 This was really the first test of the post-World War II brand-new, reorganized Nebraska Army and Air National Guard. Good morning. I'm Major Cody Cade with the 105th Military History Detachment. And today we're going to talk about Operation Snowbound. So post-World War II, 1945, the Nebraska National Guard, like most National Guards around the country, was demobilized and deactivated from their federal service, which then they had to go back and reactivate, reorganize all the units in a new force structure due to their peacetime authorizations post-World War II. That occurred in Nebraska primarily in 1949. There was a few units that started to appear in 1947, 48 by by 1949, 90 percent of the Nebraska National Guard was reorganized, including our newly formed Air National Guard was had all their equipment or the majority of their equipment and the majority of their personnel too. The Nebraska in 1949, November, December had received quite a bit of snowfall, they even had a blizzard in the western panhandle portions of the state, November, December, 1948. Fast forward to January 2, 1949, another blizzard was quickly approaching and dumped approximately 40 inches of snow in north and western Nebraska, coupled with 70 mile an hour winds, which is worse than the situation completely. So by the 5th of January, the first company, company L of the 134th Infantry out of Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, along with company I, started a request to use National Guard Property for the relief of the citizens in the area, helping with livestock cattle, digging people out, just general relief efforts. It was until January 12, 1949 that then Governor Val Peterson declared a state of emergency for a number of counties in Nebraska and it wasn't until another snowstorm happened later in the month of January that then President Truman declared 63 of Nebraska's counties a federal disaster area, which then triggered a much larger response than Nebraska could handle just on its own. So it really created the first post-World War II domestic operation for the Nebraska National Guard, which nowadays we don't think of as such a big deal, but back 1949, the Nebraska National Guard responded to a number of like floods, the Republican River Flood of 35, a couple other floods in 1936, the streetcar strikes and riots in Omaha in the mid-30s as well. We had had a history in Nebraska responding to different domestic operations, but this was really the first test of the post-World War II brand new, reorganized Nebraska Army and Air National Guard, and it was the first time in the state's history that was a true joint operation utilizing both Army and Air, and something that we'd never done before. It looked good on paper, but as we'd find out in Operation Snowbound, it worked out quite well. The Air Guard flew medical supplies and food out to Alliance, Nebraska, and then they also flew different relief missions. They dropped Hay to Stranded Cattle. They flew F-51s and B-26s, and then an L-5 Piper Cub on different reconnaissance missions, dropping supplies, running messages back and forth, delivering medical supplies, fuel, they utilized some rotary wing assets, the first time we ever did that, we used some Sue helicopters for that, and we racked up a lot of flight hours for everybody. We had everything from C-47s, B-26s, C-45s, F-51s, the L-5, T-6 Texan, but it was really the first time any of this had been done, and as we'd see moving throughout the rest of our history, we really utilized the joint operations, both Army Air, even rotary wing assets for the Army Guard, quite a bit more in our future disaster response. You'll see with different fires and floods and tornadoes and hurricanes, current time we still do that very well, but then the ground portion of it, the snow got so bad that traditional Army at the time, like quarter-ton trucks, jeeps, two-and-a-half-ton trucks couldn't get around, so they went to the Fifth Army, who was the overarching federal entity, the active duty component, and requested weasels. They got 12 weasels total, which the 134th Infantry, the World War II vets, had quite a bit of experience with late war, because late World War II, they got some weasels to use throughout Europe for crossing flooded canals and streams and rivers and such, so some of those World War II vets that were still in the Guard post-war had the experience of the weasels. The active components supplied crews and maintenance and stuff like that, but we were able to get around with the weasels, get to some of these more remote stranded areas, because the weasel's a track vehicle, it's also floatable and amphibious, but it turns out it can handle snow really well, and it could still haul enough supplies to go and deliver stuff to stranded farmers ranchers, or move fuel here, move fuel there. So operation snow bounds of the Fifth Army, area of operations total, which encompassed Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming. So the approximately 177,000 square miles, combined area greater than the size of all New England states, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia put together, was affected by this emergency. More than 1.75 million human beings and estimated 12 million cattle sheep and other farm animals were also affected by operation snowbound. They used 319 bulldozers and rotary plows, according to the state edgent general's after action reports. Really a conclusion, the snowbound was the first time domestic operation wise, which is something we do quite a bit in the guard. It's kind of a unique war fighting function, unique responsibility of the National Guard to help local civilian authorities protect the life property from destruction of natural disaster or manmade disasters such as like a fire could be perhaps. But snow bound was really the first time that we did a combined joint operation where you can clearly see delineate both the state response, the National Guard response, and the federal response into the combined task force to include both army and air. Later on in 1949 as well due to the heavy snowfall that occurred, similar situation that we had in 2019 was there's a lot of spring flooding. So you got 40 odd inches of snow throughout most of the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Nebraska. So naturally when everything starts to thaw in the spring, the Missouri rivers along with other big blue river, other rivers around the state, all rows and flood flooded a large portion of the state. So the guard would once again be called upon in 1949 to respond to some of these floods, something that snowbound allowed us to have kind of a dress rehearsal for and practice for. So the response in the spring and summer of 49 could be more robust and would it be clumber some or would it be as inefficient as some folks thought. So 1935, 36, Republican River flood kind of set the stage for our flood response, but then in 1949 you could do a, I don't know what that was, a complete joint response to the flood, something that once again there's only been the second time in history, something that we take now as kind of like a common place or something that's more expected of the guard to occur.