Nike Ajax / Nike Hercules Crewman

Manned 24/7 surface-to-air missile sites ringing US cities — New York, Chicago, LA, DC, Pittsburgh, San Francisco — to shoot down Soviet bombers attacking the homeland.

The Story

At peak in 1969, seventeen states fielded over 7,000 soldiers manning 54 batteries around sixteen US cities. Nike Hercules carried a W31 nuclear warhead designed to vaporize entire bomber formations *over American suburbs.* Almost no civilian knew the network existed.