Lt. Col. Ward:

During the Cuban missile crisis I was in England with the duty of delivering 1.1 Megaton Mark 7 nuclear weapons on Russian targets when ordered. My primary target emanated from Bentwaters, RAF station England, flying a F101 Vodoo, refueling in the Air during day or night or all kinds of weather and about 200 miles from target dropping down to 50/100 ft. above the Baltic sea, final bombing destination Gdansk, Poland. That was the big Russian sea base for the north Atlanic fleet and the 1.1 Megaton Bomb was more than ten times larger than the ones used at Hiroshima, Japan. If and when the mission was executed, it was a go, no wmatter what, on very short notice. We were on various levels of alert from 15 minutes to one hour notice. My flight was made up of 16 Aircraft and the Air Wing had 48 Aircraft all with the mark 7 bombs. The interesting part of the mission would have been to deliver the bomb when ordered no matter what! Luckily they were not ordered to be delivered because the devastation would have been unimaginable! If we were able to refuel we could deliver and if all went well we could recover back in England. If we were unable to refuel and all went well we would have enough fuel to reach the target, got to Sweden and eject over that neutral country and be interned for the duration of the war. There are more parts to the story but that should give a non-participant a good idea of the gravity of the situation.

Another time, I will relate the Vietnam experience of controlling the U.S. air Force Air Strikes in North and South Vietman for a year during the infamous North Vietnamese Tet Offensive. My every day duty was 12 hours on and 12 hours off with about 2 hours briefing before and after each tour. Talk about OVERTIME! The year went very fast and it was interesting, exciting, challenging and rewarding just to be a part of it!