with the relatively limited range of the B-58 and felt that the Air Force, through congressional pressure, had forced the B-58 on them, the aircraft had gone through a long gestation period during which many bugs had been wrung out of the system, and it was now thought to be a valuable and effective weapons system. Consequently, SAC pressed the Defense Department for the retention of the B-58, at least until 1974. However, the decision of 1965 was to stand. Another factor was the B-58's relatively high cost as compared to the B-52 and B-47. The unit cost of the B-58 was 33.5-million dollars as compared to nine-million for the B-52 and three-million for the B-47. In addition, the B-58 was quite costly to maintain. The cost of maintaining and operating two B-58 wings equaled the cost of maintaining six B-52 wings. The first B-58 to go to the "boneyard" was 59-2446 which flew to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base on 5 November 1969. Once underway, the B-58 retirement program moved relatively rapidly. The retirement was completed on 16 January 1970. Vietnam War 3960th Strategic Wing Once their B-58s were in storage, the 43rd BW was temporarily inactivated, but was immediately reactivated with the assets of the 3960th Strategic Wing (SW) at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. The 3960th SW had been established at Andersen as the 3960th Air Base Wing when the base transferred from Pacific Air Forces to SAC on 1 April 1955. The 3960th supported SAC Boeing B-47 Stratojet REFLEX deployments to Andersen over the years the wing designation and its mission changed to supporting deployed Boeing B-52 Stratofortress aircraft forming the Andersen Task Force, Provisional. On 1 April 1965 the wing once again was redesignated the 3960th Strategic Wing and its mission changed to support B-52 elements from SAC CONUS-based units engaged in combat operations over Southeast Asia on a daily basis during the Vietnam War as the 320th Bombardment Wing from Mather Air Force Base California and the 454th Bombardment Wing at Columbus AFB, Mississippi Operations at Andersen Air Force Base In 1970, in order to retain the lineage of the 43rd Bomb Wing, Headquarters SAC received authority from Headquarters USAF to discontinue its MAJCON 3960th SW and activate a regular AFCON wing which was inactive at the time which could carry a lineage and history of the mission at Anderson. On 1 April 1970,