RCD/SWESS Arming [Typed Memorandum]

Beale Air Force Base, CA: United States Air Force, 456th Strategic Aerospace Wing (SAC), Headquarters, 1963. Presumed to be one of only a few multiple copies produced for distribution, with a reproduced signature of the author. Single sheet, typed on one side. Good. Format is a single sheet, approximately 8 inches by 10.5 inches, with three holes punched in the left side. This memorandum, issued 22 May 1963, shows some wear and soiling. This type of operational communication within the SAC organization rarely survives. The author, Major Dominick J. Sacco was at the time a major in the USAF and Chief, Air Weapons Section of the 456th Strategic Aerospace Wing (SAC), Headquarters located at Beale Air Force Base in California. The 456th Bombardment Wing is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to the 14th Air Division of Strategic Air Command at Beale Air Force Base, California, where it was inactivated on 30 September 1975. The wing was redesignated the 456th Strategic Aerospace Wing and was activated at Beale Air Force Base, California in February 1963. It flew Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers and Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker air refueling aircraft, and also commanded a HGM-25A Titan I squadron until 1965. Although it operated no intercontinental ballistic missiles after then, it was not until July 1972 that the wing was redesignated the 456th Bombardment Wing. The wing was inactivated in September 1975 and its personnel, equipment, and mission transferred to the 17th Bombardment Wing, which moved to Beale on paper from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The contents of this Memorandum was intended to clarify operation of the RCD, especially regarding the operation of the SWESS. The memorandum stressed that to achieve SWESS arming the RCD must first be connected and the light must be on. RCD is understood to mean radar cable detection. SWESS is understood to mean Special Weapons Emergency Separation System. This system (SWESS), also known informally as the dead man's switch, was a nuclear bomb release system that the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command built into bombers such as the B-52 Stratofortress. The system's purpose was to ensure that an aircraft's payload of nuclear weapons would detonate in the event of the crew becoming debilitated by enemy defenses such as missiles. Once armed, the system would ensure that the onboard nuclear weapons detonated if the aircraft dropped below a predetermined altitude. The North American Aviation AGM-28 Hound Dog was a supersonic, turbojet-propelled, nuclear armed, air-launched cruise missile developed in 1959 for the United States Air Force. It was primarily designed to be capable of attacking Soviet ground-based air defense sites prior to a potential air attack by B-52 Stratofortress long range bombers during the Cold War. The Hound Dog was first given the designation B-77, then redesignated GAM-77, and finally AGM-28. The Hound Dog continued to be deployed for a total of 15 years until its replacement by newer missiles, including the AGM-69 SRAM and then the AGM-86 ALCM.