By Robert McConkey, Guest Writer, Dive News Network

In the 1960’s they used to teach us in grade school how to duck and cover under our desks in the event of a nuclear war warning siren. I remember we never took the instructions very seriously; however, my last scuba adventure helped me to realize how serious these warnings could have been. Let me take you on an adventure that goes back over 50 years into Cold War history.

In late April of this year, a few adventurous friends and I signed up to dive one of the eighteen Titan One Missile silo complexes constructed in the U.S in the early 1960’s.  These silos have filled with water and are often the target of many  adventurous divers. The one we dove just happened to be conveniently located in the Eastern part of Washington, our home state.  This underground complex of missile silos and its support structure were part of a $170 million structure that would have cost close to a billion of today’s dollars to construct. It is impressive.

After spending an anxious and somewhat sleepless night in Moses Lake, we all met at a remote breakfast spot East of Vantage in Royal City, Washington known as Judy’s Diner. During breakfast we were quickly briefed on the backs of napkins as to what to expect and the dangers of diving the silos. Never having seen an underground missile silo before, except in flashbacks from early science fictions movies, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with an experienced diver’s adventurous spirit however I was nervously ready for almost anything.

The missile silo dive was chartered through Undersea Adventure Divers in Kennewick. The owner and dive masters of this local dive center have explored the silo complex extensively.  They are the only ones who have permission to dive the silos. Divers must be advanced to dive with them. This group does a really good job with divers and offers some amazingly interesting snippets of historical information on the complexes construction and use throughout the tour.

Three miles from Judy’s Diner we drove into the silo property which is now a fenced in storage yard. We began to see evidence of the massive cold war bunker below. Reinforced concrete doors designed to withstand 100 PSI over-blast pressure were visible amid the sage brush but they offered us little clue as to what was really below ground. Apparently the whole complex was only commissioned for about three years largely because of a major design flaw in the system. The missiles, it seems, could only be fired after being raised above ground and any strong winds made it virtually impossible to raise them. With this in mind, I could only think about the Air Force commanders having to explain to his superiors, “I’m sorry … no war today the winds are too strong.”

Our host shared a story about how the owner who inherited this installation from the Air Force spent so much time and money trying to break into one of the subsurface domes that his accountant finally had to tell him to stop before it bankrupted him. Our dive master explained that the complex was massive. Our first indication of the extent of the complex came as we entered through an emergency escape pipe which had been excavated to about twenty feet below grade and led down to an escape chamber fifty feet below ground. All our gear had to drop through this pipe and be staged in this small underground chamber. From this escape chamber, several ten-foot in diameter pipes led to various parts of the complex including the two underwater silos where we were to dive that day.

The first tunnel we followed led us through waist deep water down a rusty corridor of corrigated pipe over many beam and pipe obstructions. Electical boxes and old water piping ran along the walls with pumice insulation floating in the water. After about 300 yards of slow progress we eventually stood on the gangway of the first silo. Fifty feet above us were the long closed silo doors and below us stood 110 feet of clear dark fresh water to explore. This dive is descibed by Undersea Adventures as a combination of “a night dive, a wreck dive and a deep dive, all in one” and it lives up to its billing.

Diving in the pitch blackness was very eerie but it was made even more haunting by the still present remnants of the cold war era.  High voltage signs protecting long dead power panels could be found fifty feet below water. These were mounted on the huge riveted steel missile towers which were still supported by gigantic suspension springs to protect the silo in the event of a nuclear attack. From what we saw it was not hard to imagine live missiles standing in these chambers over fifty years ago. This working military complex was designed with the sole intention of being ready to rain down destruction on a targeted enemy over 6000 miles away. The realness of it all seemed to convey a very powerful message about the nuclear madness that defined this era and just how real our childhood nuclear drills had been. Somehow the history of the cold war era became very real. We continued to explore the silo down to its bottom depth at 110 ft. We even examined the blast shield the missiles sat on when it was raised. From such depths our rising bubbles created swirling currents in the surface waters of the silo. It must have looked eerie from above.

During the day-long, two-tank dive we explored several other areas of the silo complex as well even following one tunnel below the water line and exploring outlying rooms and underwater tunnels in the complex. All of these explorations were quite interesting but I will keep the details secret and leave some suspense for those of you who choose to make this dive. After the dive we spent several hours touring the dry portions of the base which also sit over 50 feet below ground and are not to be missed.  Heading through a set of stairs that descends several stories around the main elevator shaft, we were able to see even more history while remaining warm and dry.  Most of this area is above water but a running stream still flows through the complex, in one case, even creating a miniature waterfall. The main dome is hundreds of feet across and, along with the missile control dome, is situated on an intricately designed concrete floor system that is all suspended on huge springs.  Remnants of the two underground radar rooms over 60 ft. in diameter can be viewed off a tunnel over an eighth of a mile long.  These large rooms with their associated graffiti still have many of the ladders and hardware mounted to the walls. Overall, there is a lot to explore so make sure you bring a good light and a camera.

The three hours we spent driving home to Seattle that day passed very quickly as we discussed our experiences below ground in Royal City.  The haunting images will remain with us always from this special dive that still seems so surreal. We all agreed it was a unique and amazing dive. It left us with the desire to know more about the history of these manned underground bases in an era where the philosophy of mutual assured destruction (MAD) so heavily ruled the day.  At this dive site the ghosts of the past still have a heavy presence and we count ourselves lucky to have experienced such a unique adventure. ■

About the Author:

Robert McConkey is a native of the Pacific Northwest who has enjoyed diving here and elsewhere in the world for over 35 years.  He is an advanced diver with over a thousand logged dives. He holds an undergraduate degree in Oceanography and a Master’s Degree in Business. He is a published freelance author and owns and operates a marina maintenance company in Bremerton, Washington. One of his books, The Complete Guide to Building Affordable Earth Sheltered Homes, discusses how to live underground including how to convert abandoned missile silos into livable space