Congratulations on a great site! We were stationed at Opheim AFS,779th from 1967-1969. I believe Col. Charles Woodford was the base commander. My father was JOHN C. REEVES, radar maintenance. Parley Hayes, Mike Chandler, Rupert Brown and Frank Church lived next to us in base housing. I was the newspaper boy on the base and boy howdy folks...it was COLD!!! We were also stationed at the 606 ACW Doebraberg,(HOF)Germany 1964-67, Hutchinson,Ks,1961-64, Tyndall AFB in Panama City,Fl. 1970, Denver 71-74, Plattsburg,NY 74-76 and again in Denver 77-79. Would love to hear from any of Johns'friends. Again, thanks to all the contributors for a great site!

I'm not sure if I'm a member or not. I was with the 603rd AC&W Sq at Giebelstadt and Langerkopf Germany from 1953 to 1956.

If anyone knows the status and e-handle of the following, can you
pls msg me with this info? Thanks, Aaron..
Bailey, Mackie D. MSG-r.
Clark, Robert [Bob]G. SMS-r.
Park, Oran [Bill]K. TSG-r.

Was in radar maint. in the USAF. 612th, 619th, 620th, & 623th to name a few.

Once upon a time, we all worked in systems designed to defend against surprise enemy bomber attacks.That threat passed and was replaced by the threat of missle and ICBM attacks. And now,looks like we are on the way to being able to knock them down mid-flight. Might be an interesting AFSC for a young man to chose while enlisting in the USAF!
CNN article...www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/27/missile.test/index.html

Wow - I was transferred to the 753rd Radar Sq in Saute Ste. Marie, MI., after 2 years in Thailand. What a change. This was the final duty of my 4 years and, now, I wish I had never left the service.
Would enjoy hearing from anyone who was there, April 72-April 73.
I have seen the photos, old and current, of the site and those are great. How many hours many of us spent in the TV room sitting in those really comfortable leather lounge chairs.

I enjoyed reading my copy of "Echoes" that I received in the mail yesterday. After looking at the photo of "Which site is this?", I was pretty sure it was the FPS-17 at Diyarbakir, Turkey. That brought back a lot of old memories. In 1954 I was a T/Sgt assigned to the Joint Military Mission for Aid to Turkey. I was with the Air Force Group, and assigned as the Group Radar Advisor to the Turkish Air Force (TAF). At that time, the TAF had a number of long range sites and gap filler sites. The equipment consisted of the CPS-1, CPS-4, TPS-10, CPS-5 and TPS-1b. My job was to visit all the sites and to assist them with training and maintenance problems. The sites were located throughout the country, but mostly along the Black Sea. One site that I had to visit was a long range site in Diyarbakir. It was a CPS-5 located right on the TAF Base. In the early part of November 1954, a radar siting team arrived at our headquarters from 17th Air Force in Rabat, North Africa. The team was headed by a L/C Warren, as I recall. It consisted of a group of about 12 civilians and a few military people. Most of the group were from the General Electric Company. The purpose of the visit was to go to Diyarbakir and do a site survey on a new radar. Since I was familiar with the Diyarbakir area and had the necessary security clearance, I was assigned to go with the team to help as required. For some unknown reason, someone had the bright idea to drive from Ankara to Diyarbakir. When I heard that, I suggested to the team leader to take a look at a Turkish "road" map and maybe they would reconsider that option. He did just that, and we went out to Etimesgut, the local TAF airbase, where they had landed, and took off for Diyarbakir in the C-47 they had arrived in from Rabat. From what I recall, it was about a 400 mile trip to Diyarbakir. After arriving at the TAF airbase in Diyarbakir, we had a group of jeeps available to us. We headed out to the proposed site, which was about 12-14 miles, and the team did what they had to do. After that, it was back to Ankara. A short time later, maybe a month or so, a Major arrived at our headquarters and I found out he was a civil engineer from USAFE. I'm pretty sure it was USAFE, but I could be wrong. His "mission" was to go to Diyarbakir to survey the new radar site that the 17th AF team had approved. Since he was alone, he needed someone who knew the site area, and to hold the "surveyors stick" while he looked through the scope. Guess who was picked for the job? You got it, T/Sgt Egan was the first choice. So off we go to Diyarbakir on the East courier, my favorite Goony Bird. With stops at Kayseri and Malatya, we finally arrive at the TAF airbase at Diyarbakir. One of the local USAF Sgt's met us, and loaned us his jeep for our mission. We had a few people on base most of the time to support and help with F-84 assistance. The Major, whose name I can't remember, and I left for the site to do our thing. We spent a few days surveying the whole site, him on the scope and me holding "the stick". I guess I'd be correct in saying that he and I were the first ones to completely walk around the new "billboard" site. We returned to Ankara, and he left to go back to his base and I went back to working with the TAF. After that, I had no involvement with the Diyarbakir site. I did see it as it was being built, as the C-47's going into and out of Diyarbakir AB flew pretty close to the site. It was hard to miss. All in all, it was an interesting experience. I spent two years in Turkey with the AF Group, and enjoyed it very much. I spent many days along the Black Sea, which was always my favorite place to visit. The upgrade to the Turkish radar sites is another chapter that comes later. It was also very interesting.

I was stationed at the North Bend,Oregon 761st Radar Squadron from 1960 to 1964.

Stationed at Murphy Dome AFS from 1967 to February 1968.
Have pictures I would be willing to share.

Civilian Pilots Provide Target Practice; Military Aircraft Chase Cessnas in Nighttime Drills Over Capital; By Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wed., Jan. 17, page A01, As his watch ticks toward midnight, Paul Gardella checks the oil on the small Cessna 182 parked on a cold, dark airstrip in Fairfax County. He knows what he soon could be facing: Coast Guard helicopters chasing him. F-16s intercepting him. Ground-to-air missiles tracking his every turn. That's because Gardella -- a software engineer and former military officer -- is taking on a new role. Enemy of the U.S. government. "In the Navy, I was on the other side. I was on the side of the ones that were shooting," he muses. Gardella, 50, is among a group of pilots who pose as nighttime intruders, penetrating restricted airspace over Washington in drills that take place every few weeks. While area residents slumber, the volunteers allow the U.S. military to practice intercepting them -- or worse.
The pilots are with the Civil Air Patrol, a national organization with a proud history of service. During World War II, its daredevil pilots chased German U-boats along the U.S. coast. In the ensuing decades, volunteers ran bomb-shelter exercises and helped the Air Force search for crashed planes. Now, with the country facing terrorist threats, the Civil Air Patrol is returning to its homeland-defense roots. "I understand there has to be practice," said Gardella, a laid-back father of three from Burke. If bad guys are what Uncle Sam needs, he declared, "I'm happy to help out."
In the low-slung flight operations center at Fort Belvoir, Gardella and three other pilots met on a recent wintry night to prepare for their mission. Clad in olive flight suits with Civil Air Patrol patches, they sat on couches in a wood-paneled room, studying maps and listening to a flight briefing from Gene Hartman, 72, a patrol member from Springfield. It was Gardella's first homeland security exercise, but his companions were veteran invaders. Air Force Col. Keith Zuegel, 47, won a Silver Star for bombing an Iraqi-held air base in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. After being promoted to a desk job, he joined the Civil Air Patrol to fly in his spare time. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he was asked to take part in military exercises again -- this time, over Washington. As the target.
"I said, 'Can you assure me I won't be shot down?' " the Vienna resident laughed. Kylie McDonald, 35, has been flying the missions for two years. The Centreville resident grew up in a military family and always felt the tug of national service. "Now I'm getting a similar opportunity, even though I'm a civilian," said McDonald, who works for a company that provides aviation services. Outside the room, in a pressed navy-blue uniform, sat Jane Davies, 52, of Springfield, who joined the Civil Air Patrol in 1969 as a "Star Trek"-obsessed teenager. She is commander of the patrol's D.C. area branch, or wing, which includes more than 200 adult volunteers and nearly 300 cadets under age 21. Only a small group of them are allowed to fly the Civil Air Patrol's red-white-and-blue Cessnas, Davies explained. Other patrol members are trained in activities such as hunting for vanished planes or handing out relief supplies after floods or hurricanes. For decades, the roughly 56,000 members nationwide have helped out the Air Force or local governments with such tasks. Now they are back doing homeland security -- "exactly what we did 65 years ago," Davies said, referring to the founding of the Civil Air Patrol by aviation enthusiasts at the dawn of World War II. Nationally, the patrol takes part in a variety of anti-terror activities. Some pilots periodically snap aerial photographs of sensitive sites such as nuclear plants or dams for the government. Sometimes patrol members are asked to fly military officers or government officials over certain areas. "We're not necessarily made privy to what they're looking at," said Rick Greenhut, head of homeland security for the patrol. "We're kind of the bus driver." Perhaps the most exciting missions, though, are the exercises known as Falcon Virgo, which take place over cities such as New York and Washington. They are directed by officials from the 1st Air Force at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, who coordinate air defense for the continental United States. Details of the Falcon Virgo exercises are often secret. "They ask us not to discuss it, for everyone's safety," McDonald said. The volunteer pilot simply informs friends she's "on a special mission for homeland security."
But this much is known: The exercises test Washington's air-defense radar system and the aircraft that might have to confront an intruder. Those include the Air Force jets that fly continuously over the capital, planes that scramble from Andrews Air Force base and Coast Guard helicopters. Participants include officials up the chain of command who must decide whether to intercept or shoot down an aircraft. Many involved in the exercises are not told that the Cessnas are "friendlies" until after they have been picked up by radar -- but well before any decision would be made to shoot them down. During some exercises, the military also tracks the Cessnas with ground-to-air missiles. "Which can be kind of disconcerting if you're flying them," observed Lt. Col. Gerry Sohan of the Air Force District of Washington. None are fired, though. The Civil Air Patrol is an auxiliary of the Air Force, which evaluates each wing every two years and provides about $30 million a year for planes, fuel and other expenses. The patrol owns more than 500 Cessnas, the biggest fleet in the world. But the Air Force doesn't pay the volunteers, thus saving a huge amount of money. "Just for the national capital region, one exercise would probably save close to $10,000," said Mark O'Brien, an employee with the 1st Air Force who is in charge of liaison with the Civil Air Patrol. Civil Air Patrol members pay $65 a year in dues and buy their own uniforms. In return, they get the opportunity to fly at reduced rates or take cheap flying lessons. But, Gardella said, they receive something more important. "Most of my flying has been for myself, for my own enjoyment," he said, referring to his many years as a private pilot. "I started to feel the Lord gave me the ability and resources and passion to fly, and so I ought to give something back." That explains why he was lifting off into the sky in a Cessna shortly before midnight with Zuegel at his side. It was to be a long night; they were supposed to invade Washington twice. Gardella isn't allowed to reveal what transpired in the nightlong exercise. But, contacted a few days later, he said he finished with such an adrenaline rush that he actually went to work instead of taking time off to sleep. And were his co-workers impressed that he had been out all night trying to help defend the United States from enemies, zooming his little Cessna into restricted airspace to be a target for fighter planes, helicopters and ground-to-air missiles? "They're not that into it," he said. "They're like, 'That's nice.'"

Two days ago, Jan. 15th., was the 46th anniversary of the collapse of Texas Tower 4 with the loss of 28 Airmen and civilians. There is a beautiful tribute to those who lost their lives that day. go to the website www.texastower.org

Concerning my previous message directing you to the TT website tribute. You'll want to have the volume on to get the full impact.

Served with 937th AC&W, Hvy Grnd Radar Repairman, 62-63. Assigned Adair AFS 63-65, a DC Control Center.
Tis' great to see all this on line. I had made several searchs to find thde 937th to no avail. Finally found this site vai a search on Homer, AK. Great Job, marvelous site.
The AF was my third service. I started in the USMCR, then to Army Security Agency, then to USAF. I finished up as an Aircraft Tech in the USNR, VP-90, a subhunter on Lake Michigan(Don't how it got there)
Ultimately retired from Ameritech in midwest(AT&T now). As we were fond of saying back then..To whom these presents, sincere regards, and thank you for your service.

Lloyd Bennett

Source: http://www.bcda.gov.ph/sub-poro.asp

Poro Point, formerly Wallace Air Station in San Fernando, La Union [The Philippine], is planned as an industrial estate with tourism facilities, an airport and a seaport. In 1994, the John Hay-Poro Point Development Corporation (JPDC) was established to oversee the combined development of Camp John Hay in Baguio City and Poro Point in San Fernando, La Union.
...
The Master Plan to transform the 216-hectare Poro Point Special Economic Zone into an international container facility and cruise destination has been finalized. ...

(for the rest of the story, refer to the website listed)

Would like very much to join. Former surveillance operator, 602ACWS, Giebelstadt, Germany - 1964-1967.

Served in AC&W at Calumet, Barrington,Chandler,Clark on Lilly Hill,

and then at Wallace PI.

I operated an electronics parts wholesale dealership in the early 60's in St. Johnsbury VT, and supplied the DEW radar base in East Haven, VT with a lot of materials.(DeMambro Radio Supply on Portland St.At that time, I held Tech. license K1CGA. I want to return to ham radio now that I have retired. I understand from the latest issue of QST that I may qualify for a General ticket under the grandfather clause.(see Feb. '07 issue of QST, Page 80 Question 7) Call me sometime at (802)748-4729. John Porter

Looking for anyone from 666th Mill Valley, 932 Rockville, 964th McClellan.
Does anyone remember tyhe big alert exercise, 1955 I think but possibly 1966. B-52,s were just coming on line and our F-89,s could not go high enough or fast enough to intercept them. Results of exercise was seberal US citys wiped out. Guess it was a big wakeup call. Hoop

Arnold Hooper: sounds an awful lot like the precursor to WEXVAL, which took place in 1958-59. We ran WEXVAL missions in northern Canada a bunch back then. It started with Gen. LeMay's bomber mission into the U.S. from England, thru Canada (as I was told), down into the U.S. I was told that they got to Olathe, KS before they were intercepted. The result was a high-pressure SAC/ADC exercise, called WEXVAL - got no idea what that means - except for lots of sleepless nights.

RADOMES Crew:
I don't know if you'd be interested in the following items: Hancock Field, Headquarters 35th Air Division 1968 Unofficial Directory and Guide and a copy of the DEFENDER, 24TH NORAD REGION, Vol. 15dated June 1984. If you want them just let me know where to send them.

G. Wickert MSGT USAF Retired

Unalakleet AFS, Jan 58-Feb 59. Member of the REDHORSE ASSOCIATION.

Any of you "Scope Dope" remember getting oders to go to a "Richmond NAS" then HomesteadAFB just before and right after Bay Of Pigs oper. in Cuba? grabbed troops from sights from all over US , couldn't believe it just got back from Iceland, was TDY for awhile then made PCS ended up at NAS Key West, 30 days then kept on extending up 180 days not telling us anything ,familys all over asking that did it for me after 9 yrs. cashed it in got out and went to FAA

A number of you were stationed at radar sites in Japan at one time or another during your Air Force career. You might be interested in knowing that the modern-day Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF) air defenses include a mix of former U.S. radar stations and new radar stations. For a map showing all of the present radar sites (and other principal SDF sites) in Japan, go to http://www.fpcj.jp/e/mres/publication/ff/pdf/05_defense.pdf.

Re my earlier post, the Japanese SDF map (31 March 2004) is ALSO found at http://www.jda.go.jp/e/pab/wp2004/a12_diagram.pdf. In both cases, you need to enlarge the map in order to make out any detail.

Just sent in my annual membership dues. If you enjoy this website as much as I do, consider a membership in Radomes Inc. In the "Navigate" window at the top of this page, scroll down to "Donations" and follow the prompts. It's only 25 bucks a year and money well spent.

From the 1/5/07 NY Times Op-Ed Page, “Looking Forward to Looking Back,” concerning anniversaries to be marked this year (edited): 50th anniversary of the launching of the first artificial satellite, the Soviet Union’s Sputnik, marking the dawn of the space age and prompting a huge investment in science education in this country (Oct. 4, 1957); 45th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, during which President John F. Kennedy and the Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, confronted each other over the latter’s shipment of nuclear missiles to Cuba (Oct. 14 - 28, 1962); 40th anniversary of the release of the Beatles’ masterpiece “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (June 1, 1967); 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, Jordan and Syria (June 5-10, 1967); 30th anniversary of Jimmy Carter’s pardoning of Vietnam War-era draft dodgers (Jan. 21, 1977); 25th anniversary of the Falkland Islands war (March 19-June 14, 1982); 10th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death in a Paris car crash (Aug. 31, 1997); 5th anniversary of President Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech (Jan. 29, 2002).

Re the posts by Jeff States and John Tianen (below). The referenced document by Burns & Roe (which we came across several years ago, and from which we borrowed several photos) is indeed nice. Just be aware that it contains a few *minor* errors. For example, see ''Recent Photos'' for Truax Field (SAGE); the document gets the DC blockhouse and the CC blockhouse reversed. No biggie, I know -- it's just one small artifact stemming from the fact that the document was researched and compiled by laymen, not by ADC / ADCOM veterans like us. Still, it is a good compilation over all.

Chicago Tribune 1/1/07: It sounds like a tired joke--but a group of airline employees insist they are in earnest, and they are upset that neither their bosses nor the government will take them seriously. A flying saucerlike object hovered low over O'Hare International Airport for several minutes before bolting through thick clouds with such intense energy that it left an eerie hole in overcast skies, said some United Airlines employees who observed the phenomenon. Was it an alien spaceship? A weather balloon lost in the airspace over the world's second-busiest airport? A top-secret military craft? Or simply a reflection from lights that played a trick on the eyes? Officials at United professed no knowledge of the Nov. 7 event--which was reported to the airline by as many as a dozen of its own workers--when the Tribune started asking questions recently. But the Federal Aviation Administration said its air traffic control tower at O'Hare did receive a call from a United supervisor asking if controllers had spotted a mysterious elliptical-shaped craft sitting motionless over Concourse C of the United terminal. No controllers saw the object, and a preliminary check of radar found nothing out of the ordinary, FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said. The FAA is not conducting a further investigation, Cory said. The theory is the sighting was caused by a "weather phenomenon," she said. The UFO report has sparked some chuckles among controllers in O'Hare tower. "To fly 7 million light years to O'Hare and then have to turn around and go home because your gate was occupied is simply unacceptable," said O'Hare controller and union official Craig Burzych. Some of the witnesses, interviewed by the Tribune, said they are upset that neither the government nor the airline is probing the incident. Whatever the object was, it could have interfered with O'Hare's radar and other equipment, and even created a collision risk, they said. The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (the term that extraterrestrial-watchers nowadays prefer over Unidentified Flying Object) was first seen by a United ramp worker who was directing back a United plane at Gate C17, according to an account the worker provided to the National UFO Reporting Center. The sighting occurred during daylight, about 4:30 p.m., just before sunset. All the witnesses said the object was dark gray and well defined in the overcast skies. They said the craft, estimated by different accounts to be 6 feet to 24 feet in diameter, did not display any lights. Some said it looked like a rotating Frisbee, while others said it did not appear to be spinning. All agreed the object made no noise and it was at a fixed position in the sky, just below the 1,900-foot cloud deck, until shooting off into the clouds. Witnesses shaken by sighting "I tend to be scientific by nature, and I don't understand why aliens would hover over a busy airport," said a United mechanic who was in the cockpit of a Boeing 777 that he was taxiing to a maintenance hangar when he observed the metallic-looking object above Gate C17. "But I know that what I saw and what a lot of other people saw stood out very clearly, and it definitely was not an [Earth] aircraft," the mechanic said. One United employee appeared emotionally shaken by the sighting and "experienced some religious issues" over it, one co-worker said. A United manager said he ran outside his office in Concourse B after hearing the report about the sighting on an internal airline radio frequency. "I stood outside in the gate area not knowing what to think, just trying to figure out what it was," he said. "I knew no one would make a false call like that. But if somebody was bouncing a weather balloon or something else over O'Hare, we had to stop it because it was in very close proximity to our flight operations."