Ronald Navickas: Nuclear Weapons Maintenance

By David Adams, Honor Flight Chicago Veteran Interview Volunteer

Ronald G. Navickas was born in Pontiac, Michigan. He spent his childhood in Pontiac and Highland Park, Michigan.  He attended Highland Park High School in Oak Park, Michigan where he was on the swim team.  In 1953 at age 17, he left school and joined the Air Force Reserve.  Ron was assigned to the Military Police with the 439th Fighter-Bomber Wing at Selfridge AB, Mount Clemens, Michigan. Ron served in the ceremonial honor guard and drill team of the 439th FBW, the “Wolf-air-ines.”  He enlisted in the Air Force the next year and was sworn in on November 29, 1954.  

Ron attended 12 weeks of Basic Training at Lackland AFB, San Antonio, TX.  He says that the most important lesson he learned was “to obey orders.” Before completing Basic, he interviewed to be a dental technician.  The Colonel interviewer asked just one question after which he terminated the interview, apparently having been dissatisfied with Ron’s answer.  He did test into several other career fields and remembers being selected to attend aerial photography school at the 3415th Technical Training Wing, Lowry AFB, Denver, CO.  Ron was delighted!  But wait. When he arrived on base he learned that the class had been closed during the ten days he was enroute from Lackland.  He had to choose another course. He was so disappointed.  Ron could choose between the weapons or munitions schools. He remembers the munitions school was one week shorter so he chose munitions which included the nuclear kind.  Little did he know that his Top Secret security clearance would not be granted until three weeks into the curriculum. Ron was on KP instead of in class for those three weeks! 

Ron graduated with five other airmen in October, 1955. He and three others received an assignment to the 7th Aviation Depot Squadron, Goose Air Base (the “Goose”) at Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada. He tried to swap orders with another munitions school graduate headed for an air base in England.  Ron told him that he has family in Scotland so this seemed a pretty valid reason, but not the only one, of course.  The Air Force declined to change his orders.  Because the four were going “overseas,” outside the United States, they were required to be processed at Manhattan Beach Air Force Station in Brooklyn, New York. After spending three weeks waiting for orders, Ron learned that the Air Force was not aware they were there, although they had signed in.  Apparently, they needed yet another week of specialized training back at Lowry, so off they went TDY to get it. Ron recalls that he and the others did spend their three weeks in New York to good effect!

He remembers December 1, 1955 all too well. On that day he arrived at the Goose during a howling blizzard. As Ron recalls, this was not the only blizzard during his 15 month tour of duty.  The 7th ADS was a support unit for the Strategic Air Command (SAC).  His relatively small and secretive unit maintained the nuclear weapons stored on base.  He worked as part of a four-man team in an underground storage facility known as an “igloo.” Goose AB was the only base in Canada at which nuclear weapons were stored and maintained. The base itself on the North Atlantic coast and its proximity to Europe and the Soviet Union made it ideal as the support air base for SAC bombers and their crews.  During Ron’s tour at the Goose he saw all the bombers transit the base: B-36 Peacemaker, B-47 Stratojet, and B-52 Stratofortress or BUFF.

Ron has vivid memories of maintaining the Mark VI Mod 4 atomic bombs.  He states that the Mark VI was an offshoot of the “Fat Man” bomb dropped on Nagasaki; it looked very much the same, and weighed several thousand pounds. When a bomb came into the “M bay” for maintenance, time was needed for it to warm up in a very controlled process since it had been in the bomb bay of a SAC bomber at high altitude.  His task, among others, was to remove the conventional explosive detonators from inside the bomb.  Yes, he had to crawl inside. One of his most vivid memories resulted from the October, 1956 Hungarian revolution. SAC’s response was to pre-position its bomber force at the Goose, among other bases.  He recalls the parking ramp being packed wingtip to wingtip with bombers.  The 7th “emptied all our igloos” of nuclear weapons for uploading into the bombers. Once the world cooled down, the bombers left and the igloos received their allotment of Mark VI bombs.  Things got back to normal. Ron recalls that he “fell in love with Goose Base” and his “cohesive unit.”  He extended his one-year tour for an extra ninety days.

Before he rotated back to the States, he endured another major blizzard which shut down the base for two weeks. The snowpack reached the bottom of the second floor of his barracks.  Gratefully the barracks were connected to the chow hall by underground tunnels.  While there were no bombers landing, more importantly, there was no fresh food.  Ron cannot say he ever got used to powdered eggs or reconstituted “mystery meat.”  As an  upside of his tour, he earned his GED. 

Leaving Goose in early 1957, Ron moved to Smoky Hill AFB, Salina, Kansas (later named Schilling AFB).   He was assigned to the 36th Aviation Depot Squadron, part of SAC’s 802nd Air Division.  He essentially had the same job as at Goose. One event stands out from his service at Smoky Hill. His team was delivered a very battered bomb, scraped up, and with pieces missing.  Ron’s job was to dismantle and deactivate it. He volunteered to crawl into the bomb and dismantle the detonators. While he was inside the bomb, one detonator “popped and flashed.”  He thought he was dead yet recorded “the fastest time anyone came out of a bomb.” Ron completed his enlistment on September 28, 1958 as an Airman First Class receiving an honorable discharge.

Now a civilian and a veteran, Ron recalls that there were no jobs in nuclear weapons maintenance – no surprise there. Over the years he held a variety of jobs, first in Florida where he met and married Lois, then back in Detroit.  Among occupations, he worked in sales for such companies as General Dynamics and Bendix Industrial Control. In 2007, he retired from the Army’s Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) at the Detroit Arsenal, Warren, Michigan, as a logistics analyst.

He and Lois, now married for 51 years, have traveled throughout the lower 48, Alaska and Hawaii as well as Scotland.  As soon as permitted after COVID eases up, they plan to visit the Italian town near Milan in which Lois’ family has roots.

Thank you, Ron, for your dedication and service! Enjoy this special day of honor in Washington D.C. with your comrades in arms!