During the Cold War, the United States stockpiled thousands of Minuteman I nuclear missiles, which could be deployed to the Soviet Union in around 30 minutes. The threat of nuclear war was terrifying to every American, but South Dakotans were blissfully unaware of a nuclear accident that could have demolished everything within a 70-mile radius and caused thousands of deaths.
You might know that during the Cold War, the plains of western South Dakota once contained 150 missile silos containing hundreds of Minuteman I missiles. But did you know that there was a terrifying nuclear accident at one of these sites?
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On December 5, 1964, airmen from Ellsworth Airforce Base were sent to complete maintenance on a silo near Vale, South Dakota.
Library of Congress
While they were working, they accidentally caused a short circuit while replacing a fuse and there was an explosion which knocked the missile’s 750-pound cone off the shaft of the missile. The cone is the part of the missile that contains the nuclear warhead, and it fell to the bottom of the 80-foot-deep silo.
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A team was immediately sent in to assess the damage. A large area around the silo was fenced off, and the radiation levels were checked in the silo. Luckily, though the cone was damaged, its nuclear warhead was not, and the military believed that there was no immediate threat of a nuclear explosion.
Kelly Michals/flickr
Someone had to go down to the bottom of the silo to check on the cone, and 20-year-old Airman Bob Hicks volunteered. He climbed down the ladder to the bottom of the silo, assessed the damage, and later recommended a course of action to pull it up. Despite his young age, Airman Hicks played an instrumental role in retrieving the warhead and transporting it safely away from the site.
National Park Service
Airman Hicks received an award as “Maintenance Man of the Month,” and later also received an Air Force Commendation Medal, but the public was not informed of the incident for decades. Many of the missile sites across South Dakota have now been decommissioned.
Kelly Michals/flickr
The research for this story was mostly gleaned from this article written by Seth Tupper of the Rapid City Journal. For more in-depth information about this incident, take a look at the article — it’s an excellent piece of research and journalism. Did you know about this nuclear accident?
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Library of Congress
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Kelly Michals/flickr
National Park Service
If you love South Dakota history, you might want to take a look at these 16 rare photos taken during the construction of the Mount Rushmore National Monument.
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