORI."
The "powers that were" tried to blame the accident on Ray,
but after hearing from every one in the shop and not wanting a full fledged mutiny, they changed
their minds.
But then, apparently no one was at fault. Ask the NCOIC, the last time we saw him he had made
Master Sergeant.
� George
Mindling 1999 - All Rights Reserved |
