ICBM Heavy, Concrete Silo Covers Moved Aside by Glowing Discs

“My father told me about the alarms they had (at Minuteman sites) because a missile silo had been breached, that the concrete covers that sit on top of the missiles were set off to one side, and the radioactive material in the warhead was dead.”

- Martin Cole, son of Boeing Minuteman engineer Alden Stockwell Cole

November 23, 2010 Whitefish, Montana   - When the United States decided to build Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles and place them in underground silos around Malmstrom AFB in Montana, Warren AFB in Wyoming and Minot AFB in North Dakota, one of the unsung heroes behind the scenes was a Boeing engineer named Alden Stockwell Cole. Alden Cole was born on March 10, 1922, in Portland, Oregon, and died on January 26, 1989, in Eugene, Oregon, at age 67. After high school graduation, Alden Cole began working for Boeing Aircraft Manufacturing Co. in Seattle, Washington, as a sheet metal worker in 1941.