Blazing Skies: Boston’s Nike Missiles (episodes 226)

Intro

Music

Jake:
[0:04] Welcome to hub history, where we go far beyond the freedom trail to share our favorite stories from the history of boston, the hub of the universe.
This is episode 226, blazing skies over Boston.
Hi, I’m jake! This week, I’m talking about the ring of suburban Nike missile batteries that ushered Boston into the 1950s and into the atomic age.
For almost 20 years, these anti aircraft missiles were meant to defend Boston and its many military assets, from Soviet bombers flying over the North Pole to rain nuclear destruction on the hub.
The ring of bases stretched from the south shore to the North Shore and far inland, and it was always ready to fire in 15 minutes or less.
The Nike program was an open secret with base gates sometimes thrown open for the public and for reporters alike.
But there were more closely guarded secrets as well, like the fact that the Ajax missile wasn’t really equipped to engage modern jet bombers,
or the fact that a successful interception by the later Hercules would result in a nuclear detonation in boston’s own backyard.

[1:15] But before we talk about Nike missiles, the Cold War and nuclear annihilation, I just want to pause and thank our most recent Patreon sponsor, J.
H. That’s first name J A. Y. Last initial H.
Just came on board as an abigail Adams sponsor our highest level.
So I want to give him a big shout out in public. Thanks sponsors like J commit to contributing a small amount every month toward the expenses involved in producing this podcast and I deeply appreciate them for it.
Their support means that I can focus on researching, writing, recording and editing an episode of hub history every two weeks without worrying about the cost of research, databases, buying books, podcast, media hosting, web hosting and security,
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If you’re not yet supporting the show, and you’d like to start, just go to Patreon dot com slash hub history or visit hub history dot com and click on the support US link and thanks again to J and all our new and returning sponsors.

[2:20] Just a couple more tidbits before I start the show. For real. First of all, if you’ve ever been curious about how I make hub history, what other podcasts I listen to, where would I think the best and worst things about boston are.
You might want to listen to my interview on the pilgrims digress podcast.
The host erin grilled me about my podcasting process, but also all about the city of boston and more broadly about my background in New England, the things like ice fishing, tapping, maple trees, coffee from dunks and the boston marathon.
If you’re interested, look for pilgrims digress in your favorite podcast app or check out the link to my episode in the show notes this week at hub history dot com slash 226 And finally, I’d really appreciate it.
If any of our listeners would write us a new review on apple podcasts, I just got my first review in about 18 months and it’s not great.
The reviewer says that I have all the charisma of a high school news program and they’re not happy with the amount of time that the this week in boston history segment takes up in each episode,
I’ll point out that the last episode with this week in Boston History segment aired on November seven.

[3:37] So if one of you kind listeners can write a more contemporary and if I dare ask for it a more flattering review, it’ll be great to have something more positive. Is the first impression someone sees when browsing the show on apple podcasts.
Thanks in advance.

Blazing Skies

[3:53] And now it’s time for this week’s main topic.
As the 1940s turned to the 50s, America was optimistic and Boston was booming.

[4:03] World war two was one and with peace came a great demobilization, tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen returned to the civilian lives.
While economic activity that have been put on hold during the war years took off at warp speed.
Here in Boston, John Heinz was elected mayor, replacing James Michael Curley, who had embarrassingly started his fourth term as mayor from a prison cell after stepping down as representative for the 11th mass congressional district.
So a little known Navy veteran named John Kennedy could run for it.
Insurance companies like john Hancock and Fidelity were thriving in the city.
While investments by the state and prestigious universities began to sow the seeds of a technological revolution and the suburban route 1 28 corridor,
Storrow drive in the nearby Museum of Science were approaching their grand openings and the bridge and causeway that would connect the cities.
Long island institutions for the indigent, ill and insane to the mainland were well underway.
Unfortunately, that sense of well being would be short lived In europe americans and their former allies, the Soviets, I’d each other warily across a dividing line drawn straight through the heart of defeated Germany.
For 16 tense months. In 1948 and 1949, the US. and its allies successfully defied a Soviet blockade of the former German capital by flying in supplies in the Berlin Airlift.

[5:31] In June of 1950, Chinese and North Korean troops crossed the imaginary line that the US. and USSR had similarly drawn to divide Korea into separate occupation zones.
Back home, americans were forced to come to terms with the new reality.

Clips:
[5:47] That signal means to stop whatever you’re doing and get to the nearest safe place fast.
Always remember the flash of an atomic bomb can come at any time, no matter where you may be.

Jake:
[6:04] Unlike Germany France, England, Russia china japan are basically any other nation that had fought in the late World War.
The US had not been forced to confront the reality of aerial bombardment other than hawaii in the illusions.
The homeland had never been under a meaningful threat.
However, during the war years, the most Advanced American Long Range Bomber, the B-29 had been forced to crash land in Soviet territory. Several times.
Our erstwhile allies, the Russians had taken them apart, examined them and put their own copy, the T.
U. For Bull bomber into production. By 1947 the Bull could reach a few american cities by flying over the North Pole,
1949, the Soviets tested their first nuclear bomb and by 1952, the jet powered to you 50 to badger put the entire country within range.
Now with tensions with the Russians seem to spiral toward war, new planes and new weapons put americans in danger at home for the first time.

Clips:
[7:10] No, we must be ready for a new danger the atomic bomb.
It is such a big explosion. It can smash in buildings and knock sign boards over and break windows all over town. But if you duck and cover, you will be much safer.

Jake:
[7:27] Unfortunately, boston with its two naval shipyards and multiple shipbuilding operations, its naval air fields and nearby air force bases,
its heavy industries and defense contractors and is strategically important port was what you might call a target rich environment.
While american schoolchildren learned to hide under their desks and cover their heads with their jackets, the military scrambled to develop a defense for cities like boston against this new threat.
Until aircraft had rendered them obsolete. American ports have been defended by coastal defense artillery And the Army drew from this model with a new Army Air Defense Command in 1950.
At first, they oriented anti aircraft artillery around major cities in target areas.
These were mostly installed at existing coastal defense forts like the ones in the boston harbor islands.
Whoever these guns had barely been effective in World War Two and it was obvious to military planners that they wouldn’t be able to touch a new generation of planes that flew faster, higher and more maneuverable.
E the armed forces quickly turned to missiles as the primary defense against enemy aircraft over the homeland.
The army’s anti aircraft missile program was code named Nike Under development in secret. Since 1945.
Nike one would be named the Ajax and be deployed to the field starting in 1953.

Clips:
[8:55] The Army’s Nike Ajax was the nation’s first combat ready surface to air guided missile.
Today it is the principal weapon in the commands nationwide Defense Web. The Ajax can intercept and destroy any aggressor from any direction in all types of weather.

Jake:
[9:13] At its heart. The Ajax missile system consisted of a solid fuel rocket booster that would catapult the missile into the air up to 60,000 ft at speeds of almost 1200 mph.
The booster would then get dropped and the liquid fueled main engine would kick on well back on the ground, a radar guidance system broadcast signals to the missile, directing it to its target intercept point and detonating it at the enemy planes closest approach.

Clips:
[9:40] Now, just how does Nike detect and knock down enemy aircraft?

[9:46] The tireless i of the acquisition radar picks up a far distant enemy plane speeding toward us.

[9:56] The radar antenna swings to lock on the invader while it is still a great many miles off.

[10:06] It sends the plane’s position to the computer. Also, the missile tracking radar sends the missiles position to the computer.

[10:16] Mhm. The missile tracking radar starts sending Nike flight command. At the point of intercept the computer gives Nike the burst command.

[10:33] And the invading plane will never reach its objective.

Jake:
[10:37] Looking back in 1995, an article and Air Defense Artillery Magazine described how 1951 testing of the next generation of ground based air defense weapons have proven very successful,
And the preceding six years, the Nike project had gone from the drawing boards to the intercept of dozens of remotely piloted B-17 bombers over the desert of southern New Mexico.
A contract was let with the Bell Telephone, Western Electric and Douglas aircraft team to produce 1000 missiles, 60 sets of ground based equipment such as launchers, radars and control consoles and 20 sets of missile assembly equipment for the Nike one,
later renamed the Nike Ajax,
The new missiles were designed to engage enemy bombers flying at 20-60,000 ft and at speeds of over 500 mph.

[11:29] And instead of blanketing the air with flak as we’ve all seen it in World War Two movies, Ajax was intended to track a soviet bombers movements and intercept it with pinpoint precision,
As described here and a guide to us guided missiles published by the Department of Defense in 1963.
Man subsequently declassified Nike Ajax is the nation’s first operational supersonic any aircraft guided missile.
The system was designed to intercept and destroy bomber aircraft regardless of evasive actions and it represents a substantial improvement in air defense capability over that possible with conventional gun type weapons.

[12:08] Over 4000 Nike Ajax missiles have been fired in the Army’s various tests in training programs and a high degree of reliability and accuracy have been displayed performance wise.
The missile is capable of combating many types of aircraft.

[12:24] The 1995 Air Defense Artillery Article continues describing in Layman’s terms how the missiles radar guidance system worked And quite honestly it’s more sophisticated than I realized was possible.
In the early 1950s, the major elements of the Nike system were a radar to track the target,
a radar for tracking and communicating with the Nike missile and the ground guidance computer for developing guidance commands to bring about interception of the target by the missile and for issuing a warhead burst command at the time of closest approach,
both target and missile tracking radars were identical, except that the missile track radar was equipped for tracking an X band beacon in the missile.
This radar sent pulse commands with a specific missile address that triggered the beacon, provided pitch and yaw guidance orders and issued the burst command.

[13:18] Reading about it today, I’m amazed at how much information about the Nike program in general and the Ajax in particular was released to the public In 1987.
Air Defense Artillery Magazine about rediscovering abandoned Nike sites pointed out, many historians emphasize the uniqueness of Nike as a defense system close to our own homes, a security net of which we were all aware.

[13:44] While it probably would have been better for operational security to keep this entire weapons program top secret.
It was better for the public sense of well being to tell them that defenses were being planned around their cities to keep them safe.
By mid 1953 boston newspapers had published photos of an Ajax test launch and of the missile destroying a drone piloted surplus B 17 by december of that year.
A front page story in the globe speculated that the Ajax would be deployed to defend boston.
The next April the paper revealed that seven Nike sites were planned for the Boston area seven guided missile launching sites will ring massachusetts in the near future, making greater boston the second key american target to be protected by the deadly Nike,
The boston Harbor area will be guarded by at least three of the anti aircraft Nike installations located in a harbour island and at no hans quantum, it was learned yesterday.
Another site will be located on Nantucket and Presumably the remaining three will also protect strategic coastal sections within the Commonwealth.

[14:52] In September 1954, the globe updated that prediction not only putting a number on the boston area. Nike sites, but even listing where they’d be situated.
Greater Boston will be ringed with the network of 12 Nike installations within the next year to protect vital industries essential to national defense.
The veil of secrecy was lifted today by the 15th anti aircraft artillery group to permit the public to get a glimpse of what’s being done to protect them from a possible attack by high altitude aircraft.
All sites will be enclosed with a steel wire fence. Once construction advances to a point where highly secret equipment has moved into the place, tight security will be maintained at all times.
This globe story revealed that construction was well underway at one Nike site printed a list of the other sites.
It’s a little surprising that these were released, not just because it seems like information that should have been kept secret, but also because the Nike program had very specific site requirements.
And it doesn’t seem like the army could have come up with 12 sites that quickly.

Clips:
[15:57] In Betty’s school, they are talking about the atomic bomb, too. That he is asking her teacher, how can we tell when the atomic bomb may explode? And her teacher is explaining that there are two kinds of attack with warning and without any warning.
We think that most of the time we will be worn before the bomb explodes, so there will be time for us to get into our homes, schools or some other safe place.

Jake:
[16:22] Early warning of atomic bombardment. By massed formations of long range Russian bombers will be provided by a network of radar stations being built across Alaska and Canada though be known as the dew line.
More immediate detection was provided by the radar stations incorporated into each Nike Ajax site and properly situating these made site selection challenging,
A declassified 1957 paper about the personnel requirements of the Ajax program for the Defense Technical Information Centre describes how each Nike site actually comprised two completely separate locations,
and it introduces what happens at one of the locations.
Each Nike battery has to physically separate areas, the battery control area and the launching area.
The battery control area contains the radar and communication equipment to coordinate a Nike engagement.
The launching area, which is usually several miles away from the battery control area contains the facilities for preparing missiles, for firing, for storing prepared missiles and for launching missiles.
Its major function is to have Nike rounds ready to go at any time designated by the battery control area.
In order to achieve the state of readiness. The launching area is provided with appropriate facilities, tools, equipment and personnel.
The major units of the launching area are the assembly area and the launcher area.

[17:51] The primary function of the assembly area is the conversion of newly received missiles into ready rounds which can be quickly prepared for firing by the launcher personnel.
To achieve this end, the assembly area contains an assembly building and an out of doors riveted area.
The assembly building houses most of the equipment needed for assembling and checking out missiles.
Such potentially dangerous operations is fueling oxidizing and warhead installation are done in the rev. It’d out of doors area.
The primary function of the launcher areas to provide facilities for the storage and launching of missiles.
These facilities include as many as four firing sections, each consisting of an underground storage area, firing panel and above ground launcher loader assemblies, and the launcher control trailer, which contains the control console in the test responder.

[18:46] Along with the launching area. Each Nike site needed a location for the integrated fire control facility, as described in the 1995 issue of Air Defense Artillery Magazine.

[18:58] An insight into the problems associated with the construction of Nike sites can be gained from an Army Corps of Engineering officer who wrote an article titled Nike deployment,
on many of the hilltops surrounding the industrial and strategic centers in the United States.
He wrote Vince 10 assemblages of whirling radar antenna, small buildings and olive drab trailers have appeared.
He described the layout of a battery as The ground control guidance equipment is located in a plot of 6-8 acres.
The control area, Which includes basically three radars in the computer.
A launcher area is located 1 – four miles away from the control area.
It consists of approximately 42 acres, of which 15 acres are required for the operating facilities and the remainder as a surrounding safety zone.
The battery comprises six officers to warrant officers and 101 enlisted men who man and operate these facilities continuously.

[20:00] As in 1989 report on a Boston area. Nike site for the us army toxic and hazardous materials agency noted.
Typically, Nike batteries were located in rural areas surrounding the protected area for the radar to be effective, integrated fire control facilities were constructed on hilltops whenever possible.
An article published in the March 24, edition of the Boston Globe, outlines where the search for local missile sites was expected to lead boston.
Civil Defense Director Joseph Malone said last night that he would assume that the 96 acre site needed for the Nike guided missile would not of necessity be located in the city proper.
Such a site or sites, it would seem to me would be of greater value of located farther out toward the perimeter of the critical area.
If you look at a map of the city of boston, you’ll see that although the downtown area is very crowded, there are plenty of places in a three or four mile circle around the center where such installations could be made.
There are Long Island and Deer Island, which reach out and offer protection against missiles or planes coming in from the sea.
And there are Franklin Park and MDC parks to offer protection from other directions.

[21:17] Long Island and MDC Parks. We pressed into service for the Ajax program.
An article in Archaeology magazine in 1995 describes how one site meeting program requirements for rural acreage within the immediate vicinity of boston, with a hilltop for radar emplacement was situated.
Battery B 55 is equipped with missiles, a launch silo, radar tower, fallout shelter, generator building, mess hall and protective earth and berm.
The batteries Control point was set atop a nearby hill where its radar could search the skies for hostile aircraft Served by eight officers and 100 enlisted men.
The facility was intended to protect Boston from Soviet bomber, attack the radar and command and control area for battery B 55 was on Chickatawbut hill in the Blue Hills reservation, then an MTC property.
And the launch site was just off of route 24 Randolph.
I’m struck both by how accurate that 1953 prediction was and by how today a lot of Nike sites are in our favourite recreation area is There’s B- 55 in the Blue Hills, which is my favorite place to go for a hike.

[22:31] While researching this episode, I realized that the hardest climb in a trail race.
I ran down and hang them a few years ago took me directly past the former radar site for B- 38 and one of my other favorite outdoor spaces in the boston area is the Harbor islands.
A few years back, I was walking back at low tide from Thompson island to the mainland at Chapel Rock, I popped out of the woods by an american legion post.
This week I learned that that building was part of the command post for B- 37, which was actually the first Boston area. Nike site to be revealed to the public.
As reported in the February nine, edition of the globe push button methods of warfare to be used in the defense of the boston metropolitan area were revealed yesterday as officers of the army’s 15th.
A A group conducted the press on a tour of the Nike guided missile installation under constructed at Chapel Rocks Quantum.
This establishment at the approach to Moon Island and adjacent to the Long Island Hospital, is scheduled to be completed before the end of the month and will be operational soon afterward.

[23:40] This space is one of 12 which will ring the Greater Boston area, occupying 20 acres.
The Chapel rocks missile station will have 15 acres devoted to the launching of missiles and the remaining five adjacent to the long island bridge approach from morrissey boulevard will contain the control center.
The post will be manned by 100 men and six officers highlighting the tour was the inspection of an underground storage chamber for the loaded missiles.
Operational activities between the surface and underground area are carried out by an elevator approximately 50 ft x six ft, closely resembling the type used aboard an aircraft carrier,
officials explained that missiles could be fired from the elevator steel platform upon reaching the surface or from two special launching platforms.
Nearby, huge tablets are being erected in this area to hold the giant missiles when they are being fueled and loaded.
Here also is a generator building to assure electricity in the event that public utility power should fail.
The area also includes a missile test and assembly structure.

[24:49] Army officials pointed out that every precaution has been taken for protection against fire or explosion.
Embankments have been placed around the fueling area and 30 acres surrounding the establishment or barred for habituation.
The control area will have three control vans, radar equipment and antennas.
A mess hall has been built, and barracks for the missile crews are being erected.
The chapel rock station will be able to function separately from the chain of 12 of which it is a part, but the entire group will be coordinated for group or individual action.

[25:25] Again, it’s remarkable how open the army was about the construction of the boston area. Nike sites. When you might expect secrecy.

[25:33] I have to imagine that part of this was a public relations measure. Whether or not they actually worked.
The presence of Nike missiles was meant to reassure the public that the military was prepared to defend them against the new Russian threat.
And despite the fact that each missile site would become a military target in their midst, everybody seemed to want them Just not in my backyard.
As the 1995 article and Air Defense Artillery Magazine. We’ve been quoting from points out selection of sites and land acquisition were major problems.
Maximum use was being made of public lands even though using such sites often violated tactical considerations and resulted in less than optimum defense.
By far the greatest number of battery sites had to be located on privately owned land and in most instances high real estate costs, an adverse reaction by owners made the acquisition problems acute.
The general public often thought that site selections were made either arbitrarily or capriciously and while almost everybody favored Nike almost nobody wanted the unit located next door.
It was found to be wiser to construct facilities of a higher architectural standard, thus reducing maintenance and operating costs, improving troop morale and providing buildings acceptable to park commissions and residents of suburban areas.

[26:57] An opinion piece in the February 28, globe castigated nimbys in cities around the country.

[27:05] It is locating these sites which has snarled the Defense Department and the officials of different cities including Los Angeles, Cleveland, Buffalo, Milwaukee, and long controversy in delay.
I did not suggest that the army is always 100% right and the oh, don’t put it here. Attitude of many city officials and civic groups is 100% wrong, but one central paramount controlling fact should be kept in the front of our thinking all the time.
Second choice sites for Nike will, more often than not, means second grade defense of lives, of cities, of defense plants.
That isn’t good enough, and civic pride shouldn’t be distorted into civic defenseless nous.

[27:51] Boston acted more quickly than many cities announcing in March of 1955 that the final locations for local Nike sites have been selected.
The total number was not immediately announced and the locations were kept briefly under wraps.
But as with so many aspects of the Nike program, the details were soon announced.
I guess at this point we should run down exactly where Boston’s 12 defensive Nike batteries were located.
I’ll go roughly in order of my familiarity with each site, so I’ll start with locations I’ve already mentioned.

[28:26] B 55 was the Blue Hills site, which I used to run past on sunday mornings when I was in marathon training.
If you turn from route 28 and Milton onto Chickatawbut road you go up a steep hill toward Chickatawbut Tower and overlook right before you reach the top right where you’d be tempted to stop and catch your breath during a challenging training run.
There’s a paved road on the right that’s usually gated through that gate as the Audubon Society’s Environmental Education Center, which reuses the Nike sites, mess hall barracks and administration building,
in its heyday, the top of Chickatawbut Hill would have held the now missing radar.
The launch site for B 55 was located about a mile and a half away, as the crow flies in the armpit between Route 24 I 93 Randolph,
the pits and elevators for the missiles have been covered and the DCR uses the remaining concrete pad to dump debris.

[29:24] As mentioned squad.
Um point in Long Island where the B- 37 Ajax site, which you can see the remains of if you go to Quincy Base housing.
That was originally co located with this Quantum Point Naval Air station is now a complex of civilian apartments and houses along airport road off Quincy Shore Drive,
all the way out squad um street all the way out Dorchester Street,
at the very end before the causeway to Moon Island, where the Fire training academy in the boston police firing range are the two remaining Nike buildings at Nickerson Beach are now a daycare and an american legion post.
If the Long Island bridge was still in place and if it was open to the public, you’d see the launch site to the left of the road to the homeless shelters and addiction treatment facilities that marty Walsh abandoned.

[30:15] In a way site B 37 brought new England Aviation and America’s missile program full circle.
The missile program was born on Long Island. Long time listeners will remember that one of our earliest episodes chronicled how army intelligence units used,
Fort Strong at the tip of Long Island to smuggle german rocket scientists including verner von braun into the U. S.
And so quantum point was the site of the 1910 Harvard Boston Arrow meet, where the military for the first time realized that heavier than air flight would have tactical and strategic value.
Check out episodes five and 1 44 for more on those topics.
Also in Quincy, Battalion headquarters was located on the southern artery where it crosses Blacks Creek,
just down from Veteran Stadium is a series of ball fields, and if you pull into Vietnam veterans drive next to Adams Field, you’ll see a large complex of single storey buildings and assigned for the richard coke parks and recreation complex.
From this complex, officers commanded boston’s entire air defense network.

[31:26] Just across the harbor from B 37 ATS Quantum Point.
The control buildings and radar for site B 36 were located at Fort Duvall on Hog Island.
Both the fort and Hog Island are gone now. The fort was demolished and replaced with high end condos and the island was renamed Spinnaker Island because Hog Island wasn’t Hoity toity enough for the condo buyers.
If you were to drive out through nan task it beach through Point Allerton toward the current Coast Guard base in Hull, you’d see the tiny island with its fancy condos over a short bridge on the left.
The launch area was about three miles away across Hingham Bay.
Today it’s web state park in Weymouth, just across the mouth of the back river from the Hammam Shipyard mall that used to build destroyers.

[32:16] Speaking of hang um the radar for B- 38 was located on the top of Turkey Hill, which is now owned by the trustees of reservations.
The launch site was just across the town line in Cohasset.
There’s not much to see at Turkey Hill though, it’s a great place to go for a walk and there are stunning views from the former radar site.
I’ve never been to the launch site, which is now a town Highway department facility.
From what I can see on google maps, the missile elevators may still be intact.
There are a couple of buildings that might date from the Nike era and this is where Cohasset public employees stored dozens and dozens of personal boats during the off season.

[32:57] On the far side of Boston Harbor. No Hunt is a peninsula that mirrors the one at nine task it and hull.
At the tip of that peninsula is the Northeastern University Marine Science Center in East Point Park.
These were the launch area for site B. 17 and just back down the peninsula bed at Bailey’s point was the integrated fire control facility.
Now, also a town park heading inland.
We come to a site that’s just a few blocks from one of my favorite places to launch a kayak along the Charles River, but that I had no clue about until researching this episode out.
Needham Charles River Street is a shortcut between the Red Wing Bacon new launch on the Need um dover town line and a canoe launch upstream at the South Medic Damn.
About halfway between the two is the town of Needham’s Ridge Hill Reservation and Community Gardens, which were the B- 63 launch site.
While the fire control was located at North Hill on 1:35, near Babson on the Wellesley Town Line.
An article about the B 63 Ajax site from the Need. Um Historical society points out a dirty little secret of these suburban facilities.
Also in the North Hill site, where the barracks, married men were expected to find housing in town, but many were african american and locals would not rent to them, so the army built quarters for the married men as well.

[34:23] Moving north, the B 73 fire control was along route 1 17 in Lincoln at today’s Drumlin Farm, operated by the Mass Audubon Society,
the only trace of the launch site in a residential neighborhood just across the town line in Wayland is a cul de sac named launcher way, which is right around the corner from another kayak launch I enjoy on the Sudbury River.

Clips:
[34:47] It started out pretty much the same as any saturday morning in a new England Spring.

[35:00] The sun shone down on the same houses. It’s been shining down on every spring for the last 300 years.

[35:11] For our, as you see, is an old town brushed everywhere with the sun warmed marks of our history and traditions.

[35:20] Here. Once the embattled farmer stood and fired, the shot heard round the world. Yeah. Mm. Uh huh. Yeah.

Jake:
[35:30] The Lincoln site had the distinction of being portrayed as the most glamorous modern posting in an early 1960s National Guard recruiting film, which heavily played up the Revolutionary War history of Lincoln and conquered.

Clips:
[35:46] On guard doesn’t by 03. The film battle stations at 58.

[35:55] Not far from the coast of massachusetts and unidentified flying object has been detected. A blip on a radar scope has sent into action a large group of trained guardsmen throughout a wide area of New England.

[36:11] This may be it.

[36:14] At our Nike site. We’re ready.

Jake:
[36:18] I like to the full 30 minute film in the show notes this week,
as we go further north, we get into my personal terra incognito apologies to my North shore listeners, but I can’t give a lot of local color for the rest of our Nike site tour,
BE 15 was located in Beverly near the airport beef.
I was in Danvers also not far from the Beverly Airport.
The US Army Reserve still owns B five and almost all the Nike Arab buildings seem to be intact and in use,
B three is just off 1 2018 Reading where the control area is gone and an ice arena and firing range.
Use the concrete pad. That’s the only trace of the launch area down 1 28 in Burlington Northeastern University owns the launch area for be 84 a couple of buildings remain in use by the public works department at the control area,
Looping back around toward Lincoln.
The last stop on our nuclear destruction tour is site B- 85 in Bedford.
There’s no remaining trace of the integrated fire command center, which was near handsome field and what’s now just a neighborhood.
But much of the launch facility seems to be still intact.
It’s owned by Harvard and several buildings and missile elevators look like they’re in good shape.

[37:38] Part of the reason so many of these sites, like Bedford Danvers, Burlington Quincy in the Blue Hills have buildings that are still in use is because they were built with more aesthetic consideration than most military bases,
as well as more perks for the soldiers who were stationed there as well as later tenants,
an Air defense artillery magazine.
We read several factors made it necessary to provide personnel accommodations and related facilities of better quality than those originally planned.
Taken into account was low troop morale, causing a low re enlistment rate and the long tiresome hours of troop duty at Nike units.
Without the opportunities for recreation and diversion common to other service installations,
it therefore became imperative to provide the troops with good living quarters and mess halls, day rooms, hobby shops, post exchanges in athletic facilities,
access roads, hard stands and walkways, originally designed for unfinished gravel surfaces, had to be redesigned for paving with black top consideration was given to the architectural appearance of the structures and judicious use of screen and shade planting.
This meticulous planning and preparation for construction paid off in the long term since many of the sites were in use 24 hours a day for the next 20 years.

[38:58] As soon as the first Ajax missiles were installed at sites around Boston. In the early 1955, they became the belles of the ball.
That spring and summer. The missiles would be paraded for Armed Forces Day, demonstrated on local Tv, displayed at the Museum of Science and extensively photographed for the boston globe UN Armed Forces Day in May.
The South boston army base included a Nike missile in its director, alongside other displays like the latest Army, cold weather clothing, Air Force survival kits, perhaps including Julia Childs, Shark Repellent,
a Marine Corps landing craft and artillery pieces from local National Guard units.
On June 21, the globe’s radio and television guide noted that a Nike would be,
hold over the road from Lincoln this afternoon and parked in the rear of Channel two studios under guard where louis lions will tiptoe gently around the missile as he asks Lieutenant Colonel Bertram J.
Ellis to point out features of the weapon.
In July, the paper announced a five week appearance at the Museum of Science.
The Boston Museum of Science will give a demonstration on the operation of Nike from July 12 to August five,
working models of the amazing ground controlled guided rocket missile system show how enemy planes are located and tracked by radar, How the 20 ft missile is launched and how it’s directed to its target.

[40:26] That October B- 73 in Lincoln was officially activated.
Reporters and officials were given a tour as part of the dedication ceremony And the globe published an extensive photo tour of the site on November six,
the next year, the Lincoln site opens its doors to the public during a drill, ensuring that anyone who was interested, especially soviet spies, would know exactly how the missile system worked.
The missiles in the Nike site were divided into four batteries and at any given time, one of the four had to be ready to fire within 15 minutes of notification.
Two of the other three had to be ready within 30 minutes.
This level of readiness was maintained through constant drills, which were announced with the code phrase blazing skies at any time of day or night.
With no notice the base siren would sound, The loudspeakers would announce blazing skies and the missile crews would take off for their battle stations at a dead.

Clips:
[41:28] The United States Army Air Defense Command on the Alert 24 hours a day in defense of America present.

Jake:
[41:35] A reporter who was present for a blazing skies drill at B- 73 in Lincoln wrote on May two, At first, there isn’t much to see.
There’s a barracks in a short distance away, some concrete flooring, what appears to be steel girders.
But on an order all this changes the motor’s wine and up from the deep concrete caverns. The missiles rise Slim, white and deadly looking.
They go up on the rising shooting platforms until they stand at an angle of 87°..
There pointed noses snuffing at the low hanging clouds on a hilltop Is the radar equipment used to track the target and to guide the missile so it will make contact with that target.
Chief Warrant Officer Spin bongiorno of Billerica, Mass. Said we’ve had the target make a complete turn and go back the way it came after the missile was launched.
But the missile would turn to and track down the target.

[42:34] Why did the army play so fast and loose with the details of the Ajax program? Well, it didn’t work that well.
The first Nike had been conceived in the wake of World War Two and tested against drone B seventeens, but the world was now moving at jet speed.

Clips:
[42:50] Yeah, well boys I reckon this is it nuclear combat toe to toe with the ruskies.

Jake:
[43:01] Before the Ajax was even deployed. The army had been working with defense contractors on its successor.
The radar guidance system on the Ajax was known by at least 1952 to Confuse planes flying in formation with a single large target, meaning that the warhead would often explode too far from one of the planes to destroy any of them.
It was also easily jammed by soviet countermeasures. While the rocket motor struggled to keep up with the increasing speed and maneuverability of modern jet bombers,
And the 30 mile lethal range meant engaging enemy planes after they were already dangerously close to American targets.
So while the Ajax was being implemented very publicly, a secret Nike B program was already underway to replace Ajax with a missile system that would eventually be known as the Nike Hercules,
This new generation of missiles posted an improved guidance system, improved capabilities for high speed and altitude and an increased lethal range of almost 100 miles.
1963. Defense Department Guide to missiles describes the improvements in this new generation,
Nike Hercules A major advance in the Nike family of supersonic anti aircraft missiles is capable of performance many times greater than that of Nike Ajax its predecessor.

[44:25] The system can operate in an environment of electronic countermeasures.
Each Nike Hercules battery is a completely autonomous unit capable of acquiring tracking and engaging supersonic bombers and air breathing missiles.
The Hercules has successfully engaged targets traveling more than 2000 mph As well as other targets at altitudes over 150,000 ft,
improvements can be progressively incorporated in the Hercules weapons system as they become available.
For example, hyper acquisition radars are scheduled for installation with Hercules units at Fort Richardson Alaska 1959 article in the journal Military Engineer describing the missiles in the U.
S. Arsenal at that time describes the conversion from Ajax to Hercules the Corps of Engineers began building Nike Ajax bases.
Six years ago the Ajax proceeded the Hercules The core designed the special underground storage facility with an elevator to lift the missiles into firing position.

[45:29] When Ajax installations were first built, plants had to be made to accommodate the later more potent members of the Nike family, a program to convert Ajax sites to the more effective Hercules as well advanced.
This prior planning has been the most profitable both money and time have been saved although the newer weapon is larger than it first expected, The difference in size meant that the Hercules will be launched by a first stage rocket booster.
That was basically four Ajax solid fuel boosters strapped together and ignited simultaneously.
This larger booster lifted a larger second stage which replaced the Ajax is liquid fuel rocket with another solid fuel unit.
This meant that missiles no longer had to be manually fueled on Nike sites, which had proved to be the most dangerous part of the Ajax program, leading to a fatal fire at a site in New Jersey and a number of serious injuries and accidents around boston,
For example, on July 16, while the Ajax was on display at the Museum of Science, three soldiers were rushed to Quincy Hospital.
They’ve been fueling a rocket at the Long Island launch site when a canister of nitric oxide fuel spilled, giving one soldier about chemical burn and damaging the lungs of two others would inhale the fumes.

[46:48] The larger second stage also carried the missiles, improved guidance package plus one other important change over the earlier Ajax missile, a nuclear warhead.

[46:59] This was the army’s fixed the difficulty the Ajax had and targeting a single bomber out of a formation flight.
If they couldn’t pinpoint a single plane, they would just get the missile as close as they could and set off a nuke.
It turns out that close doesn’t just count in horseshoes and hand grenades.
The changeover to nuclear defenses was publicly acknowledged, like in this 18 May 1958 article in the globe about converting existing Ajax sites to Hercules,
Army officials say a single Hercules missile can destroy a number of planes with its atomic warhead,
and it’s long range speed and accuracy, provide for the destruction of enemy targets far out from our cities and vital installations, eliminating any danger to the residents.
However, military officials did little to dispel people’s concerns about citing nuclear missiles within just a few miles of Boston that had a maximum range of about 90 miles And an effective range of 75 miles or less.
Schoolchildren were still being taught to duck and cover.

Clips:
[48:05] We must be ready every day all the time to do the right thing.
If the atomic bomb explodes, duck and cover this family knows what to do, just as your own family. Should they know that even a thin cloth helps protect them.
Even a newspaper can save you from a bad burn.
But the most important thing of all is to duck and cover yourself, especially where your clothes do not cover you.

Jake:
[48:31] Nowhere does the classic duck and cover film address how a thin cloth or newspaper will defend against a nuclear tipped anti aircraft missile exploding within 75 miles of a city like Boston.
In an April 18, globe story about local participation in the nationwide nuclear preparedness drill.
The results of such a launch were predicted.
Massachusetts is hot from theoretical radioactive fallout this morning after a simulated nuclear bomb attack, which killed 51,000 and injured 74,000 yesterday afternoon,
Millions of Americans were considered killed, their cities destroyed and vast areas contaminated.
During the national preparedness exercise operation alert 1959 staged by the federal office of civil and defense mobilization.
New England was theoretically devastated by the paper reign of hydrogen bombs and missiles.
With four big bombs. In a submarine launched missile clobbering massachusetts boston escaped annihilation is a 50 megaton bomb fell short on Burlington figuratively wiping out nine western suburbs.
Other attacks flattened Westminster, in Western County, Pittsfield, South Hadley and vicinity, and Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod.
Massachusetts casualties were rather heavy. According to Dr Cameron L. Hogan Medical services chief, He said 20% of the 74,000 theoretical injured could be expected to die within a week.

[49:59] Westminster and evacuate reception centre for the Worcester area also counted heavy losses,
of 14,900 dead and 21,500 injured when a plane carrying a nuclear bomb was struck and exploded by a Nike missile. In a paper counterattack.

[50:17] The hypothetical missile launched correctly sought out the imaginary incoming Russian bomber within the 75 mile range and detonated its figurative nuclear warhead, taking out the incoming bomber and basically an entire massachusetts town.
The collateral damage from a successful Nike Hercules launch were predicted at almost 15,000 dead and over 21,000 injured American citizens.
Nevertheless, the Hercules was more effective than the Ajax So the conversion would progress locally.
That meant that a number of Nike sites would shut down while three would continue now, armed with Hercules missiles,
The conversion was announced as early as February 1957 and by May of 1958, Hull and Lincoln had been identified as two of the sites that we converted to launch.
The Hercules Danvers would soon join them as the 3rd Massachusetts Hercules Base.

[51:14] In 1959. More technological sophistication was introduced into Boston’s Air Defense Network,
A story in the february 1st globe notes that the number of soldiers stationed at Fort Banks in Fort Heath, both late 19th century coastal defense forts and Winthrop will double when a new Missile master system is installed at Fort Heath.
By the following spring, the Missile Master was a command system meant to coordinate multiple Nike batteries.
It had its own defense acquisition radar to height finding radars and a radar identify our system meant to differentiate between friend and foe.
It also had hardwired data links to the three area Hercules sites. So it had taken the radar imagery acquired in Hull, Lincoln and danvers as well.
The system could provide more accurate targeting and as the globe reported, it prevents Nike batteries from over killing a target.
In other words, it keeps a battery from firing at a target already struck or certain to be struck.
Or, as an early 1960s newsreel film put it.

Clips:
[52:17] The system collects information on the location of aircraft and their identity presents this information on electronic displays, and distributes this data to the missile firing batteries.

Jake:
[52:28] As Hercules rolled out in the Missile master was installed in Winthrop. Ajax missile was being gradually phased out.
The Ajax had long since become ineffective against modern bombers, now that the public knew it existed, The Hercules could take over the role of making civilians feel safer against the Red Menace.
First, the army introduced a new operation hometown meant to recruit soldiers from areas near Nike Ajax bases, train them and then send them back home.
The globe reported on the 1st 36 local recruits into this program in July 1959, saying that they would all be assigned to Nike sites around Boston.
After their training was complete Operation hometown quickly morphed into a plan to transfer responsibility for Nike Ajax sites to National Guard units as reported in the globe.
The next May, the Army National Guard will take over 36 Nike Ajax Air defense missile batteries from the regulars during the next 16 months will also man six Nike Hercules batteries full time in Hawaii,
Since taking over its first batteries in the fall of 1958, the National Guard is assumed around the clock operation of 40 Nike Ajax batteries and 10 major population centres, including the Greater Boston area.

[53:48] To massachusetts National Guard batteries scored four hits out of 4 100% and firings at Fort Bliss texas recently, 2-based 8 units are due to arrive in Texas today for service firing.
The article notes that the Ajax batteries at Needham Beverly, Reading in the Blue Hills had already been turned over to the mass card.
The guard would take responsibility for Burlington and the hunt by 1961 and the sites that’s quantum hang them in Bedford were retired that same year As the Hercules program matured.
The Ajax launch system was entirely phased out with all the Boston area.
Ajax sites closing down in 1963 that left just the three Hercules sites in whole Lincoln and danvers operational,
along with the Missile Master System and Winthrop Battalion HQ and Quincy and a few other administrative buildings scattered around the boston suburbs,
1960 for New England Hercules Systems in Boston Providence in Bridgeport merged into a single command structure like the Ajax before it, the Hercules system began to slide into obsolescence almost as soon as it was introduced,
By the mid 1960s, both the us and the Soviets were building out enormous armories of intercontinental ballistic missiles against which neither nation had an effective defense.

[55:10] Nike bases were cut again and again in the 1960s to free up funds and personnel for other projects.
The Hercules program was completely axed in 1974 with only a handful of bases in Florida and Alaska remaining online for a few years.

[55:27] In February 1970 for the military confirmed that be five in Danvers B- 36 in Hull and B- 73 in Lincoln would be decommissioned within the next six months.

[55:39] On May 22. The globe reported on the effort to disarm and remove the nuclear warheads from the B- 36 launch site in North Weymouth where Web State Park is now.
According to Weymouth Selectmen and military spokesman, the missiles are being disarmed and moved by helicopter over homes to the South Weymouth Naval air station, Mass.
National Guard Chief Warrant Officer Edward Hill said the missiles now are being carried by helicopter first to the naval air station.
They will then be moved to an army storage depot. Hill said the closest such depot is in Maryland.
It’s funny to read how much more secretive army officials were about the Hercules system when it was being retired than they were when it or its predecessor, the Ajax were being installed.
They have refused to tell us whether or not the weapons are nuclear, said selectman William jargon.
We have the Fire Department Police Department on alert in case anything goes wrong.
But you know if a nuclear warhead went off in Weymouth, nobody would have anything to worry about anymore. In Weymouth or even in boston, Chief warrant Officer Hill told the globe of course, their nuclear, that’s why it’s also secret.

[56:49] Lieutenant Colonel Andrew J. Sullivan, an army spokesman at the pentagon, was asked how large an area Hercules missile nuclear warhead could destroy, what makes you think they have nuclear warheads?
He asked in reply, told that the massachusetts National Guard had released the information. Sullivan said government policy is that we neither confirm nor deny the presence of atomic munitions.
If the National Guard feels free to talk about it, I think you should get them to answer your questions.
The military refused to acknowledge how many missiles were at Weymouth or even when they had been installed, even though both facts were common knowledge among locals, Thanks to the army’s earlier transparency, the Globe reported,
Military spokesman refused to say when the missiles were installed at Weymouth, but nearby residents think it was between 1958 and 61 when the military was installing Hercules systems.
Near many major American cities, neighbors of the Nike site, which is classified secret by the military, say that at an open house there a few years ago, at least a dozen Hercules missiles were raised from their underground housings.

[57:56] On July one, the Army reported that all nuclear warheads have been removed from their Massachusetts, Nike basis from the hull danvers and Lincoln sites.
They’ve been choppered to South Weymouth naval air station and then flown on large transport aircraft out of New England,
Whether they were dismantled or moved to Europe, where the Hercules remained in use until the 1980s, I couldn’t determine,
today, it’s worth visiting what remains of the sites in Burlington hang um squad um point in the Blue Hills, if only to remind ourselves how close the world came to nuclear Armageddon.
While most Bostonians feel like they know Nikes and especially people who grew up in the suburbs in the shadow of the missiles, most don’t actually know many of the details.
An article about rediscovering abandoned Nike sites in the 1987 issue of Air Defense Artillery Magazine Asks why all this interest in Nike one factor is the proximity of Nike air defenses to large population areas.
Many people became aware of Nike but only as an unknown weapon behind chain link fences.
These folks now have an opportunity to learn about Nike sites and the program in general.

[59:09] Up in Beverly Nike enthusiasts and members of the urban search and Rescue team, massachusetts Task Force One have been trying to find a better way for the public to learn about boston area.
Nike sites than just hiking to the barren concrete of an abandoned launch area are driving past the repurposed buildings of a command center In 2016, the Salem News reported,
Tucked away in the Massachusetts Task Force one headquarters near Beverly Airport is a remnant of American history, a Cold War era Nike missile though the Nike Ajax missile launch site is no longer active.
There’s more than just the missile there that serves as a reminder of the site’s history.
An underground missile silo on the property remains intact. Editor’s note actually, the underground missile storage magazine and elevator, not technically a silo And mass task force one officials hope to eventually open it to walking tours,
Mark Foster, Mass Task Force Once program manager said the agency could look at how to make the silo safe for tours, possibly painting parts of it and installing signs describing certain areas historical significance.
Maybe someday, Nike Ajax Site B 15 will become a destination for history buffs alongside older defenses of boston, like Fort Warren on George’s Island for independence, at Castle Island or even the Charlestown Navy Yard.

[1:00:33] To learn more about the Nike missile bases that once ringed boston Check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 226,
In the show notes, you’ll find photos of Ajax and Hercules missiles, a diagram showing the radar guidance using the Ajax program and pictures of the hull squad um and Lincoln sites in their heyday,
I’ll have links to Boston globe coverage of the very public installation of the Nike Ajax sites in the 1950s.
The Hercules program in the 50s and 60 And the strangely secretive removal of the bases in the 1970s.
Plus. I’ll link to the declassified Defense Department publications I used in preparing the show as well as to issues of Air Defense Artillery magazine that I referenced.
Here’s a piece of trivia that I just learned as I was writing this. The classic duck and cover film was produced 70 years ago in 1951 When I guess what happened 70 years before that?
The gunfight at the Ok Corral, which took place in October 1881.
No wonder the dawn of the atomic age seems like so long ago.
In the show notes this week, you’ll also find links to watch the Full duck and cover film, the National guard recruiting film featuring the Lincoln base and a propaganda piece about the Nike program.

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