aircraft assigned rate after each "Chrome Dome" period. In January 1964, KC-135 tanker crews changed to seven-day alert tours while B-52 bomber crews maintained a three-four-day cycle. One additional tanker alert line was added for a total of nine. During the 1960s and 1970s, the 306th served as the host wing for numerous iterations of the annual SAC Bombing and Navigation Competition held at McCoy AFB. Beginning in September 1966, the 306 BW also began routinely deploying bombers to Southeast Asia as part of Operation Arc Light, Operation Linebacker and Operation Linebacker II operations in Southeast Asia, deploying at various times to Andersen AFB, Guam and Kadena AB, Okinawa. As part of Operation Young Tiger, it also deployed tankers to these bases and to U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield, Thailand. At times these deployments depleted all wing resources remaining at McCoy. The 919th Air Refueling Squadron (919 ARS) was assigned to McCoy in March 1967. When not forward deployed for operations over Vietnam, the 306th continued to operate out of McCoy AFB for both training and nuclear alert role. In January 1968, the 306 BW received another Air Force Outstanding Unit Award for this "double-duty" for combat operations in Southeast Asia while maintaining an alert status for SAC. On 19 November 1968 a B-52, s/n 55-103 attached to the 4252d Strategic Wing and flown by a 306th Wing crew burned and exploded after its jet engines experienced a power failure upon takeoff at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa while preparing to conduct a bombing mission to Vietnam. The Pilot/Commander, Capt Charles D. Miller (USAF), one of two who later died of burns, was able to keep the plane on the ground. Had the plane become airborne, it would likely have crashed 1/4-mile north of the runway into a storage area for chemical weapons, where B28 nuclear bombs used in AGM-28 Hound Dog cruise missiles and where W31 nuclear tipped MGR-1 Honest John were stored, and MIM-14 Nike-Hercules nuclear and MIM-23 Hawk conventional anti-aircraft missile launch sites were located. The burning and exploding 30,000 pounds of 24, 500 lb bombs, (12 under each wing) and 24, 750 lb bombs in the belly bomb bays created a blast was so powerful that it blew a crater under the aircraft some thirty feet deep and sixty feet across and blew out the windows in the dispensary at Naha AB, twenty-three miles away. While deployed