I
pulled into the parking lot of Jittery Joe’s coffee shop in
Watkinsville, Georgia, and looked around the almost empty parking
lot. I was meeting Bob Bolton at the iconic coffee shop to review and
select photographs for our upcoming book, U.S. Air Force Tactical
Missiles – 1949-1969 – The Pioneers. Bob had driven over from
Lawrenceville and was waiting for me in the coffee shop. My wife and
I drove up from Port Charlotte, Florida,
and were staying with our daughter just outside Athens, Georgia.
While
sorting through a double-table spread with photographs of Matador and
Mace missiles for possible inclusion in our book, we came across a
photograph taken of a TM-61C Matador at Wheelus Air Base in Libya.
The photograph, taken in 1955, showed a Matador
being prepared for launch in the Libyan desert during Operation
Suntan, part of the Annual Missile Launch Operation in North Africa.
The AMLO, as it was known, was an annual launch exercise attended by
all the active US Air Force tactical missile launch squadrons in
Germany. This particular missile was from the 1st Pilotless
Bomber Squadron at Bitburg Air Base, Germany. One
of the comments written on the photo identified
the officer seen on the far left side of the photograph as 1st Lt.
John Gibbs. Bob and I decided to use the photograph in the book.
A
year or so later, after the book was published, I got an unidentified
telephone call. I rarely accept unknown
cellphone calls, but for some reason, I took this one. It was John
Gibbs. His name rang a bell but I couldn’t remember why.
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Wheelus Air Base Libya, AMLO 1955. TM-61C Matador - Lt John Gibbs is on the far left
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“Hey,
George, I’m a former missileman and found out about this group
called TAC Missileers Association. I found
your telephone number and decided to find out what this is all
about.”
“What
this is all about,” I answered without realizing who I was talking
to, “Is documenting our place in Air Force history, and the guy you
need to talk to is our membership director,
Max Butler. We’d love to have you join us.”
It
didn’t take long for John to join the TAC Missileers Association
and almost immediately catch Max’s ear about an Air Force tactical
missile he found in central Florida that was looking for a new home.
John drove by the American Legion post in Wildwood, Florida, not far
from an area known as The Villages, and saw a weather-worn, CGM-13B
Mace missile on display in front of the American Legion Post 18. He
stopped to see if the Legion post would be interested in a historical
presentation about their Mace missile.
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| CGM-13B (TM-76B) Mace missile on display at the American Legion, Wildwood, Florida 1997 |
To the contrary, the American Legion post membership had already voted to remove the Mace. Several post members had issues with paying the liability insurance required by the National Museum of US Air Force, owners and trustees of all Air Force vehicles on loan for display. The CGM-13B - originally known as a TM-76B, known simply to those who were assigned to her as the “B” bird - was moved from its duty station at the Tactical Missile School at Orlando Air Force Base, some fifty miles south, to the Wildwood American Legion post when the 4504th Missile Training Wing at Orlando AFB inactivated in 1966. The Air Force Museum at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, already has a pristine CGM-13B that served combat duty in Okinawa in its static display and did not have a new home for the old Wildwood Mace. They hadn’t yet decided where to relocate the missile.
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A1C Bob Bolton, 887th Tactical Missile Squadron,
with a MGM-13A (TM-76A) Mace with at Grünstadt, Germany - Summer of 1965
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Bob Bolton - TAC Missileers Association
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CGM-13B (TM-76B) serial number 59-4871, manufactured by The Glenn L. Martin Co.,
Baltimore, MD, was accepted by the U.S. Air
Force in December, 1960, and sent to the Tactical Missile Combat
School at Orlando Air Force Base. The
Tactical Missile School was operated by the 4504th Missile Training
Wing, Ninth Air Force, Tactical Air Command. The school was
inactivated in 1966, concurrent with the phase-out of the “A”
version of the Mace, the ground-hugging ATRAN – Automatic Terrain
Recognition and Navigation – model that comprised most of the
38th Tactical Missile Wing in Germany.
All “B” Bird missile
training classes were then reassigned to the 3415th
Training Wing at Lowry AFB, Colorado, until the
inertially-guided Mace “B” was removed from the operational
inventory in 1969. The “B” Bird, renumbered several times until
finally designated the
CGM-13B, remained on duty in Germany, reassigned to the 36th Tactical
Fighter Wing at Bitburg and with the 498th Tactical Missile Group at
Kadena, Okinawa. The forlorn school Mace
from the inactive 4504th MTW had
been on stand-by in the middle of Florida ever since
the school closed. It was simply awaiting further orders. With
Max Butler in the loop, a request for a Permanent Change of Station
began processing.
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CGM-13B Mace On Duty with the 71st Tactical Missile Squadron, Bitburg, Germany - 1960's
USAFE Photo from Wayne Douglas
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Frank
Roales, a volunteer for a new military museum project in Vincennes,
Indiana, and a contributor to our book - his specialty was the Air
Force MM-1 Terracruzer transporter – previously contacted Max
Butler looking for any available Mace or Matador missiles the TAC
Missileers Association may have known about. It didn’t take long
for Max, Frank, and John to mix and match the need of both the
American legion post and the fledgling Vincennes museum. The
mayor of Vincennes, Indiana, officially requested approval from the
Air Force Museum to display the missile at the new Indiana Military
Museum project. The Museum agreed and the
project was in motion. All that was needed
was the method and money. Again, Max Butler and the TAC Missileers
were at the forefront.
Bob
Bolton, editor of the TAC Missileers
newsletter, published a request about the upcoming project and caught
the attention of Jerry Brenner, a former nuclear
weapons mechanic on the Mace. Jerry contacted the Commander of the
Indiana Air National Guard’s 181st Intelligence Wing, in Terre
Haute, Indiana, asking for assistance with the move. Jerry sent
photographs and documentation from past missile moves, including a
photograph of the Mace missile in Wildwood. It wasn’t long before
Jerry received a telephone call from 1st Lt. Randi Brown, Wing
Executive Staff Officer, 181st Intelligence Wing, asking how they
could help. Jerry gave her Max’s telephone number and the project
began to take shape. Lieutenant Brown coordinated the Air Force/ANG
side of the 840 mile project with Max Butler and provided the truck
transportation and two drivers. All Max Butler had to do was figure
out how to make it work. And when. We needed some serious planning.
Bob
called me in February, 2010, asking if I could meet him in Wildwood,
almost in the dead-center of Florida. The association was having an
on-site planning and measurement session – Max called it a scope
meeting – for the up-coming move. “Great,” I thought. Probably
my last chance to see a missile I worked on
for eight years. “I’ll see you there!”
The
last operational CGM-13B Mace Missiles were taken out of combat
service in October, 1969, from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa. The 71st
Tactical Missile Squadron, my unit, had inactivated in Germany on
April 30th, some six months earlier. The Mace continued in service
for several years as target drones fired from Eglin AFB as target
practice for the Air Defense Command at Tyndall AFB. One gained
international notoriety when it continued
to fly down-range, crossing over Cuba despite being raked by cannon
fire and being hit by at least one air to air missile in the Gulf of
Mexico gunnery range. It crashed somewhere on the other side of Cuba
after running out of fuel.
Most
of the combat unit personnel had moved on
by then. Many of our peers migrated to Strategic Air Command Titan or
Minuteman launch or maintenance crews by that time, but, after eight
years of tactical missiles, I separated from the Air Force for
civilian life.
March 15th,
2010 – Scope Day
I
headed out of Port Charlotte early enough to drive the two and a half
hours and still be there well before everyone else was due to show
up. I should have known better, I was the last one to arrive and I
was an hour early! Bob had driven down from Atlanta and other members
of the association had come from as far away as Jacksonville. Max was
staying an hour or so away and acted as if it were in his backyard. A
tall gentleman watched from the edge of activity, and when all of us
who knew each other were finished with our cordialities, walked over
and introduced himself. It was John Gibbs. He was the First
Lieutenant in our Wheelus photograph and the catalyst in moving the
Mace missile to its new home. John was a former member of the First
Pilotless Bomber Squadron at Bitburg Air Base, Germany, the very
first operational missile squadron in the United States Air Force.
John was a pleasure to meet and his knowledge of early missile
operations in Europe was fascinating.
How
big is a Mace missile? How much does it weigh? Nobody knew, or more
correctly, no one remembered. It had been fifty years since the last
time I worked on one and I wasn’t alone. We measured, photographed,
videoed, measured again, and measured serial number 59-4871 yet a
third time. The J-33 jet engine had been removed as had almost every
other piece of ancillary hardware. Everything except for the network
of impact fuses still mounted to the inside
of the nose cone. The small, innocuous, static, piezoelectric
generators that, crushed all at the same time, created
enough current to detonate the High Explosive trigger that was
absolutely the last way to detonate the Mark 28, 1.2 Megaton
thermonuclear warhead, were still in place. The small,
plastic-appearing gizmos were no hazard of any kind. The minuscule
voltage each one created
during its one time, destructive activation, was like having a rack
of double “A” batteries that only worked once mounted in the
front of the missile. This training missile had never mounted
a live warhead.
Then
it was time to count the money. The TAC Missileers Association would
pay the estimated $2500 for crane service and insurance and the 181st
Intelligence Wing, Indiana ANG, supplied the transportation. The rest
was volunteer effort. Max penciled in April 14th, just a month away,
as M-day and we were committed to the move.
We
started collecting and disseminating information on a daily basis.
Request for copies of old Air Force Technical Orders brought a wealth
of information and soon Max and Roger St. Germain began the tedious,
time consuming task of designing and building precision wooden
cradles, exactly fifty-four inches in diameter, to be mounted to a
yet unseen Air Force flat-bed trailer, that would secure the missile
during its eight hundred, forty mile trip to its
new home. It was decided the removed wings would be mounted
either under or alongside the fuselage. The horizontal stabilizer
would be removed from the vertical stabilizer due to its width and
the two would be strapped together with the wings. It sounded good in
theory, at least.
April 14th 2010
– Move Day
Most
of the license plates parked under the old Spanish Moss-draped Live
Oak trees at American Legion Post 18 that beautiful, sunny morning
were from counties all over the state of Florida, but plates from
Georgia and North Carolina were there as well. Luckily, we had a
pretty good spread of Air Force Specialty Codes, or skill sets
represented but we did have one problem: we had no Engine or Airframe
mechanics among us. None of us had ever taken a Mace apart before.
The youngest one of us Missileers gathered for the project was
sixty-eight years old. We figured we could
still do the job, it just might take a little longer than planned.
Undeterred,
we stuck bookmarks in our dog-eared Technical Orders and started on
our work plan. While we had many launch crew members, several
guidance technicians and test equipment specialists, many trained
only on the older Matador, only Max and myself were Flight Controls
and were familiar with the wing layout. Max was a TM-61C Matador
troop, he had never seen a Mace before. I told him, “No problem,
Max, the wings come off the same way.” That proved to be an almost
correct statement. Step one however, was to mount the custom wooden
cradles to the US Air Force flat bed trailer, driven down from Terre
Haute, Indiana, by T/Sgt Stacey Snow and T/Sgt William Curtis. Stacey
and William listened carefully to Max describe our plans, then they
both smiled and said, “Sounds good, let’s do it!”
While
Max and his group finagled the shipping cradles into position
on the flat-bed trailer, another team laid out sand bags on the lawn
where they wanted the crane operator to place the missile once it
was cut free from its secure pedestal. The pedestal turned out
to be a facade, simply bricks arranged around a steel frame with two
vertical steel rods mounted to the frame that thrust upwards through
the missile’s belly. The missile was also
tethered to the pedestal with a cable
attached to the nose and a second cable securely attached to the
tail.
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George Mindling - TAC Missileers Association
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The
crane moved carefully into position alongside the missile to start
the removal process. Robert Pyne and Billy Graham
from Graham’s Trucking mounted huge lifting straps fore and
aft on the silver, forty-four foot long fuselage. Billy signaled to
the crane operator and the missile gently lifted just enough to take
weight off the stand. Cutting the cables and steel bars was our first
step in freeing the missile. After the second
cable was severed, Billy again signaled the crane operator.
Everyone held their breath as the crane engine revved up and 59-4871
gently lifted free of its home for the last forty-four years.
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Max Butler - TAC Missleers Association
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With
guy ropes tied to the nose and tail – and
a myriad of attentive supervisors scattered safely outside
the work zone – the Mace was slowly swung over the sandbags
and gently lowered to the ground. Stepladders appeared from somewhere
and we were soon walking along the top of the missile as if it were
fifty years ago. Waves of nostalgia overtook all of us during that
first few minutes, bringing back memories of scampering up and down
the alert-ready missiles in their angled launch bays. In our late
sixties and seventies, we were no longer a scampering crowd.
There
were five or six of us standing on the wings and fuselage as Max
started removing the large, Phillips-head screws that mounted the
crown panel over the wing mounts. The first
three panel mounting screws, untouched in four decades, protested but
slowly broke loose and were removed. The fourth screw proved to be a
foreboding of things to come: it was frozen solidly in place. It
wasn’t one of the original Phillips head screws, but some odd screw
someone used simply because they thought it fit. After bathing the
stubborn screw in every known kind of penetrating lubricant
and many varied attempts at removing the balky screw, it was finally
cut out with a small sledge hammer and a cold chisel. Max knocked it
loose almost an hour after we started. He
sat back on the wing and looked around, sweat dripping from his
forehead. “I’m getting too old for this high tech stuff,” he
said.
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Robert Pyne, Graham Trucking on the wrench with Russ Reston, George Mindling, and Max Butler
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During
the Scope meeting a month earlier, Bob
mentioned to me there was a slight difference between the left and
right wing. One wing had the track in the root
section used to mount primercord, a linear, rope-type explosive used
by the “B” bird to separate the wings at dump to facilitate a
supersonic terminal dive. I asked Bob if the “A” Bird, the model
of Mace he had launch-crewed on in Germany, had tracks in the wing
roots. “Nope,” he answered, we didn’t need to do a terminal
dive, we were low altitude attack. So our missile, 59-4871, had one
“A” bird wing and one “B” bird wing. Bob laughed and said,
“Well, it is what it is. Besides, there’s one more thing, the
trailing tip of the “B” bird wing is bent.”
Again,
nostalgia swept over me. I was there with Bob Harkins and Leonard
Estrada in our B-Bird flight controls class when a fork lift sped out
of our checkout hanger with his lift raised. The
driver looked over his shoulder, but not up. He
had raised the lift high enough to solidly catch
the low-hanging wing-tip of the incredibly strong, honey-comb
cathedral wing. The missile shuddered with the impact that
slam-lifted the back of the forklift off the ground. but the damage
to the missile was minimal. Only a few inches of
the trailing edge of the wing were
deformed. If it had been an operational bird, the wing would have
been depot repaired, but apparently there was no urgent need to
repair the training missile. That accident was
sometime during the summer of 1961, and here I sat, in 2010, looking
at the distinct, bent up wing, mesmerized as if I were in high
school. I felt a sudden fondness for this old, weather-worn bird.
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Bruce Hynds and Roger St. Germain - TAC Missileers Association
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We
eventually dismounted the wings with close
coordination with everyone involved, safety being our utmost concern,
but it wasn’t easy. The huge, shoulder mounting bolts were as
corroded as the ones on the access panel. We had help from Graham
Trucking which loaned us not only the use of their
professional truck and crane tools, but their muscle as well. We
never would have made it without their assistance and the five
or six cans of penetrating
lubricants they expended removing the bolts. Removing
the missile shoulder bolts proved to
be a hard, tedious time consuming task.
Mounting
the removed wings on the trailer proved to be another challenge. Max
had mounted the fuselage cradles so the
separated wings would easily slide onto the
back of the trailer. With a wing span of
only twenty-two feet, it was naively assumed the
length of an individual wing wouldn’t
exceed eleven feet. Wingspan does not translate to wing length, as we
did not consider the swept length of the wings, only the distance
from tip to tip when mounted. We were off
by over a foot and a half on each wing. After quick, emergency
consultations with Stacey and William, who by now were known to
everyone by their nicknames, Gunny and
Snowman, the two front cradles on the truck bed were relocated far
enough apart to slip the wings in between them. A few sand bags under
the wings for shock absorption and we were in business.
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Russ Reston - TAC Missileers Association
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The
last task, removing the vertical stabilizer was almost a show
stopper. Lindsey Cosby of Graham Trucking arrived with more tools
including the biggest ratchet wrench I have ever seen. The wrench,
mated with a six-foot long, iron handle
extension and manhandled by Pyne and Graham, two of the strongest men
there, slowly, painstakingly, brought forth a metallic squeak as the
first bolt finally broke loose. Removing the remaining bolts was as
time consuming and nerve wracking as the first one. By the time the
crane was ready to attach to the stabilizer almost an hour later,
tension among all the onlookers was at its highest for the day. The
crane gently lifted the stabilizer, but it didn’t budge.
It was still firmly attached to the missile. It took several, intense
moments of frantic work to pry it loose from the fuselage, but when
it finally lifted free, you could feel the
wave of jubilation sweep over the
onlookers. That was the last major
mechanical task before loading the fuselage on the waiting flat bed
trailer. After setting the stabilizer on the
ground, the crane swung back to pick up the missile. Everyone
silently watched as the missile
slowly, almost gracefully lifted off the sand bags. This time she was
being finally loaded for its trip to its new home.
Both
Max and Roger are union certified master carpenters, and no one
expected problems lowering the missile into the cradles, but the
missile didn’t fit. No one said a word as Max and Roger glanced at
each other. The perfectly round fuselage simply would not slide into
the first cradle. The crane operator lifted the bird up several
inches and waited for instructions. Max leaned over and inspected a
thin strip of felt that had been added to the rim of the cradles to
prevent possible scarring. Max carefully pulled out the strip of felt
and the crane lowered the missile perfectly and firmly into all
three, perfectly radiused, hand-made 54.00 inch wide cradles.
Max
directed the strapping of the missile, then waited as I struggled
with another group to separate the vertical and horizontal
stabilizers. The two had to be separated to avoid the extra-width
the stabilizer gave the trailer load. To get permission from four
states to haul an over-wide load was out of the question, so the two
units had to be separated. Again, after careful analysis, Max found
if we turned the stabilizer assembly a certain way, it would fit
laterally on the trailer in front of the missile and we wouldn’t
have to separate the two stabilizers.
The
whole assembly strapped in securely and we all stood back for one
last look at the Mace, almost defiantly displaying US Air Force
boldly emblazoned on its side even though its wings had obviously
been clipped. The moment for most of us was a somber one. Our tool
bags would be put away with our memories.
After
photographs were taken and we double checked everything on our lists,
we all watched in the late afternoon sun as the flatbed pulled
carefully onto Highway 44, headed for nearby I-75 with our
weather-worn icon strapped securely to it. I’m sure there were more
than a few startled motorists on the Interstate as 59-4871 headed
north through the Smoky Mountains toward its new home. I have no
doubts the question, “What is that? A rocket?” was uttered more
than once.
Somewhere
in the process, the old bird picked up a new name. When she arrived
at Vincennes she would be known as “Miss L.” But before “Miss
L” could once again go proudly on display, she needed a makeover.
One that was forty-four years overdue.
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T/Sgt Stacey Snow and T/Sgt William Curtis.
181st Intelligence Wing, Indiana Air National Guard |
Post Script
TAC
Missileer Association member Jerry Brenner, volunteer at the Indiana
Military Museum, met Gunny and Snowman as they crossed the Ohio River
into Indiana on Interstate 69. Brenner, who
followed the missile for several miles, was amazed at the surprised
reactions of motorists who drove past the old missile being
transported to her new home. He was at the motel the following
morning after the final overnight stop as a family came out of the
motel restaurant. They were startled to see the missile they had
passed on the way to the hotel parked at the side of the lot. They
asked if they could get close to it and Jerry told them, “Sure,
take all the photos you want.”
The
last leg to Vincennes was uneventful and the Mace was met at the
museum by workers and volunteers who gave a round of applause as the
newly named “Miss L” slowly pulled in. After being lifted off the
trailer, the Mace sat outside covered with tarps to protect the
openings while everything else was stored under a shed for most of
the year while planning and funding took place. Photographs were
taken and sent to the Air Force Museum to show that the missile was
secured and covered from the weather. The next year and a half were
an exercise in patience and hard work.
The
Indiana Military Museum was granted $2,280 for the acquisition of
decals and detail work from the Association of Air Force Missileers,
an organization for all former United States Air Force Missileers, or
anyone with an interest in past or current USAF missile and space
systems, and another $1000 donation from the TAC Missileers
Association. The hard work was done mainly by the volunteers, headed
by Frank Roales who helped start the original project.
The
next year saw the damaged air intake plenum chamber and the bent wing
tip repaired, as well as the missing parts from the stabilizer being
fabricated. The entire missile was prepared for new paint which
included the removal of the old decals.
According
to Jerry Brenner, ”The decals that were on the missile were removed
by using a one inch wood chisel and the main part of the missile was
done with palm and hand sanders. Many hours were put in during the
summer when the humidity was higher than the temperature and we are
talking about 100+ degrees. The tail assembly was sand blasted as it
was made of cast aluminum.”
Frank
Roales designed the support that holds the missile at its launch
angle of 17 degrees and the custom-built structure was fabricated by
J and J welding of Mt. Vernon, Indiana. The
support posts were donated by local supporters of the museum,
including an unnamed oil company. The Air Force Armament Museum in
Destin, Florida, supplied the information about decals which
were made by a company in Vincennes. Some of the larger decals on the
wings were made by hand and painted on. The missile was slowly,
painstakingly reassembled. Finally, in May, 2012, the wings and the
stabilizer were attached. Frank made covers for the plenum
chamber intake and made a plate to cover
the tail pipe opening.
A
crane from a local company was brought in to raise the assembled
missile on to the pedestal. There was excitement
as the reassembled missile was slowly lifted up
for all to see. Motorists stopped and stood beside the road outside
the museum to see the Mace as it was
lowered to it’s new, permanent cradle. Once the missile was
lowered, brackets were attached to the missile to secure it in place
and a large bolt was attached to hold down the tail of the missile.
The
Mace was spray painted from nose cone to tailpipe, and in June, 2012,
Frank, Max and Jerry got together to apply
the final decals.
In
October, 2012, a dedication ceremony was held at the Indiana Military
Museum to officially make the Mace-B a part of the museum.
The CGM-13B greets visitors to the museum, standing in front of the museum, not in “Hot-Hold” as its colleagues in Germany and Okinawa did for almost ten years, but as a tribute to the Missileers who lovingly moved it and restored it, and to the Air Force Museum, the Indiana Military Museum, the 181st Intelligence Wing of the Indiana Air National Guard and to the Association of Air Force Missileers and the TAC Missileers Association, who all together, made its reassignment possible.
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Max Butler, Frank Roales, and Jerry Brenner - TAC Missileers Association
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Original member of the 1st PBS, John Gibbs, visits the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Museum at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL, 2014. An original XB-61 Matador is in the background.
Post Script:
"Here is the origin of “Miss L” It actually came about after the bird reached The Indiana Military Museum. Jerry Brenner and I had been working on cleaning,striping and repairing the bird for a few months when he had to go to the hospital for a heart problem and of course he couldn’t return right away after his release, After a number of weeks of this I sent him an e-mail asking him how he was doing and in jest told him to hurry back for the “Miss L” was missing him…..the name stuck." Frank Roales
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All photos made possible from the TAC Missileers Association
Indiana
Military Museum - https://indymilitary.com/
TAC
Missileers Association - https://www.tacmissileers.org/
Association
of Air Force Missileers - https://www.afmissileers.org
38th TMW 1958 - 1966 - http://www.mace-b.com/38TMW/
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MGM-13A Mace on alert duty, 405th Tactical Missile Squadron, Kirschburg, Germany, 1965
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