The 564th Missile Squadron

The panel ends with the wrong unit. The 341st Missile Wing still keeps 150 Minuteman IIIs at Malmstrom; the squadron inactivated in August 2008 was this one, the 564th. When a defense review cut the national force from 500 missiles to 450, the Air Force chose the odd squadron out, the only one at Malmstrom still running its own launch-control configuration. The last booster left silo Tango 41 on July 28, 2008. Beside the panel stand a Valier American Legion memorial to those killed in the Birch Creek flood of June 8, 1964, and a marker to Meriwether Lewis.

What the plaque says

The 564th Missile Squadron Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union ran high during the cold war. Both sides relied heavily on their nuclear weapons arsenals as deterrents to actual combat between the two superpowers. When the Soviets launched the first man-made earth-orbiting satellite, Sputnik, in October 1957, it ushered in a new and deadlier phase to the cold war, the use of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) to carry nuclear warheads. The Montana missile field is a 23,500 square mile area that encompasses nine Montana counties and was the largest missile field in the United States. At its height in the late twentieth century, it contained 200 Minuteman missiles under the command of the 341st Missile Wing based at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls. This area was controlled by the 564th Missile Squadron. Nicknamed "Deuce," the squadron was responsible for five Minuteman Missile alert facilities and fifty nuclear missile silos. The unit originated as the 564th Bombardment Squadron during World War II, flying B-24 "Liberators" on missions in central and southern Europe. The Air Force reactivated it as an ICBM squadron in 1965. The 564th was the first squadron in Montana to receive the new Minuteman II missiles in 1967 and had upgraded to Minuteman III ICBMs by 1975. The USAF inactivated the 341st Missile Squadron and removed the Minuteman III missiles from their silos in 2008.

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• The Front Range of the Rockies — 8.7 mi
• Dupuyer — 8.7 mi
• Old Agency 1880-1894 — 11 mi
• Chief Mountain and Old North Trail — 15 mi