Anyone dealing with aircraft were directly involved with this crisis which I think is the closest we came to WW III. When the warning was given to the Soviets to dismantle and pull out of Cuba or face the consequences our armed forces had already dispersed like a covey of Quail. Especially all the aircraft stationed along the Gulf Coast. I was stationed at Chennault AFB in Lake Charles, Louisiana and within a few hours I was gone with three B-47 Bombers to Birmingham International Airport in Alabama. They were alert cocked and ready to go. I was just a two striper (promotion's were hard to come by in those days) and I was the only jet engine mechanic sent with the three B-47's, which have six engines each. As you can guess, with my luck, one of the bombers came in about midnight with engine problems. To make matters worse the problem was on an outboard engine where all the electrical generating accessories are located and the problem was behind all that. I had a mess, but with some help from an electrican and a hydraulic guy we were able to get it fixed in about three hours. This was a stressful situation, but nothing compared with the situation at my home base. I couldn't help but think that our home base would be a target and that was why we dispersed. I had a wife and two small children back there, so the situation was stressful to the max. I look back on all the situations that occurred during my 27 years in the military and here I am 70 years old and I still have my wife and two children, we survived.

Yep, dam sure some scary times in SAC. I was watching a history chanel special a few months ago and I learned quite abit about the Cubin situation then.
Russian Navy ships around Cuba had tactical nukes and the ship commanders had the OK to use them if a Naval engagement happened. One ship launching a tactical nuke sure would have set off a hell of a mess.
One of our Navy destroyers made a Soviet Sub surface by droping handgernades in the ocean to make sounds.
It sure was a close encounter between us and the Russians.

quote:

the situation was stressful to the max.

I'm sure it was and then some.

The Cuban Missile Crisis, I remember it well.

My very first Caribbean Cruise. I was in the Marine Corps. We were in the 'Rec Room' watching an NFL game on TV(Baltimore Colts and someone else). The Duty NCO came in and shut the TV off and announced, "Report to your duty areas. We are 'Mounting Out' (deploying).

Two days later we were aboard ship and steaming South.

I was a Combat Engineer. We had about three truck loads of equipment and supplies (mostly demolitions). The Navy, in its infinite wisdom, loaded our gear on the LSD USS Shadwell, and then loaded our Platoon on the LST USS Lorain County.

Our LT came down to our compartment and announced the SNAFU. Without our gear, we were now an Infantry Platoon attached to Headquarters Company ("Every Marine a Rifleman"). It was fine with us, maybe now we wouldn't have to unload those freaking trucks.

We never did know what the heck was going on until we returned home a month and a half later.

So it goes.

- LarSim

1st Infantry Division at Ft. Riley, Kansas had three of its five Infantry Battle Groups (the other two were augmenting Berlin Brigade) loaded up & ready to roll. Armor & Artillery was loaded on flatcars at the railhead. We were as ready as possible for an outfit in the middle of Continental U.S.A. Interestingly, we had just completed a U.S. Navy/U.S.M.C. amphibious assault course at Little Creek, Virginia. The Big Red One's 121st Signal Battalion deployed to Florida to set up communications for a Cuban invasion.

Active duty at MacDill AFB Fla Crew Chief

By any measure, the most dangerous moment of the cold war was October 1962 following the discovery of Soviet intermediate-range SSM missile launch sites under construction in Cuba.

On October 21st, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, General Maxwell Taylor and General Walter Sweeney met with President Kennedy concerning a military contingency plan.

General Sweeney, Commander of Tactical Air Command, proposed an operational plan which called first for an air attack on the SAM sites in the vicinity of known SSM launchers by eight aircraft per SAM site. Each of the Cuban MiG airfields thought to be protecting SSM sites were to he struck by at least twelve fighters. Following the airstrikes on SAM sites and MiG airfields each SSM launch site was to be attacked by at least twelve aircraft. General Sweeney's plan was accepted and, additionally, Cuban Il-28 Beagle Bombers were added to the target list.

The required air combat and support units for the three planned airstrikes were made ready at five US bases:



836th Air Division, consisting of the 12th and 15th Tac Fighter Wings, was committed to provide one hundred F-84F sorties in the planned first strike. 836th Thunderstreaks were to press napalm and rocket attacks against SAM sites at Mariel and Sagua La Grande as well as the airfields at Santa Clara, Los Banos and San Julien. The 836th commitment for the second strike was to provide sixty-four sorties concentrating on the Los Banos airfield, two AAA sites and the SSM launchers at San Diego de los Vegas and Pinar Del Rio. Finally, forty-two F-84Fs were to strike Los Banos MiG base a third time and the Santa Clara MiG base, Sagua La Grande and Mariel SAM sites each a second time.

Retired Colonel George Devorshak recalls: "From the moment the 12th TFW and 15th TFW went on alert, the first two days consisted of intense aircrew mission planning for multiple missions and aircraft preparation. Eventually (on the second day as I recall), aircrews were released to go to their quarters or home, subject to one-hour recall. This recall occurred three times, once less than one hour after being released to quarters/home in the early evening, and twice in the middle of the night." Colonel Devorshak remembers being greeted, on all of these recalls, by "standby to launch" orders.

The Cuban missile confrontation was ultimately resolved and the airstrikes, which would have been followed by an invasion of Cuba, were never launched.


http://www.12tfw.org/

Was close to getting out of the USN. We got orders to head to Cuba from the West Coast. Went through the Panama Canal. I was aboard the USS Bexar as a radarman. We had marines and weapons and bombs everywhere. Once there, I helped map out landing routes and make ready for the assault boats to hit the "beaches" on Cuba. We came in prepared for a full-scale assault. I was to have been one of those who plotted (by radar) the boats and help direct them to their landing points.

Was glad to see Nikita get called. He folded. Otherwise, it was surely WWIII

My Cuba experience was a long way from Florida.
P2V7 outfit on Whidbey.
The crisis for us was a recall, Alert Launches covering the Western approach to Seattle. ASW searches turned up a Soviet Sub off shore. We managed to get him to surface during the 7 day period, and he stayed on the surface for some 48 hours.
My family lived in Mount Vernon, packed and ready to go to Mount Baker. They had a resort/lodge there that was 2 hour drive from our house. Way up on the mountain.
My recall was an Alert Status for some 6 or 7 days.
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