Air Force·Weapon system retired·In Memoriam
SM-62 Snark Intercontinental Cruise Missile Crew
Served: 1959–1961
Maintained a 5,500-mile-range turbojet cruise missile at Presque Isle AFB, Maine. Famously inaccurate — test shots routinely landed dozens of miles off target.
The Story
A search team once spent weeks looking for a Snark that vanished mid-flight test. It was eventually found in the Brazilian rainforest. (The waters off Cape Canaveral were officially nicknamed "Snark-infested waters" by the missile range.)
Epitaph
“Inaccurate. Obsolete. Briefly nuclear. Two years on alert.”
Sources
- Wikipedia — SM-62 Snarken.wikipedia.org