Birth of the Blue Missile

OK guys,
I have been racking my brain for a black-ops story I can tell, so here it is.

The mission was to silence an alarm signal in a very large compound heard by a couple of hundred occupants. There were regular sentries, and taking them out was not allowed. The signal was a large brass bell in a bell tower a couple stories up from the ground surrounded by a security cage. In order for us to cover our tracks everything had to look untouched. There was no way to get the bell out of the tower and disposed of. Cutting the rope used to ring the bell was also out of the question, it would be noticed immeadtly.

Battery powered power tools were not yet invented; so cutting the clapper loose from the bell was out of the question. We discussed CAD Welding (the use of thermite) the clapper to the bell but the possibility of starting a fire down below was real. On top of that the bell tower could be seen all over the compound so the light caused by the reaction would give us away. Cyanoacrylate adhesives were just being developed by Kodak, so they were not yet in our arsenal. Whatever we did we had to do it silently.

We were a team of five and were camped about a quarter of a mile away from the bell tower. Under the cover of darkness about one O’clock in the morning, dressed in all black and navy blue, we made our way to the objective. This compound was located in the mountains off the north east coast of the United States. It was summer and the air was very still. Lighting was sparse and the moon was about half full with a clear sky. All we had to work with were the tools and supplies we had in our backpacks.

We left our camp traveling through the woods at the perimeter of the compound until we were directly across from and about fifty yards away from the bell tower building. Between us and our objective was the main headquarters building. The other fly in the ointment was the fact that the sentries’ office and barracks were in a wing attached to the mess hall, which contained the bell tower. If things went wrong their response time would be momentary, this also meant they could come around a corner without notice.

Using the main headquarters building for cover we moved along one side keeping low and between the landscaping bushes and the building. From the corner of the building it was about ten yards of open exposure to the mess hall. The barracks were on the opposite side the building so we still had a shot. We arrived at the mess hall undetected; there was a large covered patio on our side of the building we could access from the deck. The four of us got a boost from the ground level lookout man and he then retreated back to the bushes next to the headquarters building to keep watch. From there he had a clear enough view to warn us in time to take cover.

In this case taking cover is a dubious term, the roof was a shingle roof with a 6/12 pitch and the bell tower was four feet square wrapped with a wire cage, but other wise open to view. We laid low and flat on the flat patio roof until he gave us the all clear then we climbed the main roof and got to the tower. We proceeded to cut our way through the cage with a small pair of bolt cutters. With each cut of the cage the snap could be heard echoing in the compound. About half way through the process the lookout signaled for us to cease and lay low so we flattened ourselves against the roof which was also dark in color. At that moment two sentries came around the corner to check the camp but they never looked up. We watched them make their rounds and go back to the barracks with us remaining undetected.

We completed cutting our way into the tower and with one person holding back the cage two of us were able to get inside the tower to work on the bell. We wrapped the clapper with washcloths and taped them in place. We then took and stuffed towels inside the bell until there was no space left and completely taped up the bottom of the bell. This left the bell mechanism fully operational from down below, but there would be no alarm when the rope was pulled. We exited the cage and wired it back in place so it looked undisturbed.
We quietly scrambled down the roof and made our way back to camp to await the continuation of the mission.

The continuation of the mission would have been the wake up bell at summer camp. The year was 1968, we were fifteen years old, you see habits start young. Not only did the wake up bell not sound neither did the mess call. Because of how well we had done our job, and because it was almost impossible to tell what had been done by looking up from down below, It took the lightingly fast waiters quite a while to figure out how to fix the problem. Oh yes the cage was installed a few years before because some of the waiters had temporarily borrowed the bell for a few days. The sentries were the waiters, for them removing the bell as a team was easy. So extra security measures had been taken to make sure that it would not happen again.

Hope you enjoyed
Andrew :glasses7:

Captain,
just for the record youre nuts. After laying on my back cleaning up the firewall and under the dash with the grinder and wire wheel there was no love left in the labor. Only a large collection of pieces of wire that had been launched from the wheel at supersonic speeds into every part of my clothing and hair. I would have gladly written the check for blasting and saved the labor of love for many other projects on the duster.
LOL Andrew