A Snowed-in SAC Christmas, 1968

The goal to be home for Christmas was almost just a dream for the more than a thousand drivers and passengers caught in Cozad, Nebraska in a crippling Christmastime blizzard in 1968. The small southcentral Nebraska town of Cozad lived up to the reputation for midwestern friendliness, and pitched in to help the stranded travelers of all ages from all parts of the country. Though nothing about the unplanned overnight with kind strangers was planned or expected, some of the stranded travelers got extra-unusual accommodations on the night of December 22, 1968. They climbed aboard an RBS (Radar Bomb Scoring) Express train, a train that was sent across the country for a decade under the 1st Combat Evaluation Group at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana to train bomb crews for the Strategic Air Command (SAC).

The Strategic Air Command was established in 1946 to deter nuclear warfare by making the threat of U.S. retaliation believable and ever-present. SAC was the US Air Force’s plan to show a rival superpower, chiefly the rapidly expanding Soviet Union, that the U.S. was in a perpetual state of readiness to launch a major counterattack (within a mere 15 minutes) in the event of a missile attack. The goal was to a create a détente, or state of preserving the peace despite continued hostilities.

For measurable practice conducting targeted missile drops, SAC had radar bomb scoring (RBS) sites at set locations around the country. Under General Curtis LeMay, SAC bomber crews trained constantly. It didn’t take long before the fixed targets became comfortably familiar to the crews, making training sessions less challenging with each go. RBS units on modified trains were the answer to keeping these vital training sessions fresh.

The three “RBS Express” trains were under the command of the 1st Combat Evaluation Group at Louisiana’s Barksdale Air Force Base beginning in 1961. These trains could move RBS training sites to anywhere with a siding, a short section of track that allows a train to pull off the main line. The trains could stay in one location for up to 6 months and carried a crew of 60 Air Force personnel. They were comprised of 4 radar cars, which were flat cars with vans and training equipment such as ground radar, computers, and electronics, plus 17 support cars. These included a generator car, two box cars for maintenance, a dining car, two day-room cars, supply cars, an administration car and 4 Pullman-style sleeper cars. The sleeper cars contained 4x7 foot ‘rooms’ with a fold-up bunk that doubled as a table, a closet, and a large picture window, with darkening curtains for those who worked the night shift. In the center of the Pullman cars were toilets, showers, and a laundry area.

On the night of December 22, 1968, as reported in the January 3, 1969 Observer, a Bossier City-based newspaper for Barksdale Air Force Base, a blizzard raged through south and central Nebraska (and other parts of the Great Plains) that tied up holiday road traffic for miles in all directions. The local police requested help from Lt. Col. Fred Davidson, commander of the RBS Express that had located just west of Cozad, Nebraska on US Highway 30 (which ran parallel and not far from interstate 80). Davidson welcomed 33 stranded passengers aboard the train. The youngest was a 2-month old baby.

The civilian guests came aboard the RBS train at dinnertime, so they were fed a meal from the train’s galley, shown the movie Dr. Zhivago, and given a presentation on the mission and operations of the RBS Express. This latter activity, at least, was common for the train’s crew, which frequently hosted tours to both top military brass and local students. Since the day was a Sunday and Protestant Chaplain from Nebraska’s Offutt AFB, Major J.E. Davis, happened to be on board, there was a church service for crew and visitors alike. Overnight, the guests were given sleeping accommodations in the train’s sleeping cars.

Space was ample (by railroad standards, anyway) since most of the RBS Express crew was also traveling for the holiday. The next morning, the weather had cleared enough that the guests were able to continue their travels.

An article in the newspaper The Cozad Local on Wednesday, January 1, 1969, reported that one of the RBS Express train guests, Tom Lyon of Colorado Springs, Colorado had already returned to Cozad “to see what it was like without a blizzard in progress.” More pressing, perhaps, was that he stopped by the newspaper’s office to both express his appreciation for the “impressive” hospitality shown him on the train, and to pick up the Local’s blizzard issue, since no one back home believed his story about having to spend the night on a USAF Strategic Air Command train!

From the staff of the Bossier Parish Libraries History Center, we wish you all the best this Christmas and holiday season. If you have any information, stories, or photos about Christmas and other holiday traditions in Bossier Parish, we would love to add them (or scanned copies) to our History Center’s research collection. We are located at 7204 Hutchison Drive (formerly called 850 City Hall Drive) just across Beckett Street from the old Central Library and History Center in Bossier City, LA. All Bossier Parish Libraries locations will be closed Tuesday and Wednesday, 12/24 and 12/25. Normal operating hours for Bossier Central Library and History Center are M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org

For other local history facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok, and check out our blog http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.

Images:

• RBS Train 1962, Barksdale AFB. Photo courtesy of the Don Ross of Don's Depot Rail photos.
• Emblem of the 1st Combat Evaluation Group of the Force USAF, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
• Omaha World-Herald photo showing a five-car smashup on Interstate 80 east of Waco, NE, as seen in the US Dept. of Commerce ESSA Weather Bureau Central Region Technical Attachment, The Snow, the Cold, and the Flood Potential, Upper Midwest, Winter and Spring 1968-1969

Article by: Pam Carlisle

Mysterious Disappearance of Barksdale General and Airmen Still Unsolved

Throughout history there have been many intriguing and mysterious disappearances that remain unsolved such as the Lost Colony of Roanoke, the crew of the Mary Celeste, Amelia Earhart, and the men of Flight 19. One such disappearance has ties to Barksdale Air Force Base, and, although not as well-known as these more famous cases, it nonetheless is still mystifying 73 years after it happened.

In early 1951, the U.S. Air Force’s Strategic Air Command (SAC) established the 7th Air Division and assigned it to England to help counter the growing threat from the Soviet Union. SAC bombers stationed there could serve as a deterrent to Soviet hostilities. Brigadier General Paul Cullen was chosen to command the division and oversee its operations.

Born in 1901, Cullen joined the military at a time when aviation was still developing. According to his official Air Force biography, he entered service as a flying cadet in June, 1928. Only a year earlier, Charles Lindbergh had become the first person to fly solo, nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. Cullen would become proficient in photo reconnaissance, and his biography states that, among his career achievements, he commanded the Air Force Photo Unit during Operation Crossroads, the atom bomb tests conducted just after World War II.

Cullen’s association with Barksdale came as commander and later vice commander of the 2nd Air Force, which was headquartered at the base beginning in 1949. And it was at Barksdale that Cullen boarded the flight which would carry him and 52 others into the unknown.

The Douglas C-124 Globemaster II departed Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico on March 21, 1951 and flew to Barksdale where Brig. Gen. Cullen and his staff joined the other passengers, which included experts in various air defense operations. England was their destination where Cullen would take charge of the 7th. According to Flying Magazine, the Globemaster was an aircraft which “tended to shake a lot, even in calm skies, earning it the nickname ‘Old Shaky.’” It was in these somewhat uncomfortable conditions that the flight made a brief refueling stop in Maine before heading out over the open North Atlantic on Friday, March 23rd. Checking in with weather ships along the route, the flight’s radio operator reported the plane’s position Friday evening as being approximately 800 miles from the coast of Ireland. All seemed to be going well, but that suddenly changed.

An article titled “Last Flight, the Missing Airmen, March 1951” on the Walker Aviation Museum website states that the C-124 gave out a mayday call, reporting a fire in the cargo crates and saying that the plane would have to set down in the ocean. “The aircraft was intact when it touched down,” according to the website. “All hands exited the aircraft wearing life preservers and climbed into inflated 5-man life rafts. The rafts were equipped with cold weather gear, food, water, flares, and … hand-crank emergency radios.” Having survived the forced water landing, the crew and passengers awaited rescue. It came too late.

An Air Force B-29 was sent from England and located the men and circled their position, but had to return to base after running low on fuel. According to the Walker Aviation Museum website, “Not one ship or a single aircraft returned to the position … until Sunday, the 25th of March, 1951.” When help did come, rescuers found nothing other than “some charred crates and a partially deflated life raft,” the website states. The 53 men were gone, vanished without a trace. A search lasting several days proved futile.

Despite the passage of time, answers to the mystery of what happened to Cullen and the others haven’t been forthcoming. Could a sudden storm have created rough seas that swamped the life rafts? Did the Russians, as some have speculated, snatch the men? The website for the Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives states that “… it was revealed that Soviet submarines and surface vessels were active in the area.” The website also notes, “Due to their expertise in nuclear and other defense matters, Cullen and the other men on the airplane would have been an intelligence windfall to the Soviets.”

Questions have been asked about the delay in help arriving. Could the men have been saved if rescue had come sooner? Perhaps one day, we’ll know. Perhaps a long-secret document will come to light that will provide some sense of closure for the men’s families. For now, the “Last Flight” article may sum up the situation best. “We do not know what fate befell these men,” it states.

Thanks to William Lane Callaway, historian for the Eighth Air Force, Joint-Global Strike Operations Center and Air Forces Strategic-Air Directorates, for his assistance with this article.

If you have any photos or other information relating to mysterious happenings in Bossier Parish, the History Center may be interested in adding the materials to its research collection by donation or by scanning them and returning the originals. Call or visit us to learn more. We are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org. We can also be found online at https://www.facebook.com/BPLHistoryCenter/

Images: 

• Brigadier General Paul Cullen/courtesy United States Air Force
• C-124 Globemaster II/courtesy United States Air Force

Article by: Kevin Flowers