cuban missle crisis history here in south fla

took the hemi out for a little road trip this morning down to the NIKE missle site in everglades national park. Seems during the crisis Nuclear tipped warheads were set to launch from 4 sites around here ,one which has been opened to the public on ranger guided tours during the winter season. Today's tour was the last till nov due to the heat,bugs ,and rattle snakes. They even have a restored Nike missle minus the nuclear warhead. seems as though it was active until the mid 70's.

 

an original sign . this was a very high security base

 

That's interesting. It's been years since we've been to the Everglades. Oddly when we stayed several weeks in June, mostly at Flamingo on the far south west side, there were no bugs or mosquetos.
Yet we camped free because it was that time of year and no rangers were there except at the main station.
But since it hadn't rained in a long time the gators were in any small water hole and it was creapy.
The very first RV campground was near a good sized lake filled with gators. When we walked down near the water dozens came over toward us smiling that gator smile.
I remember many small roads and RV camps were closed. Maybe that was also where the missle site is.

 

The missile site is located about 45 miles from flamingo it is more towards the homestead side near the Daniel Beard research center or the Royal Palm trail

 

No nuclear-tipped warhead on the Nike missile display?

Wusses......

 

not even the little baby 650 lb bombs they had. seems as though they were removed in 75. though they had several hundred of these sites around the country all the others but this one and the one in alaska were considered 2nd string defense. in other words what ever got thru our fighters and bombers would be attacked by the nike missle batteries. but the alaska and fla missles were considered first line offensive weapons and would have been the first fired

 

They need to save some and have them ready.

That campground and lake just north of the research center road is where we stayed one night. The gators scared us off.
Down at Flamingo it is more open and there were never more than a few other campers in over two weeks.
Normally in June the skeeters are bad so no one in their right mind camps there.
We lived on coconut meat and milk.

 

Yes, there were many sites around the periphery of the 48 States and Alaska. Here in Western Washington, there's a remaining RADAR tower at one site up the hill from my high school, and a launch site on a hill about 15 miles South of me. Trivia time: the original Army system was the MIM-3 Nike Ajax, which not only was the first true U.S. SAM system, it was tapped for both battlefield protection and in-country anti-bomber protection. This was followed shortly thereafter by the MIM-14 Nike Hercules, a greatly improved system with much-longer range and purpose-built for anti-bomber service. As they came into service, the LIM-49 Nike Zeus was produced for ABM protection, and, unless I miss my guess, was limited by the ABM treaty with the Soviet Union. Also, in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood of Seattle, the original Chrysler Air Raid Siren and tower are still standing. As the son of a Naval officer stationed at NAS (later NS when the Navy closed the airfield) Sandpoint, I had been at the base when the siren test would go off at Noon on Wednesdays. Between that and the EBS tone on the TV, I was ready to p!$$, s#!t, j!zz, fart and any other bodily emissions into my pants if I didn't hear "This is a test...."

 

In Illinois we had Tornado sirens once a month. It's been 21 years. Now I wonder if they still have those?
Where we are around 9 miles from a small town there are Hurricane or storm sirens. I only remember hearing those a few times during hurricane warnings.
I'll have to ask my kids about those Illinois sirens. At least we have a basement there to hide in. Here it's a crawl space under a doublewide!

Now I'm skeered. As I write we just got a thunderstorm and I went off line. HA I saved and resent it.

 

big daddy don garlits has one of those air raid sirens powered by a chrysler hemi. i believe it is the earlier hemi not a 426

 

We're 70 miles away. We should be able to here it!:2_thumbs_up_-_anima
Finally found a use for an old Hemi!

 

Yes it's a 392...the original WW II units had a truck inline six, then the postwar units got the 331 Hemi. Check them out at www.victorysiren.com.

 

Big's story was his came from a miami rooftop

 

I read about that too. The reason it was in Miami was so Cuba knew we spotted their missles if they heard the siren.

 

Considering the power of the siren (140+ dB), I don't doubt it. In Seattle, the Phinney Ridge unit was mounted on a tower, and was equipped with a rotator gearbox so it could swing through 360* while the unit played the Horn of Jericho....