Malmstrom Air Force Base

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Malmstrom AFB is a United States Air Force base and census-designated place located in Cascade County, Montana, USA. It is the home of the 341st Space WIng. As of the 2000 census, the base had a total population of 4,544. It is part of the 'Great Falls, Montana Metropolitan Statistical Area'.

1 History
2 Geography
3 Demographics
4 Trivia
5 External links

[edit] History

In 1939, the Great Falls Airport commission appealed to Harry H. Woodring, Secretary of War, to locate an Air Corps squadron at Great Falls, Montana. In 1941, the Civil Aeronautics Authority provided the money for the development of the Great Falls Municipal Airport. In May 1942, construction began on an Army Air Corps base six miles east of Great Falls. The base was known as East Base.

While the base was assigned to Second Air Force, numerous bombardment groups were trained at Great Falls. Two of these bombardment groups, the 385th and 390th, went on to participate in decisive raids over Germany that opened the door for Allied daylight precision bombing. These bomb groups were trained in successive groups from November 1942 to October 1943.

On August 13, 1948, the 1701st was deactivated and replaced by both the 1300th Air Base Wing and the 582d Air Resupply and Communications Squadron. This splitting of a complex organization into more manageable parts reflected the new Air Force way of thinking and resulted in the organizational structure which still exists in some ways today.

In the Summer of 1950, the base was visited by several members of the newly-formed Project Blue Book, a government agency which studied the appearance of unidentified flying objects. While there, they studied the Mariana UFO film, which had been receiving massive media attention for the previous few months. They returned in 1952 to study the tape once more.

Even as new weapon systems were being developed and debates raged over the effectiveness of the manned bomber, the Strategic Air Command activated the 407th Strategic Fighter Wing to provide protection for the bombers. SAC then ordered the 407th to Great Falls AFB. The base had just completed a $2 million runway in July 1952, and with its modernized facilities would provide an excellent strategic air base. In January 1954, SAC replaced MATS as the command in charge of the base.

Col. Lester Harris arrived as the new wing commander, accompanied by Col. Einar Axel Malmstrom, his vice wing commander. The C-54 workhorses of yesterday were replaced with F-84F and G fighters. More units continued to arrive at Great Falls AFB. In March 1954, the 91st Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron, with its fleet of KB-29 aircraft, began operations at the base.

Colonel Einar Axel Malmstrom

On August 21, 1954, the history of Great Falls AFB took on new meaning when a plane crash claimed the life of Colonel Malmstrom. In the short period of his tenure as vice wing commander, Colonel Malmstrom endeared himself to the local community. Saddened by the loss, the people of Great Falls began a drive to rename the base after him. On June 15, 1956, Great Falls AFB was officially dedicated as Malmstrom AFB, and the 4061st Air Refueling Wing arrived with its contingent of KC-97 tankers the next year. Malmstrom's mission changed again when SAC realized that fighter escorts would not be able to keep up with the new B-52 bombers.

Malmstrom officially entered the ICBM age with the activation of the 341st Strategic Missile Wing from Dyess AFB, Texas, where it had previously operated as the 341st Bombardment Wing. The 341 SMW and Malmstrom AFB became the nation's first "Ace in the Hole," dubbed by President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The wing has Minuteman missiles spread across 23,000 square miles of Montana. The 10th, 12th, and 490th Strategic Missile Squadron were equipped with the Minuteman II, and the 564th has the Minuteman III.

With the rapid development of the three-stage, solid-fuel Minuteman I missile in the late 1950s SAC began searching for sites to deploy this revolutionary weapon. Because Malmstrom’s location placed most strategic targets in the Soviet Union within range of Minuteman, the base was a logical choice.

On December 23, 1959, the Air Force Ballistic Missile Committee approved the selection of Malmstrom AFB to host the first Minuteman ICBM base. Although the newly formed Corps of Engineers Ballistic Missile Construction Office handled the design and supervised construction of the planned 15 control sites and 150 silos, the initial ground work required advance engineering, site feasibility studies, surveys, soil and foundation investigations, determination of utility sources, and finally land acquisition. These tasks fell on the Seattle District of the Corps of Engineers. The land acquisition, involving some 5,200 tracts scattered across an area of 20,000 square miles of north-central Montana, amounted to the largest for any single project under-taken by the Corps. At its peak, the Corps employed up to 80 people at its real estate office to deal with the approximately 1,378 owners of the desired parcels. Modifications in silo design required the District to renegotiate easements with the landowners on 12 different occasions over the 4-year span of the project.

In less than three percent of the cases, the government acquired the land through condemnation. Once construction commenced, tempers were tested as fences were cut, trenches were left open in cattle pastures, crops were destroyed, and water and power supplies were interrupted. Yet despite these problems, most of the local population understood the importance of the project to national security and they cooperated.

A joint venture of the George A. Fuller Company and the Del E. Webb Corporation won the construction contract with a bid of $61.7 million. The Fixed Price Incentive Contract was unique, featuring provisions for a target cost, target profit, and a formula for determining the final price and final profit. With cost overruns projected due to expected design modifications and unanticipated surprises, the Corps of Engineers Ballistic Missile Construction Office imposed a system in which excessive costs would be split, with the contractor picking up 25 percent of the tab. Using this formula, the final project cost would come to $79,284,385.

The March 16, 1961, groundbreaking ceremonies featured an interesting arrangement as key state and local politicians, and military, contractor, and labor leaders gathered on stage at the base theater. At the prescribed moment, eight of these officials threw switches, setting off explosive charges out on the plains. Each official received his switch as a memento.

As predicted, design changes occasionally slowed progress as did unanticipated high water tables, which required additional pumping capacity at the excavation sites. An electrician’s strike from November 1 through 12, 1961, and spring storms in 1962 also hindered progress. Still, on December 15, contractors completed work on the 10th silo, turning the silo over to the Air Force for finishing and missile installation. During construction, six workers were killed.

Home of the oldest Minuteman strategic missile squadron, Malmstrom also became home to the youngest, when in August 1964, the Air Force announced plans to build an additional 50 silos on the Montana prairie to house Minuteman II missiles. On February 23, 1965, Morrison Knudsen Company and Associates won the bid to build the additional silos. Construction started 2 weeks later. Manpower peaked in September 1965, with 1,593 men working on the sites. During construction, there were 7 work stoppages, which cost 8,808 man-days lost. Overall, the project managers could boast of a good safety record as there were 12 lost time incidents and only 1 fatality.

As construction of these new silos proceeded through 1966, the 564 SMS stood up on April 1, 1966. Just over a year later America’s 1,000th Minuteman missile would be in place and on alert at Malmstrom. This milestone marked the completion of Minuteman deployment by the United States.

In 1987, Malmstrom hosted a prototype of a small ICBM mobile launcher. Testing conducted at Malmstrom evaluated this platform’s capability to support the Midgetman missile.

On January 5, 1988, Malmstrom gained its first flying wing since the 4061st was inactivated in 1961. The 301st Air Refueling Wing is responsible for the operation of KC-135R Stratotankers, which refuel fighter, bomber and transport aircraft worldwide.

Malmstrom entered another era on July 7, 1989, when the 40th Air Division was reactivated. The 40th Air Division began as the 40th Bombardment Wing on January 15, 1943, at MacDill Field, Florida. After several inactivation's and reactivations, the division called Malmstrom its home for 2 years before being inactivated on June 14, 1991, as a result of an Air Force-wide force structure reorganization. Under this reorganization, the refueling wing became the host unit and the missile wing became an associate unit and renamed the 341st Missile Wing.

With the deactivation of the Strategic Air Command on June 1, 1992, Malmstrom became an Air Mobility Command base. The 301st was inactivated and replaced by the 43d Air Refueling Wing and reporting to Fifteenth Air Force, located at March Air Reserve Base, California. The 341 MW came under the Air Combat Command and reported directly to Twentieth Air Force located at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming. The Missile Wing moved under Air Force Space Command located at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, in mid-1993 under a move that merged missile and space operations under one command.

[edit] Geography

Location of Malstrom Air Force Base, Montana

Malmstrom AFB is located at 47°30'31" North, 111°12'20" West (47.508604, -111.205580)^GR1.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the base has a total area of 13.4 km² (5.2 mi²). 13.4 km² (5.2 mi²) of it is land and none of it is covered by water. Please note that these statistics do not necessarily refer to the entire base complex, but only to the main cantonment where the base housing is located.

[edit] Demographics

As of the census^GR2 of 2000, there are 4,544 people, 1,310 households, and 1,151 families residing on the base. The population density is 340.0/km² (879.9/mi²). There are 1,405 housing units at an average density of 105.1/km² (272.1/mi²). The racial makeup of the base is 83.19% White, 6.58% African American, 0.59% Native American, 2.33% Asian, 0.15% Pacific Islander, 3.30% from other races, and 3.85% from two or more races. 7.83% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There are 1,310 households out of which 66.6% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 82.0% are married couples living together, 4.0% have a female householder with no husband present, and 12.1% are non-families. 10.7% of all households are made up of individuals and 0.0% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 3.16 and the average family size is 3.41.

The age distribution of the base is: 36.8% under the age of 18, 23.2% from 18 to 24, 38.1% from 25 to 44, 1.8% from 45 to 64, and 0.2% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 22 years. For every 100 females there are 118.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 125.3 males. All these statistics are typical of military bases.

The median income for a household on the base is $31,775, and the median income for a family is $33,125. Males have a median income of $24,009 versus $19,393 for females. The per capita income for the base is $11,450. 6.2% of the population and 4.9% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 6.0% of those under the age of 18 and 0.0% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.

[edit] Trivia

In the science fiction film Star Trek: First Contact, the "first contact" with alien visitors takes place at a "missile silo in Montana". Although countless missile silos pepper the Montana countryside, many Trekkies originally believed that the scene was meant to take place at or near what was once Malmstrom AFB, given nearby Great Falls' high occurrence of UFO sightings since the 1950s.

It was later revealed by producers that the scene was meant to take place at a missile silo in the forests outside of Bozeman, Montana.