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45-772: United States electronic attack warning began with a 1939 networking demonstration at Twin Lights station NJ , and 2 SCR-270 radar stations during the August 1940 " Watertown maneuvers " (NY). When "Pearl Harbor was attacked, [there were 8 CONUS] early-warning stations" (ME, NJ, & 6 in CA), and Oahu's Opana Mobile Radar Station had 1 of 6 SCR-270s. CONUS "Army Radar Station" deployments for World War II were primarily for coastal anti-aircraft defense, e.g., L-1 at Oceanside CA, J-23 at Seaside OR ( Tillamook Head ), and B-30 at Lompoc CA; and "the AAF...inactivated

90-811: A coastal defense battery of two 6-inch M1903 guns on the hill to the south of the Twin Lights Lighthouse. The batteries were garrisoned by the United States Army Coast Artillery Corps as part of the Harbor Defenses of New York . Battery Lewis was one of the primary batteries guarding Greater New York in World War II , along with another 16-inch battery at Fort Tilden in Queens and two 12-inch long-range batteries at Fort Hancock on Sandy Hook. These rendered all previous heavy guns in

135-720: A few Lashup stations became part of the subsequent "75-station, permanent net", e.g., the Montauk USAF facility was named an Air Force Station when designated LP-45 (the Palermo AFS L-14 reportedly became permanent site LP-54 in 1951.) One station of the Lashup Radar Network remained in 1957 at the end of which ADC operated 182 radar stations ( cf. 135 SAGE CDTS sites in 1963, 66 "long-range radars" in 1981, and 41 JSS stations in 1985). Highlands Air Force Station#Twin Lights station Highlands Air Force Station

180-855: A major concern of the United States was a possible attack by Soviet long-range bombers. In 1948, the United States Air Force (USAF) directed its Air Defense Command (ADC) to take radar sets out of storage for operation in the Northeastern United States. In June 1948, Air Defense Command activated the 646th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron at the Twin Light Lashup Site L-12 with the Watson Laboratories General Electric AN/CPS-6 Radar and an AN/TPS-1B radar providing radar data to

225-582: A named air division was an organization within a large support command that was assigned a major or important segment of that command's mission—e.g., the Electronic Systems Division handled a large part of the Air Force Systems Command's work-load in electronic systems. Because they were usually technical or highly specialized in nature, named divisions generally had a large number of personnel. One named division of an operational command

270-458: A report by Maj. Gen. Francis L. "Ankenbrandt and his communications officers " and which was approved by the USAF Chief of Staff on November 21, 1947. The "Radar Fence Plan ( code named Project SUPREMACY)" was to be complete by 1953 with 411 radar stations and 18 control centers in the continental United States. Air Defense Command (ADC) rejected Supremacy since "no provision was made in it for

315-551: A separate network.) Stations were geographically grouped by Air Divisions which each had a ground-controlled intercept (GCI) center (e.g., Roslyn Air Warning Station's Manual Control Center in New York). Palermo Air Force Station Portland Air National Guard Base Fort Meade radar station Highlands Air Force Station Selfridge AFB radar station Snelling Air Force Station Fort Williams Cape Charles Air Force Station Lashup used improved systems that included

360-527: A supervising senior NCO (usually an E-7) over AFSC 27150 (mission monitors or mission controllers) E-3s to E-6s. Two famous ALCEs in South Vietnam were Rocket Alley ALCE (pronounce Al-See) at Bien Hoa AB and Sandbox ALCE at Cam Rahn Bay AB . Rocket Alley ALCE was a hard-luck combat assignment while Sandbox ALCE was only occasionally attacked. Branched off of the ALCE were TDY assignments with mobile ALCE units into

405-608: Is now Hartshorne Woods Park . In January 2017 a retired US Navy 16"/50 caliber Mark 7 gun , formerly a spare for the Iowa -class battleships , was placed on display in one of the gun positions of Battery Lewis. USAF Air Division In the United States Air Force , a division was an intermediate level of command, subordinate to a numbered air force , controlling one or more wings . It also controlled squadrons without associated same-function wings, i.e., 17th Defense Systems Evaluation Squadron had no associated wing, but its function

450-497: The 25th Air Division , was established October 25, 1948, "at Silver Lake (Everett), Washington", the 26th Air Division was activated at Mitchell Field NY on November 16, and both were transferred to ADC on April 1, 1949. " Lashup I " was a stopgap $ 561,000 program approved in October 1948 by the ADC commander to expand "the five-station radar net then in existence". Preliminary work began by

495-566: The 58th Air Division [tbd Lashup sites] indicated insufficient low-altitude coverage," and Maj Gen Morris R. Nelson identified on June 12 that ADC could employ "an American version of CDS", the British command and control system . Congress subsequently passed a "supplemental appropriation" in September 1950 of nearly $ 40 million for new radar stations and search/height-finder equipment." By November 1950, Ground Observation Corps filter centers (7 in

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540-601: The Monmouth County Parks System . The Navesink Military Reservation (also called the Highlands Military Reservation ) was added as a historic district to the National Register of Historic Places on 13 October 2015. The Navesink Highlands had a sea navigation beacon in 1746, and the first Navesink Twin Lights lighthouse was built in 1828. The current Navesink Twin Lights lighthouse

585-579: The Texas Tower 4 . In 1960 the Air Force installed an AN/FPS-6 B height-finder radar at Highlands which, along with the AN/FPS-6, had been replaced by 1963 with AN/FPS-26 A and AN/FPS-90 sets. On 31 July 1963 the site was redesignated as NORAD ID Z-9. The United States Secretary of Defense announced on 20 November 1964, that the Air Force operations would be closed. The Highlands Army Air Defense Site (HAADS)

630-596: The Western Electric AN/TPS-1B Radar , which was first used in 1948 (a -1B was at Portland L-33 in March 1948 for warning the nuclear Hanford Site .) L-17 began using a 1949 Bendix AN/CPS-5 radar , to which a height finder MIT AN/CPS-4 Radar was added by March 9, 1950. Also developed was the General Electric AN/CPS-6 Radar which was at L-12 in 1949. The Bendix AN/FPS-3 Radar used in

675-422: The Air Force "division" carried several designations of the name "strategic aerospace division"; "strategic missile division"; "space division", however the most common designation was "air division". An air division was commanded by major general, brigadier general or colonel. Air divisions were found in all major commands between 1948 and 1992, when the last air division was inactivated. Official policy dictated

720-739: The Air Force air raid warning system"); in August "President Truman had a direct telephone line installed between the Air Force Pentagon post and the White House ." The 44 Lashup radar stations in April 1950 were 23 in the Northeast/Great Lakes areas, 10 in the Pacific Northwest , 5 in/near Southern California, 3 at Albuquerque, 2 at San Francisco, and 1 in Tennessee (Alaska radars were in

765-540: The Alaska to Greenland net with flanks guarded by aircraft and picket ships [required] for 3 to 6 hours of warning time", and "Congress failed to act on legislation required to support the proposed system." In the spring and summer of 1947, 3 ADC Aircraft Control and Warning (AC&W) plans had gone unfunded. In November 1947 ADC "decided to go ahead with implementation [using] AC&W assets…ADC possessed." The January 1, 1948, Finletter Commission report "while recognizing

810-477: The Central Highlands and other locations in country. These usually consisted of a lt. col or major, E-6 or E-7, and one or two E-4 or E-5 AFSC 271XX to coordinate C-130, C-7A, and occasional C-123 traffic on unimproved airfields. These mobile ALCE units were testing facilities for newly developed fold-up aluminum honeycomb sleeping quarters, radio rooms, and toilet facilities, all collapsible and moveable aboard

855-675: The Highlands Air Force Station began operating the first Bendix AN/FPS-14 Radar in the nation at the radar Gap Filler site P-9A in Gibbsboro, New Jersey until 1960. In 1958, four General Electric AN/FPS-6 Radar were added to the site along with a General Electric AN/FPS-7 Radar . In 1958, Highlands Air Force Station began providing data to Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) Direction Center DC-01 at McGuire AFB which had Air Defense Command interceptor aircraft and CIM-10 Bomarc surface-to-air missiles. In September 1959,

900-515: The Highlands Air Force Station was the first site in the nation with a General Electric AN/FPS-7 Radar used for long range surveillance for the Martin AN/FSG-1 Antiaircraft Defense System and the Air Force. (The 1262nd U.S. Army Signal Missile Master Support Detachment provided site maintenance to the Martin AN/FSG-1 Antiaircraft Defense System from 1960 to 1966. ) The Missile Master at the Highlands Air Force Station

945-624: The Lashup network was ready for installation in late 1950. The Interim Program and its First Augmentation were planned to replace Lashup with a larger radar network "until the Supremacy plan network could be approved and constructed", and an $ 85,500,000 March 1949 Congressional bill funded both the Interim Program "for 61 basic radars and 10 control centers to be deployed in 26 months, with an additional ten radars and one control station for Alaska" and

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990-741: The Manual Control Center at Roslyn Air Warning Station , New York as part of the Lashup Radar Network . In December 1950, 646th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron moved from the Twin Lights Lashup site to the Navesink Military Reservation with a new General Electric AN/CPS-6 Radar . In July 1951 the Air Defense Command accepted the new radar and designated the site P-9 as the 9th new Permanent radar site in

1035-571: The Navesink Highlands for seacoast defense , transferred from the mortar batteries at Fort Hancock, New Jersey on Sandy Hook . These were called Battery Hartshorne. The battery was named for Richard Hartshorne , a settler who acquired the land in the 1670s. This battery was disarmed in 1920. By 1933, Harold A. Zahl 's radio range experiments had begun from the Twin Lights lighthouse , and an August 1935 US Army Signal Corps radar test at

1080-512: The World War II wings were redesignated "divisions", and placed immediately below the numbered air forces in the organizational pyramid. The "wing" was redefined to be the USAF basic organizational unit which exercised command and control over a "Base", the physical facility that included the airfield and the support units (groups, squadrons) to support the operation of a wing. In the years after 1948,

1125-613: The aircraft warning network in April 1944." In 1946 the Distant Early Warning Line was "first conceived—and rejected". By 1948 there were only 5 AC&W stations, e.g., Twin Lights in June and Montauk's "Air Warning Station #3 on July 5 ( cf. SAC radar stations , e.g., at Dallas & Denver Bomb Plots). The Radar Fence was a planned U.S. Cold War air defense "warning and control system" for $ 600 million (including $ 388 million for radars and other equipment) proposed in

1170-698: The area obsolete, and these were gradually scrapped during the war. After World War II it was determined that gun defenses were obsolete, and the guns at Navesink were scrapped in 1948. The Twin Lights Aircraft Warning Corps Site 8A was an Army radar site that reported radar data to an Information Filter and Control Center in the New York Telephone building (now the Verizon Building ) in New York City during World War II. The station

1215-612: The augmentation's additional 15 radars ("essentially Phase II of Supremacy"). The USAF reallocated $ 50 million to instead implement the program as a "permanent Modified Plan" (modified from Supremacy) to "start construction on the high Priority Permanent System of radars in February 1950 with the first 24 radar sites to be constructed by the end of 1950"—operating in 1951 were P-1 in WA (opened June 1, 1950) and TM-187 in TX . Early June 1950 exercises "in

1260-402: The end of 1948, and L-1 at Dow Air Force Base was complete in June 1949. In the fall of 1949 a 2nd stage of "additional Lashup stations and heavy radar equipment [was] authorized", and after completed in April 1950 the "Lashup net went into operation" on June 1, 1950. After a mid-July direct telephone line was installed between CONAC headquarters and the 26th Air Division HQ ("the beginning of

1305-486: The first level of command below Headquarters, USAAF. The World War II commands, which had been subordinate to the numbered air forces , were eliminated in the reorganization of 1946, and the Numbered Air Forces were made components of the major commands at home and overseas. The new organizational hierarchy thus contained the following levels : squadron, group, wing, air force, command. In 1948, and afterward,

1350-514: The following information: During the Vietnam War air divisions were commonly used as 'placeholder' organizations when the operational wing at an Air Force Base was deployed to Southeast Asia and commanded the remaining groups and squadrons at a single or multiple Air Force bases. Air divisions were gradually phased out of the Air Force command structure after the end of the Vietnam War, with

1395-509: The lighthouse allowed a searchlight beam to track an aircraft. An SCR-268 radar assembled in August 1938 was demonstrated at the Twin Lights lighthouse in 1939. In 1942-44 the Navesink (or Highlands) Military Reservation was built, which included Battery Isaac N. Lewis (also called Battery 116), a casemated coastal defense battery of two 16"/50 caliber Mark 2 guns , along with Battery 219,

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1440-572: The nation as part of the Air Defense Command Permanent radar network. In December 1953 the Navesink Military Reservation was renamed to the Highlands Air Force Station. In 1955 a General Electric AN/FPS-8 Radar for medium range surveillance was installed to augment the radar data of the General Electric AN/CPS-6 Radar and was (later converted to a General Electric AN/GPS-3 Radar that remained until 1960.) Nine units of officers housing were built in 1955 near Battery 219. In March 1957

1485-581: The need for a radar early-warning system, cautioned against the extraordinary expense of such a system, if constructed, to provide total coverage." The ADC commander "was ordered on 23 April 1948 to establish with his current resources [the initial networks with] AC&W systems in the Northwestern United States, the Northeastern United States, and the Albuquerque, New Mexico, areas, in that priority." The "first air defense division organization",

1530-549: The numbered air force assuming direct command of its subordinate wings. The last existed into the early 1990s and their usage ended with the 1992 major reorganization of the USAF major commands. In Vietnam the USAF's 834th Air Division also had small Divisional lateral units called an "elements." The 834th Air Division Airlift Command Center (ALCC commonly called "mother") operated eight airlift command elements (ALCEs) throughout South Vietnam . The ALCEs were commanded by lieutenant colonels, usually had several supervising majors,

1575-712: The site was operated as a research field station by the Lt. Colonel Paul E. Watson Laboratories in Red Bank, New Jersey. Watson Laboratories set up an experimental model of an AN/CPS-6 Radar which was developed at the end of World War II by M.I.T. After the 1948 Berlin Blockade in Germany, the Cold War was on and with the appearance of the Soviet Tupolev Tu-4 intercontinental bomber in 1947,

1620-529: The use of Arabic numerals for numbered air and aerospace divisions. Examples: 2nd Air Division , 7th Air Division , and 1st Strategic Aerospace Division . Following the initiation of major command-controlled (MAJCON) four-digit Table of Distribution (T/D) organizations in 1948, the major commands were briefly authorized to organize air divisions, provided they secured USAF approval. Two four-digit air divisions (4310th Air Division and 7217th Air Division) were subsequently organized. Besides numbered air divisions,

1665-927: The west, 19 in the east) were being installed, and by November 10 a separate Air Defense Command headquarters at Ent AFB was approved (the Federal Civil Defense Administration was created in December 1950.) On June 13, 1951, the government released $ 20 million for construction of permanent radar stations, and the "original construction program for the Permanent System" was completed in May 1952. Phaseout of Lashup radar stations began in January 1952 at Larson AFB (L-29) & Richland (L-30) in Washington that were replaced by Othello AFS (P-40) . On December 1, 1953,

1710-762: Was a military installation in Middletown Township near the borough of Highlands, New Jersey . The station provided ground-controlled interception radar coverage as part of the Lashup Radar Network and the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment network, as well as providing radar coverage for the Highlands Army Air Defense Site . The site's 240 acres (97 ha) is now the Rocky Point section in Hartshorne Woods Park of

1755-534: Was built in 1862. The Navesink Highlands were used for antebellum flag signaling experiments that communicated with Fort Tompkins on Staten Island in 1859. In 1899 Guglielmo Marconi built a radio station on the hill next to the north tower of the Navesink Twin Lights to report on the America's Cup races off of Sandy Hook. In 1917 during World War I, four 12-inch coast defense mortars were placed on

1800-509: Was established in 1966 with the first Hughes AN/TSQ-51 Air Defense Command and Coordination System in the nation. This replaced the Martin AN/FSG-1 Antiaircraft Defense System in the Missile Master nuclear-hardened bunker, which used radar data to guide Nike missiles . HAADS assumed control of the USAF station after the DoD announced its closure for July 1966. The 646th Radar Squadron (SAGE)

1845-532: Was inactivated on 1 July 1966. The Army's use of the site ended in 1974 under Project Concise when the Nike missile program ended. Most of the buildings were demolished in the mid-1980s and mid 1990s, and a few building foundations remain in a small clearing within the site's overgrowth of vegetation. However, the concrete remains of Battery Lewis, Battery 219, and the Plotting and Switchboard Bunker still stand. The area

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1890-423: Was part of the 24th Air Division . Divisions are now considered obsolete. On 16 September 1947, the United States Army Air Forces became the United States Air Force as a separate and equal element of the United States armed forces. Earlier, on 21 March 1946, General Carl A. Spaatz had undertaken a major reorganization of the Army Air Forces that had included the establishment of the major command echelon as

1935-560: Was the Army's command post for the New York-Philadelphia Defense Area and was designated as Nike Site NY-55DC and was a NORAD Control Center . It was operated by the 52nd Artillery Brigade (Air Defense). Texas Tower 4 (call sign "Dora") was an offshore radar annex of Highlands Air Force Station operated by a 646th Radar Squadron (SAGE) from 1958 until it collapsed into the Atlantic Ocean on 15 January 1961, killing 28 people. The Highlands Air Force Station had an AN/FRC-56 Tropospheric scatter Communications shore station which communicated with

1980-486: Was the USAF Southern Air Division which absorbed resources of the United States Air Forces Southern Command in 1976, and was part of Tactical Air Command . An air division's numerical identification was usually unique to a major command, however when inactivated, the numerical identification could and was used by a different major command if it was reactivated. During the Cuban Missile Crisis three air divisions, provisional, were organized. Air Force record cards contain

2025-437: Was used for a November 1939 demonstration for the Secretary of War in which radar data was networked from the local SCR-270 radar and, via telephone, from one in Connecticut that both tracked a Mitchel Field B-17 bomber formation. From 1942 to 1945, the site had a World War II Westinghouse SCR-271 radar for early warning. The site was operated by the 608th Signal Aircraft Warning Battalion. Between 1946 and June 1948

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