Ellsworth AFB and Lakota Drama

We are going on our own because the second tour offered did not interest us.  So our stop was Ellsworth Air Force Base.  Created in 1942 to train B17 bomber crews.  Many crews were sent to Europe to participate in the bombing campaign over Germany.  After the war, it was the base to the B36, perhaps the largest Air Force planes.  As the Cold War progressed, it was a main base for the Strategic Air Command and a base for an extensive missile layout.  The nature of assignments has changed and the personnel head count has decreased from about 25,000 to 3.500 now.

We visited the South Dakota Air Force Museum and took a tour of the base.

A B1B bomber on permanent display.  Makes me look very small.

We toured the museum and as always, more time was required to see it all.

Sue always thinks of her dad, Frank, who served in Korea during that war.

We then went on a tour of the base.

Our guide is a retired Air Force man.  He had knowledge about the areas we could see, mostly confined to this missile training facility.  A B1B bomber passes in the background.

A map of the location of missile silos around the base.  Each number at the end of a yellow path was a silo.

The disarmed missile in its silo.  Tourists are warned that anything dropped into the silo will not be recovered.  It would be interesting to see what has fallen.

The warhead of the missile pointed heavenward.  The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) agreement in 1979 mandated the closure of all Minuteman 1 missile silos.  According to the narrator, when the US inspectors arrived in Russia, the silos there were filled with water and could not have been used to launch missiles.

This mural greeted trainees.

At our dinner, a group of Lakota Sioux dancers from the Pine Ridge and Red Bud reservations performed a play illustrating the oral history method of the tribe in the past to educate young ones of their traditions.  The man at the drum is Red Cloud, a descent of the Red Cloud who was a leader at the time the Black Hills were settled.

The woman on the right was our narrator and gave a drama.

An flute player.