Straight out the desert (and into the swamp)
Construction of hundreds of permanent Nike missile sites throughout the country followed the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 – an endeavor that authors Mark Morgan and Mark Berhow referred to as “Rings of Supersonic Steel.” These sites were designed to detect and intercept any airborne threats to the US in coordination with other nearby Nike sites. They were built in an almost identical layout to one another, typically covering about 120 acres and consisting of two separate facilities linked by underground cables – the Launcher area and the Integrated Fire Control (IFC) area. The Launcher area was made up of storage vaults, as well as missile maintenance and assembly buildings. Near the front gate of the Launcher area was the Ready Room where troops remained on standby at all times, prepared to for an emergency launch against incoming bombs or aircraft. The Integrated Fire Control area was located about a mile away from the launch pads. The IFC area consisted of barracks with mess halls, latrines, personnel housing, a boiler room, generator buildings, sentry boxes, and a total of five radar towers designed to detect any approaching threat and then guide missiles from the Launcher area of the base to neutralize the threat. Basically, the IFC area was the brains and the Launcher area was the brawn of these Nike sites. Over time, as the war machine of the US and their enemies grew more technologically advanced, the Cold War-era Nike bases became obsolete and by the mid-1970s most of them had been shut down. The HM-40 site was decommissioned in June 1979.
