| Active Duty - US Army 1956-1959 |
| Army Air Defense - Nike Missiles |
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| Nike Ajax Surface to Air Missile |
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This was the first of the new weapons developed by the Army and the Western Electric Company for air defense of the nation. Prior to this, air defense was the use of WWII guns that had been in existence for more than 20 years, the 90mm and 120mm long barreled guns. This was a new approach to air defense. With radars that would pick up the enemy aircraft at long range, and missile and target tracking radars which would pick up the target, lock onto the missile and then through a computer bring those two together and explode a large warhead which would hopefully down the attacking bomber.
Crews were trained at Fort Bliss, Texas. The soldiers chosen for this duty were of a higher caliber than those in other type units in the Army, for they had to be able to learn about the electronics as well as the special handling required by the missiles which were both solid rocket propellants and liquid fuel, both very dangerous to handle.
Major cities throughout the US were chosen as defense sites. One of those, Los Angeles is where 2nd Lt. Richard Holt was assigned. My first duty assignment was to Battery B of the 865th AAA Missile Battalion, part of the 47th Missile Brigade which was headquartered at Fort MacArthur, San Pedro, California. My first assignment in the Battery, which was located right next to the beach in Playa del Rey, was to be the Fire Control Officer, responsible for the three radars and the computer operation. Mine was the duty to find the targets, identify which one we wanted to knock down, and then press the FIRE command button when necessary.
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| The Fire Control position in the Nike Battery with the large display from the acquisition radar on the left side showing the entire firing area with all the targets approaching the battery site. On the rectangular display in front of the right position (Battery Commander) would be displayed the target track and the missile track. The smaller scopes built in the console were for the target tracking radar and the missile tracking radar. You would select your target from the large acq display, then lock onto it with the target tracking radar, then select a missile from the launch area, fire, and watch the missile flight toward the target. The explosion of the warhead was automatic, a signal sent through the radar to the missile when it was within the damage circle of the target. |
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| Missiles at the Ready |
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Each missile battery had 16 launch platforms, so that at any given time, that many missiles would be ready to fire.
The target tracking radar (TTR) would be positioned to lock onto one of the missiles. The alignment of the radar at the fire control location which could be miles away was a constant problem. At my last battery, we had the radars on top of a mountain about 10 miles away from the missile launch pads, looking down the mountainsides toward the missiles. In addition, the San Andreas Fault, an earthquake fault that runs the length of California, was between the two making it necessary to constantly be aligning the radar to each missile. A computer at the fire control station would keep track of the location of each of the 16 missiles that were ready for firing.
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| Note: There are many thumbnails throughout this section. If a hand appears over the photo, please click on it for the full-blown photo. Thanks. |
The facilities at the launch site were underground where those that got the missiles ready were well protected during the firing. As soon as missiles were launched, that crew would then move sixteen more missiles onto elevators and above ground, then manually move them from the elevator opening to its assigned launch platform. This was an operation that was practiced continually and became automatic under the control of the Fire Control Platoon where the command to reload would be given. |
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| Underground storage for missiles |
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| Missile elevator in operation |
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| Missiles at the launch site at the White Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico |
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| Annually or semi-annually as might be the necessity, practice consisted of moving all the battery personnel that were involved in the actual operation of the missile system to Fort Bliss and then to the White Sands Missile Test Facility where firing ranges were set up for testing the overall effectiveness of the unit and its training status. These were tense times for all, for not only were you to actually do live firing, but you were also evaluated by experts in your ability to fire according to the rules of engagement.
At this site, every aspect of the preparedness of the unit was evaluated, from the beginning of missile fueling and preparing for firing, to target acquisition to the downing of the target. This was a very tense time for every unit.
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| Nike Ajax missile in flight to its target |
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Once we had turned over our site at Playa del Rey to the California National Guard, I was then assigned to another battery in the defense sector, one that was in trouble and not performing well. It was commanded by an officer who was having a tough time in this assignment. I had distinguished myself as a competent and outspoken officer, and the General felt I could do the job well to turn this battery around. He was going to leave the Battery Commander, a Captain, at the site, but transfer me in to be the Battery Commander, me a First Lieutenant, and the current CO a Captain. The Captain was to be told what the situation was going to be by the General.
Little did I know what kind of problems this would generate. But the 250 officers and enlisted personnel in the Battery understood the situation, and with the help of some very competent NCO's, we did what was required. My three commissioned officers were all West Pointers, and we got along well, all of us Regulars. I had two of the best Warrant Officers in the Brigade, and that helped a lot. All my senior NCO's were super guys and we all worked together to make this terrible situation work out.
This assignment was quite a challenge. I was all of 23 years old, and here I had a staff of seven officers and about 250 enlisted personnel at an isolated location to run as I saw fit. I had the fire control radars, computer system located on top of Magic Mountain where we had a clear and very beautiful view of all of Los Angeles and the California coast under us. We had our own generators for power, four huge diesel generators to keep going all the time. Our missile launching and maintenance facilities were located in a deep canyon thousands of feet below the radar site in what was called Soledad Canyon alongside the headwaters of the Santa Clara River. That facility is still there to this day and is just across the river from a freeway that runs from Los Angeles to Palmdale. And the Santa Clara River goes all the way down to where I live now in Ventura where the river empties into the ocean.
There I had sixteen launch rails and about 60 missiles with underground storage and maintenance facilities. We also had a huge fuel and warhead storage area well protected from the outside world. All of this to be managed by a "kid" just two years out of college. What a task for a young man! I had to sign for all this "stuff" which was worth much more than I would earn in several lifetimes.
Our technical directions and command support came from Fort MacArthur which was located south of us in San Pedro, California. We had to get most of our supplies for the mess from local markets as far away as Palmdale, out on the Mojave Desert, or at Edwards Air Force Base, just a little further from the site. We had our own messhall and I had my own cooks. My Mess Sergeant knew how to keep this young officer happy, so every morning he had for me a steak and eggs and hash browns breakfast, hot coffee served to me at my bedside by an orderly as soon as I awoke, and I could count on the best steak done my way every evening in the Officer's Mess. Hog heaven, you might say.
I had all the usual problems of commanding a bunch of military personnel, interfacing with each other and the outside world. Crimes within the unit and in the community, thefts, suicides right on the site, unwanted pregnancies, racial problems, irate parents some even with pregnant daughters made that way by a few of my troops, and many other problems came with the job. And in this job as well, I had to deal with the local citizens that were concerned about having these missiles with their warheads and all the volatile fuel in their own back yard, although they weren't!! I spent a lot of time, it seemed, giving talks to civil groups explaining our job and all the safety systems we had in place.
Quite a challenge for a young man. You tend to grow up fast. I had very little time for sports or anything else that would break the stress of the job. If it had not been for the outstanding officers and NCO's that I had, this all would have been impossible to carry out.
My boss, the General, never blinked. He just kept encouraging me and kept telling me what a great job I was doing. Oh Yeah! I was getting old fast! 
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This is what I wanted to be into, launching or developing missiles, if I was going to continue in the Army as a career officer. I wanted to use my physics and math education in some form of research effort in the missile development and testing programs and I knew there was a lot going on at that particular time within the Army in various locations. There was a growing effort by the Army to develop all kinds of long range missiles as well as short range tactical missiles, and I wanted to be a part of it. They didn't hear me! |
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| Army Redstone Rocket Launch |
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During a visit by a group of engineers from the Naval Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, California to my site at Soledad Canyon, I was asked about the vulnerability of the Nike System and whether it was effective or not. They were in the process of setting up surface to air launch facilities at Point Mugu for testing of another system, and wanted to know what problems we had. Why I was chosen for this visit wasn't told me, but I am sure my boss at Brigade HQ, the good General, saw to it so that they would get an earful. They got one, and they really appreciated my candid remarks.
As far as I was concerned, the Nike surface to air missile system was a joke. It was a fun system for a bunch of kids to play with and enjoy watching your missile fly off the ground and maybe hit a target, but as far as being a useful tool to knock down enemy bombers, no way that was ever going to happen. I was even sent once to the Group Headquarters in San Francisco to discuss this facet of the Nike System, and had a chance to tell a large roomful of Generals exactly what we were working with. The entire system was so susceptible to countermeasures and sabotage that putting us in that position among the community was a joke. I could have knocked out every missile site in the Los Angeles Air Defense Sector with a group of men with 30-30 rifles in a matter of a few hours. We had no security and no defensive systems in place to protect ourselves or our fire control equipment or our missiles. When I had been asked about this by higher commanders, I had been very frank and had gone through the vulnerability and uselessness of the Nike System. The Western Electric Corporation that manufactured the Nike System and sold it to the Army didn't appreciate my openness and frank opinion about the system.
That visit by the group of engineers from Point Mugu led to a job offer from the Navy to work at Point Mugu later on when I resigned from the Regular Army. And would you believe, they had picked up on my personality and insight to a complex system, and when the offer of employment came, they knew exactly where to put me into the Naval Missile Test Center operations. Read on and you will see.
And it is also of interest that not long after I left the Army, all the Nike Missile sites were closed down all over the U.S. and the Nike ceased to exist in the Army inventory of weapons. 
In mid-1959 I decided that the Army did not agree with me on what my future should be. And little did I know that right around the corner was the forthcoming Viet Nam conflict where I would have been in the middle of the early part of that terrible war.
I resigned my active duty status and became a civilian. It took many months to get approval to resign. My commanding General contended that I was too valuable to let go. Eventually I won out.
I then stepped right into the offered position at the Naval Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, California and have never regretted my decision. That wonderful job started me out an the fascinating journey of my professional working career.
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