Audio
Oral History Interview with Henry Phlen
Transcript
Abstract: Henry Plehn was stationed at the Nike Missile base in 1978 and aided in the close down of the missile sites, retiring in October 1980. At the base, it was his job to receive and test parts to keep the missiles in working condition. He traveled to each Nike Base five to six times a month to provide expertise and grade the missile preparers. In this oral history interview, Plehn talks about closing the Nike Missile bases, various buildings, his job, and what the men did on their off time. He goes on to talk about wildlife in the area and the different bases in South Florida.
ALAN SCOTT: This is Alan Scott. I’ll be conducting the interview today, October 19, 2002. The purpose of this interview is to document the oral histories of the Nike Missile Bases in Southern Florida and the Nike Missile Base in Everglades National Park. I’m going to ask you to state your name and spell your name.
HENRY PLEHN: My name is Henry Plehn. Nickname is Bud.
SCOTT: Bud, can you tell us if when you were stationed in South Florida and if you ever worked in Everglades National Park.
PLEHN: I got stationed here in August of 1978, and I retired and closed down the missile sites and left in October of 1980. I was the battalion missile warrant officer, and I was responsible to check on all four Nike Hercules missile batteries stationed in South Florida.
SCOTT: Could you give us specifically your military service information including rank and duties.
PLEHN: I enlisted in October of 1954, and I went to school in 1958 into the missile systems, and I spent the rest of my time in the Nike Hercules field. I retired as a Chief Warrant Officer IV.
SCOTT: Can you give us a little bit more about the typical tasks involved in your line of work?
PLEHN: We received all the parts to put a missile together and after we put it together, we tested it and got it ready to fire if it was ever needed to be used. We used to go to McGregor Range to do out practice firing. We actually fired missiles there. And we used Drummond [phonetic] planes and so forth.
SCOTT: And where is McGregor?
PLEHN: It’s outside of White Sands. It’s in New Mexico. Right across the border from El Paso.
SCOTT: Now, you say that you received the parts. Where did you physically receive the parts?
PLEHN: We received them on site. They were shipped from various depots. We got some from [unintelligible] Depot in Utah. We got some from Pennsylvania. Various parts were sent through subcontractors, in many cases General Electric, Raytheon, Boeing and so forth. It all depended on the parts we needed.
SCOTT: And the parts arrived at the actual missile base?
PLEHN: At the missile site itself. Right. The warheads came through in convoys, and they were escorted by military people, armed and so forth. Many of the shipments were classified and it was required to be covered and shipped in convoys.
SCOTT: So, can you tell me, does this mean that you were at every site when they delivered parts?
PLEHN: No, I wasn’t there. The battery commanders, and each site had two missile warrants assigned to it, and they were responsible to get all these parts in, to test the parts, put them all together, and they would take them down to the launching area where they would physically be launched if needed, and then they were tested down there. And then they were put into ready storage.
SCOTT: Can you describe a time when you were in Everglades National Park?
PLEHN: We would go out to each site, and the Everglades was one of them, and we would be out there probably five to six times a month to assist the launcher people if they needed our help and expertise or we were there to inspect them, to make sure the maintenance and status was kept up to date, that they would be in top performance.
SCOTT: How many people did your particular job in South Florida?
PLEHN: There was one other man who worked with me at battalion inspecting, but like I said each crew had two launcher warrants, and then they had a crew assigned to them of enlisted personnel to help them put the missiles together, check them out. And they checked them daily, weekly, and monthly to assure their performance was at peak perfection.
SCOTT: Can you describe a little bit more how what you did fit into the whole operation?
PLEHN: We were all responsible to go out and make sure that they maintained and they checked all the necessary checks that were required by their manuals. And then we would grade them. They were required to bring the missiles up on status and be ready to fire within fifteen minutes. We worked with the IFC radar section, and then after our initial build up for the missiles, they would then hook the missiles up, send commands to them. We would check to make sure that the fins were deflecting in the right directions. They would go through a compound for a regular simulated fire. We checked to make sure that everything that they’d done was proper according to the manuals and that they did get the actual sequence. If it needed to be fired, then it would have left the launcher.
SCOTT: At a site, how many times a week or a month would you do this?
PLEHN: It was unannounced, so they didn’t know we were coming. We went out to check the response of the crews to make sure that if they got an alert from higher headquarters that there was a probable attack that the crews could respond within specified time limits. And then we went through and we had command maintenance inspections that we inspected the equipment to be sure that all the lubrication, all the things operated properly on it, and then they would know [unintelligible], we would keep them alerted to that fact. But the operational status, they had no idea what time of the day or night we were coming.
SCOTT: Did you decide when to come or did someone just say go.
PLEHN: Well, the battalion commander and the S3 operational officer would say, okay, let’s go out and check B Battery or—And we would go out at two or three o’clock in the morning, unannounced, and check them out to be sure that everything was working properly.
SCOTT: Before we go on about the Nike Missile Base, could you tell me a little bit more about yourself? Where were you from when you moved here, and how old were you?
PLEHN: Like I said, I came from Wisconsin. I enlisted in the Army in October of 1954 and took my basic training at Fort Leavenwood. I then went to New York to a Nike Ajax missile site, that was first generation, before the Hercules. And I stayed there until 1961. I transferred to New Jersey—they’d just opened up a new Nike Hercules missile battery—and I stayed there until 1962, and this time I went to Thule, Greenland, and I was up there when the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred. So, we were the first ones to know that the President was going to come out with this. This lasted—I think we stayed up on status about thirty days. When I came back from Thule, Greenland, I came back to Fort Hancock, New Jersey, and I stayed there until 1966. At this time, I made warrant officer, and this put me in charge of the missile crews.
I left Indiana in 1968 and went to Germany. I was stationed in Geisen, Germany from 1968 till December of 1970. At this time, I came back and went to White Sands, New Mexico into research. I stayed in the research division about a year, and I was notified by Department of the Army I was selected to go to college for two years. So, I went to Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida. And I graduated from there with an associate degree in electronic technology. I left there and I went back to Germany in 1974. I spent about two and a half years in [unintelligible] which was part of 5th Battalion, 6th Air Defense Artillery, then I was transferred to 94th Group Artillery which was responsible for Nike Hercules missiles throughout Germany. I stayed there till August of 1978 when I came down here to South Florida and became missile warrant at 2nd Battalion, 52nd Artillery at Homestead Air Force Base. I stayed there until October of 1980, and that was my last assignment, which was to close down all the Nike Hercules missile batteries, and I was responsible to ship all the equipment out.
SCOTT: When you say, “all the equipment,” what does that mean?
PLEHN: Everything. The radars, the missiles, the launchers. Everything that was associated with the Nike Hercules battery was shipped back to a depot or shipped overseas. We shipped one high power radar to Turkey. All cables. Everything. And I was responsible to keep track of where everything went. So, for about a year afterwards, I would get calls every hour of the day and night, to ask where things had been shipped and so forth. And while I was there the State Department called me and requested that I open up [unintelligible] Battery at Key Largo for the Cuban immigrants, and Delta Battery at Krome Avenue, for all the immigrants that came over on the boat lift.
SCOTT: You mean you just were providing them with a place to stay when they came over?
PLEHN: Yes, I was responsible to get the electricity turned on and open it up, and then the State Department supplied the guards and so forth. So, it was rather interesting.
SCOTT: So, you’re saying that the Cuban refugees at that time were staying in what was the quarters for the missile base?
PLEHN: Yes, they used the billets and whatever building facilities we had.
SCOTT: What kind of conditions were they living in?
PLEHN: When we turned them over, they were excellent. When they wanted us to take the one back at Key Largo, they had to have quite extensive cleaning done. A lot of these people have never lived, you know, what we’re accustomed to. It was quite a change.
SCOTT: That’s really interesting. Okay. Another question about the sites that you worked in. Can you tell me which buildings you worked in? Currently, at Everglades National Park, in the missile base there, almost all the buildings are still standing. So, can you tell me which buildings you actually went to, what you remember about the look and function of those areas?
PLEHN: We had a missile assembly building, where we assembled the missile and checked out all the electronics on it, and we went from there over to the warhead building, which was in a berm. If you’ve ever been there, you’ve probably seen three or four berms that went around this building. That was to protect the site explosive wise if something would happen.
SCOTT: Now, is the warhead building what we call barns?
PLEHN: No, the barns is where after the missile was put together, we took that down and we had a rail with a booster which lifted the missile off the rail when they fired it. And we joined the missile to the booster on this rail and checked—elevated it and checked it all out to make sure it was working with the radar. Then it would be rolled into the barns for storage. They had three barns.
SCOTT: I’m aware of a building called a warhead and missile assembly building. I think you were referring to 2 different buildings before it goes in the barn.
PLEHN: Yes. The Missile Assembly Building is where you get the missile, take it out of its container, roll it in there, assemble the fins on it, and do all the electrical checks to make sure the guidance section, everything is working properly, the fins are working properly. Then when that’s done, then you roll it into the Warhead Building which was maybe 75 feet away, and that’s the one that had the berms around it, and you would have guards walking on top of these berms while you were doing all this [unintelligible] to make sure nobody came in. There was a restriction on the number of people you could have in there. Then when it was all warhead, you would do the checks on the warhead itself to make sure you got all the proper readings. Then it would be pulled downrange by a [unintelligible] vehicle, up to a launcher where you joined the missile [unintelligible] to this rail that it was setting on. Then after it was joined, you elevated it, checked it with the radar to make sure that they could see the missile. They would send the commands and we would check to see they were proper. Then we’d lower it down, and it was rolled into the barn until it was due for its daily, weekly, and monthly checks.
SCOTT: Well, I’m curious because I don’t think we have a Warhead Assembly Building because we don’t have a building with berms all the way around it except for the barns. Currently. But we’ll do a tour tomorrow.
PLEHN: Yeah. Well, I won’t be there unfortunately.
SCOTT: Oh, you’re going to miss it?
PLEHN: Yeah. Most of the warheading buildings, I know oversees, they all have them on there, and I’m trying to recall. I’m almost sure that they had berms on them.
SCOTT: I’ve seen photos of Nike sites with the buildings that you’re describing, and I don’t think ours has that.
PLEHN: Well, I’m surprised. I would have to look at it again, or if somebody had a picture, I could pick it out for you.
SCOTT: There’s one building that has a hoist, an 8,000 pound hoist in it.
PLEHN: Then that’s the Warhead Building.
SCOTT: And it has a berm on one side.
PLEHN: Okay. Maybe they only had one on one side here because of the terrain features and so forth.
SCOTT: And right next to it, it has a cement pad, a separate cement pad where you could park a large vehicle, and it actually has manhole covers in the ground.
PLEHN: Okay, originally, Nike Ajax missile, they used to pull up onto a concrete pad, and they used to use liquid fuel and liquid oxidizer and so forth. You had to wear suits in case one of these lines would break or so forth that they could hose it all down. And that’s probably where they had the sewer location. There was a little cutout where you put a missile up at an angle, so when you fueled it, the whole tank and everything would be full. But the Hercules did not use liquid propellant. It used solid propellant.
SCOTT: So possibly they set up the site for both.
PLEHN: Originally. I don’t know if they had the Ajax here ‘cause I didn’t get here until ‘78. But it could have been set up—or there were some sites that had both Ajax and Hercules missiles, and again I really don’t know if they had that set up here or not.
SCOTT: Now, specifically for the site that is Everglades National Park now, can you remember being there and describe what the buildings looked like, what the surroundings looked like, some of the things like that?
PLEHN: They had the barracks where the troops slept at night, and they had a day room where they could play pool and so on and so forth. And then they went down and there was a fence that you had to have a tag with your name and so on and so forth, and they would check this for proper clearance. And you could get in that first gate, and this is where they done the assembly of the missile, the warhead and so forth. Then there was another gate further down—they called the exclusionary. You had to also be checked in there, and you had to have the proper clearance and the proper badge. And the [unintelligible] were big and brown, they were probably, I would say fifty foot long by maybe seventy to eighty feet wide, and that was to house the missiles on the storage racks inside. And the warhead building was kind of oblong and the only thing that was done in there, like I said, was just put the warhead on the missile and do the checks. The assembly building had windows in it. The warhead building did not. It was, I guess, the same thing, probably sixty feet long, maybe thirty-five to forty feet wide. You didn’t need to do as much—or the missile wasn’t as big when it was in the initial build up stage.
SCOTT: Now, I have seen old photographs of the administrative and barracks building in Everglades National Park, and it was painted pink. Do you recall that?
PLEHN: There was some pink. I think there was some green. I don’t know who came up with the color scheme for it.
SCOTT: And each of the barns was painted a different color inside. Do you have an explanation for that?
PLEHN: Again, I think the crew chiefs had the option of what they wanted to do. They were responsible to keep up the buildings itself, as far as the painting and doing the rails and greasing, that type of maintenance on them. I don’t think there was any criteria as to what color they could paint inside.
SCOTT: Okay. Inside the berms next to the barns, there’s a separate room underground. Did you ever go in those rooms?
PLEHN: Oh, yes.
SCOTT: What were those for?
PLEHN: They used them when they fired the missiles. It was protection for the crew. When the missile takes off, there’s a large fireball as you’ve seen when they do the space shuttle. The flame comes out, the smoke curls up. It was also for protection if a missile would accidentally blow up as it was taking off. They had a camera down there that gave them all the lights. When everything was proper and it was ready to fire, the last thing you seen was Missile Away. And that’s when that missile took off the launcher and it was gone and there was no bringing it back.
SCOTT: In the berms, next to the barns, there are small round-like barrels buried in the ground with patches on them. Do you know what those were?
PLEHN: Yes, they used to have arming devices, and they had igniters. The igniters went in the boosters, and when the fire command was sent, this is what was ignited, the solid fuel in the booster that would lift it off the launcher. And the arming mechanisms were put in the warhead itself, and the command was sent to them, and it was set off an electrical cap charge, and this is what would cause the warhead to explode. And when you were either getting ready to put one together or you were taking one down, you would store your explosives in these barrels in the side of the berm. For protection.
SCOTT: So, this was igniter that was attached to the warhead, and—
PLEHN: No, the igniters went to the booster. And the arming mechanisms went to the warhead itself. There was a door in there.
SCOTT: Were you ever in the tent cities that were used prior to these permanent structures?
PLEHN: No, I wasn’t. They were all permanent structures when I got here.
SCOTT: Okay, can you tell me how you and other men passed their time? Their down time?
PLEHN: There really wasn’t much down time. The crews that manned the [unintelligible] twenty-four hours a day, they would get in and play pool and things like this unless there was an alert came down, and they would be required to run out and go up to their barns and get the missiles ready or whatever command had been sent down. They tried to keep the troops—They would have ping pong tables or they played cards, so on and so forth. They brought the food down to them. They actually ate in the launching areas. They didn’t go to a mess hall in the admin area. When you were on duty, you were on for twenty-four hours.
SCOTT: Do you know if you or other men stationed there used the park resources or enjoyed the park or were adverse to it in any way?
PLEHN: I wasn’t physically stationed on the missile sites at the batteries, so we came back into Homestead Air Force Base, but I’m sure many of them went up to where they could walk around the boardwalks and so forth. I was trying to think. Is it Flamingo area? Where they have the boardwalks. And I’m sure when their families came down, they would take them out there. Families couldn’t physically get inside the launching area. They would drive up and just show them where they worked. As you can see there was nothing but sawgrass and just some missile barns and the buildings. There was really nothing else to look at. Except a few rattlesnakes now and then.
SCOTT: I was going to ask you, can you tell me about any wildlife incidences you can remember?
PLEHN: Oh, yes. One night about 3 o’clock in the morning, I came out and the radar inspectors went to the radar set, which was quite a ways away from the launching site, and I took the vehicle and I was driving down toward the launching area, and like I said, this was about 3 in the morning, and I’m a little sleepy, and all of a sudden this cougar came right across the front of the car. It woke me right awake. I didn’t have to worry about going to sleep. And then when you would get down there, the rattlesnakes would curl up on the cement where the launchers were located, because of the heat, and they would lay on there at night and just absorb the heat. So, you had to have a flashlight and be careful where you walked and how fast you walked.
SCOTT: Do you have any general feelings towards the site that’s in the park or any of the other ones?
PLEHN: I think that they were definitely needed. Especially in the Cuban Missile Crisis. We could respond in a very short time. The missile was very very accurate. I think it was a deterrent. When President Kennedy done his talk and everything else, I’m sure that the Russians received word from the Cubans that we were up and ready to fire missiles should they provoke us. I think it served a useful purpose. It got to the point where the cold war started to come down. I think this is one of the things that drew the missile batteries out of Florida. They sent the battalion down to Fort Bliss in El Paso, and they trained and maintained readiness down there should they be called to come out again.
SCOTT: You dealt mainly with the Nike Hercules sites. Can you sort of describe how they were different either as battalions or as physical locations that strikes you or that people were different in each one?
PLEHN: They had Hawk missile sites here also. The Hawk missile site was for shorter range. Whereas the Hercules was a longer range missile. At Bravo Battery down at Key Largo, they had a high power radar, and it sat up in a tower, and it gave us a very good view of everything that was happening out over the ocean. And they gave—along with Richmond Heights [??] was the one of the radar centers and they just set up four early alert warnings to send out to the batteries. And I’m sure they worked closely with the Air Force and the Coast Guard and some of these that they were in contact should they sense something was not right, and they would bring the batteries up on status and get ready to fire should they be needed.
SCOTT: Of all the different sites that you went to, as a surprise, was one of them more consistently excellent or worse than the others, or would you say—What would you say about that?
PLEHN: No, I don’t think so. They selected people to come down here that were fully qualified and were in the Army because they liked the Army. I never really went to a battery that, you know, even though they were out in the Everglades, it was difficult to get into Miami, they didn’t have ready access unless one of their buddies had a car or there was a bus going in at a certain time was really the only difficulty they had. I think they realized the purpose they were down here for, and they maintained a high state of training.
SCOTT: Can you tell me a little bit about the emotional tension levels. Was there any particular time when on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis, when things became very tense?
PLEHN: I think when you had a major inspection. Everybody looked to do well. The rating you would get from higher headquarters, such as [unintelligible] in the Army, stays with you for a year. A lot of these were unannounced, you didn’t know they were coming either. All of a sudden, you’d get a phone call that a certain department was at your gate for an inspection. Even though you’re well trained and all that, there’s always a chance that something may happen, something may not work, and you were stuck with that rating for another year.
SCOTT: How often did such an inspection occur?
PLEHN: You never knew. They tried to make it at least once a year. But they didn’t use ten months as a criteria, twelve months. Sometimes they would come in eight months, sometimes eleven months. They kept you on your toes, and this was good because you maintained a high state of training. You were ready at all times.
SCOTT: So, was there any time that you felt people were tense due to threat of war?
PLEHN: I was not here during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was in Greenland. We were only about ten minutes from the Russian border. We used to watch planes on radar come up, go to the border, fly across, turn around and go back. That makes you wonder once in a while if they had somebody that wasn’t quite stable might just decide to keep coming.
SCOTT: Can you describe a little bit more about that time? That particular time [unintelligible] crisis, when you were in Greenland?
PLEHN: This was when Kruschev was still banging his shoe on the table and so forth, and the Cold War was really heated up, you know, with the countries. Russia wanted to be the best, and they would come out with stories and blame us, and I think we tried to respond in kind. Whenever you would get called up on status, there was always that wonder in your mind, is this the real one? Or not? Because we were the early warning system up there. The radar was so powerful up there, you could throw an orange up in the air and watch it come down on the screen. I think, if I’m not mistaken, I think the radars were about a hundred yards long. That was the BMEWS, the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System for the States. And we would be able to give them about a ten-to-fifteen-minute notice that there was an incoming missile. And this was when you had all your fallout shelters, and people were building underground things and so forth. And there were no families up there, it was an isolated tour. So—
SCOTT: Did you have a family at that time?
PLEHN: Yes, I was married and had two children. You know, you look forward to the day you’re going to go home.
SCOTT: Were you ever concerned that there was actually going to be a conflict?
PLEHN: I don’t think so. We pulled watch on the radar scopes and so forth, and I’m sure they did the same thing. And we would get chatter on the line from, you know, like in the Second World War, when somebody would come on, “Well, we’re coming so-and-so,” “Your equipment doesn’t work that good.” Cold War tactics to try and get the troops upset.
SCOTT: Well, is there anything you’d like to add?
PLEHN: Well, just that I was very proud to be in the Army and be part of the 52nd down here. Like I said, I felt it was a critical time with Cuba and everything, and people made threats, and you were in a well populated area, and you wanted to protect people that were assigned to your area of responsibility.
SCOTT: When you were in South Florida, you were stationed at Homestead Air Force Base?
PLEHN: Yes, our headquarters was at Homestead Air Force Base.
SCOTT: Can you tell us a little bit about that, how many people and how many planes and what the living conditions were like?
PLEHN: We really didn’t have anything to do with the Air Force itself other than the barracks on the base. We had no idea—I think they had three wings of fighter aircraft there at that time. We had our own separate building and the same with the barracks. We had our own barracks and so forth. It was just a little bit easier for the people that lived there. They had a movie theater on base, a bowling alley, a library, a commissary and a px. And again, this was at the end before they closed it down. I’m sure that the people that came down earlier, when they came down with the missiles for the Cuban Crisis didn’t have all the facilities that we had.
SCOTT: You told me that you worked on closing down these bases and shipping the parts out around the world, essentially. We know that the radar was removed, the missiles were removed, the launchers were removed. What did you change about the actual structures? If we go to a structure today, is there any evidence of the close down other than things being removed?
PLEHN: I really don’t think so. They used to have cable runs, where the cables laid above ground so they wouldn’t be in water. All those aluminum runs were removed. All the launchers were shipped back. All the rails were shipped back. Basically, I’d think all you would have now would be an empty building.
SCOTT: There are something that looks like rails where there was a trench that’s filled with cement. Can you tell me about that? It comes straight out of the center of the barn, and then there’s a T off those rails in between the launch pads.
PLEHN: Right. What they would do is bring the missiles out that were in the barn and they would roll them down these ramps or tracks onto a launcher ready for firing. When it’s on the launcher, the launcher elevates eighty-nine degrees, and then if they had to fire, they would fire from there. They had four launchers that you could load. You would have four missiles ready in all three sections if need be.
SCOTT: Now, I’ve been told that two of the missile warheads were conventional, one was nuclear.
PLEHN: They weren’t when I was there. They had taken all the nuclear capable ones back and shipped them back to either different sites or to a depot. We just had the conventional ones when I was there.
SCOTT: What is the explosive in a conventional warhead?
PLEHN: Oh [laughter], I’m trying to think back thirty-some years. I don’t even recall any more. It was powerful. It would bring down an airplane, no problem.
SCOTT: Do you know when the nuclear warheads were removed?
PLEHN: No, I don’t. That was done before I got here.
SCOTT: So they were there during the missile crisis, but they were removed for political reasons?
PLEHN: That could be. I don’t even know if they even had them during the Cuban Crisis or if they just had conventional ones. This would be by Department of the Army, and went through various headquarters. We down at the lower levels just responded when we got an order as to what type of missiles or how many or whatever. SCOTT: Well, Bud, I want to thank you very much for the interview.
PLEHN: Enjoyed it.
SCOTT: And sorry you’re not going to come out tomorrow, but if you ever get a chance, come on out and I’ll give you a tour.
PLEHN: Are you in the research building?
SCOTT: I’m not in the research building, but I can take you out there any time.
PLEHN: Okay. Maybe I can get your name and card. I haven’t been out there to look at that site in I can’t remember when. We go out and walk around the boardwalk when we have company.
SCOTT: According to Charlie Carter over here, it’s in excellent shape.
PLEHN: Well, great.
SCOTT: The other ones are not in such good shape. In fact, one of them is a public shopping center.
PLEHN: That must be the one that’s up in [unintelligible] City.
SCOTT: Hialeah?
PLEHN: Yes.
PLEHN: Last time I was down in Bravo Battery, I think the county was using it to store some of their equipment in.
SCOTT: That’s down in Key Largo?
PLEHN: Yes.
SCOTT: I understand that you can go down there tomorrow if you want to. In the afternoon. They’re going to open it up if someone wants to go down there. But they tried to remove part of the building and they spent over 30,000 dollars just trying to get a roof off of it and they decided it wasn’t worth it.
PLEHN: It was interesting. I don’t think they ever had any hurricanes in this particular area while the missiles were out there, but they had extensive plans on what to do and how many troops would stay and take care of the equipment. I don’t even recall what they were any more, like I say, it’s thirty-some odd years ago since I went through the plans, but they were well prepared. SCOTT: Well, the one in Everglades National Park went through Hurricane Andrew, a direct hit by the eye of Hurricane Andrew, and the barns themselves have literally no damage. And we use them today and used them during Hurricane Andrew to protect our boats, our boat fleet for Everglades and Biscayne National Park.
PLEHN: That’s super!
SCOTT: And the missile and warhead assembly building is still standing but the roof had some damage.
PLEHN: Yeah, they were not built as well as the barns were, where the missiles were stored.
SCOTT: And the roof on the barracks and administrative building also had to be replaced after the hurricane, but the building was fine except for that. Well, I think we’re done.
[End of Interview]
Description
Henry Plehn was stationed at the Nike Missile base in 1978 and aided in the close down of the missile sites, retiring in October 1980. In this oral history interview, Plehn talks about closing the Nike Missile bases, various buildings, his job, and what the men did on their off time. Interviewed by Alan Scott on October 19, 2002.
Credit
Everglades National Park
Date Created
10/19/2002
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