The Site
The site is just west of Royal City, Washington: Google Map 46°54'26.7"N 119°45'22.0"W. Dive tours are run out of Undersea Adventures and they were fantastic. Not only did they lead the dives but provided great sandwiches for lunches and told us more than we could easily remember about the history of the site.
The site is just west of Royal City, Washington: Google Map 46°54'26.7"N 119°45'22.0"W. Dive tours are run out of Undersea Adventures and they were fantastic. Not only did they lead the dives but provided great sandwiches for lunches and told us more than we could easily remember about the history of the site.
In November 1959 the US Army Corps of Engineers opened bids for the construction of the first site. This was the first time the Government had gone to RFP to build something like this. Ground was broken in December with a cut and back fill method used for construction. Unfortunately they chose the only site for miles around that had a high water table. Roughly 175 000 gallons of water had to be pumped out daily. The site went operational in September 1962 and was closed and sold off two years later.
The missile was 84 feet tall, weighed 150 tons and delivered a 3.75 megaton warhead (250 times the yield of Little Boy, the one dropped on Hiroshima). It had an effective range of 6300 miles or around 10 000 km. The total development cost in 1960 was 1.64 billion or roughly 13.4 billion in today's US dollars.(17 billion CAD) but each missile only cost 1.5 million. There were 108 missiles produced but only 54 were deployed to Air Force bases (AFB).
Each base had three associated missile complexes and each complex had 3 missiles. Two were expected to launch in a strike and the third was for redundancy. Each site also had two radar towers to aid in telemetry (triangulation) and the rocket could use the radar from the other nearby sites as backup.
Each base had three associated missile complexes and each complex had 3 missiles. Two were expected to launch in a strike and the third was for redundancy. Each site also had two radar towers to aid in telemetry (triangulation) and the rocket could use the radar from the other nearby sites as backup.
Diving Photos