Section_J_-_Att_No__004_NIKE_-_What_We_Have_We_Shall_Defend_.pdf

What We Have, We Shall Defend:

An Interim History and Preservation Plan for Nike Site SF-88L, Fort Barry, California Part I by John A. Martini and Stephen A. Haller

National Park Service Golden Gate National Recreation Area San Francisco, CA February 1998

Table of Contents

Preface i

Acknowledgments iii

Introduction v

Part I – Historic Resource Study 1

Endnotes 72

Part II – Historic Structure Report See other PDF file

Recommendation See other PDF file

Appendices See other PDF file

1. Nike Firing Battalion, Table of Organization and Equipment PDF

2. Nike Sites in the San Francisco Bay Area See other PDF file

Bibliography See other PDF file

Preface

This document is intended to serve as a guide for the restoration and interpretation of Nike Site SF-88 in the Marin Headlands of Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Eventually, a full historic resource study, historic structure report and historic furnishings plan will need to be completed to complete the process begun here.

That process is a direct outgrowth of a meeting held in the Fall of 1996 between the Nike site volunteers, and park Maintenance, Interpretation and Resource Management personnel with the intent of better coordinating daily operations and future preservation treatments at SF-88. At that meeting, the need was identified to document the physical, operational and human history of the site, and to make recommendations regarding the future course of interpretation and preservation treatments there. Preparation of this document was assigned to Curator of Military History John Martini and Park Historian Stephen Haller.

The work is organized into two major sections, the operational and human history is found in Part I-Historic Resource Study, while Part II-Historic Structure Report consists of a physical history of the site. This organization is intended to reflect the anticipated use of the document in both interpretation and preservation efforts.

Working intermittently on the project over the course of the following year, the authors were able to identify most of the primary and secondary information that was available in the collections of Golden Gate National Recreation Area, at the Nike site itself, and in various local repositories. After inquiries at the National Archives, they were also able to establish that the bulk of the official records pertaining to operations at Site SF-88 remain under the control of the Headquarters, Department of the Army and are not at present open for research. A request for access to these records was processed under the Freedom of Information Act, but led to our referral back to the National Records Center at Suitland, MD. Through the assistance of Col. Stephen P. Moeller, USA, the authors have been put in touch with Col. Craig Glassner of the Adjutant General’s Corps to follow up in this regard, and especially to locate pertinent annual historical summaries and battery morning reports. The National Personnel Records Center, in St. Louis, MO has also indicated that certain morning reports may be located at that repository.

In order to summarize information gathered to date, the authors have proceeded with the writing of this document, knowing full well that it does not yet tell the story of Nike Site SF-88 in exhaustive detail. It is our hope that in its present form it does provide an adequate summary of the historic context of the Nike missile system, of operations at the site from 1954-1974, and of the physical development at the site during those years.

Further research into official documents, secondary material at repositories outside the Bay Area, and a continuing program of oral history interviews will be necessary to fill out the picture. With the continued cooperation of park management and staff and, i especially, the help of the people who served at SF-88 and still volunteer there today, the complete story may one day be told.

Finally, it was decided early on that this study would primarily address the history and preservation of the SF-88 Launching Area, and only provide summary information on the histories of the Administrative and Integrated Fire Control areas (SF-88A and SF-88C).

These sites are not planned for immediate preservation or interpretation actions, at least not anywhere near the level of activity and importance currently focused on the Launching area. It is hoped that future research efforts will focus specifically on these two areas.

ii

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank numerous people who have helped in the research, writing and production of this study.

This document focuses on Nike Site SF-88, but is based on the firm foundation already established by others. In particular, the authors of this study wish to draw attention to the invaluable assistance received from the editor and authors of Last Line of Defense: Nike Missile Sites in Illinois, Christine Whitacre, Christina M. Carlson and Robert Lyon, who generously allowed us to use verbatim large portions of their study that describe the development, deployment and operations of the Nike system in general. Although the text “borrowed” from their work has been, with their permission, integrated into the text for the sake of readability, we have attempted to footnote it as thoroughly as possible and wish to draw special attention to their substantial contribution to this work.

In the introduction to his recent book, Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, Stephen E. Ambrose wrote, “Long ago my mentors...taught me to let my characters speak for themselves by quoting liberally. They were there. I wasn’t. They saw with their own eyes, they put their own lives on the line. I didn’t. They speak with an authenticity no one else can match.

Their phrases, their word choices, their slang are unique — naturally enough, as their experiences are unique.”i For much the same reasons, we have chosen to make extensive use of quotations from oral histories representing officers, warrant officer technicians, and enlisted personnel who served at Nike site SF-88. The authors of this study owe them a debt of thanks for the information they freely shared, and for the service they gave to their fellow soldiers and fellow citizens.

Although numerous former soldiers at the site deserve our thanks for recording their memories in oral history interviews, the authors are especially grateful to Terry Abel, Peter J. Bohan, Susan E. Cheney, Henry E. Paine and Ron Parshall for the extensive use we made of their recorded interviews in this study. The full text of these interviews is on deposit at the Park Archives and Records Center of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Milton B. “Bud” Halsey, Jr. (Col., USA, ret.) has generously shared his wealth of information on the Nike site with the authors and taken the time to work individually with us to ensure as complete and accurate treatment of the site as possible. More than any one person, he has been responsible for leading the volunteers on site in the hard and dedicated work of preservation, restoration and interpretation. In many ways, he has been i Stephen E. Ambrose Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944--May 7, 1945 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), 13.

iii a silent partner to this study, but any errors or misinterpretations contained herein are our responsibility alone.

Col. Stephen E. Moeller, USA, has been a great source of information that places the Nike system firmly within the context of the development and operations of antiaircraft defense in the Cold War era. His interest in this manuscript and assistance in locating source material are greatly appreciated.

Mark L. Morgan and Mark A. Berhow, through their previous works on the Nike system, which have been quoted extensively in this document, helped provide a framework within which to discuss SF-88 specifically.

We thank Ric Borjes, Chief, Branch of Cultural Resources; and Diane Nicholson, Chief, Branch of Museum Management at Golden Gate National Recreation Area for supporting this project and allowing us enough time away from our other duties to make progress.

We also owe a special thanks to the Laurel Mackay, Secretary at the Division of Resource Management and Planning for her skill and hard work in producing verbatim transcriptions of lengthy oral history tapes on such a short deadline. Gordon Chappell of the Pacific Great Basin System Office read the manuscript very thoroughly and provided many useful suggestions.

We also wish to acknowledge the reference assistance received from: Rose Marie Christensen, Chief, Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts Office of the Department of the Army; Louise Arnold-Friend, Reference Librarian at the U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA; William H. Davis and Rebecca Lentz Collier at the National Archives; David A. Ross at the U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery Museum, Fort Bliss, Texas; and Mrs. John P. Fanning at the Air Defense Artillery Association, Fort Bliss, Texas.

And all the volunteers at SF-88 deserve our thanks for their devotion to the preservation of this unique historic resource.

iv

Introduction

The Cold War has passed into history. As it does, we are able to perceive more clearly the significance of this era which defined much of the second half of the twentieth century. The World War II alliance that had defeated fascism quickly deteriorated in the late 1940s, as the Soviet Union entrenched its sphere of influence and relentlessly installed Communist regimes in eastern Europe while the United States countered with a policy of containment. By the end of the decade, not ten years after the attack on Pearl Harbor propelled the United States into war, Communist forces had taken over China, and the American monopoly on the atomic bomb had been broken. For the next forty years, until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 demonstrated the loss of Soviet dominance in eastern Europe and the United States took most of its strategic bomber and missile force off high alert in 1991, we all lived in a heretofore unheard of state of permanent partial mobilization and under the ever present threat of nuclear Armageddon.

Nearly half a century of head to head competition between Communism and Democracy cost both sides huge sums of money to compete, allocated resources from the civilian to the military sectors, accelerated technological change, fostered inflation, and affected the destiny of nations and the lives of millions of people.

“The children of the Baby Boom were not, as their fathers who defeated Germany and Japan had imagined, destined to grow up in a non-threatening world. At home their parents built backyard bomb shelters they would later convert into fallout shelters.

During air raid drills, schoolchildren left their classrooms to huddle in darkened hallways.

Announcements that ‘interrupted the innocent melodies of the ‘Hit Parade.’ The Cold War had arrived, bringing with it the threat of undreamed horrors. It was to last nearly half a century, and for the greater part of the struggle, antiaircraft artillerymen were to serve as front-line soldiers.”ii

As the threat of devastating aerial attack on the American homeland became a reality for the first time, the nation responded by threatening its potential enemies with punishing retaliatory strikes, a policy known as “Mutually Assured Destruction.” The acronym MAD became a widespread metaphor expressing the worst fears of the era. The nation also responded by deploying a vast air defense network consisting of early warning radars, fighter interceptors, and antiaircraft units. The Nike surface to air missile system was a key component of this air defense network for more than twenty years.

The Nike missile system was exceptional in a number of ways. It was the first practical antiaircraft missile placed into operation, it was in service for an exceptionally long time, ii Stephen P. Moeller, “Vigilant and Invincible,” ADA Magazine, May-June 1995 (Department of the Army, Washington, DC), 5.

v it was deployed in great numbers and covered large areas around many major American cities, it was very expensive, and it brought the possibility of nuclear war to the very back yards of the nation’s civilian population.iii

It was also the last weapons system to directly protect San Francisco Bay from attack; the last in a long line of coast defenses that date back to 1794 when the Spanish frigate Arazanzu brought bronze muzzle-loading cannon to protect the isolated frontier from Russian and British warships.

For all these reasons, the Nike missile system is worthy of interest. Out of some 300 Nike sites scattered across thirty states, the one known as SF-88 that helped to defend the San Francisco Bay Area is the only one preserved and interpreted as a historic resource. We are fortunate to have this unique opportunity to see the intimate reality of a military mission that went on around the clock for more that forty years, out of sight and mind for most of us, but almost always dimly in our consciousness.

iii Michael J. Binder, lecture on the historic significance of the Cold War at the National Council on Public History annual meeting, Sacramento, CA, Mar. 18, 1994.

vi vii

Part I — Historic Resource Study

A FRAGILE PEACE

At the end of World War II, Americans hoped for peace and an end to the trauma of the previous 15 years of depression and war. Victory in World War II had led to a period of prosperity and growth for America, but did not result in a sense of security. Within five years after the war, the United States would help rebuild its recent enemy, Germany, and create an alliance to oppose its former ally, the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union and the United States soon engaged in a Cold War, each side convinced the other was plotting its domination and destruction. In the ensuing arms race, both superpowers developed new weapons systems in a seemingly endless competition. Defensive as well as offensive weapon systems became part of the race, as both the Soviets and the United States strived to gain a military advantage. The U.S. Army’s Nike missile would play an important role in America’s air defense strategy.

The roots of the Cold War can be traced on the Soviet side to American intervention, 1918-1920, in the Russian Civil War against the Bolsheviks, and subsequent non-recognition of the Soviet regime until 1933. For Americans, suspicion of the Soviets was rooted in the Bolshevik calls for world revolution, the mass purges of the 1920s and 1930s, and the cynical Soviet-German Non Aggression Pact of August 1939 that led to the outbreak of war and a new partition of Poland. During World War II, disputes over the timing of the invasion of France, and differing visions of the shape of post-war Europe exacerbated these tensions.

In 1941, while the Red Army reeled in retreat, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin demanded territorial concessions during Allied discussions of post-war aims. Stalin wanted to keep the territory taken from Poland and Finland in 1939 and 1940, as well as the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Before the Teheran Conference in November 1943, Averill Harriman, U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, briefed President Franklin Roosevelt on Soviet objectives. Harriman told Roosevelt that the Soviets would insist on their 1941 frontiers and were determined to have a friendly government in Poland.1 At the same time, domestic political pressures restrained Roosevelt from making the Soviet aims clear to the American public. Congressmen with Polish-American constituencies worried about the fate of Poland long before Teheran. In August 1943, Representative John Dingell of Michigan told Roosevelt that “we Americans are not sacrificing, fighting, and dying to make permanent and more powerful the Communistic Government of Russia and to make Joseph Stalin a dictator over the liberated countries of Europe.”2 Fearing loss of support in the 1944 elections, and also fearing that Congress might refuse to join the United Nations over this issue, Roosevelt kept the issue quiet. However, he could be blunt when necessary. In the summer of 1943, the President warned Polish Ambassador Jan Ciechanowski that the United States would not fight Stalin to prevent the taking of eastern Poland or the Baltic States.3

Disagreements between the two sides became obvious during the Yalta Conference in February 1945. Roosevelt essentially gave Soviet leader Joseph Stalin a free hand in eastern Europe because he knew there was no way to prevent it. Roosevelt understood that the American public would not have supported a new war against the Soviets in order to save eastern Europe. However, when the reality of Soviet policies became obvious, the reactions of the American public and Congress against the Soviets were predictable.4 On February 9, 1946, Stalin gave a rare public address in which he suggested that future wars were inevitable until the ultimate triumph of communism. The West reacted with dismay. Time magazine characterized Stalin’s remarks as, “The most warlike pronouncement uttered by any top-rank statesman since V-J Day.” Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas described the speech as “the Declaration of World War

III.”5

Also in February 1946, the Canadian government arrested 22 people for espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union. Searching for a rationale to explain Soviet behavior, the administration of President Harry S Truman queried the Moscow’s U.S. Embassy staff.

George F. Kennan, minister-counselor at the embassy and a 20-year veteran of the Foreign Service, replied with the “long telegram,” an 8,000-word explanation of the sources of Soviet conduct. Kennan argued that Soviet hostility to the West would last as long as its regime was based not so much on ideology as the need to justify dictatorial rule. Kennan noted that the tsars had also claimed dangers from abroad as justification for harsh methods at home. The implication was clear: Soviet behavior was based on the Soviet system’s needs, not on Western actions. Hence, negotiation would have little effect towards resolving problems. Defining a policy that later became know as “containment,” Kennan suggested that the United States strengthen the West, resist Soviet expansion, and wait for internal changes in the Soviet Union. Shortly after Kennan’s telegram, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited the United States. In a speech delivered at Westminster College on March 5, 1946, Churchill lamented that “from Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic an Iron Curtain has fallen across Europe.6

In February 1947, the British informed President Truman they were giving up part of their sphere of influence in the eastern Mediterranean, specifically Greece and Turkey.

Greece was in the midst of a civil war between the royalist government and communist guerrillas, and Turkey was under continuing pressure from the Soviet Union to revise the Montreaux Convention — which limited Soviet access to the Dardanelles Straits and the Mediterranean. Together, these countries needed over $400,000,000 in immediate aid, which the British could not afford. In requesting funding from Congress, President Truman characterized the war in Greece as a Soviet attempt to establish control in the Middle East. In addition, Truman stressed, “I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”7 Congress approved the $400,000,000 for Greece and Turkey. This policy — soon known as the Truman Doctrine — committed U.S.

assistance to any country struggling against communism. Containment had officially replaced the wartime alliance with the Soviet Union.

The Berlin-Crisis of 1948-1949 further escalated Cold War tensions. After World War II, Germany had been partitioned into four Allied occupation zones: American, Soviet, British, and French. The weak and dependent Germans were unable to support themselves. This situation suited the Soviets, who wanted to keep Germany from ever again becoming a threat. The Western Allies wanted a rejuvenated Germany able to contribute to the European economy, and proposed currency reform among the occupation zones to revive commerce and regularize financial matters. When the Soviets refused, the Western Allies went ahead with the reform within their own zones. This move sealed the division of Germany into East and West. On June 24, 1948, the Soviets isolated Berlin, which was 90 miles inside the Soviet zone, from all ground traffic.

While the United Nations debated the crisis, President Truman used aerial transport to bring fuel and food to the desperate Berliners in “Operation Vittles.” Thousands of World War II pilots were called back into service to deliver 4,500 tons of supplies per day, making more than 250,000 flights.8 The blockade and airlift ended 11 months later when the Soviet Union gave up, in May 1949.9 However, the damage was done. The Berlin Blockade, together with the 1948 communist coup in Czechoslovakia, convinced many Americans that Stalin would seize every opportunity to expand Soviet control.

In 1949, at the urging of the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed. This new alliance included the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Iceland, Norway, France, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, and Luxembourg.10 Each signatory pledged to regard an attack on any of them as an attack on all of them.11 By banding together, the West could begin to match the numerically superior Red Army. Indeed, this policy allowed the United States to “get tough with Russia” without building an enormous military structure. By joining NATO, America committed itself to containing the Soviet Union within the territories it occupied in 1949.12

While most Americans shared a common concern over the spread of communism, a more immediate threat was demonstrated by the Soviet Union on September 2, 1949. On that day the Soviet Union exploded an atomic bomb — abruptly ending America’s monopoly on nuclear weapons. The explosion shocked Americans who had perceived the Russians as technologically behind the United States. When the Soviet Union exploded an even more powerful hydrogen bomb in August 1953, only ten months after America’s first H-bomb test, the sense of fear and urgency increased in the United States.13

Although the Soviets had suffered more in World War II than perhaps any other nation, they had also profited greatly in their development of their armed forces and related technology, “through the acquisition and reproduction of modern weaponry like the Tu-4 ‘Bull’ bomber, a copy of the U.S. B-29; the capture of German scientists, who would help them develop modern atomic weapons and missiles, and the conduct of scientific and industrial espionage. The impact on the United States was two fold: first, the Tu-4 gave the Soviets the capability to strike the United States by flying over the North Pole, and second, once they developed the atom bomb, they could visit massive destruction on the United States with just a few sorties, as the United States has done to Japan with its bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”14

American fears intensified when the Soviets unveiled their first long-range bomber, the Mya-4 Bison [with the capability to strike the U.S. mainland and return], during their 1954 May Day parade. The following year, an American Embassy air attaché visited Tushino Airport and observed twice as many Bisons as American military intelligence had estimated. Soviet officials had actually deceived the American observer. The ten Bisons that had flown overhead had made a wide circle and then had been joined by an additional eight aircraft, which made another pass over the viewing platform. The hoax succeeded in creating the impression of a larger Soviet bomber force than actually existed. When the Soviets introduced a second long-range bomber, the Tu-20 Bear, talk of a bomber “gap” began. Succumbing to the deception, Air Force intelligence estimated that the Russians would have 600 to 700 strategic bombers operational by 1959.15

Despite the hoax, the United States was forced to acknowledge that the Soviet Union had developed a long-range bomber capable of delivering a nuclear weapon from Siberian air fields to the continental United States. The frightening prospect of a long-range Soviet bomber dropping a nuclear warhead on an unsuspecting American city resurrected a Pearl Harbor atmosphere in the United States. As nuclear stockpiles increased, the United States encouraged citizens to build fallout shelters and created civil defense systems designed to cope with an enemy attack.16 In 1956, Congress added $928 million to the Air Force budget for the purchase of B-52 aircraft. At the same time, the U. S. Army, the armed service responsible for protecting American ground forces, also was anticipating the threat of an enemy strike. As early as 1953, the Army began deploying the first Nike anti-aircraft batteries around American cities.17

NIKE DEPLOYMENT AND U.S. AIR DEFENSE

Prior to World War II, the possibility of America being struck by an enemy air attack was remote. Protected on both sides by oceans — and with the limited range of aircraft — America seemed insulated from European or Asian air attack. Although small inroads had been made regarding U.S. air defense, it was only after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that America devoted serious attention to the Nation’s air defense.

America’s first military organization devoted entirely to air defense was the Air Defense Command (ADC), which was created on February 26, 1940, at Mitchell Field, New York, following a recommendation by Major General Henry “Hap” Arnold. In November 1939, Arnold had pointed out the weaknesses in America’s air defense system. The Air Defense Command was formed to “conduct experiments in the northeastern states to determine how fighter planes, antiaircraft artillery, and an air warning system could be integrated into a single air defense network.”18 Prior to the first effective use of radar by the British in 1940, typical early warning systems included batteries of sensitive listening devices, looking much like outsized ear trumpets mounted on trailers, intended to pick up the first sounds of approaching aircraft.

New to the problem of air defense, the Air Defense Command looked to the British example. In August and September 1940, during the Battle of Britain, the British had shown that a well-dispersed air force was a difficult bombing target, and demonstrated the value of an early warning system based on radar.19 The United States undertook several large-scale exercises that attempted to unify all air defense elements. On the basis of this experimentation, the Air Defense Command recommended that the United States follow Britain’s practice of placing air defense responsibility under pursuit aviation commanders.20

On March 7, 1941, the War Department assigned the mission of air defense to the Army Air Corps. The Army Air Corps created four numbered air forces, each with an interceptor command assigned the mission of air defense. The numbered air forces retained responsibility for organization and planning, while the interceptor commands carried out air defense operations. These operations included control of antiaircraft artillery (AAA) units trained and administered by the Coast Artillery Corps, which was charged with the mission of developing weapons and techniques.21 However, lack of funds and commitment prevented these units from becoming part of a unified, fully prepared air defense system.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, dramatically illustrated the weaknesses of the American air defense command. Following Pearl Harbor, the nation was forced to implement an air defense system that was still in its infancy; only eight months had passed since the Air Corps had received overall responsibility. Early in 1942, the Army reorganized into three principal elements: the Army Ground Forces, the Army Air Forces, and the Army Service Forces. Each received separate but related duties.22

As the United States entered World War II, little doubt existed concerning the important role that antiaircraft artillery would play. On March 9, 1942, the War Department activated the Antiaircraft Command as part of the Army Ground Forces. With Major General Joseph A. Green serving as its first commanding general, the Antiaircraft Command’s primary mission was “to instruct and train officers and enlisted men for duty with antiaircraft artillery and barrage balloon units, and to activate, organize, equip and efficiently train such units for combat service.”23 The War Department established the Antiaircraft Artillery School at Camp Davis, North Carolina. Two years later, the school moved to Fort Bliss, Texas, where the clear weather and solitude provided excellent year-round antiaircraft training and testing grounds. Between March 9, 1942, and September 2, 1945, the command trained 613 antiaircraft artillery combat units for deployment overseas and in the continental United States.

The Army Service Forces, through the Chief of Ordnance and Chief Signal Officer, also played a significant role in air defense through procurement, delivery, and equipment maintenance.24 At the same time, the Army Air Forces maintained operational control of air defense through its four numbered air forces. This complex organizational structure caused difficulties. In 1942, the Army Ground Forces and the Army Air Forces had “sharp disagreements” concerning the circumstances under which an antiaircraft artillery unit could begin firing.25 Each side argued that it should have the command to control the antiaircraft artillery units. The issue, however, remained unresolved and would surface again with the development of the Nike missile system.

As Nike missile research began in 1945, the rivalry over the control of America’s air defense systems escalated. The Army Ordnance Corps had full responsibility over Nike development, but the Army Air Forces had overall responsibility for air defense of the United States. In 1946, the War Department issued several directives that led to different interpretations by the Army Air Forces and Army Ground Forces. Finally, in September 1946, the War Department resolved the controversy by declaring that Army Air Forces would control antiaircraft artillery units with air defense missions. The War Department also determined that the Air Defense Command would provide Army Ground Forces with some degree of influence by integrating antiaircraft artillery officers into its staff. Army Ground Forces also remained responsible for providing the technical training of antiaircraft units.

The 1947 National Security Act separated the Army Air Force from the Army and established it as the United States Air Force. Separate from the National Security Act, the Army and the Air Force formulated over 200 agreements regarding air defense. These agreements, which became known as the Eisenhower-Spaatz Agreements, resulted in the Air Force having operational control of air defense, while the Army staffed the air defense units. In September 1947, as part of these agreements, the Army also gained control over the development of missiles “designed for employment in support of Army tactical operations,” while the Air Force was assigned “missiles designed for employment in area air defense”26

President Harry S Truman, in an effort to strengthen America’s air defense, directed the Air Force to reorganize in October 1948. The Continental Air Command was formed on December 1, 1948, headed by Lieutenant General George E. Stratemeyer. The Air Defense Command fell under the Continental Air Command jurisdiction, resulting in the Air Force retaining overall responsibility for air defense. At the same time, the Army continued to provide antiaircraft artillery units and personnel to support the air defense function. As a result, disagreements continued between the Army and Air Force over air defense responsibilities. However, one concession the Army won was to establish an antiaircraft artillery chain of command, which became the Army Antiaircraft Command

(ARAACOM).

The Army activated ARAACOM in 1950, immediately following the beginning of the Korean War. ARAACOM was based at Ent Air Force Base at Colorado Springs, Colorado. At first, ARAACOM only had oversight for planning and training. 27 In August 1950 the Army and the Air Force agreed upon antiaircraft artillery procedures similar to those in place during World War II, allowing Air Force “air division commanders to exercise operational control of all antiaircraft artillery units assigned t their sectors. Division heads were expected to establish flexible conditions under wh the units would go into action...it authorized...an antiaircraft artillery component at each echelon of the air defense forces. The officers in charge of the artillery units were expected to serve as the principal advisers to their respective air defense chiefs.

Antiaircraft artillery commanders in the field, therefore, would be assured that the order they received had been confirmed by or, at the very least, coordinated through their ow services.”

o ich s n total of ry battalions.

28 On April 10, 1951, ARAACOM assumed actual command of Army air defense units [less operational command, which remained with the Air Force, and was assumed by the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), upon its establishment in 1957]. By July 1951, ARAACOM headquarters commanded a 38 antiaircraft artille 29

Indeed, “the Korean War provided the impetus that got the air defense program rolling on many levels and in many areas. The fielding of AAA forces, interceptor squadrons and supporting elements shifted into high gear. ... Just a few days after the North Korean invasion of the South, the United States air defenses, consisting mostly of fighter interceptors, commenced around-the-clock operations. ARAACOM was formed within a week.”30

In support of the combat arms, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers oversaw preparation of antiaircraft artillery sites, construction of Air Control and Warning radar stations, and rehabilitation and expansion of Air Force bases over the rest of the decade.31

At Fort Barry and Fort Cronkhite, batteries of the 740th AAA Gun Battalion manned their 90-mm pieces in earthen revetments overlooking Bird Rock, and the 9th AAA Gun Battalion emplaced their heavier 120-mm guns near the World War II antiaircraft battery on Wolf Ridge. The Star Presidian reported the “transporting gasoline, water and rations to field posts and support of movements of heavy guns throughout the county area are daily problems of the motor pool of the 9th AAA Gun Battalion32 which make their activities more like an overseas outfit than the average stateside unit. Outlying batteries in Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties are dependent upon the motor pool for supplying their daily needs. Although these batteries are within a metropolitan area, none has such conveniences as running water or electricity.”33 Army Chief of Staff, General Maxwell Taylor, who served as a paratrooper in combat in World War II, offered little sympathy to the artillerymen, remarking “that is was about time the Coast Artillery got a taste of field life.”34

More than twenty years after Taylor’s remarks, Colonel (then Lieutenant) Susan E.

Cheney, the last Battery Executive Officer of Nike Site SF-88, was asked to comment on the kind of reputation these air defenders, heir to the old Coast Artillery Corps, had among their fellow soldiers:

Very good. We were the elite. We were the high tech. We were the people that were going to defend the continental United States. ...Now that is [the feeling] among the Air Defenders. Among our support people I am afraid that our reputation wasn’t quite as good because we worked very long hours.

Here in CONUS [Continental United States] in particular, we were the one group of people that worked twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

There was no such thing as Christmas.

...We spent way more time than other lieutenants in other branches here in school. Our training was much longer than the other basics, but you see it is also how we came up with this...elitist attitude that I say has hurt the branch in later years.

Ron Parshall was a generator mechanic and launcher crewman (nicknamed “pit rats”) at SF-88 in 1960-1961. He indicates that, at least some of, the enlisted personnel shared this assessment:

I have to say that the officers when I was here...were always top notch. In fact when people ask me, I always had to brag about the officers. No matter what questions you had, they had the answers. And they were precise answers, they were the answers you were looking for. You know, you always had questions and (and this is what I and most people say is what they liked about the launcher area) you got to talk with the officers. When you are first going through basic, you have these hard-nosed sergeants and ‘ninety day wonders’ as lieutenants, and we had imagined they would be the first people that you would shoot in war, and then you would go after the enemy. Whereas when we got to the air defenders, the officers were always top rank.

...I remember the esprit de corps to be a part of this branch. ...A lot of pride, too. You heard of service pride or shining your shoes out of pride or whatever it is. The engineers were the only ones allowed to go without shiny shoes, and that was my duty because we dealt a lot with hydraulic fluids and but everybody else, you know, they were ready for parade at all times.

In January 1956, Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson assigned ARAACOM exclusive responsibility for surface-to-air missiles used in point defense, including Nike missiles, which had been deployed since 1953.35 The Army was given a revised “combat zone responsibility up to 100 miles forward of the line of contact with an enemy...” while the Air Force continued to “maintain area defense against air attack...”36

By 1957 thirty-seven percent of the Army’s total military construction program was devoted to missile projects, the next year it had increased to forty-eight percent — nearly half of all Army construction funding was devoted to missiles in the year that Nike Ajax systems began to upgrade to nuclear-capable Nike Hercules.37 On March 21, 1957, ARAACOM was redesignated as the U.S. Army Air Defense Command (ARADCOM)

— the term “antiaircraft” was no longer favored, as air defense was targeted against both aircraft and missiles.38 ARADCOM units defended major industrial and population centers of the United States, as well as selected Strategic Air Command bases. Army Air Defense Command Posts were established for each defense at battalion, group, or brigade level to provide command and control coordination with the Air Force at each operational echelon.39

The assignment of research and development for guided missiles — whether for area or point defense — to two services, created not only rivalry but a duplication of effort.

However, the military rationalized the duplication as a means of maximizing America’s ability to have the flexibility to adjust a weapons system design to changing technological innovations and political circumstances.40

As a result, the Army and the Air Force developed separate air defense missile programs.

While the Army worked with Bell Laboratories on the development of Nike, the Air Force conducted simultaneous missile development with various contractors, including a series of studies that eventually led to the development of the BOMARC missile system.41

In 1958, illustrative of the competition that soon developed between the Army’s and Air Force’s missile systems, Air Force officials called for a plan to replace the Nike sites surrounding Chicago with BOMARC bases. ... As the Chicago Sun Times reported, “The basis of the Air Force plan is a charge that the atom-tipped Nike-Hercules, already stationed at one site in Chicago cannot cope with Russia’s fast new jet bombers. Army officials rebutted this contention with the “hard fact” that the Hercules is already operational and easily adaptable to existing bases [properly “sites” in Army terminology], while the BOMARC is distinctly a weapon of the future.”42

Charging the Air Force with “planning in World War II terms,” the Army predicted that by the time BOMARC was fully combat-ready, Soviet bombers would no longer be the major threat to American security. The Army claimed that by 1960 “the main Russian threat will be the ICBM and its answer is the Army’s Nike-Zeus,” which was the last of the three types of Nike missile.43 In 1959, the Department of Defense conducted a mock attack on Chicago to evaluate the effectiveness of Nike Hercules. Strategic Air Command bombers carried out the simulated attack. When Nike Hercules proved to be only eight percent effective against these bombers, Air Force officials used this event as an opportunity to push the BOMARC missile.44 Ultimately, however, the Department of Defense utilized both missile systems for America’s air defense — although there were far more Nike than BOMARC bases.45 BOMARC was soon phased out, and never achieved the widespread deployment of the Nike system.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE NIKE MISSILE SYSTEM

The first-generation Nike missile, the Ajax, was designed to intercept and destroy Soviet manned bombers. In the event that the Cold War turned hot, Nike missiles were designed to provide the last line of defense for the Nation’s population and industrial centers against any hostile aircraft that had broken through the U.S. Air Force’s interceptors.

Although the U.S. Army did not build the first Nike missile batteries until 1953, research and development of the defensive antiaircraft weapon systems began during World War

II.

The United States entered World War II equipped primarily with three-inch antiaircraft artillery guns, but increasing aircraft altitudes soon made these guns obsolete. In 1938, the United States had initiated development of an integrated antiaircraft defense system.

That investment resulted in the development of the 90mm gun, which was standardized in February 1940. Using the M-9 director radar system, the 90mm gun could hit aircraft flying at 30,000 feet, and the combination of the 90mm gun and M-9 radar proved successful in World War II against the German V-1 rockets. By 1942, the 90mm antiaircraft artillery gun became the basic antiaircraft weapon. The War Department also developed a 120mm antiaircraft gun, but its large size limited mobility.46 47

The M-9 and M-10 gun director systems, produced during World War II, were initially fielded with most ARAACOM units, until the more modern M-33 system could be mass produced. The M-9 and M-10 consisted of an analog computer and a two-seat directing apparatus, called the tracker head, in which two soldiers sat and tracked the target. Information on azimuth, elevation and range of the target was automatically sent to the computer by the tracker head and the SCR-584 tracking radar. The computer them calculated the vertical angle and horizontal direction the guns should point to hit the target. 48

By the close of the war, advances in air warfare made it plain that even the latest antiaircraft weapons were not capable of countering future air threats. Guided missiles capable of striking high-flying aircraft were necessary. The B-29 atomic bombing mission of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 vividly demonstrated the destructive power of high-altitude heavy aircraft. As World War II drew to a close, America’s military planners began planning for air defense systems that could counter these new offensive weapons. In response to potential threats from the air, the Army began developing two separate, but related, pieces of equipment: the M-33 integrated fire control system and what would become the Nike missile.

In 1944, the U.S. Army contracted with Bell Telephone Laboratories to develop a fully integrated radar/computer antiaircraft fire control system. The result was the M-33 system. Earlier systems, such as the M-9, while successful, were a collection of individual equipment elements from various sources that were organized into working units by the military. The M-33 system, however, offered a complete radar/computer system.49 This system, which would later operate with the Nike Ajax missile, provided the basis for a significantly improved fire control system.50

“Rather than just two tracker operators plus the SCR-584 crew, the M-33 crew consisted of five soldiers who worked in a trailer. Within their trailer, they received a video display from one of their two radars, the acquisition radar. This radar gave them the general locations of aircraft that flew within approximately 75 miles of their site. They were also linked by telephone to their battalion antiaircraft operations center (AAOC), which provided them warning of attack. Once warned, the tactical control officer, a member of the five-man crew, assigned the target to a radar operator who aimed the second radar, a tracking radar, at the target. When he found the target, he had the radar ‘lock on’ to it electronically, and the radar began tracking the target automatically, sending range, bearing and deviation data to the computer. Once the target was within range and determined to be hostile, the four guns of the battery began firing on it.”51 Thus the final generation of 90mm and 120mm antiaircraft guns were already using the basics of the fire control apparatus later incorporated into the Nike system (with the exception of the Missile Tracking Radar).

On August 17, 1944, Army Lieutenant Jacob W. Schaefer submitted a memorandum proposing a new anti-aircraft weapon system. The heart of this proposed system was a rocket guided from the ground, which would work in conjunction with two radars linked to a computer. One radar would track incoming enemy aircraft, transmitting current location points to the computer. The computer would then calculate future target positions and be able to relay to the missile, through the other radar, any course corrections needed to intercept the enemy aircraft. The Army sent copies of Lieutenant Schaefer’s technical proposal to Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL) for their consideration.52

In May 1945, Bell Laboratories presented a verbal report to the Army on “Project Nike” (named after the winged goddess of victory in Greek mythology). A written report, “A Study of an Antiaircraft Guided Missile System,” was released the following July. The report, which was the work of a group of Bell Laboratories’ scientists and engineers that included W. A. McNair, H.W. Bode, G.N. Thayer, J.W. Tukey, and B.D. Holbrook, stressed swift deployment of a weapon system that could combat high-speed, high-altitude bombers. The engineers recommended a weapon that was derived, to every extent possible, from existing technology. In order to save time and money, the engineers also recommended that the missile be as simple as possible. Bell Laboratories’ engineers also urged that the more expensive and complex equipment, such as the radar system, remain on the ground where it could be re-used and have the benefit of routine maintenance.53

The Bell Laboratories’ report recommended that Project Nike be comprised of a supersonic rocket missile that could be vertically launched under the thrust of a solid-fuel booster, which would drop on completion of its function. The launched missile would be propelled by a liquid-fuel motor, and guided to a predicted “intercept point” in space. The commands for missile detonation would be controlled from the ground — and would be transmitted by radio signals from a ground-based computer and radar system that would track both the target and the missile in flight.54

A few months later, the Antiaircraft Artillery Board published a report that listed more specific, desired characteristics of the proposed Nike missile. The board wanted a missile that had: 1) the ability to operate effectively in high altitudes up to altitudes of 60,000 feet and at ranges of 50,000 yards; 2) the ability to destroy large bombardment-type aircraft when detonated within 60 feet of the airplane; 3) a self-destruction feature; 4) the highest degree of security against interference or enemy electronic countermeasures; 5) the ability to be transported by motor vehicle; and 6) an assembly period of no more than three hours.55

In June 1945, the Rocket Branch of the Army Ordnance Corps (co-sponsored by a division of the Army and the Air Force) assumed full responsibility for Project Nike, and named Western Electric and Bell Laboratories as the prime contractors for development of the radar system. As designed by Bell Laboratories and Western Electric, the missile command and control radar system incorporated characteristics of the M-33 antiaircraft fire control system, saving both time and money on research and development, production, logistics, and personnel training.56 The Army selected Douglas Aircraft Company (later the McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Corporation)57 as the major contractor for the design of the missile, booster, and launcher. In turn, Douglas Aircraft contracted with the Aerojet Engineering Corporation to design the liquid-fuel rocket motor and solid-fuel booster rockets. Following the start of the Korean War in 1950, the Department of Defense asked the contractors to produce a working version of the Nike system as soon as possible. This first missile was the Nike Ajax.58

NIKE AJAX

The Nike Ajax was the first in the Army’s family of guided missiles, and the world’s first operational, guided, surface-to-air missile system.59 The Nike Ajax was a two-stage,…