The Arkansas Titan II Missile Silo (TMS) Series
Dedicated to those who served with the 308th Strategic Missile Wing.
NOTE
The posted coordinates are for the entrance to the Little Rock Air Force Base and are bogus. The cache IS NOT hidden there! Do not attempt to go onto the base in search of this cache. To determine the actual location of the cache, see the section below, "How to Find This Cache".
Background
During the Cold War era, Arkansas was on the forefront of our Nation’s offense and defense as it was home to 18 Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos. The silos were under the command of the 308th Strategic Missile Wing (SMW) at Little Rock Air Force Base (LRAFB), with the 373rd and 374th Strategic Missile Squadrons (SMSs) responsible for nine missiles each. The 373th SMS was activated on April 1st 1962 and the 374th SMS was activated five months later, on September 1st, 1962.
Sites for the 18 Titan II ICBM launch complexes were selected in Faulkner, Conway, White, Van Buren, and Cleburne counties. Construction on the first -- TMS 373-4 (White County) -- began on January 3, 1961, and the complex became the first in the 308th SMW to be placed on strategic alert on May 16, 1963, ready to launch its missile at any time. Four-member crews manned each of the 308th’s eighteen launch complexes constantly once they were placed on alert.
On September 24, 1981, the Reagan administration announced plans to retire the Titan II program, citing concerns about safety, a need for cost efficiency, and an evolving nuclear strategy focusing on more modern and precise weapons systems. Destruction of the launch complexes required demolition of the launch ducts to a depth of some twenty-five feet, followed by excavation of soil around the silo to that depth. After being left open for six months to allow Soviet satellite confirmation of their destruction, the ducts were filled with debris, capped, covered with dirt, and seeded with grass.
The 374th SMS was formally deactivated on August 15, 1986, and its last launch complex, TMS 374-9 near Quitman (Cleburne County), was demolished on November 19, 1986. The final day of operation of the 308th SMW and the 373rd SMS was July 14, 1987, at launch complex TMS 373-8 near Judsonia in White County. Captain J. Neil Couch made the final entry in the complex’s log:
“For the last twenty-four years, the men and women of the 308th, 381st and 390th Strategic Missile Wings had endured the elements and boredom to stand as guardians of peace for the free world. We now close another chapter in military history as the mighty Titan; the bastion of peace; the dinosaur of ICBMs now fades away.”
The 308th SMW and 373rd SMS were formally deactivated on August 18, 1987, ending more than twenty-five years of service.
How to Find This Cache
This cache is a BONUS cache for those who have found all of the 18 geocaches in the TMS series. Each of the caches in this series continues a clue which is used to determine the final coordinates for this bonus cache. (For a bookmark list of the geocaches in this series, click on the link above, just under the quote by Thomas Jefferson.)
To determine the coordinates, you must do the following:
- Find all 18 caches in the TMS series and record the clue from each.
- Place the clues in the order that the missile silos were placed on alert.
- If more than one missile silo went on alert on the same day, use the sum of the clues from those sites as the final clue to use for the coordinates.
- The final sequence of clues will be your coordinates for this bonus cache. The correct sequence will contain 15 letters and numbers. If you have more or less than 15, go back and check your work!
You can check your solution for this cache's coordinates on GeoChecker.com.
|
Good luck and happy hunting!
