 |
|
During September and October of 2003 I was in Texas attending my 50th High School Class Reunion and Homecoming at Lueders High School in Lueders, Texas.
As I always do when home in Texas, I went out to see what the Atlas Missile Sites looked like and to reminisce a little of my youth.
In 1961 and 62, I had worked for General Dynamics Astronautics during the Installation and Checkout of the 12 Atlas F ICBMs surrounding Dyess Air Force Base and as they were completed and activated I worked at the Oplin, Lawn, Corinth West and Albany Sites.
41 years had now passed since I last walked through the gate at Oplin and much to my pleasant surprise, I discovered the Oplin Missile Site was privately owned and being lived in by a man named Bruce Townsley.
Of all the sites to be preserved I'm glad Oplin is one because Oplin was what we called the "Lead Site" which meant it was the first site to receive a bird, i.e. an Atlas F ICBM "Intercontinental Ballistic Missile" and the first Operational Atlas F Missile Silo to be turned over to the Air Force at Dyess Air Force Base - Abilene, Texas.
I was the PMA at the Oplin Site and darn proud of it. PMA stood for Preventive Maintenance Analyst.
What it really meant was! - I was the guy they screamed at when any of the Ground Support Equipment wasn't working.
A word about the Construction Photographs, I obtained a CD from Bruce Townsley which has construction photos of all 12 missile sites at Dyess.
The CD has a Text File which list each photograph number with a site number and date of the photograph and a description of the photo.
For ease of maintaining the Web Site, I renumbered the photographs sequentially in the order of the events occurrence. However, I also incorporated the CD's ID number into my number and thus the photos on the Web Site can be tied back to what is on the CD-Disk.
The web site construction photographs are numbered 01-CD-FS. The 01 is my sequence start number. The -CD- means it came from the Compact Disk and the FS is the number of the photograph on the CD.
On the Web Site, I pretty much used the photo description as provided in the Text File on the CD.
The CD was put together by the Atlas ICBM Historical Society of Abilene, Texas.
Note: The Site Numbers used is the Air Force Site Number and is not the site numbers used during construction.
I have also posted to the Web Site the construction photos of Lawn, Corinth West and Albany because those are the complexes I personally worked on. Some time in the future I hope to post the construction photos of the remaining Dyess Silos.
I should not leave this without saying a word about Bruce Townsley - Bruce spent the greater part of an afternoon allowing me to enter his personal domain to take a nostalgic trip back to "Days Long Past" - THANKS Bruce
General Dynamic Astronautics Site Activation Management Team
Link to Bruce Townsley's Atlas Tours Site Link to Bruce Townsley via Road Side America Link to Dyess Missile Sites . [ Current Page - TOP ] * * * * * * [ Menu - The Old Chief ]
Copyright © 1996/2004 E. Ray Smyth
