Cold War Us Army Germany Clip Art Nike Hercules
Army Antiaircraft Base 1951
Gallows Route in Annandale
By: M. Callahan with contributions by local resident Jim Cox
Following the initial pattern of forts established for the defense of Washington during the American Civil War, Antiaircraft bases were established surrounding DC for the defense of the city during the Cold War.
Annandale sociology includes the story that a NIKE missile defence base was located in Annandale during the 1950's. According to research, Project Nike was a U.S. Army project, proposed in May 1945 by Bell Laboratories. Bell had been charged to develop a line-of-sight anti-shipping missile system. The project delivered the get-go US operational anti-shipping missile system in 1953 known every bit the Nike Ajax. A great number of the technologies and rocket systems used for developing the Nike Ajax were re-used for other programs functions, many of which were given the Nike name (afterwards Nike, the Greek goddess of victory). The missile's starting time-phase solid rocket booster became the ground for many types of rockets including the Nike Hercules missile and NASA'southward Nike Smoke rocket, used for upper-atmosphere research. (i)
The Annandale myth goes even further to suggest that there was a fire in a missile silo eluding to the paradigm of an ICBM housed beneath ground and emerging every bit it is fired across continents. Run into how myths merely grow and grow. There was never any question that this Annandale base did NOT business firm ICBM'S. As information technology turns out, it did Non firm NIKE Missiles either. NIKE Missiles take more the appearance of a rocket fired from a carriage than the intercontinental ballistic missile housed in silos only neither of them were in Annandale.
In fact, the Regular army base of operations located along Gallows Route was an Antiaircraft Artillery Gun Site, listed as W-63, a precursor to the NIKE missile defense program in Northern Virginia. This base was in existence from 1951-1957 when the residential community of Broyhill Crest was largely completed. Manifestly, an arms base tin non operate with shells raining over the homes of a big housing project. In the year before the base airtight, the artillery sites were dismantled and munitions removed. In 1959, the property on which the bodily base was situated was sold and developed into the housing community now nowadays.
The base had always been closed to the public which may have spurred the speculation of what was housed within. In guild to quell some of the gossip, the troops participated in the 1953 Annandale Parade winning the designation of the all-time marching unit in the parade.
Cold War AAA Defenses of Washington (1951 - 1958)
Several permanent sites were established for the Army's Anti-Shipping Artillery (AAA) Gun Site 4 90mm AA guns and/or four 120mm AA guns were positioned at each site, with troop barracks and other support buildings. Known sites include:
Fort Belvoir (1951 - 1958) 120mm guns: at Glue Springs.
Fort Hunt (1951 - 1954) 120mm guns: on mail.
Hybla Valley (1953 - 1958) 120mm guns, (1951 - 1953, 1957) 90mm guns: undetermined (West-51).
Franconia (1951 - 1954) 120mm guns: undetermined.
Annandale (1951 - 1957) 90mm guns: undetermined (W-63).
Vienna (1951 - 1957) 120mm guns: undetermined.
Hunting Ridge (1951 - 1954) 120mm guns, (1957) 90mm guns: undetermined.
Langley (1957 - 1958) 120mm guns, (1951 - 1957) 90mm guns: undetermined (West-72).
Fort Myer (1951 - 1958) 90mm guns (8): on mail (Washington Forest) (W-61).
NIKI Missile Sites: The NIKE Missile sites were the start nationwide U.S. air defence force system designed to protect against a Soviet nuclear set on. In the 1950s, they were highly visible, powerful symbols of U.S. military power as well as a reminder of the Soviet threat. The sites were the outgrowth of an increasing concern over the Soviet ability to equip jet aircraft with nuclear bombs, and continued to develop into an early on defense against Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs).
Duridue northg Globe State of war II, the U.S. military began to experiment with missiles and rockets in response to the German language rocket program. In 1943, the U.S. Army established the Rocket Branch of the Ordnance Corps, and in 1945 recruited Bell Laboratories and the Douglas Aircraft Company as part of the team (USACE 1997:5; Bright 1997:321). Although Bell Laboratories and Douglas had completed a epitome weapon by 1946, funding cutbacks delayed further progress. In 1951, Western Electric, then the prime contractor of the project, had developed a 34-foot, 2-stage missile guided by a system of three radars. The new missile could travel at Mach 2 (Bright1997:321). This missile used a highly volatile liquid fuel equanimous of jet fuel and nitric acid, and had to exist handled with full protective gear in specially constructed magazines. This was a revolutionary and complex applied science for the time. The first radar would place the target 125 miles abroad, the 2d would track the target, and a third would track the missile's form and alter it in response to the target tracking radar. All these activities were coordinated by computers. (Bright 1997:322).
In the early 1950s, antiaircraft defense consisted of conventional antiaircraft guns. Due to the increasing tensions between the U.South. and the Soviet Union and every bit a upshot of the Korean War, in1951 the Army endorsed a nationwide surface to air missile (SAM) defense system. Tensions became heightened in response to successful hydrogen flop tests by both the Soviet Matrimony and the United states of america in 1953. In that twelvemonth, the Ground forces created selection boards responsible for land acquisition and structure oversight (Bright 1997:323; USACE 1997:five-6).
Past the summer of 1953, Douglas and Bell were producing missiles and equipment, and grooming soldiers to operate the new missile system that was christened NIKE after the Greek goddess of victory. Later it was given the name NIKE-Ajax.
Land acquisition became an onerous procedure. Conflict and condemnation proceedings were required in some areas but country acquisition in Fairfax Canton was not difficult. The Army was required to utilize regime-owned state whenever possible. This probably fabricated the decision to locate at least role of the site at the D.C. Department of Corrections in Lorton a simple one. In October 1953, the Regular army obtained the apply of two parcels totaling 30 acres within the Lorton Prison house complex. Due to the size of the tract caused past the Regular army, the Lorton site was fabricated a double site that had six rather than the standard iii magazines, and twice the normal staff (Bright 1997:329).
Piece of work at the Lorton site began in March 1954, and was complete plenty to get the national showpiece for the Army's public unveiling of the nationwide NIKE programme in 1955. Due to its proximity and size, it was labeled the National NIKE Site by the Secretary of the Ground forces, and was host to visits past numerous foreign dignitaries as well as national and local politicians, and even local residents (Bright 1997:329-331). (2)
Shortly after the first NIKE sites were operational, President Dwight D. Eisenhower came to part with the promise to accept a "New Look" at our foreign policy, and notice means to use America'southward growing technology to create more efficient, toll effective defensive systems. The outgrowth of this "New Look" policy was the conclusion to use nuclear warheads on anti-aircraft missiles that could destroy several attackers with one missile at lower cost. The new missiles, dubbed NIKE-Hercules, were in fact an entirely new missile that flew up to 100,000 anxiety (30,480 meters) and had a speed of Mach 3.5. The new missile's range was twice that of the NIKE-Ajax, and the dangerous liquid fuel was replaced with a much safer solid propellant. The development of the new NIKE-Hercules was authorized in 1953, and information technology was gear up for service by October of 1958 (Bright 1997:339). For cost considerations, and because the NIKE system was so all-encompassing, with over three,000 launchers in service at its pinnacle, the Hercules was designed to fit into this NIKE-Ajax organization. Lorton became the epitome site for the conversion to NIKE-Hercules. Although the same site was used for the new missiles, some alterations had to be made to conform the Hercules. Gas detection systems were added to detect leaks in the tritium gas detonation system, and the lift motors and mechanisms that lifted the missiles to the surface needed to be upgraded to handle the heavier missile. Each magazine had to be spaced farther apart to prevent a rocket blast from damaging other weapons during a launch. Only about 1-third of the sites were chosen for these new weapons. Neither the Fairfax/Popes Head Route site nor the Herndon site received Hercules missiles (Bright 1997:340).
Due to the increased security required with the presence of nuclear weapons, the Army added intrusion alarms, erected fences and guard houses, and assigned iv-man military constabulary detachments with German shepherd guard dogs. These security concerns also concluded the open houses at Lorton and other installations that had one time been and so frequent. It is not known whether Hercules missiles at the Lorton site really independent nuclear warheads or not, since the weapons could also carry conventional warheads, but some analysts suggest that they did after the U-2 incident in 1960 ( Bright 1997:341). Due to construction and operating costs of the new Hercules facilities, the army decided to cede performance of many of the Ajax sites to the National Baby-sit. Beginning in 1958, the Virginia National Guard began training to take over the Fairfax site and the Ajax portion of the Lorton site. The Virginia National Guard consistently prepare records for performance in preparation exercises. By 1960, the Regular army closed the Ajax sites due to their prohibitive operating costs. Herndon was closed in 1961, and Fairfax in 1963. On August 30, 1963, the National Guard took control of Lorton, and but a small contingent of Army personnel continued to work at the site (Vivid 1997:344; USACE 1997:7).
During the 1960s, the political and defense climate changed, necessitating a modify in strategic defense operations. The Soviet Marriage began to increase their supply of ICBMs and decrease their dependence on long range bombers. Accordingly, the U.s.a. decided to focus on the structure of strategic nuclear weapons.
In 1973, Secretary of Defence James R. Schlesinger decided to close the Lorton site and all merely four of the remaining Hercules sites in the The states. Starting in Apr of 1974, the battery was airtight. Prior to its transfer to the Full general Services Assistants in that year, the Department of Defense force entered an agreement with GSA to remove the three radar towers and pad, and to spot weld and secure the missile launchers and storage shelters, also equally remove all "above basis obstacles" (USACE 1997:38).
Every bit a result of the DOD remediation, most of the NIKE operations structures were razed (Brilliant 1997:345-346). At the time of its demise, the NIKE organization was in its final phase, known equally NIKE-Zeus. Although never activated, many of the systems developed for the Zeus were later used in anti-tactical ballistic missiles (ATBMs). NIKE technology was also used in ICBM projects, but none of these were ever deployed. In 1963, there were 164 agile NIKE-Hercules batteries. By 1974, there were 52, and in 1975, just four remained. The last bombardment, at Fort Elation, Texas was decommissioned in 1983.
NIKI Sites in Northern Virginia
Site designations and locations of the Virginia sites defending the nation's capital
(W-64) Lorton (double site) - 1954 - Sep 1958
District of Columbia minimum security prison
(W-74) Fairfax Pohick—1954 - Mar 1963
Quiet Beck Rd. off Popes Head Rd
(W-83) Herndon Dranesville—1954 - November 1962
Springvale Rd, Due south of VA 193/ Georgetown Pike
Turner Farm County Park
Lorton was the image hush-hush missile battery with installation completed in September 1954. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the Lorton site served as the National Site so the bombardment was subjected to frequent VIP visits. Foreign dignitaries and military officials, politicians, schoolhouse groups, and boy scouts often toured the missile site. The sites were manned initially by Regular Army units with Virginia Army National Guard units assuming responsibilities in later years.
Lorton became the lone operational site in the Virginia portion of the Washington Defense Area after 1963. This Nike Hercules battery remained active until 1974.
Photograph top of folio and news article clipping: Antiaircraft Journal, 631 Penn. Ave,
Washington, DC. @1953.US Antiaircraft Association. Vol. LXXXXVI No. 6, p. 32
(1) Wikipedia
(2) The information provided in the Celebrated Context of the Nike Missile Site was extracted from the Historic Structures Determination of Eligibility Report, Lorton Correctional Complex prepared for the GSA by Greenhorne & O'Mara, Inc. /requirements of the National Celebrated Preservation Act of 1966. Much of the information included was provided by Irma Clifton of the Lorton Heritage Society.
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