Units equipped with the U.S. Air Force’s first operational surface-to-surface missile—the mobile, winged Matador, capable of striking targets in the Warsaw Pact from sites in West Germany—deploy from their fixed day-to-day sites to unannounced dispersed launch locations. This alert is in response to the crisis posed by the major Soviet attack on Hungary, which brutally suppresses the Hungarian Revolution.
A half-dozen pilots from one of the Air Force’s premier F-16 units, the 20th Fighter Wing at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., have been awarded one of the service’s highest decorations for their role in Operation Midnight Hammer, the June 2025 strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.