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Highlands Air Force Station

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Highlands Air Force Station
USAF transmitter call sign: "Jitney"
Part of Air Defense Command
Coordinates40°23′29″N 073°59′38″W / 40.39139°N 73.99389°W / 40.39139; -73.99389 (Highlands AFS P-9)
TypeGeneral Surveillance Radar Station
CodeL-12: 1948 Lashup Radar Network
P-9: 1949 ADC permanent network
Z-9: 1963 July 31 NORAD network
Site information
Controlled by United States Air Force
Site history
In use1948-1966
Garrison information
Garrison 646th AC&W Squadron

Highlands Air Force Station was a Navesink Highlands military installation in Middletown Township near the borough of Highlands, New Jersey.[1] 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)[1] is now the Rocky Point section in Hartshorne Woods Park of the Monmouth County Parks System.

The "base of the 646th [squadron] atop the Highlands-Middletown hill overlooking the Navesink river" (published August 7, 1958).[2]

History

The Navesink Highlands had a sea navigation beacon in 1746,[3] and the Twin Lights north tower was built in 1828.[4] The New Jersey Highlands were used for antebellum flag signaling experiments that communicated with Fort Tomkins on Staten Island in 1859,[5]: 30  and Guglielmo Marconi had a 1899 radio station on the hill near the north tower.[4]

Seacoast defense and 1930s radar testing

For the 1934 infrared detection experiments at Battery Halleck[6] northeast of the lighthouse, see Fort Hancock, New Jersey.

In World War I, a mortar battery was placed on the Navsink Highlands for seacoast defense.[7] By 1933, Harold A. Zahl's radio range experiments had begun from the Twin Lights lighthouse,[8] and an August 1935 US Army Signal Corps radar test at the lighthouse allowed a searchlight beam to track an aircraft.[6] An SCR-268 radar assembled in August 1938 was demonstrated at the "Twin Lights, N. J." lighthouse in 1939.[9] Battery Isaac N. Lewis on the hill was a World War II seacoast defense site.[7]

Twin Lights station

The "Twin Lights station"[10] was an Army radar site with a control center that was used for a November 1939[9] demonstration to 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[11] a Mitchel Field[10] B-17 bomber formation. From 1942-5, the site had a World War II Westinghouse SCR-271 radar for early warning and in 1948, Air Defense Command activated[clarification needed] the 646th Aircraft Control Squadron at Highlands AFS with a General Electric AN/CPS-6 Radar providing data to the Manual Control Center at Roslyn Air Warning Station, New York. In 1955 a General Electric AN/FPS-8 Radar for medium range surveillance was installed[clarification needed] southwest of the lighthouse (later converted to a General Electric AN/GPS-3 Radar[12] that remained until 1960.) By 1957, the site was 229 acres (93 ha) and an additional area was planned for Army housing.[13] In 1958, a height finder General Electric AN/FPS-6 Radar was added to the site.

SAGE site

In 1958, Highlands Air Force Station began providing data to 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, Highlands was the first site with a General Electric AN/FPS-7 Radar[specify] for long range surveillance.[7] Texas Tower 4 (call sign "Dora") was an offshore radar annex of Highlands operated by a 646th flight from 1959 until it collapsed into the Atlantic Ocean in 1961, killing 28 people. In 1960 the Air Force installed an AN/FPS-6B height-finder radar at Highlands which, along with the AN/FPS-6, had been replaced by 1963 with AN/FPS-26A and AN/FPS-90 sets. The United States Secretary of Defense announced on November 20, 1964, that the Air Force operations would be closed.[1]

The Highlands Army Air Defense Site (HAADS) was established east of the station in 1958 with a Missile Master nuclear bunker which used the USAF radar data. HAADS assumed control[when?] of the USAF station after the DoD had announced its closure for July 1966[1] (the USAF squadron deactivated on July 1, 1966.) Army use of the former USAF radars ended in 1974 when the Nike missile program ended,[14] USAF structures were demolished in the early 1990s,[15] and a few building foundations remain in a small clearing within the site's overgrowth of vegetation.

External image
image icon 1930s radars at the Twin Lights lighthouse
image icon map of current site with park trails

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Highlands Radar Site Closing" (PDF). The Daily Register. Red Bank, New Jersey. November 20, 1964. Retrieved 2011-10-10. McNamara Firm on Base Shutdowns …two naval shipyards, six bomber bases,…in 33 states and the District … 80 bases in the United States and 15 overseas … Portsmouth…Navy Yard … Brooklyn Navy Yard and the Brooklyn Army Terminal. … Springfield Armory … Temporary Team … Highlands Air Force Station … personnel will be inactivated by July, 1966, leaving Army radar unit at base intact … What's Behind Decision … Over the past four years 574 U.S. military bases around the world ... McNamara struck 16 more Air Defense Command radar stations
  2. ^ "Location of the Missile Master" (PDF). Red Bank Register. Red Bank, New Jersey. August 7, 1958. Retrieved 2011-10-09.
  3. ^ "646th Radar Squadron (SAGE)". New York Air Defense Sector Yearbook. 1960. Retrieved 2011-10-09. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ a b http://books.google.com/books?id=9tnz8HPyCmMC&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=Marconi+%22New+Jersey%22+Highlands&source=bl&ots=aGVOSzw5EE&sig=LzIaJ5qOiYI7s57SgsYMyAUtueQ&hl=en&ei=qu2QTs2oL8rUiALXs6DNCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Marconi%20%22New%20Jersey%22%20Highlands&f=false
  5. ^ Rauch, Steven J. "Edward P. Alexander versus Albert J. Myer: Success and failure at the Battle of Bull Run" (PDF). Army Communicator: Voice of the Signal Regiment. 36 (3). Retrieved 2011-10-09. Both Myer and Alexander…carried out a final series of trials with Myer stationed on the New Jersey Highlands and Alexander 15 miles away at Fort Tomkins on Staten Island. … Alexander…could read signals made with a four-foot flag on a 12-foot pole "with [only] a small and weak glass."
  6. ^ a b Davis, Harry M. (1st Lt) (Declassified 1972) [March 1943-Confidential]. "Chapter IV". The Signal Corps Development of U.S. Army Radar Equipment. Signal Corps. Retrieved 2011-10-08. The Ordnance Department, which had voluntarily relinquished the [radar] project to the Signal Corps in 1930, now argued…that the data from a short-wave radio detector might eventually be applied directly to the gun director, eliminating the searchlight and replacing the sound locator. …the opening of the new Squier Laboratory building at Fort Monmouth, the personnel on 30 June 1936 consisted of only eight officers, seventeen enlisted men and ninety-two civilians. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ a b c "The Historic Atlantic Highlands Military Reservation (MR)". Fort Tilden. November 11, 2005. Retrieved 2011-10-07. Battery 219, Atlantic Highlands MR, NJ … This same plot of land on the Atlantic Highlands was later used as a control center for Nike air defense missiles during the Cold War. … Many Army units were based here: HQ 52nd [Air Defense Artillery] Brigade: November 1968 to September 1972.     HQ 19th Group [19th Artillery Group HAADS]: December 1961 to November 1968.     HQ 16th Group: June 1971 to September 1974.     HHB/3/51st: November 1968 to September 1972     HHB/1/51st: September 1972 to June 1973. {{cite web}}: External link in |quote= (help) NOTE: A U.S. Army Signal Missile Master Support Detachment provided site maintenance.[1] : 12 
  8. ^ http://infoage.org/_CE/html/chapter-4c-crr.html
  9. ^ a b Vieweger, Arthur L; White, Albert S. (after 1956: "FPS-20 radar set" on p. 23). Development of Radar SCR-270 (Report). Retrieved 2011-10-08. Such radars were therefore imported from England for analysis and comparison in a field set-up at the Signal Corps Radar Laboratory, in Belmar, N. J. … final version of SCR-271 with… Transmitter Peak Power - 500 KW (using the same WL-350 tubes); Pulse Width - 20 microseconds - Antenna - 64 dipoles 8 x 8 configuration; Antenna Beam Width Approx. 10° … at Oakhurst, N. J. … "Diana" using the major components of SCR-271…succeeded in…receiving echoes from the moon in January 1946. {{cite report}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)
  10. ^ a b Terrett, Dulany (1994) [1956 - CMH Pub 10-16-1]. The Signal Corps: The Emergency (To December 1941) (PDF). Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History. LCCN 56-6002. Retrieved 2011-11-13. Secretary Woodring was discovered to have brushed the stop button on the rectifier unknowingly.
  11. ^ http://ieee-aess.org/sites/default/files/documents/2006%20August%20Systems%20Magazine%20Radar%20A%20Case%20History%20of%20an%20Invention%20Part%202%20of%202.pdf
  12. ^ The AN/GPS-3 is composed of a surveillance radar set,[e.g., radar set of the AN/FPS-8] Tower AB397/FPS-8, and Radar Recognition Set AN/UPX-6.[2]
  13. ^ "'Missile Master' Survey Completed" (PDF). Red Bank Register. Red Bank, New Jersey. May 2, 1957. Retrieved 2011-10-08. 4.4 acres of government property next to Twin Lights…was being retained by the Army and probably would be used as a housing site for "Missile Master" personnel.
  14. ^ "Chapter IX Logistics". Department of the Army Historical Summary: Fiscal Year 1974. Center of Military History. 1978. Retrieved 2011-10-08. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  15. ^ http://www.northamericanforts.com/East/nj.html
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