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[David Schneider] - If you lived or spent time anywhere near the small town of Oscoda in Michigan's Iosco County from the 1950s to 1990s, you'd be very familiar with the sights and sounds of military aircraft around the area.

In those times, the Cold War was in full force.

The United States pledged after the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 to never be caught unprepared again for conflict.

To achieve this end, many military bases were spread throughout the nation.

One such base was the Wurtsmith Air Force Base here in Oscoda.

The base started back in 1923 as the Loud Reims Aviation Field Over the years it became Wurtsmith Air Force Base and a 1958 became the home of the Strategic Air Command’s, 4026 Strategic Wing.

It was a large base with many types of aircraft based there, including the famous B-52 Stratofortress, which first flew in 1952, is still flying today and is projected to be in service for many years to come.

The base was deactivated in 1992.

I'm David Schneider, and coming up, we'll take a look at life on the base, the town of Oscoda and how over the years the two intertwined.

How did this small town adjust to having the base nearby and how has it adjusted since its closing?

Will also look at the ageless B-52 bomber and how its air force crews kept it in the ready for all these years.

[Military Music] [Soft Piano Music] [Robin Savage] - Back in the early days of Oscoda it was a very small and what some would say a primitive time back in the early 1900s.

We had the businesses that lined Main Street here in Oscoda were mostly mom and pop shops.

There was a local theater.

We had a local pharmacy, lots of really small businesses that were making their way in the world in that time and in that era.

Unfortunately, in the year of 1911, there was a great fire that took over in the twin cities of Oscoda and Au Sable.

And what happened there was most of the businesses, all but four, as a matter of fact, were burnt to the ground.

So if you fast forward a few years to 1920 1922, that time frame, Lieutenant Ennis Whitehead stationed at Selfridge Air Force Base was directed by his commander, to head on up to a little primitive town names Oscoda, Michigan.

What he found while he was up here was that the fire of 1911 had cleared a lot of what had previously housed, you know forest areas, businesses, things of that nature.

And he thought to himself, there just wasn't a lot of room in Selfridge for a gunnery range And he thought to himself this would be a perfect place.

In the year of 1924, Camp Skeel was found.

And that was the name that was given to this 40 acres of land that was purchased by Selfridge.

With the creation of Camp Skeel the town of Oscoda greatly grew at that point.

There was an opportunity for more businesses to open.

There was an opportunity for more mom and pop shops to open up in the area.

In fact, we nearly tripled in population when Camp Skeel first opened.

As a whole, the community of Oscoda was very excited about this opportunity for Camp Skeel to come along and offer up a lot more opportunities for the community to be involved, to increase population, for more businesses to arise.

[Michael T. Jones] - Selfridge Air National Guard Base down northeast of Detroit, Michigan has had a relationship with what used to be Wurtsmith Air Force Base for many years.

After World War I, aircraft would come up here to do many things.

Part of that was landing on the ice on Van Ettan Lake, which is a small inland lake just outside the base perimeter.

They would also use the national forest as a target range and bombing range for practice bombs.

[David Schneider] - In 1941, a group of African-Americans began military aviation training at Tuskegee, Alabama.

Because of racial tension and segregation in the military at that time, African-Americans were mostly limited to non-combat roles.

However, the flight training program that started at Tuskegee, lasted throughout the war and produced thousands of black pilots, maintenance specialists and support groups that served honorably during the war.

In the spring of 1943, the Tuskegee pilots and support groups of the 332 fighter group were sent to Selfridge Field, just east of Detroit, for further training.

Most of the black pilots and enlisted men were then sent to The Oscoda Army Airfield, an auxiliary airfield of Selfridge.

This was because of the racial tension between the Tuskegee air crews and the populace of Detroit.

The Oscoda airfield was pretty primitive, but the Tuskegee airmen thrived.

Completed their training in December of 1943, and were deployed for combat in Italy.

[Barry Levine] - Well it was an auxiliary airfield for I think quite a few years an auxiliary group of Tuskegee airmen trained up in Oscoda.

And the backstory from what I read was city fathers weren't too happy about having black aviators and military personnel in town.

But the political leadership him here in Michigan went to bat for them.

And from what I've read, some of the accounts of citizens were actually generally pretty welcoming, given the biases and the bigotry of the times.

And they got past it and one of the officers who came up here was Benjamin O. Davis Jr. Davis was the only black cadet graduating from West Point in 1936.

So he’s the only black guy who was shunned all four years.

So nobody would eat with him.

Nobody had room with him.

Nobody would talk to him unless it was official business.

Straight line dedication ahead.

And then Davis went over and fought in North Africa and Italy against the Germans during World War Two, and he went on then to become the first black general in what was then became the Air Force, was the Army Air Force up until 1947.

And then the militay set up the Air Force as a separate branch of the service.

[David Schneider] - Wurtsmith Air Force Base has had several names.

It started in 1923 as Loud Reims Aviation Field.

Then became Camp Skeel in 1924.

In 1942, it became Oscoda Army Airfield.

And finally in 1953, it was renamed Wurtsmith Air Force Base after Major General Paul Wurtsmith.

General Wurtsmith was a Detroit native who had a distinguished World War II career.

In August 1927, Wurtsmith enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a flying cadet and earned his pilot wings at Kelly Field in Texas.

He became a second lieutenant in the Air Corps Reserves and served at Selfridge, near his hometown of Detroit, until being called to active duty at the start of World War II.

After distinguished service during the war, he was appointed the commander of the eighth Air Force at MacDill Field in Florida.

On September 13, 1946, he was killed in a crash when his B-25 encountered bad weather on a flight from Selfridge to MacDill.

General Wurtsmith earned the Distinguished Service Medal with one oak leaf cluster, the Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal and Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

He's buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

[Barry Levine] - Concurrently, General Wurtsmith, Paul Wurtsmith from Detroit, and he had a great record in World War II.

I think he was personally commended by General MacArthur for coordinating the air defense of Australia in the early days against the war against Japan.

In the early 1950s, Air Defense Command had a presence up at Wurtsmith and Air Defense Command, their purpose was in case there was penetration of our outer air defenses by the Russians, they would come to the defense of the continental United States.

So these planes would be on alert, be fully fueled and fully armed.

And from what I've read, some of the pilots would sometimes sleep in the aircraft.

So if a Klaxon went off, there was a warning that we had a problem, guys would be ready to go.

And their goal on alert duty was to be airborne in 5 minutes, which was something to launch a jet aircraft, the most complicated piece of equipment.

You got to check it out, make sure it's right the engine, start up properly and get airborne really quick.

And then there were also involved in the air defense of the Soo Locks, because the locks, which weren't all that far away, were a key part of the national defense.

And so I assume they flew patrol over the Soo Locks and just keeping an eye out in case there was any enemy activity that wasn't.

But you just never knew.

Especially after Pearl Harbor, when we had a pretty unhappy surprise of the Japanese naval forces.

[Michael T. Jones] - In 1960, Strategic Air Command decided to position B-52 and KC-135 aircraft at Wurtsmith Air Force Base.

The runway, which was built for fighters prior to Strategic Air Command, had to be increased and the SAC runway needed to be approximately 12,800 feet long for the B-52s and KC-135 to take off.

In 1960, the B-52H model was first developed, and that was a series of B-52s from As through Hs.

And H was the last model produced was brought to Wurtsmith, along with KC-135As.

[David Schneider] - First conceived just after the end of World War II, when the military expressed the need for aircraft that could complete missions without the need of using bases in foreign countries.

The Boeing Aircraft Company was awarded the contract to design this aircraft in 1946, and after many revisions and changes in the final design, the B-52 took its maiden flight in 1952.

The plane was tested extensively for the next few years, being a brand new design, being a very large and complex airplane.

There were many learning curves for deploying the B-52.

It was large and heavy.

It was hard on runways, engine and fuel system problems, as well as other nagging discrepancies kept popping up.

Finally, B-52B’s entered operational service with the 93rd heavy bombardment wing on June 29, 1955.

At that time, the Cold War with the Soviet Union was really heating up.

The Soviets were increasing their military capabilities by leaps and bounds Nuclear war was a real possibility.

Just ask any baby boomer how many times they dived under their school desks during civil defense drills.

B-52s were flown at high altitudes around the clock, close to Soviet borders.

So if the U.S. was attacked, they could quickly respond.

But with the advent of deadly ground to air missiles leaving the B-52 vulnerable, the bomber was turned into a low level penetration aircraft, literally flying under the radar as low as 400 feet above ground.

This was a job it was never inte but the B-52 adapted to it well.

In the following years, the B-52 one task to another, all the whi still on standby as a nuclear de During the Cold War, ground launched and submarine la ballistic missiles became deterr But the B-52 carrying up to 20 air launch guided missiles completed the deterrent triad.

During the Vietnam War, it flew of missions dropping conventiona B-52s, in conjunction with the N did long range sea reconnaissanc mine laying and were equipped with long range anti-shipping mi The B-52s flew missions during the Gulf War in the early nineti Missions in Afghanistan in the e 2000s.

Missions against ISIL in And flew missions in 2021 against the Taliban.

The airplane has been in active service close to 70 years and if the Air Force sticks to i with upgrades and new engines, it could remain in the active in until 2050.

Unbelievably, the B-52 could be flying for 100 years.

[Barry Levine] - B-52 crews consisted of six members typically.

There was a pilot, copilot, an electronics warfare officer, a navigator, a gunner.

In the ea of the B-52, who the gunner was all the way at the back of the a And later models, he was station at the front and a radar navigat The Radar Navigator was essentially the bombardier.

For a big airplane the crew spacing was minimal.

It was not gourmet food, I think it was pretty basic rati that these guys took up on their There was a lavatory, but it's pretty primitive.

And, this was not Delta flying down to Orlando.

[Nick Consiglio] - The radar navigator had the ability to guide the aircraf once they got to the IP, or initial point, they would take over.

For the mo if they were using a visual bom you know, the crosshairs that yo would see during World War II.

The celestial navigator was able to navigate using electronic equipment to get ground fixes and whatnot.

He also used could use a sextant The B-52 was equipped with a sextant port upstairs that he wo actually take an old fashioned sextant and align with the stars But they, for the most part, use electronics to navigate.

At Wurtsmith, the B-52 and KC-13 were owned by Strategic Air Command, they remained on most of the bas The ADC, Air Defense Command wit F-106’s was in a separate area.

They had their own separate alert area, their own housing.

So they were a separate unit there on the base.

The B-52’s carried I want to say five nuclear weapons.

So there was nuclear storage on Our F-106’s also carried a nucle tipped missile called the Jeanie You know, it carried anti aircraft missiles, but it carried one Jeannie rocke they could fire out and take out or five bombers, depending on ho close they were flying together, as opposed to using a single air missile to take out one aircraft [Bob Bailey] - F-106, it still is the world’s f single engine jet aircraft.

It broke the record back in the sixties I think, and its 1500 and some odd miles an hour.

So it's even faster than the F-1 and still got to record for the fastest single engine aircraft.

[Nick Consiglio] - Around United States, there was approximately 25 bases that had fighter interceptor aircraft on to fly at a moments notice if we were attacked.

The defenses today of any nation are pretty difficult for an aircraft to penetrate.

So we relied more on either stealth aircraft that could penetrate defenses un Or, in the case of B-52, it'd be a standoff weapon that would be able to fire hyper missiles, which would be very di to shoot down or cruise missiles that fly and they hug the ground So you really don't see them on radar and be able to penetrate the enemy defenses The ground support crews for the B-52 were primarily enlisted personnel.

You had what they called organizational maintenance perso Those were the crew chiefs that were assigned to the aircra that took care of that, you know adding oil, having them fueled, taking care of any discrepancies that were written up by the air Then there was also specialist field maintenance that they could call upon.

For example, if they had a hydra there was a hydraulic shop, elec aircraft environmental system shop, various shops that would send out specialists to fix cert Ground support might include everything needed to run company You'd really be running an air f So you need accounting, need payroll, you need medical, you need supplies, you need aviation fuel, purchasi It was probably about 3 to 4000 and civilian personnel on base so your running a good sized com So everything a good sized compa need, you need on the Air Force somebody, military or civilian w to make sure that those needs we [Joseph Provost] - A crew chief in the air force has the overall responsibility for maintaining the aircraft.

Crew chief has to know a little bit of about everything but you master nothing.

It was the crew chiefs responsibility to make sure everything was up to par.

Fuel, hydraulics, everything on the aircraft was ready to go, when the flight crew arrived at that aircraft.

[Bob Bailey] - My main job in the Air Force is in airframe repair was to do anything that was structural on the aircraft and that would include bird stri damage if that would happen.

Some incident on the aircraft where a mechanic may have slippe a wrench or did something, faste that would get stripped out.

Any that would happen on the aircraf And then they would have quite a few what they called TCTOs, which were time compliance tech And those would come down from the Air Force and they woul you need to fix this part.

And we have a particular plan for you to fix that part, and th we would have to do that.

But for the most part, it was incidences that would particularly happen on the fligh or somewhere else.

For the most it was a 40 hour workweek really for me because we had two So there was also a night shift working and a day shift.

So we were pretty well covered f but about 6 hours in the squadro and the shop working on the airc Then in the hours that we weren' one of the guys in the shop was always on standby.

So if something happened during those particular hours, w be called in and have to come back in and fix the plane.

Weekends were the same.

Normally we had weekends off, unless you are on standby and if you were on standby, you had to be on the base and you had to let maintenance c know exactly where you were and phone numbers, you can be reache Of course, we didn't have cell phones back then.

So if you were at a restaurant or the movie theater or whatever, you had to give the telephone number so they could p So you had to be on 24 hour call for the whole weekend.

So I would say that for the most of things weren't going fluie.

You were working 40 to 50 hours The F-106 sat on alert at all U. air bases that had them assigned capable of taking off within 5 m They had at least 2 to 3 interceptors on ready alert with the air crew, pilots actually staying with the aircraft at a little area where they could live, eat, watc whatever the case may be, but had to be airborne within 5 minutes of the alert klaxon going off.

The B-52s and a KC-135s had to be off the ground within 15 minutes.

So they would follow and it typically would be three B-52s, followed by a tanke and then two more B-52s, followed by another tanker.

There was five B-52s on alert at times, and approximately 3 to 4 Once the klaxon went off aircraft or engines were started they would immediately taxi and take off one behind another, which was called a MITO, minimum interval takeoff.

They would roll probably within 30 seconds of the first aircraft So that was pretty difficult for pilots because you were taking o into the turbulence of the aircraft in front of you.

Plus, at the time, the B-52 generated lots of black smoke, which made it difficult even for the aircraft following to see the center line of the ru Once they were airborne, the KC-135s would refuel the B-5 to top off their tanks, and then they would hit additional tankers in route.

[Barry Levine] - That being the case, you're flying two aircraft.

They're both enormous aircraft, within 20 or 30 feet of each oth You might be flying a 250, 300 miles an hour.

It could be night, it could be b weather, it can be turbulence.

And you had to get these aircraf close enough to each other so you could pump thousands of g of fuel from the KC-135 into the So it's flying is not for the faint hearted.

[Nick Consiglio] - Also the KC-135 was up there.

He was not only there to refuel but if any of F-106s was or any other aircraft required fuel that was their their mission to keep everything airborne.

The air crews during an alert if they if they had to take off during an alert and they were going to war with the Russians, they didn't know where they were until they got off the ground.

Then they would open up their mi envelopes and then authenticate back to Omaha, where SAC was headquartered, to authenticate that this is the aircraft, this is th this is where we're going.

So it was all done after you were airborne.

[Barry Levine] - In the very early 1960s, the Str Air Command essentially took con of the three Michigan bases, Sawyer, Kincheloe as well as Wur SAC, the acronym, of course, is SAC for Strategic Air Command They're one of their primary air was the B-52 heavy bomber.

B52’s, eight jet engines weighs 450,000 pounds fully loaded, nuclear capable.

You can load it with conventional weapons and with mid air refueling could fly anywhere in the world.

The Wurtsmith airfield as the the other ones had to be reconfigured in the ru lengthen.

It's a huge aircraft, so I think the typical runways here for the B-52s that all three air bases was about 12,000 foot long.

The concrete was 24 inches deep because you have a real heavy ai SAC had bombers orbiting throughout most of the 1960s act Operation Chrome Dome was their military code.

So they would load up bombers from various SAC bases.

And SAC had bases throughout the continental Unite including our Michigan bases.

They'd fly up towards Greenland, and these crews might be on a mission for 24 hours.

[Nick Consiglio] - Living on an Air Force base as enlisted person initially starte living in a barracks, a three story barracks, two man rooms.

You know, we had a TV, we had a common shower room down Eventually, they were running out of space, so they allowed some of us to move off base.

We received separate rations for doing that.

We'd go get an apartment and live off the base.

The people that were married in Air Force had base housing.

There was officers housing and there was enlisted housing.

Officers were, of course, a little better than the enliste basically a family home, sometim with a garage and you know, a backyard and places for the children to play, to grow up.

[Barry Levine] - On base there was a chapel for religious and spiritual needs.

There would be a movie theater, you'd have a bank, you'd have sh I believe the elementary schools of the SAC bases typically would be on site on th The older kids might go to the local high school in Oscoda.

I think that the military leader would recognize these, the men.

and then when women joined, they started serving out these b high stress situations away from So I think they would want to make it as amenable as possible, keep morale up.

[Nick Consiglio] - There at Wurtsmith of course you had all four seasons.

Summers were great, mosquitoes weren't too bad.

Winters could be pretty harsh, especially when you're trying to on an aircraft outside in subzer weather and snow blowing.

The Air Force, of course, gave u plenty of cold weather gear to w But when you're working on an ai and you're trying to install scr and nuts and bolts, you have to take the gloves off.

[Bob Bailey] - I remember a stretch in Wurtsmit where the, we were below zero probably for about five or six days and I was trying to work on the aircraft out when it was ten below and they actually would only let us work on the plane for 5 minut Then they made us get back into the launch truck and warm up.

My fingers actually stuck to the one time trying to put a faster So that was pretty miserable.

[Nick Consiglio] - Wurtsmith was located adjacent to the Lake Huron and they also had a little lake called Van Etten Lake that families would go picnic.

They also a lot of the enlisted guys would like to go over to, there's a dam there in Oscoda that salmon used to run at certa times of the year, so the guys w up there, go salmon fishing.

[Joseph Provost] - In my free time on base, well, I didn't have a car when I I didn't have any transportation My car was broke down at home in So I was kind of, you know, shoe leather express anywhere I had t Unless you could make friends with somebody who had a ride.

But off duty time, I hooked up with some guys in the barrack that I lived with in the barrack and we did a lot of hunting and fishing up there.

We didn't go downtown too often.

We just, you know, rather get get away from everybody, get out or it's quiet, get out in the woods, get out on the Au Sable river, sit there and fish for hours.

You know, even if you didn't catch anything, you know, you got 12 beers and a fishing pole, life is good.

Wurtsmith was a full service bas so it had a lot of activities that you could enjoy you did that sort of thing.

They had intramural basketball, intramural softball that they pl If you wanted to join that, the base had a bowling alley, ob and a movie theater, which guys would partake of and we also had there was a base gas station and a mechanic on duty to fix your car.

But I think most of us went down for our entertainment to go to various restaurants and drinking establishments and go dancing and all that sort I did go home quite frequently at Wurtsmith.

I had, my own car at the time, so I did go home as often as I c And then, you know, I was so clo and I could see all of my family and my friends and all that stuf [Barry Levine] - It's a hard, challenging life with a lot of the airmen got a great deal of satisfaction out of it, not only from serving their coun but in working in close cooperat These were small towns, not much to do, sometimes off ho The weather could be harsh, especially if you're from Miami, and coming up to northern Michig in the winter, it's a probably a little bit of an adjustment.

And so it seemed like everybody pulled together to do the right [Suspenseful Music] [Nick Consiglio] - 1965, when the U.S. sent B-52s to Vietnam, they sent over the B-52 F model, and it found out that the B-52 D which they modified, could carry more weapons and even fly further and had a better electronics countermeasure system in it.

So they modified the B-52s with what they called big belly They modified the bomb bay to carry more bombs.

They configured the wing racks to carry conventional bombs.

The aircraft was then painted black and camouflaged for that type of warfare and was used primarily in Vietnam.

There was a 11 day period, which is often referred to as the 11 days of Christmas.

In 1972, the air force launched B-52 raids well over 100 aircraf at a time, arriving three ships in and out of that area within 1 We lost, 15 B-52s during that ti were shot down by SAM missiles.

33 men perished, 33 men ended up in Hanoi Hilton, were eventually repatriated in 1 [Barry Levine] - B-52 missions in Vietnam, our air force flew over 120,000 sorties in total over some over South Vietnam, over Laos, over North Vietnam.

Operation linebacker 2 was Presi Nixon's effort to bring the Nort Vietnamese back to the negotiati in December of 1972.

It was very controversial here in the United States.

There were all sorts of protests against Nixon's policies.

However, our P.O.W.s in Hanoi, when they heard the B-52s overhead, cheered because they t it would be their ticket home and they were exactly right.

We bombed Hanoi, Haiphong and ot targets that were generally off But the B-52s did the job and the North Vietnamese shot the wad of their SAM, surface to air missiles of SAM missiles and they said all right, back to negotiating table in January 197 At the end of January, we signed the Paris Peace Accord Whatever you think and your view about, the Vietnam War is their We always stay away from politic here at the Yankee Air Museum.

But the B-52, is an important part of our effo they helped bring the war to a c [Joseph Provost] - Up at Wurtsmith, we had 15 aircr assigned on station, these are B And out of that whole time, six were uploaded on nuclear alert, 24/7 all the time.

But only four of those aircraft were manned.

The other two, we were referred to as babysitters.

During an alert, if one aircraft could not make the mission, the crew could just hop out of that aircraft, drag all their stuff and go to the babysitter, fire up engines and continue on with the mission.

[Barry Levine] - The United States had a wide range of military bases, not just air force bases, but Army, Navy, everything.

I think our political and military leaderships saw, we saw the Soviet Union and then China as implacable enemies The Soviet Union surprised us in when they exploited a nuclear bo and Khrushchev was not afraid of saber rattling, and we were worried.

And I think the mindset, particularly after World War II, when we got caught with our pants down at Pearl Harbor.

And when World War II started, we had something like the eighth largest military in the w And our political and military leadership said that would be in to deal with the Russian and then to a lesser degree at t the communist Chinese threat.

And better safe than sorry we had a draft so you could have an endless supply of people coming in to fill a series of jo And we had a lot of bases.

So if you lost ten bases in a surprise attack, maybe you'd have ten more to launch a retaliation.

The theory became known as mutually assured destruction, MA although I don't know when that initially came up or who came up But the theory, message was to t Russians, find you take us out, you'll be sure to be, you're joining us down in the af And the theory was that would he keep the peace because no ration would want to destroy themselves their political views are, polit aims are.

And you could make a c we wasted a ton of money on it.

You can also make a plausible ca it worked like a charm because there was no nuclear exchange.

Wurtsmith wound down as many SAC in the late eighties and early 1 Cold war came to a conclusion and the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 The nature of the Soviet Union and the Russian government began and it became, at least to me, a less adversarial relati than it was say in the 1950s and Very expensive to run a military whether it's Wurtsmith or anywhe So there was, I believe, a base closing commis I think I have the name wrong, b you try to set it up as a nonpar Kinchloe already closed in the 1 like 77, 78.

And the decision was made to clo both Sawyer and Wurtsmith.

Not that the bases were doing anything wrong, but we had more bases than we ne We had SAC bases, we had a lot of them in the fift in the sixties, and it was just So it's a huge blow to the local communities.

Oscoda is not, to me at least a terribly affluent com And these were good jobs and I say they were probably in of pushing 4000 people employed between the military ba and there were civilians.

So was property taxes, sales, sales tax revenue, businesses for the restaurants, bars, movies, everything else in And then it just kind of went aw So it was a really tough adjustment for all three communi here in Michigan.

And I can't imagine Oscoda was any different.

[Cathy Wusterbarth] - When the Air Force base was decommissioned in 1993, it was devastating for our commu The township was approached with the offer to take on those that the the base was leaving and they needed to decide what they were going to keep out of the properties in maybe equipment and land and how they would utilize that in the f An airport authority was created at that time and it was decided that they wou the some of the facilities such and the libraries and things lik and continue to run those on the through the township.

As you can imagine that the economy of Oscoda was affected b the decommissioning of the base.

Businesses were closed.

The schools shrank.

There were, you know, many aspec of the economy and the township that were affected.

Now, tourism is our main economy in Oscoda, so that continued to thrive and it still does to this day.

We utilize the airport mainly for leasing to businesses And we have one major employer called Kalitta Ai They are the largest employer in our county.

And this company contributes to the community in ways that I can't even count.

They contribute to our charitable organizations.

They attract a skilled workforce and their reputation and the work that they do attrac potential new businesses.

So we're very blessed to have them in our community.

And there are multiple other successful businesses as you travel around the airport Because of the investment in the businesses that are in Os and the local leadership, our economy is growing and we have exciting times ahead Our tourism industry is very str and people recognize the natural that our area has to offer, including the workforce or the work opportunities that t [Nick Consiglio] - So Wurtsmith played a very vital in our national defense, both in the Air Defense Command for any inbound aircraft.

More importantly, it was our, it gave us the ability to retali if we were attacked by the Russi It just played such an important not only there, but even in the early years as a range for Selfridge for example, to train Tuskegee Airmen, to tra right after World War I, leading into World War II, and b very integral part of the development of the Air Force.

[Barry Levine] - The B-52 to me was probably, lik one of the most important aircra in US aviation history, world av history, its length of service.

It's used in a variety of purpos It was there at so many cold war Cuba, Vietnam, general patrol against the chrome dome on missions.

It saw service in Iraq, it saw service over Afghanistan.

So if there's U.S. combat, chances are the B-52 is there.

So right there, the importance i [Joseph Provost] - The B-52, they’re still flying t The first the first airplanes, the first B-52s began flying in 1953.

The aircraft I was assigned to at Wurtsmith were built in 1960.

Here it is 2022, with the new en they're going to be putting on re-engineered the aircraft.

They're expected to try to still as a standoff weapon in the year 2050.

The B-52 is important part of American aviation history in the defense of our co [Bob Bailey] - I liked Wurtsmith only because it was close to hom It was in Michigan.

It was miserable in the winter.

But in the summer it was fine and it was a recreational area, so it was fun to be around in th So yeah, it was, it was it was a pleasant memory for the most part, except for those cold days and those high piles of snow.

But other than that, I enjoyed i [David Schneider] - As of the early model B-52s became obsolete many were loaned by the Air Forc to many air museums for display two ended up in Michigan.

One at the K.I.

Sawyer Heritage Air Museum and the other at the Yankee Air Museum at Willow Run Airport The Yankee Air Museum's B-52 D known as 677, has been on display for many years.

More on the museum and 677 in a bit.

The START one treaty was signed This was an agreement that requi and Soviet Russian reductions of strategic nuclear weapons.

As part of the agreement there were 375 B-52s flown to Davis-Monthan Airbase in Ariz Everything that was usable was taken off the bombers, and they were chopped up by a hu blade dropped from a crane.

The blades sliced into each plan which severed the wings and left the fuselage in three p The dissected B-52s has remained for three months so that Russian satellites could that the bombers had been destro and they were then sold for scra Interestingly enough, there were provisions that the B-52s is at museums, although they would never fly ag were subject to satellite and other inspections by the Sov And later, after the fall of the Soviet blo the treaty obligations passed to 12 Soviet successor st Getting back to the Yankee Air Museum's a B-52 D, 677.

It was flown into Willow Run, on October 26, 1983, on long term loan from the Natio of the United States Air Force.

The Yankee Air Museum was the first civilian organization to have a B-52 put on loan to them.

According to the December 1983 issue of the Yankee Air Force ne 677 is a veteran aircraft having particip in hundreds of arc light bombing missions in operation Linebacker 2 in December 1972, that brought an end to the war i and ultimately led to the releas of our prisoners of war from the Hanoi Hilton.

677 was the last B-52 to drop bombs on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos in 197 Over the years, 677 was showing its age and has been undergoing restoration.

It is one of the many aircraft and exhibits that can be seen at the Yankee Air Museum at Will [Dramatic Music] The Yankee Air Museum is located at the Willow Run Airport.

Their address is 47884 D Street, Bellevue, Michigan.

Visit their website at Yankee Ai dot org for exhibits and events.

The Wurtsmith Air Museum is located at 4071 East Van Ettan Street, Oscoda, Michigan.

Visit their website for times an For more information on Oscoda, the Robert J.

Parks Library at 6010 North Skeel Avenue, Osco Visit their website at Iosco Arenac Library dot org.

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