Muzings From The Edge: Missiles in Cuba..War that Was Never Fought
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As the war in Iraq wears on our brave men and women are able to maintain contact with their loved ones and follow the latest news updates on the politics of the war through the media saturation.
This continues today as America winds down its commitment in Iraq and increases it’s role in the conflict in Afghanistan. With the cable news channels funneling reports 24/7 back to their home bases for broadcasts around the world and a constant internet presence troops can turn on a radio or television, or log onto a computer and catch up on world news. national news or even news from their home town. That has not always been the case for our troops in potential wartime situations. This is one such situation in the war that was never fought…
The night air was still, quiet and peaceful. Occasionally a slight breeze would rustle some of the lush vegetation in the jungle like atmosphere. If you were sitting you would see high above the lines of the green tents set up with the side flaps rolled up to let what breeze there might be flow through to the men sleeping beneath the mosquito nets in the tents. It was about 3:30 AM and the dew was beginning to settle heavily on anything that wasn’t covered despite the temperature of 82 degrees. Having been here for over two months most of them had become acclimated to the day time heat and the muggy sticky nights. Being deployed meant a lot of the by the book rules that Marine units normally had to follow had been loosened a bit. The men were able to grow mustaches if they wanted to and even wore T shirts when working on the flight line during operations. Occasionally you could even get away with pulling your shirt off when the aircraft were coming in for fast turnaround for a gunnery run. But the nights were not much respite from 12 to 14 hour days.
The cold showers, warm beer, and a hard cot covered with a mosquito net weren’t all that great either. It was not exactly what most people would consider a trip to paradise in the Caribbean. I first heard the noise down the hill from me. It sound more like a bunch of the guys jumped in the middle of the night and started fighting and screaming and yelling. Whatever it was it was progressing up the hill toward us till we could actually hear what was happening. Some of the Sergeants of the squadron (VMF 333, a Marine Corps Fighter Squadron) were screaming for everyone to roll out and get to the flight line. My first thought was “Shit”, “Who the hell screwed up this time.” Why else would they rousting out the entire squadron and rushing down to the flight line. Then as I climbed on the back of one of our jeeps I noticed that VMA 324 (Marine Attack Squadron) on the next hill was also being rousted.
Since I am one of those people whose brain wakes up 15 minutes after his body does, it just confused the hell out of me. The next thing I know there is a mass convergence of jeeps, duce and half trucks, and a couple of navy vehicles I didn’t recognize at the Marine flight line at the Naval Air Station, Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico. The day before we Aviation Ordnance people had loaded all of our planes with target 20mm ammunition for practice rounds the next day. Now it was 3:55 AM and we were being told to unload all of the planes weapons and prepare them for full war loads, i.e. armor piercing high explosive 20mm ammunition for the four guns, and 2 fully armed and live Sidewinder missiles. OK, now I understood. Trip Tray also known as the “Shamrock Squadron”, as I understood it we were supposed to be part of some type of rapid response force on the East Coast and for the Caribbean and this was a surprise drill. Sort of like a hot pad scramble like they had put us through at Key West before.
To the best of my memory we had all of our planes unarmed, reloaded with war loads, and rearmed within 30 – 45 minutes. The Sergeant had three of us go to the end of the runway for the final arming before takeoff and the rest were sent back to our tent city to collect our personal gear and get back to the flight line and start packing our shop to get it ready to move. The three of us who went to the runaway did the final arming and followed the others. My money was still on this damn drill and we were going to end up at Boca Chica, one of the Florida Keys Islands where we frequently set up and stood “hot pad’ Duty. That meant that we get our planes ready to go at all times and sitting next to a runway in the Florida Keys in case the residents of Key West decided they were going to invade the rest of the country.
That guess wasn’t dispelled too much we arrived back at the flight line and helped our buddies get the remainder of our shop supplies and equipment together. As we were finishing up I could hear the unmistakable sound of the roar of a KC 130 as it landed and was taxing toward our work area. Above that roar I could hear the Staff Sergeant screaming orders for half the shop to go back to the tents and get our personal gear and get back and load the transport planes. The other half to start loading the transport planes with the shop equipment and tools. All I can remember thinking was why the fucking Marine Corps couldn’t just have leave shops set up everywhere they were going jerk us up and send us to for these silly scrambles. Within an hour everyone was packed, the shop was packed and the “GV’s” as we called them were rolling toward the runways.
At this point it is important to let everyone know that in these times there was no instantaneous news reports, no 24/7 news channels, no computer internet, and virtually no contact with the outside world. We were a Marine fighter squadron on training exercises at Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station, Puerto Rico.
The Date October 16, 1962:
After a very brief flight the “GV” began its descent to our next home away from home, which we had collectively assumed was Boca Chica in the Florida Keys. After touch down the plane taxied for a little while and then came to a rather abrupt halt. Staff Sergeant stood up and said OK folks “we’re home for a while.” As the back door dropped down all I do was wonder where the hell was home because I had never seen this place before. Like most flight lines it was a flat stretch of concrete but within eyesight of water which looked strangely like the Caribbean that we had just left. Our Lieutenant was standing by a sign which read Ordnance with a half smile on his face. “Welcome to Cuba men.” “Fall out and set up.” All I and everyone else could think was what the fuck were we doing in Cuba. No one could ever remember any one doing training exercises around Cuba.
After we had set up our two shop tents someone asks the Lieutenant where we were setting up our personal gear he smiled again and said right here. We all looked around at the concrete, no tents, no cots, no nothing. The Staff Sergeant opened a couple other boxes and said men, “Men, this is not a drill. This is your battle gear. Your head gear, rifles, and ammunition belts. You will have them with you at all times. When an attack occurs you will get your planes in the air and the head for the nearest fence line. We must hold our position for at least 7 hours.” WTF!!! When did we go to war with Cuba! “Ah, Sarge where the hell is the fence line?” Staff Sergeant grinned, “It will be where all the shooting is going on. There will be vehicles heading that way for transport. You will also be stand guard occasionally to relieve the grunts while we are here.” “Now get ready, our planes will be here soon. Be careful. The planes will be armed at all times even on the flight line, and you will have your weapons with you at all times. Your primary responsibility is the protection of the aircraft and the pilots, and getting them safely in the air. You are expendable, they aren’t.” I looked down at my M-14 which I had not seen since my last rifle range qualification and shoved a magazine in it. I asked, “Hey Sarge, what’s going on?” The lieutenant stopped him and looked at us. “Gentlemen, I have never lied to you and I won’t start now. All I know is that we were sent here in the event that the Cuban military tries to overrun this base. There is also a rumor that they may have support from the Russians. That is all I know and all I have been able to tell the Sergeant and you. I know if the shit hits the fan I can depend on you to do your best.”
For the next two weeks we lived on that flight line. We ate, slept, sat around or read books with our rifles and head gear using the F-8 Crusaders to protect us from the sun or the occasional rain showers. During that time I made three trips for a tour of guard duty on the fence line. We never knew exactly what we were watching for. Were we going to be attacked by hundreds or thousands of Cubans rushing the fences? Would they be attacking us by using boats and coming onto the beaches? The grunts on the fence line would say that any one approaching the fence from the other side would be dead meat as far as they were concerned. At 19 years of age I was not sure what the hell was going on. I had heard nothing about anything out the ordinary about problems with Cuba or Russia. In those days there wasn’t a computer one could log onto to and find out what was happening, or a cell phone to call someone with to ask. We knew one thing and one thing only. Our orders.
Anyone approaching that base without permission was to be considered the enemy and killed. This was what we had been trained to do. This was what we were prepared to do.
We did not need to know the whys or wherefores of anything. At that point the reasons were not relevant and, as I learned later, not a soul even knew we were there. We were used to being, as the sergeant said, expendable. What we did not know was that we were prepared to fight the world war of all world wars. A war that would make all other wars, past and present, pale by comparison. Fortunately, it is a war that few people even remember today because it is the war that was never fought. The Cuban Missile Crisis
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The only reason that nuclear war didn’t happen was pure luck.
During the first 5 days, Kennedy was battling against all odds that General Lemay and the Joint Chiefs were going to do a preemptive strike. The Generals tried by several methods to back JFK into a corner, forcing him to attack Cuba. They refused to reschedule missile tests during this crisis, they continued with low flybys trying to get the Cubans to shoot down a plane. General Powers transmitted by unscrambled radio, inflammatory messages to provoke the Soviets.
The CIA had recommended that the nukes were not active yet, so they had a small time window to attack bringing more pressure on JFK from the demanding Generals.
Later the US Navy used depth charges to bring Soviet subs to the surface, considered to be an act of war.
There was a symposium on the Crisis in the 1990’s that included all the key players from the crisis, including Castro, Robert McNamara, several US and Soviet Diplomats, etc. Only then was revealed that Cuba already had about 35 intermediate nukes ready to fire with orders to “use them or lose them” if invasion occurred. If the US had invaded, those nukes would had been used and the resulting full-scale nuclear war would had resulted.
Also the Soviet Subs, including the ones brought to the surface, had nuclear-tipped torpedoes. They had standing orders to not surrender or allow themselves to be boarded. The Captain’s of 2 separate submarines overrode the orders, surfaced, and allowed their ships to be boarded. They were court martialed when they go back to the Soviet Union.
Toward the end of the Crisis, on a Saturday night, it was thought that invasion was inevitable. JFK sent the crisis team home to be with their families. Later McNamara stated that when he went to sleep Saturday night, he didn’t expect to wake up Sunday morning because Washington D.C. would be the first nuked.
Krell about a month later it was revealed that the first strikes on Cuba would have been massive bombing against the missile sites. We were to hold onto Gitmo as long as possible and keep rearming the attack and fighter aircraft. Hopefully it would be over before they overrun the base.
Nice post Lazersedge! It is always fascinating to hear history from a personal prospective.
I will never forget those days and I was just a young guy. I remember we had just arrived in Naples, Italy where my dad had been stationed. The teachers were nervous, the whole atmosphere was charged, although at the tender age of 13 I am not sure I quite understood how serious it really was.
It was probably a month later before I actually knew how serious it really was Mike.
As I was only 5 years old I didn’t have a scooby. Besides, there was a World Cup on in South America and, at 5 years old, I was far to busy with my Subbuteo Table Football re-enacting the games – mainly as we couldn’t see them as TV didn’t have the technology back then.
I think Brazil won that one over there, although, mysteriously, England won my Subbuteo one.
Missiles? What missiles?…;-)
4D i was pretty much the same. We had no clue about missiles. We only thought that Cuba was trying to kick us out of Gitmo.
I remember that 2 weeks in time very well, I was in a different place to you, but nonetheless it was a scary time, we all thought we were done for. I was 15 years-old and had grown being told it was just a matter of time before we all got bombed to oblivion.
When the missiles were discovered in Cuba, thank goodness that JKF did not listen to his military advisers, who wanted an immediate invasion of Cuba, which would have forced the Soviets to move west in Europe, which would have curtains for us all. Khrushchev thought Kennedy was too intellectual therefore weak. Boy was he wrong.
These days I wonder if we wonder if we weren’t better off not knowing how serious it was. I remember one our pilots saying that if anything started the island of Cuba would cease to exist which was fine except that I was on it.