Jump to content

Early U.S. Army Missile Lighter (& small group)


Recommended Posts

I picked up this lighter recently that was part of a small early U.S. Army missile grouping. It's a small Japanese made Vulcan brand lighter. This one is pretty small - smaller than the other Vulcan lighters I have in my collection which are already smaller than a Zippo.

 

Looks like the original owner was part of the 84th Artillery, equipped with the MGM-5 Corporal Nuclear Missile. From what I have read, the Corporal was pretty unreliable and dangerous to it's crew due to the liquid fuel of its day.

 

-Derek

 

 

 

post-5482-0-70647200-1523125268_thumb.jpg

post-5482-0-68368300-1523125355_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is a shot of the entire group that came with the lighter for those interested. The Fort Bliss booklet was fun to look at. It's not dated, but I think it must be very early 1950s. The post looked a lot different in the booklet than I remember it from the 1980s!

 

-Derek

 

post-5482-0-90045000-1523125934_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...
Air Force Brat

VERY NICE,
I knew they had surface to surface ballistic missiles in the 50's, even nuclear tipped artillery shells. I wasn't aware they had deployed battalions for that single purpose. Awesome find, thats about as old as it gets for missileers.
From what I could find looks like the 84th ART was part of the 526th missile battalion 1 stationed at fort sill the other in Germany

Commonly referred to as the WAC Corporal lol
cant find the logo anywhere though. Very nice find

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...