1960s
1962: Troops get ready for a possible invasion of Cuba at Travis during the Cuban Missle Crisis. (USAF photo)
Travis plays role during
Cuban Missile Crisis
I Lt. Col. Morrie Wasserman.
t’s been 60 years since the late Lt. Col. Morrie Wasserman and his fellow Travis airlifters helped move troops and supplies to Florida for a possible invasion of Cuba, in case the crisis over Soviet missiles in that country turned into a war with the United States. “We were alerted and sent to a base on the East Coast, which was an assembly point for C-124 aircraft,” Wasserman recalled to the Daily Republic in 2018 of his specific assignment. “It was a classified mission and, to this date, I don’t think it has ever been cleared (for public knowledge). We did have a war plan for that mission.” Wasserman said that even a half-century after the missile crisis and people and technology change, many war plans don’t. A lot of odd airstrips around Florida were lit by car headlights at night to allow military aircraft to fly in and position troops for the possible invasion, Wasserman said. “We had all these paratroopers to put on airplanes,” he said. “The plan was to drop them to take the airports and then air-land more troops. They were pretty serious about Cuba.”
36 Travis Air Force Base — We Salute You on Your 80th Anniversary! | May 2023