Special to The Star-Herald
PRESQUE ISLE – The ground shook and my ears rang as the huge intercontinental guided missile belched fire and smoke and strained on its mobile launcher. The missile crew piled into a Metro truck and sped back to the hanger and launch control.
This was my first visit to the missile site at Presque Isle Air Force Base where the Strategic Air Command has the only operational Snark base in the country, headquarters of the 702nd Strategic Missile Wing.
Sometime earlier in this cold brisk morning, I was accompanied by Capt. Wilbur W. Wiley, information officer for the base, to the Snark Hangers. We stop at the sentry post guarding the entrance to the area and show our passes. The sentry asks us for our cigarette lighters and matches (he didn’t want us blowing things up, or ourselves).
We enter the large all-metal building through a side door (this building later became the plant for Converse Sneakers and is now used by Columbia Forest Products). When my glasses clear up, I can see several long, sleek Snarks sitting on their portable launchers.
Tow trucks, complete with their ground power units, are attached to their launchers in readiness for a rapid trip to the launch pad.
Balconies, hanging from the ceiling, overlook each of the missile positions. Here the launch director (L-D), the guidance men (G-1), the electrician (L-1), man the communications desk, guidance and flight control pre-flight-analyzer, and the sync-power transfer console.
Capt. Joe E. Woelke, launch director-instructor, under Maj. C. Perfitt, senior launch officer, handles initial launch crew training for new men and familiarization for staff and support personnel, as well as upgrade training for advance specialties.
Directly under Capt. Woelke, in crew 14, is T-Sgt. Dale Morgan, missile chief; and S-Sgt. Wilbur G. Moser and S-Sgt. Bernstean Dixon, guidance; S-Sgt. John J. Ivey and A-1c Roy D. Jeffries, missile maintenance; S-Sgt. John E. Henson, flight control (F-1); and A-1c Stuart M. Keyser Jr., electrician.
Working with Keyser at the sync power transfer console is M-Sgt. Thomas P. Terrancino, an electrician trainee.
Miles of wiring, cables and ducts run from openings in the hanger floor up to the missile. Booms overhead support electrical cables from the test equipment on the balconies.
Straddling the top of the “bird” is a platform where one of the guidance men is perched. The platform is lifted clear by an overhead crane just before the Snark is towed to the pad.
During a guidance system checkout, no one is allowed to touch the missile. The slightest tremor could make a delay and cause certain checks to be repeated.
Capt. Woelke checks the special clock on the wall across the hanger floor, glances over the rail of the balcony at the floor crew, steps to the communications desk and adjusts his telephone headset firmly in place.
Each member of the launch crew wears a headset, and long black coils of telephone wire snake back and forth across the deck as the men move about speaking quietly to one another.
The “LD” starts the count with, “All stations, one minute warning. In one minute we’ll pick up the count.”
Immediately each member of the crew reports in on their headsets to the ”LD.” “MC on station, G-1 on station, G-2 on station, M-1 on station, M-2 on station, F-1 on station, L-1 on station.” Everyone is in his proper position.
The “LD” acknowledges with a quiet “Roger.”
The count is under way.
A “count” is a practice run to checkout the electrical system of the missile and to determine if it is operating properly. Every step of a “count” is carried out in practice, except for the final step, that of pushing the launch button. A duplicate clock of the one in the hanger is located in missile control and is synchronized.
The crew at missile control can tell what the launch crew is doing by what time it is.
Lights flash numbers on the huge, gray electronic brain, the “analyzer,” as the system checkout tape runs through the reader. The tape is punched with a mass of small holes that cause the machine to react to the missile’s system.
As soon as the system check has been completed, the “G-1” tells the launch director that everything is in readiness. The “LD” notifies the “L-1” for the power changeover. Keyser steps up to the sync power transfer console and begins to twist knobs and read a maze of dials. Without interruption, the power is switched from the main site to the ground power unit on the truck hitched to the missile.
While the power transfer is being made, MC, M-1, M-2, G-1, G-2 and F-1 are making ready to move the “bird” out onto the pad. Power lines are removed and the crew slips into heavy parkas.
Meanwhile, the missile control center, located in another building, has been monitoring the crews’ actions. When the time is ripe, missile control gives the clearance, the huge hanger doors slide back, and the “bird” rolls out with the crew running alongside.
At the pad, the power is shifted from the ground power unit on the truck to the missile itself as soon as the missile engine is started.
The “MC” informs the “LD,” back at the launch control room, “Jacks are down and locked.”
“Clear for engine start.”
“Start engine.”
As the ground shakes with the roar of the turbojet engine, the “M-1” tilts the launcher and aims the missile into the cold Aroostook sky.
“Personnel clear and departing the pad,” the “MC” says, as the crew piles into the escape vehicle for the short haul back to the hanger. They’ve done their job … the rest is up to the launch director and the missile itself.
Inside launch control, the “LD” and the “L-1” glance out the small window overlooking the pad and then at the rows of instruments. Down in the lower left-hand corner is a red guarded switch. This is the one that is never touched in practice. Only on a word from missile control, and S.A.C. headquarters, will the red button be pushed that will send the missile screaming off into space and an enemy target.
The “L-1” makes a check on the Snark’s power and engine performance for thrust. If everything is running perfectly and the crew has performed satisfactorily, the power is switched back to the ground power unit for the trip back to the hanger.
Captain Wolke, pleased by the performance of his crew, relaxes with a smoke. He gets a light from Keyser, who supplies it from a cigarette already burning. No matches and lighters being allowed in the missile area. Smokes are lit by electric lighters.
The Snark, built by Northrop Aircraft, Inc. is a long-range air-breathing missile. It is high altitude swept-wing, single engine jet propelled “bird” with self-contained and non-jammable guidance equipment.
Traveling at near-sonic speeds, it has a range of more than 6,000 miles and is designed to carry a hydrogen, or other priority warhead to its target in any kind of weather.
The Snark is 69 feet long, 15 feet high with a wingspan of 42 feet. It is launched with the aid of two high-thrust booster rockets, which are dropped shortly after being launched.
The first unit, the 556 Strategic Missile Squadron, under the command of Col. Richard W. Beck, was activated in September of 1957 at Patrick Air Force Base, Fla. The 702nd Strategic Missile Wing at Presque Isle was the only base in the country.
Editor’s note: This story was originally published in the Bangor Daily News, Feb. 4-5, 1961.
Photo courtesy of Voscar, The Maine Photographer
AT THE PAD, the power is shifted from the ground power unit on the truck to the missile itself, as soon as the missile’s engine is started. Only the final step of the count is not carried out — that of pushing the launch button.
Photo courtesy of Voscar, The Maine Photographer
SNARK HANGAR — This large, all-metal building was once a hangar for Snark missiles. The building later became the plant for Converse Sneakers and is now used by Columbia Forest Products. Balconies, hanging from the ceiling, overlook each of the missile positions.
Photo courtesy of Voscar, the Maine Photographer
WHEN THE SNARK’S electrical system has been checked out, power is switched from the main site power to the ground power unit on the truck hitched to the missile. M-Sgt. Thomas P. Terrancino helps perform this task at the sync power transfer console after receiving instructions from Capt. Joe E. Woelke.
Photo courtesy of Voscar, The Maine Photographer
THE COUNT — To personnel at the former Presque Isle Air Force Base, a practice run to insure the proper functioning of a Snark missile, is known as the “count.” Here, Capt. Joe E. Woelke, launch director, stands at the missile communications desk from which he controls the entire operation. In the background is the “analyzer,” an electronic brain which gives vital information relating directly to the missile’s system during the count.
