1955 ... SAC Command- Offut AFB


... sorry about the poor quality of the picture. (Boris and Natasha were neither competent spies or good photographers.) This image shows construction of the underground command center for the Strategic Air Command. All started rather hurriedly after someone looked up at their ramshackle WW2 era office building and said "Gee- you think we're a little vulnerable?"

What we see is  lot of reinforced concrete that will be buried under 20 to 30 ft. of overfill.(Remember; most hardened Cold War structures were built in large, dug out holes; not tunneled.)  

"Survive anything but a direct hit" is a well-worn cold War phrase. The exact physics, and luck of that, are a bit murky. I suspect that it wasn't long after the last bulldozer finished the overgrading and they started watering the grass seed, that someone said "maybe we should have dug a deeper hole?"

What is clear is that in this 1958 USAF classified film, as soon as WW3 get's under way,  SAC's Commanding General trades this hole in the ground for an 'in-vulnerable' flying command center. Leaving all the underlings behind to calmly watch the monitors and maps, until the nano-second when they get turned into radioactive applesauce.








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