Interesting Photos from the DEW Line

[Manchu Warrior]

In the early 1950's the Dept. of Defense contracted AT&T along with Bell Laboratories and Western Electric to build a defense line to counter the threat of Soviet bombers in North American air space. In 1957 the Distant Early Warning Line, DEW Line, was completed and control was turned over to the United States Air Force. The line had 63 radar stations all above Arctic Circle that ran 3000 miles from Alaska to Greenland. With the end of the Cold War most of the stations were turned over to Canadian control and shut down in 1990. These photos are of one of the radar stations in Alaska in 1959. I thought these to be interesting photos of a part of the Cold War that few Americans likely knew about.

[Manchu Warrior]

[Manchu Warrior]

[Brian Keith]

Interesting, that had to be some lonely duty!

BKW

[Manchu Warrior]

Yes it must have been very lonely duty and everytime I look at the photos I think of the movie "The Thing".

[Jim Baker]

Yes it must have been very lonely duty and everytime I look at the photos I think of the movie "The Thing".

 

 

Sure enough!

[Bob Hudson]

Sure enough!

 

The Air Force had remote outposts similar to these even in the continental United States, from the Canadian border to the Mexican border (there is the remains of one such site in the mountains in east San Diego County in Southern California). Even the stateside radar outposts were not the most desirable duty if your idea of fun was not being stuck with 140 other guys in a tiny post a long way from civilization.

[sigsaye]

I was talking to my father about his time on the Dew Line today. He was with the 4th Det at Port Moller AK. from '59-'60. He said there were 21 men there at the time. 11 were like him, former US Navy. He had been an Electricians Mate in the Navy and was assigned to operate the electric generators that powered every thing. He said there were four generation plants for his station which were powered by deisel engins turning the generators. One night while he was paralelling the generators in one of the plants, the flywheel on the desiel engin came off and went flying out the side of the building. H was on the other side of the engin at the time. Two guys who had been Enginmen in the Navy rebuilt the engin and a former Boatswains Mate rigged a tarp across the side of the building to keep the wind and snow out. He said it was still there when he transfered. Teh next island over was a Russian island with a fishing camp on it. The AF cook at the station was a former Navy cook and originally from Norway. He would go over to the Russian island in a 26 foot Motor Whale boat, crewed by the former BM and my dad as engineer (he had done that in the Navy). They would trade American cigaretts for fresh fish. Dad said they ate good there. Most of the conversations with the Navy guys was about getting out of the AF and going back to the Navy. My father and several others that he knew did that when their tours were up.

 

Steve Hesson