Another nuclear "close-call" from the Cold War

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Saw this article and thought some here might like to read it. The basics of the story are that about 50 years ago, some nuclear missile units received a "strange" authorization to launch but chose to query it instead.
http://www.alloutdoor.com/2015/11/11/a-new-glimpse-into-how-close-we-came-to-global-nuclear-war/

[pmulcahy11b]

I for one had no idea we had ever had nuclear missiles on Okinawa, and it must have taken some serious political arm-twisting for the Japanese to allow us to base them there. But given the time that the guy was stationed there, it would be sort of like the missiles we had in Turkey -- ICBMs were just being developed in the US and most of our missile fleet were only IRBMs.

[LT. Ox]

Cheing was pretty much at the beck and call as far as military issues went.
The Reds made, if not weekly, then monthly threats about Taking control of the Island.

[LT. Ox]

I grew up in Richmond Ca. (that is north east Bay of San Francisco Bay area) and was a junior in High School when Our President Kennedy was killed. I knew that the oil complex was a prime target as young as ten years old.
I had gone through elementary school and Junior high school with monthly drills at school about what to do if the siren went off "for real" as it went off every day a noon for testing.
I remember that a warble siren meant we had time to go to the nearest shelter, every school including elementary had them. I also knew by the time I was twelve that the only thing that would do was give us time to kiss our well I knew we were dead if that damn siren went off.
It gives you a different kind of childhood.

[Matt Wiser]

The Matador missiles on Okinawa were targeted (apparently) on the PRC, North Korea, as well as the Soviet Far East. It should be pointed out that at the time, Okinawa was still under U.S. military occupation, and wasn't returned to Japanese sovereignty until 1972. Thus, AF and Navy nukes could be stored there without any fuss, and SAC used Kadena AB as a forward operating base for B-47s in the 1950s and 60s. As well as the Nike SAM sites defending the island being able to have nuclear warheads.....