The Albatross
Thursday 15 February 2024
Footnote to Tuna’s blog. Liberty ships were mass produced super simple cargo ships, used mainly to supply wartime Britain and ferry troops and equipment to all theatres of the war. At peak flow a dry dock could build a ship in 20 days, and then another 9 days fit out dockside. They were slow and poorly defended so really relied on the convoy system to survive. Anyway, I thought it was cool.
A bit of a late start today as we didn’t have dinner last night until very late. We packed some lunch and headed off to have a look around the vast park on the northern side of Golden Gate bridge, we drove around from the North to avoid going through the city centre. The park is relatively barren due to its steep slopes, but offers great views over SF.
Towards the bay entrance there are a great deal of heavily fortified gun emplacements. In addition, there is a Nike missile site. These were cold war era missiles designed to be the last line of defence in case all other resources had failed to stop soviet nuclear bombers. The missiles could launch both conventional and nuclear payloads. The terrifying thing was that the maximum range of even the best rocket was only 100miles, which I imagine was dramatically reduced if you’re trying to hit a plane at 50,000 feet up, so you are basically setting of nukes directly above your own head. Of course, these bases were absolutely top secret and very secure, which is amazing considering it is just out of SF. The launch site is relatively small and the guide just had us and another couple who arrived at the same time. I got chatting to an old bloke who was volunteering there, whilst the others went down to the missile store. He used to man the radar (which is way up on top of a hill above the site) in 24hr shifts. He lasted 16 months before it drove him bonkers due to the pressure and he described his day of replacing vacuum tubes every 6 hours, tracking reporting, guard duty etc. We then chatted for half an hour about the rest of his career.
We decided to head home, not wanting to get caught in peak hour again, and have time to do some shopping whilst not exhausted, cook a decent meal and get some washing done.