HILL AIR FORCE BASE—Despite an ebb and flow over the decades, the Cold War found heightened tensions in the 1980s, and Hill Air Force Base was not immune to its effects. Much of the activity on the base during this time highlighted the tenuous nature of global relations at the time and showed just how amazing the staff and personnel of the base were and are.

As many who lived through it remember, the Cold War in the 1980s was marked by a period of posturing between nations. The threats posed by the USSR were ever looming over the United States and its allies, and it seemed like the seething cauldron of war was always about to boil over. 

To that end, the United States Armed Forces needed to ensure that, should conflict kick-off, they would be ready for whatever threat might face them. This was no mean feat. It’s one thing to maintain personnel and equipment in a time of open conflict, but quite another to do so when that conflict isn’t present, but could present itself at any time.

Hill Air Force Base and the Ogden Air Logistics Center found themselves doing much of what they had for the past 50 years, but with much heightened stakes. In addition to regular maintenance on aircraft like the OV-10 Bronco, and C-130 Hercules, the workforce at Hill found themselves dealing with the difficult problem of retrofitting, and upkeep of the missile defense systems they’d been working on for years.

In particular, this involved the phasing out of the Titan II missiles, and the start of the Peacekeeper system, which made things much safer for those handling the missiles, but still provided that necessary Cold War-era insurance. The Hilltop Times explained the dangerous properties of the Titan II, and why it was so necessary to update:

“The Titan II used aerozine 50 (fuel) and nitrogen tetroxide (oxidizer), which were stored in the missile itself. They were hypergolic propellants, (spontaneous ignition on contact), therefore, highly explosive and extremely toxic and corrosive. Obviously, safety was a major concern in keeping the missiles operational. The Ogden ALC’s Missiles Systems Management Division played a key role in managing the deactivation of the Titan II system and activation of the Peacekeeper system during the 1980s.”

Maintaining weapons systems as volatile as those mentioned above would be challenging enough, but employees at Hill were busy maintaining and keeping up the famous C-130 aircraft and doing so in an outstanding fashion. One of the most instrumental figures in ensuring the success of this program was Major General Robert P. McCoy, commander of Ogden Air Logistics Center in 1987, and a great proponent of the community of employees at Hill. 

Maj. Gen. McCoy said, “There is no one better equipped to start work on this weapon system

than the Hill workforce. The C-130 is a good, solid workload and will be for many years to

come. It is an important weapon system to the Air Force and will be with us for many years…

There is no doubt in my mind that we will prove we can do this job better than anyone else.”

Over the decades that followed, Maj. Gen. McCoy, his personnel, and the staff at Hill proved this in spades, completing, over the years, an average of one aircraft every nine days in a year. This service has proved integral to the mission of the United States Air Force, as the C-130 has seen decades of service, providing transport, medevac, supply drops, and more across the globe.