Malmstrom Air Force Base

The colonel on the panel spent a year behind wire before he came here. Einar Malmstrom, the Chicago-born son of Swedish immigrants, commanded the 356th Fighter Group in P-47s until he was shot down over France on his 58th mission in April 1944. For thirteen months he was the senior American officer in the south compound of Stalag Luft I at Barth, Germany. He reached Great Falls as deputy wing commander in February 1954 and died that August, when his T-33 crashed just after takeoff; investigators concluded he had probably steered it away from a populated area.

What the plaque says

Malmstrom Air Force Base Since 1942, Malmstrom Air Force Base has been on the frontline of America's national defense. Known locally as East Base during World War II, B-17 Flying Fortress pilots trained here and the base served as a staging area for military planes flown to Russia under the World War II Lend-Lease program. With the beginning of the Cold War, the mission of the base changed as tensions heightened between the U.S. and its former ally. Pilots trained for the Berlin Airlift at the air base in the late 1940s. For a time, it was the home of fighter interceptor and air refueling squadrons. In 1955, the base was renamed in honor of Colonel Einar Malmstrom, who died in a tragic aircraft accident west of the airport on Gore Hill. Malmstrom AFB entered the space age in October 1962 when the nations first Minuteman missiles went on-alert in support of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Malmstrom AFB is currently the home of the 341st Space Wing of Air Force Space Command and is responsible for the maintenance, operation, and security of approximately 150 Minuteman III missiles located in silos scattered across north-central Montana.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Giant Springs State Park — 2.6 mi
  The spring William Clark called the largest he ever saw, and the 201-foot river a fifth-grade class got into the record books.
• C. M. Russell Museum — 3.2 mi
  The cowboy artist's house and log studio, and the story of Nancy Russell, who turned his bar-tab paintings into a career.

More markers nearby

• Lewis & Clark Portage Route — steps away
• Black Eagle — 2.4 mi
• Coal Mines and Railroads — 5.1 mi
• Twenty-Eight Mile Station — 5.4 mi