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| Keywords: outdoor Aerial View of IFC (Integrated Fire Control) Missile (NIKE) Site Ph 15R in foreground with Pennsylvania Turnpike and New Housing Developments adjacent to it, 24th Artillery Group, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Defense a part of Second Region, ARADACOM W/HQ at Fort George G Meade, Maryland. 20 October 1959 Courtesy of James Tobias / Historical Resources Branch, U.S. Army Center of Military History. Milt Shefter (D/506th) recalls, "I was assigned to the Philadelphia Air Defense Command and Battery D at Bristol, PA right from Nike school at Ft. Bliss, Texas. I spend most of my time in the missile tracking area, preparing crews for the test firings at Red Canyon (White Sands, NM) firing range. One anecdote: When I first arrived and had to sign for the base equipment (as Supply Officer) I signed for an inventory of 22 Ajax missiles. Just before a General inspection by the Battalion Commander, I did a physical inventory and found I was missing a missile. On a 2nd Lt.'s pay, it would have taken me a few lifetimes to pay it off! I immediately started looking for missing records, assuming it might have been sent back to Ordinance. Nothing. After two sleepless nights, I realized the crew has dis-assembled a missile and put all the parts into spare parts inventory. All I needed to find was a tail piece with a serial number on it. When I did, I gathered the missile crew and gave them the six hours before inspection (overnight) to re-assemble it. They did it and we passed inspection. More importantly, I didn't have to account for an embarrassing missing missile. "Only married ones were allowed to live off base. Others were required to live on-base, in the enlisted men's barracks other Bachelor Officers Quarters. At one time I was the only "single" officer and I basically filled in for the married officers as Officer on Duty when they had domestic issues and needed to be home. I also allowed them to leave whenever I returned to the base so they didn't have to stay overnight. Both the Captain and Lt. Steinman really appreciated that "We ran constant exercises, mostly in the middle of the night. We'd get our original plots of "incoming aircraft from Alaska or New Foundland. One night, I noted the plot was not an advance (like over Boston or Canada) but was basically over Philadelphia. I requested a verification and when I got it, the observer asked "what's the problem?" I answered that the aircraft position was overhead. He asked "So what? I said "What am I supposed to do?" He answered: "Duck?" "Warrington was Battalion Hdq. We got the Hercules at Bristol. Typical Army fashion, the A- frame supporting the Hercules was too high to fit into our Missile Assembly (repair) building. Our engineering Sgt. wasn't cleared to go inside, so when a generator went down, he had to give instructions from outside the fence. The guard dogs were really to keep our unauthorized soldiers from getting in, and they were so vicious, they had to be entered into the walkway/dog run on opposite sides of the area otherwise they'd go after each other. When the dogs were shipped to us, they arrived without handlers (who took vacation/leave) on the way to Bristol. The supply Sgt. had to feed them by pushing metal plates of food into their cages. They were NOT pet-like. "Just one more so I don't bore you. Another bachelor officer had two dogs that became our mascots. They were brindle Great Danes. They were also natural hunters. Now remember, we were supposedly a fenced and secured 44 acre missile site. A neighboring farmer kept calling and complaining that he was losing chickens to some dogs and claimed they were our guard dogs. On one call, as the Duty Officer, I explained that our guard dogs were trained German Shepherds and were kept locked up or in a perimeter fenced area. During that conversation, I suddenly looked down and saw one of our pet mascot Great Danes stride across the driveway with a chicken in his mouth He didn't kill it, just carried it around as if it was a toy. What's worse is that we never found out where in the entire fence line the Great Danes were getting in and out! "During the huge snowstorm of '58, the local Bristol hospital lost power and had some patients on lung machines. Cpl. George Nadeau and I took an army truck with a plow, opened the entrance to the hospital and then hooked up an emergency generator. George was the real hero as the plow blade struck some bricks in the driveway and sheared off. We wired it back on, returned to the base and he welded the bolt back on, then we returned to the hospital to complete hooking up the generator. We returned several times to keep adding fuel to the generator until the hospital got its own power back on." Aerial View of IFC (Integrated Fire Control) Missile (NIKE) Site Ph 15R in foreground with Pennsylvania Turnpike and New Housing Developments adjacent to it, 24th Artillery Group, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Defense a part of Second Region, ARADACOM W/HQ at Fort George G Meade, Maryland. 20 October 1959 Courtesy of James Tobias / Historical Resources Branch, U.S. Army Center of Military History. Milt Shefter (D/506th) recalls, "I was assigned to the Philadelphia Air Defense Command and Battery D at Bristol, PA right from Nike school at Ft. Bliss, Texas. I spend most of my time in the missile tracking area, preparing crews for the test firings at Red Canyon (White Sands, NM) firing range. One anecdote: When I first arrived and had to sign for the base equipment (as Supply Officer) I signed for an inventory of 22 Ajax missiles. Just before a General inspection by the Battalion Commander, I did a physical inventory and found I was missing a missile. On a 2nd Lt.'s pay, it would have taken me a few lifetimes to pay it off! I immediately started looking for missing records, assuming it might have been sent back to Ordinance. Nothing. After two sleepless nights, I realized the crew has dis-assembled a missile and put all the parts into spare parts inventory. All I needed to find was a tail piece with a serial number on it. When I did, I gathered the missile crew and gave them the six hours before inspection (overnight) to re-assemble it. They did it and we passed inspection. More importantly, I didn't have to account for an embarrassing missing missile. "Only married ones were allowed to live off base. Others were required to live on-base, in the enlisted men's barracks other Bachelor Officers Quarters. At one time I was the only "single" officer and I basically filled in for the married officers as Officer on Duty when they had domestic issues and needed to be home. I also allowed them to leave whenever I returned to the base so they didn't have to stay overnight. Both the Captain and Lt. Steinman really appreciated that "We ran constant exercises, mostly in the middle of the night. We'd get our original plots of "incoming aircraft from Alaska or New Foundland. One night, I noted the plot was not an advance (like over Boston or Canada) but was basically over Philadelphia. I requested a verification and when I got it, the observer asked "what's the problem?" I answered that the aircraft position was overhead. He asked "So what? I said "What am I supposed to do?" He answered: "Duck?" "Warrington was Battalion Hdq. We got the Hercules at Bristol. Typical Army fashion, the A- frame supporting the Hercules was too high to fit into our Missile Assembly (repair) building. Our engineering Sgt. wasn't cleared to go inside, so when a generator went down, he had to give instructions from outside the fence. The guard dogs were really to keep our unauthorized soldiers from getting in, and they were so vicious, they had to be entered into the walkway/dog run on opposite sides of the area otherwise they'd go after each other. When the dogs were shipped to us, they arrived without handlers (who took vacation/leave) on the way to Bristol. The supply Sgt. had to feed them by pushing metal plates of food into their cages. They were NOT pet-like. "Just one more so I don't bore you. Another bachelor officer had two dogs that became our mascots. They were brindle Great Danes. They were also natural hunters. Now remember, we were supposedly a fenced and secured 44 acre missile site. A neighboring farmer kept calling and complaining that he was losing chickens to some dogs and claimed they were our guard dogs. On one call, as the Duty Officer, I explained that our guard dogs were trained German Shepherds and were kept locked up or in a perimeter fenced area. During that conversation, I suddenly looked down and saw one of our pet mascot Great Danes stride across the driveway with a chicken in his mouth He didn't kill it, just carried it around as if it was a toy. What's worse is that we never found out where in the entire fence line the Great Danes were getting in and out! "During the huge snowstorm of '58, the local Bristol hospital lost power and had some patients on lung machines. Cpl. George Nadeau and I took an army truck with a plow, opened the entrance to the hospital and then hooked up an emergency generator. George was the real hero as the plow blade struck some bricks in the driveway and sheared off. We wired it back on, returned to the base and he welded the bolt back on, then we returned to the hospital to complete hooking up the generator. We returned several times to keep adding fuel to the generator until the hospital got its own power back on." | ||||
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