Oral History Interview

With

Kerry Davis

August 23, 2005

Wall, South Dakota

Interviewed by Robert Hildebrand

Oral History #2006-4

Accession #MIMI 016

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site

National Park Service

United States Department of the Interior

![](media/image1.wmf){width="1.34375in" height="1.7486111111111111in"}

ABSTRACT: Kerry Davis was born in Missouri and grew up near St. Louis.
He was a Missile Combat Crew Commander at Whiteman Air Force Base. He
then went on become an Emergency War Order instructor. He was eventually
stationed at Ellsworth Air Force Base, as a member of the fourth Air
Command Control Squadron. Following this duty he held positions with the
28^th^ Bomber Wing and Squadron section. His final duty was as Director
of Bomber Operations for the START Treaty. Mr. Davis is currently a
seasonal park ranger at Minuteman Missile National Historic Site.

EDITORIAL NOTICE

This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for
Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. After a draft of this
transcript was made, the park provided a copy to the interviewee and
requested that he or she return the transcript with any corrections or
modifications that he or she wished to be included in the final
transcript. The interviewer, or in some cases another qualified
stall-member, also reviewed the draft and compared it to the tape
recordings. The corrections and other changes suggested by the
interviewee and interviewer have been incorporated into this final
transcript. The transcript follows as closely as possible the recorded
interview, including the usual starts, stops, and other rough spots in
typical conversation. The reader should remember that this is
essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written, word.
Stylistic matters, such as punctuation and capitalization, follow the
Chicago Manual of Style, 14^th^ edition. The transcript includes
bracketed notices at the end of one tape and the beginning of the next
so that, if desired, the reader can find a section of tape more easily
by using this transcript.

RESTRICTION

Researchers may read, quote from, cite, and photocopy this transcript
without permission for purposes of research only. Publication is
prohibited, however, without permission from the Superintendent,
Minuteman Missile National Historic Site.

INFORMANT: Kerry Davis

INTERVIEWER: Robert Hilderbrand. PhD

DATE: August 23, 2005

SUBJECTS SPOKEN ABOUT IN INTERVIEW:

Robert Hilderbrand, University of South Dakota, Kerry Davis, Wall
Community Center, Wall, South Dakota, Whiteman Air Force Base, Missile
Combat Crew Member, Ellsworth, Air Force Base, 4^th^ Air Command Control
Squadron, CVI, 28^th^ Bomb Wing, 28 OMS Squadron Section Commander,
Director of Bomber Operations, for START Treaty, Airborne Mission
Commander, Missile Field, Emergency Rocket Communications System, UHF
Transmitters, Turning Keys, Key, Personal Reliability Program, Sloan
Valve, Cuban Missile Crisis, Foreign Diplomacy, Defcon, Iran, Cold War,
Mutually Assured Destruction, Minuteman, Soviet Missiles, Soviet Union,
Launch Control Facility, Bombers, Russian Territory, Squadron, Emergency
War Order's Test, Arms Reduction, Start Treaty, B-52, ICBM, Vandenburg,
California, Peacekeeper, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, Office of
Special Investigations, Titan, Cooks, Snow Storms, Escape Tunnel, Delta
Flight, Operations Instructions, Eisenhower Administration, Airborne
Command and Control, UHF Radio Frequency, Communication Links, Minot Air
Force Base, Static Dissipaters, Launch Officer, 4^th^ Airborne Command
and Control Squadron, 2^nd^ Airborne Command and Control Squadron, First
Strike, Preparatory Launch Commands, (PLC-A,) Strategic Alert

THE INTERVIEW:

\[Beginning of side one, tape one\]

\[Interview begins\]

Robert Hilderbrand: University of South Dakota. I'm interviewing Kerry
Davis in the Wall Community room in Wall, South Dakota. Kerry will you
tell us your full name, unit assignments, and the positions that you
held.

Kerry Davis: My full name is Kerry W. Davis, K-e-r-r-y W. D-a-v-i-s,
Davis. I began active duty at Whiteman AFB, Mo.; as a missile combat
crew member. I worked at various assignments at Whiteman Air Force Base,
becoming an instructor and so forth, moved on to Plans and Intel
division where I was an Emergency War Order Instructor, and basically
that's teaching and keeping all the crews updated on all the changes
that the missile crews had to respond to, and all the classified
messages that received decoding and so forth, and what those
instructions meant. I was eventually stationed at Ellsworth, as a member
of the fourth Air Command Control Squadron. We had numerous missions
under Command Control procedures and if necessary we could launch all
missiles from our aircraft. After that, I the CVI for the 28^th^ Bomb
Wing and, Squadron Section Commander, in the OMS Squadron and eventually
became Director of Bomber Operations for the Start Treaty.

HILDERBRAND: Describe some of your missions, some of the things you did,
some of your duties in the missile field?

DAVIS: Well the missile field itself, a lot of times there were those
days that you would sit in the launch control center watching a football
game on Sunday, and think how much they pay me to do this. When you do
this, and of course, your brain kicks into gear and says "Yeah, remember
the last three alerts in a row, you didn't get any sleep at all." So it
varied. One alert may be slow, one alert might be moderate, and there
were the ones which you were constantly busy. Whiteman Air Force Base is
the only base that actually had a launch control facility and launch
control center on the base proper itself and it was the Squadron Command
Post. I spent many, many alerts there. Working at any Squadron Command
Post, including Ellsworth, you were a lot busier there than anywhere
else. It was a very interesting tour of duty and coming here to
Ellsworth, I'll be on airborne and ground alert. It was kind of
interesting because we're actually on ground alert just like the bomber
crews. While on ground alert we watched TV, read, etc., and sometimes
during a horn, we would all run out to our aircraft, start engines and
taxi down the runway. We had to be airborne in 15 minutes or less to
support the mission if we had to launch the missiles from the air.

HILDERBRAND: How seriously did you and the people you worked with take
your jobs in the missile field?

DAVIS: Well I took it very, very serious. A lot of people ask that type
of question and it's, you know, of course, now it's easier to discuss
than it was many years ago. Whiteman, for example had a very unique
mission itself and that was Emergency Rocket Communications System, for
example. That instead of bombs we had UHF transmitters on it and it was
a very serious thing even on our instructor rides and evaluation rides
because we would be responsible for loading into these UHF transmitters
the latest emergency action message that required us to launch missiles
or to actually stop launching missiles. So you had that responsibility
on your shoulders to where you had to get everything just right to do
that. I took it ser, serious as anybody else. There were days that, you
know, of course you relaxed, you played games, you played Axis and
Allies, you played Risk, you know, but the mission always came first and
I never thought and dwelled on the questions that people asked. "Would
you ever think about not turning keys?" and the answer is "No, I never
thought I wouldn't. That is my job and I'm a professional, that's what
I'm going to do."

HILDERBRAND: Did that level of seriousness vary at all from person to
person? I mean, did you know anybody who thought is was a big joke?

DAVIS: \[Sighs.\] No, I didn't and, and I think that because maybe it
was just the people at, uh, at, at my base. I, I can't speak for
everybody else, but if somebody was to, to say something like that I
would question whether they're fitting under the proper category to
being able to pull alert. And what I mean by that is we were under what
they call The Personal Reliability Program or PRP... And it's a constant
monitoring in process that keeps an eye and the whole concept being is
"Is your focus where it needs to be on this day while you're at work? In
your job and your mission?" it can be anything from getting, DWI's,
writing bad checks, they will pull that PRP status meaning you can't
pull alerts right now. There could be something as your mother passed
away, your getting a divorce, there was one particular deputy of mine
that his mind, I thought was not where it should be and him and his wife
were having problems, and I was in the simulator one day, and I told the
instructor commander I said, okay I'm going to make some mistakes here,
I want to see if he catches it. And he wasn't catching the mistakes. So
I recommended pulling his PRP meeting until he worked through this
issue, "You're not going to be put on alert." And I mention this because
the way you asked the question, if I thought there was somebody that was
basically saying "I probably couldn't do my job, I would not complete
the mission," well then I would recommend that individual's PRP be
pulled. So he would not be out in the field in that situation.

HILDERBRAND: \[Begins to speak over previous speaker.\] I guess part of
what I meant was that sometimes there are some people who deal with
stress by joking around...You see this in emergency rooms, in
hospitals...For example. Well did, did you know any characters like
that? \[Sniffs.\]

DAVIS: There was always practical jokes, if that's what you're getting
at. For example, as a new deputy, and, and, if that's humor that you're
meaning, the new guy always got, the brunt of everything. You know, for
example you have an authentication process you use to get down to the
launch control center. And they would try to basically pull your chain,
and if you got the authentication process wrong they'd say, "Let me
speak to your Commander." Because in reality the deputies, the low guy
at the totem pole of the crew, did most of those type of things. And we
hand the telephone to your crew commander and you're thinking, "I hope
he gets it right." \[Laughs.\] And so they are pre-stalling, trying to
get you upset and get you nervous, and those type of things. Just to,
basically pull your chain. And your sitting there, they are watching
you, and they want to get, watch you get nervous, and you try not to be
nervous because you know its a probably a practical joke, but you never
really know until the whole authentication process is over. There's
always different type of practical jokes. For example I was called on
one of my very first alerts, who had many type of valves we had to cycle
sometimes in the minute men system, we had blast valves, we had
emergency shut off valves, and things, and I got a call from a squad of
command post that basically said, "Job control is calling for your
monthly Sloan valve cycle test." And I said okay, I was at Mike launch
control so I said, Mike copies and my commanders in bed sleeping, and
I'm thinking "what is this Sloan valve?"... I never heard of this thing.
And if you, you understand if you see the pictures of the books we use
on a daily crew activities, we call them TO, technical orders, you know
you got like two huge three inch binder that's full of technical data
and I'm not gonna be the one that says, "Well, what is this Sloan valve?
I'm gonna find it in the book." Ya know, so I'm going through all these
books, flipping all these pages, fifteen or twenty minutes goes by, and
the squadron command post calls me up and says "Well, Davis, uh, I'm
still waiting to get back job patrol on your... Sloan valves cycle.
Well, I'm kind of busy, I'll get back to you there. And so I was going
through the books and I'm like man, I have to wake my commander up for
this. I can't find this anywhere. So time goes on and they're calling me
and I'm saying "I'll get to it, I'll get to it." So trying not to show
that I don't know what this thing is, I don't want to admit it, in one
hence, because I'm not sure if it's a practical joke, so finally I call
up the, ask the Oscar Launch control center, I said okay, this is Mike
capsule; I give up "What is a Sloan valve you want me to cycle?" And the
reply basically was "Well you come to think about it I already called
you in that you probably did it already and you just didn't realize it."
And I go, and I said "I don't even know what this is, you mean, your
trying to tell me I did something I didn't know what it was?" They said
"Well, yes, you probably did." I said "Well okay, give me the low down
here? What, what were we talking about?? "So was you going to the
bathroom?" "Yeah." "Did you flush the toilet?" "Yeah." "You see on that
chrome rim on that push button it say's Sloan Company... That was the
Sloan valve. And here I was worrying about; there was some interesting
piece of this equipment I had no clue about. So there was those type of
things. I never did hear anybody talk during, you know, a stress
situation, like a fire overheat situation or work problems. Everybody I
worked with were very professional. Cause you had to be, you had your
time when you could relax and joke around but that, when things were
going on that were serious like I said a fire over heat problem type of
thing, you focus on what you needed to do.

HILDERBRAND: How real did you think, feel the Soviet threat was, a
threat of an attack?

DAVIS: You know, I never thought about that. I guess, there's a lot of
things you don't think about on alert, you know, like using the escape
tunnel after the war, well, I worry about this when I get to that
bridge, this is a different type of bridge, but I felt that we were
ready to do our job. That our missiles would be gone in a retaliatory
strike before this hits on us. And there is this cold war that has been
going on for years. I didn't start crew duty until nineteen eighty. And
we all lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis and everything. I knew it
was very real, it could happen. I just knew I had to be prepared to do
it if we did. I never sat down there worrying about it.

HILDERBRAND: Where there times when you were more aware of that, were
you aware of what was going on in the world and if there was a crisis
situation would you, were you a little more conscious that this could
happen this time?

DAVIS: No, because there are indicators that you receive, I mean you've
got your foreign diplomacy things going on, you got items going on,
little hot spot in a different country perhaps your not use to. But if
our indicators, such as it's been in many books now and been in movies
called "Defense Condition [or]{.mark} Defcons" you've many things
besides those that give you indicators to where you would start thinking
for example, well we're getting a higher state of readiness. You know,
there's always those times, like on anyone else's job, depending upon
the chain of command there's always a human element that in there. And
there was a couple occasions people had a microphone open practicing
giving a message, perhaps that should not be transmitted to the source
for example, and you would get and you would react to that and very soon
after that of course you get kind of like a different message saying "Go
back where you were, never mind" type of thing. And then you go to
different... \[Inaudible speech.\] and try to understand what happened,
could that happen at our base, and are they those type of things, but I
always went by the indicators and, and never really had a concern or
where the indicators changed. I never went on alert thinking well we got
a problem if Iran for example, at which I never, kind of left that up to
all the generals and the President of the United States and so forth.

HILDERBRAND: Did, you ever think about the, the fact that if just came
to a nuclear war that it would quite likely be the end of the world, and
did that make you feel any sense, special sense of responsibility?

DAVIS: I think the sense of responsibility was, and I think history is
showing it now that the, the cold war played itself out and we did not
have to use these weapons. Knowing that destructive force, and which
even back then a lot the American public did not know how powerful these
were. That to really understand that once you did that and, and you
launched depending upon what the sequences is of events. What I mean is,
is you know we went from a concept of a mutually assured destruction, or
M.A.D was the acronym of we launch every thing to a more simpler
approach of with, see if we can fight a small limited war. And that's a
question that's always puzzled myself, so depending upon how many was
launched, depending upon the type of emergency war order we received
that I can kind of take a look at and say "We really did the big one
now" or we didn't do the big one so to speak. Were trying to fight this
limited affect or approach but the people that don't understand about
when you say the destructions of it. You know, it was, it was something
you can talk about now and a simple example is one of the, the bombs,
the one point two mega ton here at Ellsworth Air Force Base. Out of a
hundred and fifty, every one of those was one hundred times powerful
than Hiroshima. So, when you know that but you can't talk about those
type of things many years ago, you did have that feeling of when you,
when you went to war it was probably going to destroy the planet.

HILDERBRAND: Did you have any sense of how our missiles, the Minuteman
compared with the Soviets missiles, I guess that would have been the SS
Twenties and Twenty Two's?

DAVIS: Oh, those were the luckiest SS [18T's]{.mark} and so forth. I can
only answer what was briefed to me. You know, we had our intelligence,
and they would show for example, like once again back then this was all
classified talking about, because their accuracy wasn't as accurate as
ours for example. They had to have a larger bomb, so in other words in
essence a larger bomb, the larger the crater, concept being some where
in that mile, mile and a half crater depending upon megatons you might
hit an LF or part of a launch control center or something. So when you
compare it in that sense we were always more accurate and that's why we
could start using smaller bombs. And that's what we were briefed all the
time and it would have been nice to go over and look at their sites.

HILDERBRAND: Did, you assume that if, if there should be a nuclear
exchange that your LCF would be targeted?

DAVIS: I would have to think so just based on logic. I say that because
a lot of people during tours and presentation ask what type of targets
naturally thinking neutralize your enemy's offensive forces. You're
going to try and do that, any thing that if you were fighting in a war
type of this, what you can do to enhance your offensive, weapons to
reach their targets for example. You would think that beside government
bodies of a foreign country or the communication ability's, you might
want to take those out because that causes electro magnetic pulse or
EMP. You might want to think about, okay we got our bombers flying over
into Russian territory, or what ever territory we want to try and
neutralize the defensive weapons systems your surface to air missiles,
those type of things. So I would naturally think, you know, that the,
they probably had us targeted, and it is my understanding that we've had
more than enough weapons to target everything pretty much everything you
wanted to one or two times. So you're just kind of hoping you get a
direct hit.

HILDERBRAND: How would you evaluate your unit's moral when you were on
active duty, maybe your own as well as your unit's?

DAVIS: You know, I never really saw any down points and I think it's
because it's just instilled by the leadership of your squadron, your
operations officer and your commanders because everybody's had a good
time plan activities together, and it's esprit de corps type thing with
your squadron. You know, it sometimes spoken and sometime not spoken
competition with the other squadrons. Whether it be intramural sports
most or those types of things, you know, but the five tenth is better
than the five eight, and the five eight thought they were better then
the five tenth. So you had that that moral, you had all kinds of
functions and things that you did. I never saw anything go a rye of
that, if a crew flunked an Emergency War Test or had a bad evaluation,
we all pull together to get to them, to get them back up to speed and
you know, pump them up and go back in there and try it again.

HILDERBRAND: Were you in favor of the arms reduction talks?

DAVIS: In reference to the START treaty?

HILDERBRAND: I mean did you know, yeah, START would have been the one...

DAVIS: My, my first exposure of that of course was, was public
dissemination in the newspapers of what little there was and I can't
recall the dates I read it, but I recall reading something about at one
point. There was this treaty thought to kind of reduce the, the weapons
and at one the holding points many years ago was trying to decide what
areas should be inspected. For example, many years ago I read in the
paper that they say the Soviets wanted to inspect any place that could
have for example nuclear air launch cruise missile which would have been
at that time a B-fifty two and then eventually a B-one to inspect every
structure within lets say a three, four mile radius of Ellsworth proper.
So you're talking about peoples barns and all these type of things, and
I use to kinda look at that and think "Well golly, gee, is that how the
Soviets store their weapons" \[Laughter.\] So eventually, that came into
within the boundaries of the fence, and it was years later that I became
put on the START team, and started really understanding that. And we
look at, I think I got the ball park figure at one point in the cold war
the United States had something like thirty three thousand war heads,
and I'm talking about not strategic launch long range, and your bombers,
your ICBM's or your subs. I'm talking about all your tactical weapons
and battle fields or air fighters, using air to air, small nuclear tip
missiles and those things that the whole issue was not so much that we
couldn't agree that we had to many, it wasn't that we couldn't agree we
should try to reduce it, the problem was agreeing of how to do it and to
be able to measure it and verify it. And until that trust came along and
I think it's a good thing, we eventually got to that point, you know
because you know I said "What is a small limited nuclear war?" You know,
instead of using like four thousand war heads your going to use two
thousand. You know, what sizes are these and those type of things. So I
think it's a good thing.

HILDERBRAND: Can you tell me about the psychological testing that the
missile leaders under went? To make sure that you were prepared?

DAVIS: Well, a lot of it is without your knowledge so to speak, you
could think back and look at things or they show you films for example.
It's not so much psychological but the concepts are you mentally capable
of carrying out this mission. For example, in Vanderburgh, California in
school eventually you have to sign a certificate you will turn these
keys, they will say things like in debrief, well this is like the tenth
time for example, you hesitated to turn that key, you went to reach for
and then you stopped for that split second and somebody that did that
could say "Well I don't remember doing that" and they'd show you the
film if they had it available and you'd see that. Those types of things
were not so much psychological, but they would instill many things going
wrong in the simulator to see if you know if you could be over stressed,
could be maxed out. We had all kinds of medical evaluations not in so
much counseling sessions but sessions like typical things l guess you
would ask about someone trying to determine their state of mind. You
know, have you ever done drugs, have you ever done, thought about
suicide, have you done this or done that, how many speeding tickets have
you had. They looked even at speeding tickets; they looked at them very
closely. Just to see if that was, like I said indirectly, and indirect
means showing that you're a careless, carefree person so to speak. You
don't care about the law or the rules. You got somebody who got eight,
nine, ten, twenty tickets, and you'd be thinking about do you what this
type of person in charge of nuclear weapons. There was a constant thing
going on like I mentioned earlier about the PRP, it wasn't something
that you sat down every month or once a year. The flight surgeons took
care of that, they'd always kind of interject questions here and there.
But it was an on going process like my deputy that was getting a divorce
you know it was one of those things that had to be done. So the
psychological testing a lot of it was innate, you know like it just
happened, and you never really think about it until later, like after
the simulator ride. They say "The reason why all these things broke and
they had all these fires was we wanted to see where your head was at
today. To see if they could meet, take control." And then they start of
with something like a simple test and a weapons system test you had
numerous test and they would tell you flunked it. And now they throw you
in the simulator for example to see if that bothered you because you
were thinking there was no way I could have flunked that test, but they
would say you flunked it well talk about it we're running late and we
got to get you into the simulator and those types of things. So those
were indirect things that you didn't hear about until after the fact
that, was a set up to see how you thought, those types of things.

HILDERBRAND: Were there other cases that you now of people having their
PRP pulled?

DAVIS: Yes, some were regular things. People, somebody in the family
died, getting divorces, getting arrested, those type of things.

HILDERBRAND: What was there ever a case where you thought someone was
permanently unfit?

DAVIS: Well that happened all the time and it wasn't always for, bad
reasons. There was some people that went through the school in
Vanderburgh that all a sudden realized that in it's small acoustical
closed area you could not, envision being down there twenty four, twenty
six hours and they just say not necessarily say I'm claustrophobic but
basically say "I just can't live with this." Whether it's the thought of
being so many feet under the ground or whatever, and they would just be
released from the program. They may come out on alert and start
experience some things, there'd been folks that had been prior service
and had some time experiencing in Vietnam, and so forth that for some
reason the confinement or the type of the way certain alarms went off
or, or things like that. It reminded them of some bad memories or
something, and they just say "I can't do this anymore." And get up and
walk away, I mean it's better to do that than have them
[determine]{.mark} or be watching your crew partner having trouble down
there. As soon as you start seeing trouble it's time to get them out
before something goes bad or they just cannot do their job.

HILDERBRAND: Did it ever go to the point where somebody just lost it
down there?

DAVIS: No, I don't think so. Not at least that I ever heard of.

HILDERBRAND: Officially the Air Force says that the lids were never
blown of any of the silos except for one test, do you think that's
accurate?

DAVIS: Well I can't speak for the Air Force they have more knowledge
than I, I know when we test launch from California we hydraulically
crank them back. I've heard that they even tested on here in South
Dakota, and they wanted to see and there, and a lot of it is the
learning experience, and I would have to admit that it took a lot more
than one test. For example, I know of tests like I've said told in
California for example that you use all huge piles of sand bags, and
they were trying to determine how much force it would take to make sure
the door could continue moving through a resistance to make sure the
silo hole was totally uncovered, and the one's that we were reading
about was that in sand bags themselves, and the whole theory being was
that if a close nuclear detonation occurs and throws a big amount of
dirt behind the silo, how much force, or do we have enough force to get
that door to go through that. A couple of the things that I learned
after the fact for Ellsworth was one of the things is the force was so
much for the fence that the other part of the launch facility fence
would also be pulled up out of the ground and could possibly go over the
missile hole. So they designed, or put in break away points in areas of
the fence so where the silo door could go through and not bring the rest
of the fence over the top of it. So they learned a lot, and I would have
to suspect probably had to be more than one test.

HILDERBRAND: How, did you feel about the removable of the ICBM's from
South Dakota at the end of the cold war? Was that militarily justified?

DAVIS: I think so. It's, it's an older system it's, and yes, it already
been replaced or not missile per missile by the Minuteman Three or the
Peacekeeper for that matter. But when you're looking at a justification
to reduce the weapon for the START treaty, some systems have to go. I
did not think at the time that, that would anytime in the future for
example, have a, a picture with the recommended base closures that they
were dealing with right now cause back then the missile wing was going
to be closed down because of START. We had to evolve from, missile wing
and to bomb wing to an air division to a strategic warfare center to a
ninety nine strategic wing. As far as having bombers and fighters work
together as teams, and that was a big part of Ellsworth, and missile
wing left and some of these other wings have left. I mean hindsight
would be "Gosh, if we still had Ellsworth missiles we need not be on
that closure list." So that's a different way of looking at it I guess.

HILDERBRAND: Did, did the South Dakota weather have an impact on your
mission while you were here?

DAVIS: No, not on the mission themselves. We even knew the weather front
was coming in we took care of it snow removal, we knew the priorities,
what they were; you know that the people, aircraft carrier on alert had
first priority. They had to have those runways clear all the time the
only interesting thing's that I noticed about the weather that wasn't
mission related was coming back from temporary duty at Offutt Air Force
Base in Nebraska, it was in May and we were coming back to land, and it
was interesting or another type of a practical joke was we had a weather
divert meaning we couldn't land because there was a snow storm, and it
was kind of interesting because one of the guys that was sleeping
through all this we finally just went back to Omaha. We never told this
guy when he woke up that we weren't at Ellsworth. And he woke up and we
popped the cargo hatch and he goes, it took him a minute he goes "Oh,
this, this isn't Ellsworth." We said "Sure it is." And I just, it was a
weather related event, but it didn't contact the mission and even the
ones in Omaha for example, if they can't get another aircraft up to
replace looking glass we can launch one out of Command post out of
Ellsworth.

HILDERBRAND: What were relations like with the people of South Dakota?

DAVIS: I thought everybody was great. I mean...

HILDERBRAND: \[Begins to speak over previous speaker.\] Weren't any
tensions between the...

DAVIS: I never noticed...

HILDERBRAND: \[Begins to speak over previous speaker.\] The missile
people and the South Dakotans?

DAVIS: Not that my knowledge. I ever since we got to Ellsworth I was,
I've always had a house downtown, and, I went through, many, many years
coaching and managing little league baseball. Followed all the folks
that live in Rapid City and never felt anything. Very few questions ever
asked, you know probably all the questions were asked before I got
there... \[Laughter.\] And but, I never felt any tensions, what so ever.
It's not like, like when I was in the Navy before. You'd hear getting to
a base, this in not a Navy friendly town, those type of things, and all
those places, and I never, never picked up on any animosity, what so
ever.

HILDERBRAND: Did you ever hear anything about demonstrations against the
Ellsworth or the missile base themselves...

DAVIS: \[Begins to speak over previous speaker.\] Oh, all the time, and
an interesting thing about that is that if you, if you see news footage
of, the peaceful demonstrators, some would be outside the missile silos,
some would climb the fence and do all kinds of ritual rights with,
perhaps, red paint symbolizing blood or something in that nature. It was
always in nice weather days, and you never saw that. And there was a
couple of instances, one in nineteen eighty four, November flight at
Whiteman Air Force Base to where a huge group of peaceful demonstrators
as they called themselves, were using a jack hammer to try to get to the
missile silo door, and that launch enclosure door. Weights ninety tons.
And they weren't going to do a whole lot of damage with a jack hammer
before security police showed up.

HILDERBRAND: Did you have any instructions about how to deal with
demonstrators or about how to deal with any negative comments?

DAVIS: Yes, sir. If we were approached, trying to keep us
[solicit]{.mark} information or some information that, we some how came
across, we of course put that through upper channels and perhaps, even
include the OSI, the Office of Special Investigations on the base what's
going on. As a launch commander on duty we didn't really have a lot of
interaction with those. We monitor missiles remotely we would let our
security response teams, be are interface between those. They'd be our
eyes and ears and we would be looking at indications of what going on
with the missile silos to make a decision, for example to upgrade a
security situation. Meaning we may go from a, outer security alarm for
example that were required perhaps two of your alarm response team to
come out. That would give indications of inner zone security that
messing with some combinations under the launch and closure lid and so
we would upgrade that security situation to what we would call a helping
hand. Which would probably be synonymous with, we watching a movie or a
police show and there calling for backup. So that was two different ways
that we would interface with the demonstrators off duty. That would
involve when we would pick up information. We were actually on duty and
there on our sites.

HILDERBRAND: How were race relations within your unit?

DAVIS: You know, I never did notice any racial relations. The only thing
that I was ever asked, and that was right after I got there maybe that's
why they, interviewed a bunch of us that were new out of school was
because we didn't have privy of the information what was going on. This
was, that was, I don't know if you'd call that race or not but the
question was "How would I feel about being on alert with a homosexual
individual?" And I'm like in, a way maybe you'd be thinking this is one
of those psychological questions again, you know type of thing. And, and
I said "Well, I never gave that any thought." And at the same time I'm
thinking "Well , he's different than I think." I guess my question would
be if he, if for what ever reason he thinks that way, is there some
thing else that he thinks differently about. And that would be my
primary concern whether he was on alert. But race I never, I've never
heard anybody, never got the plug or the club anybody thinking they got
discriminated against or anything. Any other time anything else came up
dealing with the sexes so to speak or anything like that of course when
they were looking to bring women on crew duty. Us married men had a hard
time trying to explain that to the wife's... \[Laughter.\] You know,
that was a big issue trying to pacify their emotions so to speak.

HILDERBRAND: At the time did you doubt whether it was a good idea?

DAVIS: About bringing women on? No, I didn't, cause I figured and it
would probably be just the way it was women crews takes somebody like
our first senior, first lieutenant or Captain, but perhaps had crew
experience at Titan, Titan Two sites for example. So, they kind of
understand that the operational concept of the missile systems in
general, and bring in a new deputy, and keep them for a few years. What
I didn't think what was going to happen which did was they finally went
to integrated crews and I have no knowledge of how that worked or how it
was worked out but eventually they did cause I heard about it but...

HILDERBRAND: \[Begins to speak over previous speaker.\] But, but you did
experience that?

DAVIS: No, no, I did not, in fact, when the women were coming in duty at
Whiteman, that's when I was Emergency War Order Instructor and I was
training them in emergency war orders so they could become certified
crew members. That was my only interaction with them, and there just as
smart as the guys if not smarter.

HILDERBRAND: \[Begins to speak over previous speaker.\] You never, you
never doubted whether they could do the job?

DAVIS: No, no, I think, think it fell under that umbrella of many years
ago of cause we're, we had a combat badge, combat crew member badge. It
says "Combat Crew" this was under that, perhaps perceived umbrella as
combat. Women aren't in combat positions so eventually that kind of
faded away through many jobs up into including and what probably paved
the way that at one point they decided to have female cooks.

HILDERBRAND: Did you ever hear anyone say that, you know, women would be
less likely to turn the key?

DAVIS: No, never heard anything like that.

HILDERBRAND: Tell me something about you're, the basic items of
equipment that you've worked with? Did you ever have shortages? Did you
ever need something you didn't have? Was everything available to you?
Where there things that you thought needed to be improved on?

DAVIS: No, I thought we always had everything available. That's simply
because were keeping track of everything and if, you notice that maybe
two or three days out you might be short of this particular type of
printer paper whether it be for communications equipment or your
computer itself. You're always looking ahead and making sure you had
plenty on hand because anything could happen with the weather, and I
suspect that's even more, critical at Ellsworth because of there subject
to snow storms they may be down, the crew at the control center for two
or three days out, they want to make sure they got enough. So there
always looking ahead in planning those things. As far as things being
done better, you know we've gone through many, many years of the, of the
process of maybe we could change this checklist this way to make it a
little bit better or, clarify something to make it better, those type of
things. And everybody did that, I submitted numerous changes to the
technical data. Some were approved some weren't for whatever reasons,
but your always looking at that and I...

HILDERBRAND: \[Begins to speak over previous speaker.\] Did your
equipment always work?

DAVIS: Well anything mechanical is going to break. I never experienced a
real malfunction, like a motor generator failure for example. I'll be
trying to transfer to batteries and that transfer fails, and there's
always something that would go wrong. Predominately my experience was
and other than like a fire over heat condition for example, that I
experienced. That would be recalling that something broke it was just
something that happened that had to be fixed. It was just a shock to me
to see sparks flying across the launch control center... That was quite
a surprise. We were quickly isolated and took care of that. But a lot of
the things that you were concerned about is losing status with your
missile itself, and that could happen, and that's how it got your
attention when you, after, so many minutes, and so you finally get a
final determination from your computer print out that is says "LF status
out or LF down" that is something that you had to get fixed right away.
We always had routine maintenance in the launch control center, periodic
maintenance, come and check this check that or were going to change this
or tweak that for whatever reason. And different modifications require
us to come off alert sometimes.

HILDERBRAND: Did you ever have personnel shortages?

DAVIS: No, I just took it for granted that, the normal crew bearers we
would call them, a crew member that is not an instructor and evaluated
for example. He could pull up the eight alerts a month, that's just,
that's the way it was. A lot of times that wasn't the case simply
because of the manning, but we do look at shortages of the manning who
have to think of and take a count, people that are sick, people that
maybe had to go to a funeral, we got people on vacation. So now you may
get use to pulling six or seven alerts a month, and now in the summer
whatever, you're pulling eight, routinely even though that was the norm.
You hadn't been doing that so that I can see where somebody could have
this perception that it was a shortage, but it's like any other job
where people go on vacation, your short people for a while.

HILDERBRAND: How was the food during tour?

DAVIS: Well a lot of times I brought out my food. Only because we always
had leftovers, my wife does not like leftovers at all. So, the foil
packs and things that we had, I learned which ones were better than
others and if I ordered foil packs I did or I ordered a salad or,
burgers and things of that nature. I did have one individual one time,
he called up and said, okay, I'm getting ready to close down, it was
eleven thirty at night and he said "Do you want anything?" I said "Yeah"
a couple of boiled eggs for later." And even though I got the impression
they didn't teach this in school cause they figured everybody knew how
to do it. He brought me down the boiled eggs and this bowl a soupy mess
and I said "What is this?" And he said "Boiled eggs." I says "Don't you
know your suppose to leave the shell on?" And he said "No, I didn't know
that." But they taught him how to do these fancy omelets and all these
things. Certain things we take it for granted. So everybody got, some
people like this or that, yeah. I don't think anybody really like
[his]{.mark} Salisbury steaks, they were, even when you opened them up
and they were suppose to be fresh they just didn't smell to good at
least to me and to a lot of other people. But, maybe some of the things
your beef tips especially. I liked the BBQ chicken leg quarters and
things.

HILDERBRAND: Were the aboveground facilities adequate?

DAVIS: You know that probably be a question to ask the folks that were
up there. I, we'd do a walk through inspection, check things out, check
out some discrepancies and go down stairs. I've never heard complaints
about it. I do [now]{.mark} that during the self help projects back in
the eighties, that caused some inconveniences, but the end result was
the suspended ceiling and the nice paneling and the wall coverings and
things like that. A nicer carpet and things, that was and especially
like at Delta-01 that got these nice booths to sit down and eat in, and,
the end result was very good. And I thought and I'm sure that increased
moral because the intent was this was their home away from home. Just
trying to make it feel like a home away from home.

HILDERBRAND: Were you ever bored down in the capsule?

DAVIS: Well I don't know bored, you always found something to do because
you brought a book out to read or you finished studying for, like your
working on your master's degree. Your crew partners asleep, it's two in
the morning there's nothing going on, you always got all kinds of
studying to do within your weapons system. That there are some days you
did not feel like doing that either then you turn on the TV and try and
find something on and back in those days we didn't have cable, we didn't
have satellites. You know, you got what was out there in the air waves.
So I guess, yeah, sometimes I was real bored, you know. Just turn on the
football game and just sit there and watch it.

HILDERBRAND: Did you ever find your self wishing that something would
happen?

DAVIS: \[Sighs.\] Well not so much wishing because sometimes you might
get what you wish for. But kind of wish for some kind of action, like
just have some exercises going on here, start decoding some messages or
doing something. But you always knew that within a split second all that
can change. All of a sudden your getting all these crew alarms out here,
you got this missile is having problems, and you know for example that
coming up in a few hours a lot of the maintenance teams are going to be
arriving at your missile silos, and that's going to keep your hands full
because not only are you coordinating on them getting on site, your
dealing with all the other crews that will change over at those sites.
So you knew there was that constant time that you knew things would
change. So you didn't always want to, like I said get what you wished
for because it may run into now as, how do I say it? And I was looking
for something to do, now look at what I'm doing. I got problem over
here, I got maintenance teams over here, I still got to fix this problem
and a new maintenance team that have to coordinate with command post for
this issue or that issue. I guess in a nut shell there were times it was
bored, but you were careful on what you wished on... \[Laughter.\]

HILDERBRAND: Did you have any particular techniques that you used to
relieve the tension when you were down there?

DAVIS: There were different ways to it, it, you know I would look at it
depending upon the situation of how tense I thought my crew partner was.
I take it your question is about my crew partner, and how I released his
tension if I saw that.

HILDERBRAND: Um-hm.

DAVIS: I myself would just kind of step back and take a slow deep breath
in and say, Okay, you got this under control; I just got to prioritize
this a little bit different. But things were, a disciplinarian
environment. Like a fire overheat that situation that you're trained in
what you've got to do is what you got to do and so forth. And you may
realize that depending upon the fire situation, you know we act, react
instinctively. Your not stopping and thinking about "Well golly, I
better hurry up and get this fire out or I'm gonna burn up in here or my
batteries might explode under my floor." Now of course that was in the
back of your mind but you immediately knew for example the two priority
steps that you had to do in sequence immediately. Perhaps even before
you got to the checklist to do that. There's just certain things you'd
prioritized to prevent a worst case scenario, and a motor generator
overheats, that overheats into the batteries, that batteries exploding,
you only have a few seconds to take a couple of actions to quickly put
that to a stop. Then it seems after those types of events like our fire
and over heat situations, that's when you sit back and go "whew, boy
that was something wasn't it?" Or I was watching a missile in California
and their setup was not the same exactly as ours, and what I mean by
that is when you have a commercial power of electricity to the launch
facility that were gonna launch the missile from it didn't have the
information provided to the launch crew and the generator came online.
So were out there getting ready to launch a missile and there's a very
weird storm coming on over where Vanderburgh Air Force Base, California.
We lose power and we got to contact launch director launch control, all
these different people, and said "Hey, we need to get some security
people out there cause I don't think that generators up and running out
there, folks." And it was something nobody would have thought about, you
know. And I'm sitting down there and I'm going "Well you better put a
hold on this countdown because I'm not the one to make that decision all
I can do is recommend." So you know that was kind of tense like you want
the security response or who ever has to go out there to find the that
things are running and everything's fine versus getting out there and
going "oop's" now [the batteries]{.mark}, the missile site is on
batteries and you better hurry up and fix this, those type of things to,
but...

HILDERBRAND: \[Begins to speak over previous speaker.\] But the capsule
was designed so that you could survive an air burst and still complete
your mission. Do you believe that?

DAVIS: I don't recall, I don't think I recall the term air burst. Air
burst, your talking could be talking high altitude of a hundred thousand
miles. Or mid-altitude any where from fifty thousand miles trying to
perhaps at an high altitude burst, you know an electromagnetic pulse
interference or EMP and if it was that high I would, I would suspect
that we would survive. The words we normally use was near miss or close
hit, being a ground burst probably didn't, in other words the crater
didn't quite reach us... \[Laughter.\] And of course we were in an
acoustical enclosure that's on four shock isolators or four shock
absorbers that basically floated, suspended on the four foot concrete
structure, the capsule we called it that was of course in the dirt could
be shaken an fairly violently but our launch control center and our
cables and wires and computers would be floating in the air because
there's slack in the cable wires. But I hadn't really heard that term in
air burst.

HILDERBRAND: Uh, what did you think about the escape tubes, did you
think they had any usefulness?

DAVIS: Well that's kind of one area I kinda look at that humorously, and
I say that because looking at the time that I was on alert serving in
the nineteen eighties. And I kid even to this day about, you know I'd
say here in the escape hatch and behind here is the corrugated steel
drainage ditch basically filled with sand. It may go up within
forty-five, fifty, sixty feet cause it's at an angle. And I'd say "I
don't know what I'm supposed to do with this thing exactly." And that's
if we get the hatch off, for example. And in theory the sand is going to
come out, flowing out like water basically. And you think, that might be
great in the '60s. But after twenty or so years, twenty-five years this
sand is fairly compacted. You got moisture interaction with the sand,
whether it be humidity or rain seeping in through the soil getting to
the sand or whatever. It could solidify and so the concept in the
eighties and on is like would this thing really have worked. You know,
we kid around and say "Well you know the sand is probably compact so
they give us a spoon" And so I kid around with that and say "Okay, this
is great." I get an escape tunnel and I don't know what I'm gonna do
with it exactly." Now they are giving me a shovel. And the bottom line
is, you know in theory you just wanted to escape or go perhaps get ready
after readings. They give geiger counter but no protective suit. I use
to, you know when I, maybe one of these [geigers]{.mark} would go up the
escape tunnel, and I'd like to think that I'm smart enough to figure out
that we've launched our missiles with nuclear warheads on because they
launched theirs. My capsule has shaken pretty good a couple times. I'm
pretty certain there's some fallout radioactivity up there so I don't
need to go up there and figure it out. And so in reality I'm trying to
say that humorously or present it in a humorous way in the eighties you
had to keep in contact, but back in the sixties there was probably a
very viable option. You know because nobody had as many bombs and you
may for example a Delta Flight not even be hit at all because there
Russia or China whoever didn't have that many bombs. So you know whole
[flights]{.mark} may not really be hit at all. So in that sense, yeah,
it was probably a good idea, but in the eighties and into the nineties,
you think about, you know I mentioned a little bit about these
explosiveness of these weapons. What'd you gonna get out to, you know
what's gonna be left up there, virtually nothing.

HILDERBRAND: Was there any plan to where you would go and how you would
get there as you went out through that...

DAVIS: \[Begins to speak over previous speaker.\] They had different
operating instructions and most of those applied to your other folks,
your maintenance people that are in the field. You get caught up in the
event and this where your suppose to go, your people topside maybe try
and bring some of them downstairs and if they survive the exchange,
different places to regroup so to speak. But then again, back in the
sixties all these things evolved, and one thing a lot of folks don't
understand is that the evolvement process in missileers started way back
when there were never missileers to begin with, and I like and I say air
crews generically speaking people with operational status had it been in
a stressful situation used checklists like this were the ones that came
on board and brought the missile career from it's foundations. Well a
lot of the philosophies came from that. All of these groups and air
crews and things had places to try and secondary alternate
[tertiary]{.mark} landing bases tried to go here. Somebody even
mentioned to me back on the Eisenhower Administration the thought was we
may have to bring our bombers returning and land them on the interstate
highway, and so I think a lot of that came into the missile field of we
need to plan on paper to we're gonna meet up here, meet up there, but
here again getting back into the eighties and the nineties with the
powerful destruction of these weapons and a huge nuclear war it's not
going to be of any value.

HILDERBRAND: But so you did not have...

DAVIS: \[Begins to speak over previous speaker.\] I never had any
instructions.

HILDERBRAND: A piece of paper telling you that your going to find a
vehicle and... \[Laughter.\] Or you would strike out on foot toward
Ellsworth.

DAVIS: Not that I know of. Huh-uh.

HILDERBRAND: What do you regard as the greatest challenges you faced
while working here?

DAVIS: You know I guess they come in various stages. You've got your
goals and objectives. I took one just one step at a time to get through
[IQT]{.mark}. That's what's called from school to become certified as a
deputy, have a good record, eventually selected to become a commander,
and so those were each challenges. One of the monthly challenges, and it
wasn't so much the simulator ride for weapons system training. I say
instructors should because its not an evaluation, I was in an official
evaluation, but every month we had to take emergency war order exam and
that emergency war order is again is those messages you and you decode
giving you instructions, and then you had to really, really, really know
your stuff because it wouldn't take much to flunk one of those and once
again, once you did that you can not pull alert for awhile. Your status
of duty including alerts until you went through a whole bunch of
training and prove that you can pass these tests again. And one of the
ways they wanted to make sure you really knew your stuff is they would,
I wouldn't say play games with you, but it was ways that the only way
they could ascertain the best amount of knowledge we had. For example,
Juliet is often a mark for the letter "J". They might take the "I" and
"E" and transpose that and then this test they say you receive this
message of over one of your communications systems and your reading and
you because there spelled out that's part of your validation process,
making it valid and make sure it's spelled correctly or they may drop a
"T" off here or instead of Alfa A-l-f-a or A-l-p-h-a for example, two
different ways to spell it. Your zipping through this message, you know
and trying to get every thing done and your reading as you see A-l-f-a
and you move on to the next one. Well if you indicate on your answer you
took an action for that message, you got it all wrong, and one scenario,
one scenario of you received the following over this communication
equipment, you may have three or four questions. And if you get the
validation process wrong and you commit to these actions you flunked the
whole thing anyway. So it could be very easy to as we use to say go down
the tubes. So that was, that was a challenge every month to especially
as a new crew member. To make sure you don't go in there and get caught
up by their traps or their little games of spelling and those types of
things. But that was a challenge.

HILDERBRAND: Were there any individual personalities that you had your
own contact with that you'd like to talk about?

DAVIS: Well the deputy that was going through his divorce and, I say
this, you know humorously speaking, it was quite sometime after his
divorce and we were actually on alert and I just remember talking about
PRP and things, you know he had recovered, got him back on alert status
and we were down there at the actually Oscar, Oscar Launch Control
Center. On alert and we were playing, a game called Dark Towers. It's a
game, it's got batteries and you got forces you blew, that type of
thing, but the point is it was a weekend, it was quite, were having fun
he says "By the way Kerry, what you think you'll be doing about the
second week of August or so?" And this was something like May "Well I
don't know Warren, you know what's up?" "Well I was wondering if you'd
be best man at my wedding." And I'm like "What, your getting married?"
And to me, I don't think he'd been divorced that long I thought. "Well I
didn't know you were dating anybody Warren. We've had you over at our
house. You've had us over for BBQ. We've been to clubs. I've never heard
you mention anybody." I say "It's none of my business I guess." I say's
"But maybe you should know somebody this well." "Yeah, I know her pretty
well." "Your sure?" He say's "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah." And I'm thinking
well "Do I know her?" He goes "Yeah." I said "Who is it?" He say's "It's
Melody." My, his ex-wife and immediately I went "Are you crazy! Are you
nuts! Here we are on alert and your going nutso on me." \[Laughter.\] I
obviously knew he had control of himself, but it was just my reaction.
So, you know if you really thought somebody was nutso or crazy you pull
a PRP, but here it was a different situation and that was and
interesting experience for me because I was just totally caught of
guard, and just the fact that I said "Are you nuts! You crazy or what!"
you know. But there was other relationships, you know you have guys you
went, you went fishing with sometimes. You had different hobbies,
everybody like, I was into woodworking so were my other buddies. Even
though I was in California school with we stayed pretty close cause we
went through all that together out there. But eventually everybody kind
of goes there separate ways though.

HILDERBRAND: Well what were your best and worst memories of working?

DAVIS: Hm, when I flunked an EWO Test once. I remembered that day, I
couldn't believe I flunked it. I mean I was another commander at the
time, I was moving up and getting ready to become an instructor, I've
already launched a missile, a real missile in California and I flunked
an EWO Test. I, I took that really hard.

HILDERBRAND: What were the consequences of that?

DAVIS: Retraining. For that particular day you had to be retrained. They
always had back up test's, you had your primary test, there's your
alternate test's that they would cover the task that were required for
that month of work, training. I mean every month there were certain
messages that had to be trained and evaluated and tested or procedures.
And there was just a back up test, and you have to retrain and then take
that test and hopefully you pass that one. And then they would give an
recommendation to your squadron commander, operations officer whether or
not, you know you should get some more additional training and maybe
there was a fundamental problem here. I never went through that but I do
remember flunking that first test, the only one I ever flunked.

HILDERBRAND: Um-hum.

DAVIS: \[Clears throat.\] And, that was, that was pretty bad.

HILDERBRAND: Did you have a best memory?

DAVIS: I, I think, there were many, upgrading to commander, I was giving
a deputy right out of school which was kind of rare at least at that
time. Getting a highly qualified, near perfect score, that was very
exhilarating. But the first time I ever got a very highly qualified
rating, for example: going out an actually launching a [message]{.mark}.
Being selected, you know being a member of the Fourth Airborne Command
and Control Squadron, back then was kind of an elite, was a hand picked
assignment. Sad days were of course was when you finally decide to go
ahead and retire, and you put in the paper work and you wish then maybe
even to this day maybe I should have stayed in longer type of thing...
\[Laughter.\] But nothing really, really bad comes to mind is, and even
the fire and overheat condition it was just something you had to deal
with. But flunking that test, I'll never forget that.

HILDERBRAND: \[Laughter.\] Describe your work with the Airborne Command
and Control?

DAVIS: We had many missions, one of which it's required we can launch
all the missiles from a aircraft with our VHF radio frequency. But more
importantly would be to establish the communication links spread out
through the continental United States and that would over extend into
the Navy's parameter. For what they call the TCMO ATLANT, TCMO PAC, TCMO
means take charge and move out, PAC and ATLANT just means pacific ocean,
Atlantic ocean. We would set up all these net links even on exercises
throughout the year. To exercise that different communications
equipment, we tested the missiles every week, every missile had to be
tested, and we'd actually send a UHF transmission down to the missile,
the missile would not respond back to our aircraft because it did not
have a transmit capability. It's computer however it would send a
message to the launch control center like Delta One's computer saying I
hear the radio talking to me, yes, I would have responded had this been
for real and they would relay and we do a voice pull of all the launch
control centers. Now this is so and so by call signs, you know how you
copy, etc. And we would wait to get a consolidation report that if the
wing had a hundred and fifty missile for example, all hundred and fifty
responded, if they only had let's say a hundred and forty nine on alert
then you would expect a hundred and forty nine to respond and not the
other one. But depending upon why that other one was off of alert as
soon as it came back up to Strategic Alert, you wanted to test that as
soon as possible. So at least once a week, that was what we called peace
time missions we would go and do this. Which also helped us get our
flying hours and so forth, we also pulled what I called ground alerts,
where you were actually on alert in an alert facility just like your
bomber crews. So if you see movies where you see them running out of
their alert facilities or the hooch some people might refer to it. They
climb up in their aircrafts, start up the engines and see them taxiing
away. We did the same thing constantly and you always kind of hoped it
wasn't at two in the morning or you hoped, for example it wasn't right
after you finished and hour and a half of racquet ball and just got in
the shower and the horn as we call it goes off and it happens to be
twenty below zero at Minot Air Force Base, and, oh, man your hair's
frozen and you know your trying to get to your aircraft and all this
kind of stuff, you know. Come to think about one other thing that did
occur and I guess I was thinking of missile duty as a bad event. We were
coming off of alert, on a alert aircraft and we were required to
download some of the fuel to launch for peace time and a thunderstorm
moved in a lot quicker than anybody projected, and our aircraft got hit
by lightning. And that was a very serious event and I had to send the
crew that were in the hospital, and I was the mission commander on that
aircraft cause it was my aircraft coming off alert. And to explain that
is when you do change over at a satellite base like in Minot for
example, you had two aircrafts on alert. Well when one aircraft was
coming off alert it's the crew in charge of those codes and things, that
is the airborne mission commander but you also had the entire crew of
the other aircraft that's going home with you. And what they did was
just did a change over and kept their own alert aircraft on alert. And
or they brought one up and there putting it on alert so to speak. And
when that happened, it was quite a confusing thing because you always
think you know what lightning sounds like when it strikes close. But
that warning crackling noise you hear does not exist I would tell you
now. It was the loudest, out of the blue explosion, I ever heard. The
inside of the aircraft, the fusel lodge start filling with smoke, I
couldn't tell if it was fog or smoke but of course the pilot very
quickly hit the evacuation bell and we're quickly getting off the
aircraft and trying to take care of the wounded, making sure the plane's
not going to blow up cause keep in mind we were downloading fuel. Here
we had it, I was attached to aircraft through grounding points in the
concrete, that the tarmac called Static Dissipaters and they did their
job very well that day. We did not, otherwise we would of went up in
ball of flame, everybody recovered from that and we went and had to
transition from near disaster to, okay, now the fireman are coming I'd
have to make a quick decision, is this situation serious enough that I
don't want to endanger myself, I'll let the professionals do it. Go up
there it's going to cause all kinds of classified material compromise
and all different kinds of reports are going to be sent or do I think at
this point in time I don't see smoke coming out any where that me and
another launch officer of a separate code group can get to that ladder
first before they do and go up to maintain security of the codes and
things in that aircraft. And that particular day I decided we can go and
I was A side co component and there split handling so of the other two
b-crew members I basically said I'd give me a b-crew officer right now
and we ran to the ladder, and got there right before the firemen and
they said "We don't think you should go up there." I said "Tell you what
if I get up there and I smell smoke or I see something, you can bet I'm
coming down and it's your baby, but right now I'm trying to preserve the
integrity of a classified material and stuff." And it turned out that
everything was pretty much, cause everything, all the power was shut off
to the aircraft at that point. We covered up the classified and
maintained control of everything we needed to and nothing would be
compromised. The disappointing thing was after that terrible experience
and we know now we are not going home right away. And the folks at Minot
were so great they set us up downtown and if I recall they had a NWR
vehicle, big old vans to take us down and they said something about some
restaurant was staying open to give us something to eat cause after this
whole process of many things, I've taken all these codes off the
aircraft so you could leave the aircraft alone. It took a long time to
do everything with this lightning hit. They said they'd give us some
cases of beer and we got the hotel room and get some sandwiches, drink a
beer take it easy. Where going "Yes!" and we're soaking wet still cause
it had been raining and then you get the phone call from base operations
"Hey, they got another plane coming to get you." And were like "Oh,
man!" We had everything fixed... \[Laughter.\] So that was one of the
experiences from flying with the aircraft that was an eye opener so to
speak. But all the other missions predominately were, were great.

HILDERBRAND: When you were a launch officer did you know that your
missiles could be launched with out you?

DAVIS: Yes, I did, yes. And I think everybody did, all minuteman, I'm
speaking only of minuteman cause I don't think it was possible on the
other systems, at least to my knowledge. But I didn't look at it like
that, you know you've got, here you got the esprit de corps think about
that as your squadrons competition, now you got your wing, and this kind
of competition against the fourth airborne command and control squadron
or the second airborne command and control squadron at Offutt and so
forth and but, the Fourth ACCS might be trying to make you think that
you're just babysitting them when we're really the ones launching the
missiles. Of course, we're at the same time saying that under the all
this technology and things we have we undoubtedly gonna get the message
on time and we're going to have these missiles launched before you get a
chance to anyway so, you knew that but I never, dwelt on it. Now, in an
event that you get a message to launch after the first exchange, that's
when I would say the bets are off. You don't know who you, you finally
got your message, you don't know if this particular aircraft has it or
if this aircraft, all you are doing is going through the sets of
procedures to get ready to launch a second attack, so to speak and there
are certain things you had to do and certain parameters you had to meet
then like put you in a situation that you are going to wait a little bit
before you key turn.

HILDERBRAND: If those aircraft had been destroyed say in a first strike
would you of been able to launch by yourselves?

DAVIS: If the airplanes would have been?

HILDERBRAND: Yeah

DAVIS: Oh, the launch crew on the ground?

HILDERBRAND: You're on the ground, the control; commander at the control
plane above has been knocked out or can't communicate

DAVIS: Oh, Commander Control structure, ok, yes, and I say that because
there were procedures for that. Let me give you an example, two basic
things you need to do to launch a missile, and that is to arm the
missile, the second was is to put in purpatory launch commands, your POC
data or your POCA data, a two digit code that is basically saying how
many of the 50 missiles in your squadron may or may not be launching and
which particular target they are going to be on now, lets suppose you've
gone through this initial sequence of launching your missiles, and you
had a missile that was being fixed after you've launched those missiles,
now it comes up to Strategic Alert. You're required to launch that if
required based upon your latest execution message so you would go
through the action because you've already got the arming codes, all you
have to do now, because this one is off alert you are going to have arm
this missile and you would put in the last preparatory launch command
data which, when you looked it up in your document was this, one
supposed to go last time? And you look it up and go yeah; it was so now
you launch it.

HILDERBRAND: Do you have any other comments, anything I haven't asked
about that you'd like to talk about?

DAVIS: Yeah with I wasn't on Prednisone so I wouldn't keep loosing my
voice \[Laughter\] Yeah, you know there are so many things in a career
like that, and so many different things, but dealing with operations
when this is digressing a little bit, you know I was a pre-med major in
college and when I didn't get into med school, I knew I wanted to go
where the action was, I wanted operations. So I was very glad to get
that. But, there are just so many different things you know that, be on
alert, your wife's having a baby so you are a little worried there, and
so, of course, they're trying to get you out of alert they send somebody
out, one of the other things that of course I look at things, if I can
control it I can, or if not, try to minimize what is going to happen,
and I give you an example, when my wife was pregnant with our second
child, she calls me up in Vandenberg I'm out there to launch this
missile. And my crew partner wakes me up and says your wife's on the
line and I'm like, why is she calling at this hour, cause she kinda knew
my sleep period. And she said, I think I've got a problem here...

\[Tape Stops Abruptly\]

\[Tape 1 side 2\]

DAVIS: Ok, as I was saying and what you don't know I had an extensive
medical background in the Navy, but anyway I was at Vandenberg Air Force
Base and my wife had called, my crew partner had got me up, and I was
kinda wondering why she called, and she is basically saying, when you're
pregnant and you start bleeding, how much is a lot or, how do you
determine if you're having a miscarriage and I'm like, "honey are you
bleeding" "uh, I think so, yeah I think so" and I'm like "how much?"
"What do you call how much?" "Are we talking like a little spot like a
two three inch diameter", "ah, no, it's bigger than that." "Four, five?"
"No, a couple feet." No, I'm like, "I'm getting off the phone, I want
you to call the hospital, immediately get a hold the ER", and we had
already had plans set up for good friends of ours, Dan and Gussy for if
anything would happen, because they lived on base with us, they would
come over and help. And so, just stay right there, the ambulance will be
there in no time at all, I'll call Dan and Gussy you just lay back and
take it easy. I want you to do this control for shock try to ascertain
how much is bleeding, apply pressure to stop it, etc., etc. and my
biggest concern was shock and of course an the boarding right there in
our bedroom. I get a hold of Dan and Gussy and a little while later, no
more phone calls be coming in and I figure well my wife's at the
hospital by now and, and I had a daughter who was a little over a year
old by the way and she was an important factor in this little
interesting tale. And pretty soon the phone rings and it's Dan and he
says "hey Kerry", he said, "ah, I don't know where you wife is, but
nobody's answering the door". I said "is the car in the driveway?" "Come
to think about it no". I'm thinking she bled to death right there in bed
since she's not answering the door. And I would of thought well Dan why
didn't he kick in the door and call the police. But then of course, I
said is the car there and he said no I said, "well go to the hospital
and find out what's going on". Here's my wife, did not want to bother
anybody, put anybody out I'm out here in California a thousand or so
miles away she gets up after I instructed her not to, cleans herself up,
the bleeding has stopped takes Lisa to daycare, drops her off and then
goes to the hospital. And I'm just loosing my mind, so in the meantime,
of course, I'd already called her folks they were both from St. Louis,
Missouri and I said what's going on that I'm out in California and could
you guys come out and Sheryl had called them, her folks and told them
there was a slight problem but it was under control, she did not
miscarriage of course but I said, "do me make me feel real good, go out
and spend some time with Sheryl while I'm out here" and I said, my
father in law said, "well she told us not to, but we're already packed
and we're heading out the door by-golly we'll be there in no time at
all". And it was about a five hour drive, he she was no Mom, Dad I'm
fine, don't want to put you out she knew Dan and Gussy were coming to
help, she takes Lisa to the daycare center and I'm sitting out here in
California she bleeding last I heard from her, I don't know, of course
you weren't working with lethal weapons so you weren't on alert so to
speak, I was asked if I wanted to go home, I said, no everything's going
fine I can't, me being there is not going to change a thing. And I'm
sure, and her and I talked she said, no you stay out there there's very
few people that get to launch a missile. You know, there were some
events like that that happened.

HILDERBRAND: Thank you Mr. Davis

DAVIS: Well, Dr. Hilderbrand, hope you got something useful

HILDERBRAND: Thank you, I'm sure we did.

\[Tape Ends\]