bases that controlled nuclear weapons maintained some integrity. Brigadier General Anthony Woolson, the base commander, still showed up at his office every day to check the status of his dwindling organizations. The entire base command took on the name “Malmstrom Operations Group,” and the command structure was radically streamlined. There were no longer separate wings or squadrons, there was just “The Operations Group,” often simply called “The Wing.”
The 341st’s slab-fronted headquarters building had stylized 1960s architecture. The center section of the building had all glass walls. Because the power was frequently off, the remaining staff moved their offices to the center section so there would be enough light available to work. But after they spent the first few months bundled up in pile caps and parkas, General Woolson moved his entire staff to the 40th Helicopter Squadron’s hangar. The building had originally been designed for maintenance of KC-135s, so it was built on a grand scale. Following Woolson’s orders, the hangar had been retrofitted with enormous coal-fired space heaters situated in three corners of the building. The southwest corner of the hangar was dominated by a coal pile. This coal was shuttled to the heaters in wheelbarrows.
Locals had started mining a surface coal seam just west of Lehigh, a few miles southwest of Windham, and the coal was delivered in a five-yard-capacity dump truck that simply drove into the hangar when the main door was opened. The new coal mining co-op was thrilled to swap coal for JP-4, since they needed the liquid fuel to operate their heavy equipment. For lighting and for power to run tools and communications equipment, a 20-KW diesel generator set up outside was run continuously.
Most of the 341st’s offices were in trailers that had been towed into the hangar and clustered around two of the heaters. Because of the trailers and the coal pile, they never lost the feeling that they were camping out inside the hangar.
General Woolson’s office was spartan. A black-and-white still photo from the 1936 British movie
When the western power grid collapsed, the widely separated MAFs reverted to backup power. Their generators were fueled by tanks that averaged 1,800-gallon capacity. It didn’t take long for Woolson’s logistics planners to do the math and conclude that an order had to be given soon to shut down the backup generators. It was better, they concluded, to keep some fuel on hand for contingent needs rather than to run the tanks completely dry.
After the backup generators had been shut down, the MAFs became essentially uninhabitable. So Woolson’s command had to rely on volunteer “eyes and ears” to make sure that the unmanned MAFs and LFs remained secure from intrusion. There were surprisingly few security breaches. In the first year after the Crunch began, only two deserted but locked MAFs had their aboveground offices ransacked by looters. There were also signs of a halfhearted attempted forced entry at one of the silos at the far end of Judith Basin County, but given the design, whoever had cut through the fence soon gave up on attacking the massive door.
Farmers and ranchers on the land surrounding the silos and MAFs were deputized by the 341st. They were given written “authorized deadly force” orders for anyone making forced entry. Coordination of security for each MAF and its associated silos was made the responsibility of one senior airman, usually E-5 or higher. Joshua Watanabe was one of just two E-4s entrusted with this job. The only other E-4 who had been given the responsibility was a security forces specialist.
9. Decrees
“I, as President do declare that the national emergency still exists; that the continued private hoarding of gold and silver by subjects of the United States poses a grave threat to peace, equal justice, and well-being of the United States; and that appropriate measures must be taken immediately to protect the interest of our people. Therefore, pursuant to the above authority, I hereby proclaim that such gold and silver holdings are prohibited, and that all such coin, bullion or other possessions of gold and silver be tendered within fourteen days to agents of the Government of the United States for compensation at the official price, in the legal tender of the Government. All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed pending action in the due course of the law. All sales or purchases or movements of such gold and silver within the borders of the United States and its territories, and all foreign exchange transactions or movements of such metals across the border are hereby prohibited.”
Bradfordsville, Kentucky
March, the Second Year
Sheila Randall owned a tidy little general store in Bradfordsville. Nearly half of the store’s display cases held gardening seeds. This was the inventory that first made Sheila well known in Marion County. The rest of the cases held a wide variety of sewing supplies, hand tools, canned foods, batteries, flashlights, fishing tackle, knives, rucksacks, and other artifacts of the recently ended age of mass production. By current standards, Sheila Randall was a very prosperous business owner. She had patiently and shrewdly built up the store’s inventory, carefully trading from her initial supply of garden seeds, which had fit in one car trunk, when she, her son, and her elderly grandmother fled Radcliff, Kentucky, during the worst of the chaos in the early days of the Crunch.
Six months into the Crunch, Sheila learned that a Provisional Government (ProvGov) had been formed at Fort Knox, Kentucky. It was the brainchild of Maynard Hutchings, a member of the Hardin County board of supervisors. Although he had originally intended it to govern only Hardin County, it quickly grew beyond county lines and state lines, because it had the cooperative muscle provided by the U.S. Army units at Fort Knox. And, with the backing of the National Gold Depository, the Hutchings government had gravitas.
In Bradfordsville, ProvGov representatives delivered posters to be placed prominently at the post office, town hall, Bradfordsville Performing Arts Center, and at the old Bradfordsville School building. The latter had in recent years been turned into a senior center and designated storm shelter. The Provisional Government’s new poster read:
Effective Upon Posting in a prominent place in each County and in effect until further notice, the following items are hereby banned from private possession by the recently enacted Amplified United Nations Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) Normalization Accord:
1. All fully automatic or short-barreled rifles and shotguns (regardless of prior registration under the National Firearms Act of 1934).
2. Any rifle over thirty (.30) caliber, any shotgun or weapon of any description over twelve (12) gauge in diameter.
3. All semiautomatic rifles and shotguns, all rifles and shotguns capable of accepting a detachable magazine.
4. Any detachable magazines, regardless of capacity.
5. Any weapon with a fixed magazine that has a capacity of more than four (4) cartridges (or shells).
6. All grenades and grenade launchers, all explosives, detonating cord, and blasting caps (regardless of prior registration under the Gun Control Act of 1968 or state or local blasting permits).
7. All explosives precursor chemicals.
8. All firearms regardless of type that are chambered for military cartridges (including but not limited to 7.62mm NATO, 5.56mm NATO, .45 ACP, and 9mm Parabellum).
9. All silencers (regardless of prior registration under the National Firearms Act of 1934).
10. All night vision equipment, including, but not limited to, infrared, light amplification, or thermal, all telescopic sights, and all laser aiming devices.
