<text id=00he1507><title>Reinforcing the South</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>Reinforcing the South</hdr><body>
<p>SAC moved the 4080th SRW to Florida, and both Navy and Tactical Air Command reconnaissance wings were alerted that their services might be required. SAC's deployment was only part of a feverish activity as bomber, reconnaissance and fighter units headed for Air Force bases in Florida. Squadrons of North American F-100s and Lockheed F-104s poured into Homestead AFB, southwest of Miami. More F-100s and the available force of Republic F-105s headed for McCoy AFB, already crowded with an operational SAC B-47 wing. Air Defense Command deployed some of its Convair F-106A strength to Patrick AFB. TAC's 4th Fighter Wing moved in its entirety from Seymour Johnson AFB, North Carolina, to MacDill AFB, near Tampa, and the 363rd Tactical Reconnaissance Wing came down from Shaw AFB, South Carolina.
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<p>The tactical fighters were ordered to stand by for a strike against Cuba, if needed. All of SAC's missile crews went on maximum alert, with 156 ICBMs cocked and ready to launch. General Thomas S. Power, SAC commander, dispersed the B-47 force to 40 civilian airports, and ordered the B-52s to maintain an airborne alert. All the bombers were loaded with nuclear weapons.
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<p>SAC U-2s flew two sorties between 14 October, the date of the first confirmation of the ballistic missile deployment, and 22 October. The photography was excellent and frightening. Nine missile sites had been discovered at four separate locations. Mobile medium-range ballistic missiles armed six of those sites, and intermediate-range missiles were slated for the remaining three. The latter were still under construction, and were fixed launch pads rather than the field sites used by the mobile missiles.
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<p>Intelligence specialists concluded that the weapons had nuclear warheads, and that they could be launched in an initial salvo of 40 against targets as far west as Wyoming and Montana. They estimated that full operational capability would be reached by mid-December 1962.
