Alert Crew Readiness Building - "Mole Hole" (Goldsboro, North Carolina)

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The temporary barracks building where crews for the SAC B-52s who were pulling an alert shift would stay 24/7 until they were relieved.

Since the invention of Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles meant a minimum of 50% of the SAC bombers were expected to be destroyed on the ground along with their bases with no real warning, every aspect of the SAC alert pads were designed to shave precious seconds off the time it took to get the crews in the planes and get airborne before the missiles showed up.

The "mole hole", as the barracks was known, was constructed with all this in mind. It had six large external doors (two on each side) with paths leading directly to parked Alert Taxi Vehicles (pickup trucks, maintained with full gas tanks and the keys always in the ignition). The interior was constructed so that all of the rooms had at least two exits directly to these paths. The idea was that once the alarm was sounded, the crews, who usually slept in their coveralls while on alert (again, to shave precious seconds off getting dressed), could simply sprint for the nearest doorway without having to think about it and take the truck at the end of the pathway to the "Christmas tree" form alert pad.