ImagesMilitary History

SAC bombers after a storm

Chris Carter
Second Air Force B-47s during the mid-to-late 1950s. From left to right: No. 2121 (B-47B-30-BW), assigned to 321st Bomber Wing, was sent to the Military Storage and Disposal Center (MASDC) on Aug. 18, 1960. 2244 (B-47B-40-BW) was converted to a YRB-47B and later to B-47B-II before joining 2121 at MASDC on Dec. 13, 1960. 2335 (B-47B-50-BW) was assigned to the 340th Bomb Group, and records state the plane was struck off charge.

One thing about the men that flew for Strategic Air Command during the Cold War you may not have considered: they knew that flying into the Soviet Union was almost certainly a suicide mission. Air crews faced enemy interceptors and surface-to-air missiles on the way in. The blast itself would quite possibly knock them out of the sky, and the air crews would be bombarded with deadly radiation. More missiles and jets on the way out. If their machine made it back in one piece, their airfields may have been annihilated by a Soviet strike.

Cold War air crews knew all this, and did their job anyways.

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