The Lashup Radar Network was a United States

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

radar netting system for air defense surveillance which followed the post-

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

"five-station radar net" and preceded the "high Priority

Permanent System Permanent may refer to: Art and entertainment *Permanent (film), ''Permanent'' (film), a 2017 American film *Permanent (Joy Division album), ''Permanent'' (Joy Division album) *Permanent (song), "Permanent" (song), by David Cook Other uses *Perm ...

ROTOR Rotor may refer to: Science and technology Engineering *Rotor (electric), the non-stationary part of an alternator or electric motor, operating with a stationary element so called the stator * Helicopter rotor, the rotary wing(s) of a rotorcraft ...

was a similar expedient system in the

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Background

United States electronic attack warning began with a 1939 networking demonstration at Twin Lights station NJ, and 2

SCR-270 The SCR-270 (Set Complete Radio model 270) was one of the first operational early-warning radars. It was the U.S. Army's primary long-distance radar throughout World War II and was deployed around the world. It is also known as the Pearl Harbor ...

radar stations during the August 1940 " Watertown maneuvers" (NY). When "Pearl Harbor was attacked, here were 8 CONUSearly-warning stations" (ME, NJ, & 6 in CA), and Oahu's Opana Mobile Radar Station had 1 of 6 SCR-270s. CONUS "Army Radar Station" deployments for World War II were primarily for coastal anti-aircraft defense, e.g., L-1 at Oceanside CA, J-23 at Seaside OR (

Tillamook Head Tillamook Head is a high promontory on the Pacific coast of northwest Oregon in the United States. It is located in west-central Clatsop County, approximately 5 mi (8 km) southwest of Seaside. The promontory forms a steep rocky bluff ...

), and B-30 at Lompoc CA; and "the AAF...inactivated the aircraft warning network in April 1944." In 1946 the

Distant Early Warning Line The Distant Early Warning Line, also known as the DEW Line or Early Warning Line, was a system of radar stations in the northern Arctic region of Canada, with additional stations along the north coast and Aleutian Islands of Alaska (see Proj ...

was "first conceived—and rejected". By 1948 there were only 5 AC&W stations, e.g., Twin Lights in June and Montauk's "Air Warning Station #3 on July 5 (

cf. The abbreviation ''cf.'' (short for the la, confer/conferatur, both meaning "compare") is used in writing to refer the reader to other material to make a comparison with the topic being discussed. Style guides recommend that ''cf.'' be used onl ...

SAC radar stations, e.g., at

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

Bomb Plots).

Radar Fence

The Radar Fence was a planned U.S.

air defense "warning and control system" for $600 million (including $388 million for radars and other equipment) proposed in a report by Maj. Gen. Francis L. "Ankenbrandt and his communications officers" and which was approved by the USAF Chief of Staff on November 21, 1947. The "Radar Fence Plan (

code name A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in industrial c ...

d Project SUPREMACY)" was to be complete by 1953 with 411 radar stations and 18 control centers in the continental United States.

Air Defense Command Aerospace Defense Command was a major command (military formation), command of the United States Air Force, responsible for continental air defense. It was activated in 1968 and disbanded in 1980. Its predecessor, Air Defense Command, was est ...

(ADC) rejected Supremacy since "no provision was made in it for the Alaska to Greenland net with flanks guarded by aircraft and picket ships equiredfor 3 to 6 hours of warning time", and "Congress failed to act on legislation required to support the proposed system." In the spring and summer of 1947, 3 ADC Aircraft Control and Warning (AC&W) plans had gone unfunded.

Lashup planning

In November 1947 ADC "decided to go ahead with implementation

sing Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

AC&W assets…ADC possessed." The January 1, 1948, Finletter Commission report "while recognizing the need for a radar early-warning system, cautioned against the extraordinary expense of such a system, if constructed, to provide total coverage." The ADC commander "was ordered on 23 April 1948 to establish with his current resources he initial networks withAC&W systems in the Northwestern United States, the Northeastern United States, and the Albuquerque, New Mexico, areas, in that priority." The "first air defense division organization", the

25th Air Division The 25th Air Division is an inactive United States Air Force intermediate echelon command and control organization. It was last assigned to First Air Force, Tactical Air Command (ADTAC). It was inactivated on 30 September 1990 at McChord Air ...

, was established October 25, 1948, "at Silver Lake (Everett), Washington", the

26th Air Division The 26th Air Division (26th AD) is an inactive United States Air Force organization. Its last assignment was with Air Defense Tactical Air Command, assigned to First Air Force, being stationed at March Air Force Base, California. It was inacti ...

was activated at Mitchell Field NY on November 16, and both were transferred to ADC on April 1, 1949.

Lashup deployment

"Lashup I" was a stopgap $561,000 program approved in October 1948 by the ADC commander to expand "the five-station radar net then in existence". Preliminary work began by the end of 1948, and L-1 at

Dow Air Force Base Bangor Air National Guard Base is a United States Air National Guard base. Created in 1927 as the commercial Godfrey Field, the airfield was taken over by the U.S. Army just before World War II and renamed Godfrey Army Airfield and later Dow Ar ...

was complete in June 1949. In the fall of 1949 a 2nd stage of "additional Lashup stations and heavy radar equipment asauthorized", and after completed in April 1950 the "Lashup net went into operation" on June 1, 1950. (cited by Volume I, p. 132) After a mid-July direct telephone line was installed between

CONAC Conac or CONAC may refer to: * Konak (Sečanj), known in Romanian as ''Conac'', a village in Serbia * Continental Air Command Continental Air Command (ConAC) (1948–1968) was a Major Command of the United States Air Force (USAF) responsible pri ...

headquarters and the 26th Air Division HQ ("the beginning of the Air Force air raid warning system"); in August "President Truman had a direct telephone line installed between the Air Force Pentagon post and the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

Sites in the network

The 44 Lashup radar stations in April 1950 were 23 in the Northeast/Great Lakes areas, 10 in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

, 5 in/near Southern California, 3 at Albuquerque, 2 at San Francisco, and 1 in Tennessee (Alaska radars were in a separate network.) (Figure 3 in History of Strategic Air and Ballistic Missile Defense, Volume I 1945-1955) Stations were geographically grouped by

Air Division An air division is an air force or naval air formation that is roughly equivalent to an army division. An air division is usually commanded by a major general and it is composed of multiple wings, groups, air brigades, or equivalently-sized air forc ...

s which each had a ground-controlled intercept (GCI) center (e.g., Roslyn Air Warning Station's Manual Control Center in New York).

Palermo Air Force Station Palermo Air Force Station (ADC ID: P-54, NORAD ID: Z-54) is a closed United States Air Force (USAF) General Surveillance Radar station. It was located in Palermo, New Jersey, north of Sea Isle City, in Cape May County, New Jersey, United States ...

Portland Air National Guard Base Portland Air National Guard Base is a United States Air Force base, located at Portland International Airport, in Portland, Oregon. Overview The base is the home of the 142nd Fighter Wing, Oregon Air National Guard. The 142nd FW participates ar ...

Fort Meade radar station The Fort Meade radar station was a :Cold War military installations, Cold War military site with several sets of radar equipment in various United States Army, Army and United States Air Force, USAF :Radar networks, radar networks. The site op ...

Highlands Air Force Station Highlands Air Force Station was a military installation in Middletown Township near the borough of Highlands, New Jersey. The station provided ground-controlled interception radar coverage as part of the Lashup Radar Network and the Semi-Autom ...

Selfridge AFB radar station The Selfridge AFB radar station is a United States military facility in Michigan. It began operations in 1949 with a Bendix AN/CPS-5 Radar test that tracked aircraft at . A height finder MIT AN/CPS-4 Radar was added by March 9, 195and the st ...

Snelling Air Force Station Snelling may refer to: People *Sir Arthur Snelling (1914–1996), British civil servant and diplomat *Barbara Snelling (1928–2015), American politician *Charles Snelling (figure skater) (born 1937), Canadian Olympic figure skater * Charles Mercer ...

Fort Williams

Cape Charles Air Force Station Cape Charles Air Force Station is a closed United States Air Force General Surveillance Radar station. It is located south of Townsend, Virginia. It was closed in 1981. From 1941 to 1948 it was Fort John Custis of the United States Army C ...

Lashup equipment

Lashup used improved systems that included the Western Electric AN/TPS-1B Radar, which was first used in 1948 (a -1B was at Portland L-33 in March 1948 for warning the nuclear

Hanford Site The Hanford Site is a decommissioned nuclear production complex operated by the United States federal government on the Columbia River in Benton County in the U.S. state of Washington. The site has been known by many names, including SiteW a ...

.) L-17 began using a 1949 Bendix AN/CPS-5 radar, to which a height finder MIT AN/CPS-4 Radar was added by March 9, 1950. Also developed was the General Electric AN/CPS-6 Radar which was at L-12 in 1949. The

Bendix AN/FPS-3 Radar The AN/FPS-20 was a widely used L band early warning and ground-controlled interception radar system employed by the United States Air Force Air Defense Command, the NORAD Pinetree Line in Canada, the USAF CONAD in the continental United States, a ...

used in the Lashup network was ready for installation in late 1950.

Replacement planning

The Interim Program and its First Augmentation were planned to replace Lashup with a larger radar network "until the Supremacy plan network could be approved and constructed", and an $85,500,000 March 1949 Congressional bill funded both the Interim Program "for 61 basic radars and 10 control centers to be deployed in 26 months, with an additional ten radars and one control station for Alaska" and the augmentation's additional 15 radars ("essentially Phase II of Supremacy"). The USAF reallocated $50 million to instead implement the program as a "permanent Modified Plan" (modified from Supremacy) to "start construction on the high Priority Permanent System of radars in February 1950 with the first 24 radar sites to be constructed by the end of 1950"—operating in 1951 were P-1 in WA (opened June 1, 1950) and TM-187 in TX. Early June 1950 exercises "in the

58th Air Division The 58th Air Division (58th AD) is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Its last assignment was with Air Defense Command, based at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. It was inactivated on 1 February 1959. History World War II B-29 d ...

bd Lashup sites BD, Bd or bd may refer to: In arts and entertainment * B. D. (Doonesbury), a major character in the ''Doonesbury'' comic strip * ''Bande dessinée'' (or "bédé"), a French term for comics * Bass drum, in sheet music notation * Brahe Djäkn ...

indicated insufficient low-altitude coverage," and Maj Gen Morris R. Nelson identified on June 12 that ADC could employ "an American version of CDS", the British command and control system. Congress subsequently passed a "supplemental appropriation" in September 1950 of nearly $40 million for new radar stations and search/height-finder equipment." By November 1950,

Ground Observation Corps The Ground Observer Corps (GOC), sometimes erroneously referred to as the Ground ''Observation'' Corps, was the name of two American civil defense organizations during the middle 20th century. World War II organization The first Ground Observer ...

filter centers (7 in the west, 19 in the east) were being installed, and by November 10 a separate Air Defense Command headquarters at

Ent AFB Ent Air Force Base was a United States Air Force base located in the Knob Hill neighborhood of Colorado Springs, Colorado. A tent city, established in 1943 during construction of the base, was initially commanded by Major General Uzal Girar ...

was approved (the

Federal Civil Defense Administration The Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) was organized by President Harry S. Truman on December 1, 1950, through Executive Order 10186, and became an official government agency via the Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950 on 12 January 19 ...

was created in December 1950.) On June 13, 1951, the government released $20 million for construction of permanent radar stations, and the "original construction program for the Permanent System" was completed in May 1952.

Lashup phaseout

Phaseout of Lashup radar stations began in January 1952 at Larson AFB (L-29) & Richland (L-30) in Washington that were replaced by Othello AFS (P-40). On December 1, 1953, a few Lashup stations became part of the subsequent "75-station, permanent net", e.g., the Montauk USAF facility was named an Air Force Station when designated LP-45"On 1 December 1953, the site designation was changed to LP-45 and the Air Force facilities were renamed Montauk Air Force Station. Montauk AFS was incorporated into the permanent ADC network of General Surveillance Radar Stations. (unsourced claim at

Montauk Air Force Station Montauk Air Force Station was a US military base at Montauk, New York, Montauk Point on the eastern tip of Long Island, New York (state), New York. It was decommissioned in 1981 and is now owned by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation a ...

wikipage) (the Palermo AFS L-14 reportedly became permanent site LP-54 in 1951.) One station of the Lashup Radar Network remained in 1957 at the end of which ADC operated 182 radar stations (

135

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CDTS sites in 1963, 66 "long-range radars" in 1981, and 41 JSS stations in 1985).Defensive Watch
Airforce-magazine.com. Retrieved on 2013-09-18.

References

{{Reflist , refs= {{Cite book , author=Air Defense Command , title=Organization and Responsibility for Air Defense, March 1946–September 1955 , publisher=

CONAD Conad ('), stylized CONAD, is an Italian retail store brand which operates one of the largest supermarket chains in Italy. Created in 1962, Conad is a cooperative system of entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of e ...

, number=ADC Historical Study No. 9, author-link=Air Defense Command (cited by Volume I, p. 132) https://groups.yahoo.com/group/COWRadarVets/message/354
Arlington WA
Palos Verdes Estates CA*
B-5 La Jolla CA {{aka Mount Soledad*
B-30 Lompoc CA probably Point Arguelo
B-78 Mill Valley CA a.k.a. Mt Tamalpais
B-85 Carmel CA a.k.a. Point Sur
J-23 Seaside, OR a.k.a. Tillamook Head
J-41 Santa Catalina Island CA a.k.a. Camp Cactus
J-42 San Nicolas Island CA
J-55 Neah Bay WA a.k.a. Bahokus Peak
J-77 Olema CA a.k.a. Point Reyes
J-77 Gualala CA a.k.a. Point Arena
J-80 Montara CA a.k.a. Point Montara
L-1 Oceanside CA
L-6 Otay Mesa CA a.k.a. Border Field 6
L-35 Point Hueneme CA
L-82 Half Moon Bay CA * not operational but in "guard" (probably caretaker) status {{Cite report , last=Schaffel , first=Kenneth , year=1991 , title=Emerging Shield: The Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense 1945-1960 , url=https://archive.org/details/TheEmergingShield , format=45MB

pdf Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

, work=General Histories , publisher=

Office of Air Force History An office is a space where an Organization, organization's employees perform Business administration, administrative Work (human activity), work in order to support and realize objects and Goals, plans, action theory, goals of the organizati ...

, isbn=0-912799-60-9 , accessdate=2011-09-26 , url-access=registration {{Cite book , chapter=Chapter 3: Planning for Air Defense in the Postwar Era , title=Emerging Shield , pages=47-81 (pdf pp. 62-96) {{Cite book , title=History of Strategic and Ballistic Missile Defense, 1945-1955: Volume I , url=http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/bmd/BMDV1.pdf , quote=Stations were undermanned, personnel lacked training, and repair and maintenance were difficult. This stop-gap system later would be replaced by a 75-station, permanent net authorized by Congress and approved by the President in 1949 … To be closer to ConAC, ARAACOM moved to Mitchel AFB, New York on 1 November 1950. {{Cite book , chapter=Chapter II: American Strategy for Air and Ballistic Missile Defense , title=History of Strategic Air and Ballistic Missile Defense, 1945–1955: Volume I , pages=37–68 {{Cite report , last1=Winkler , first1=David F , last2=Webster , first2=Julie L , date=June 1997 , title=Searching the Skies: The Legacy of the United States Cold War Defense Radar Program , url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA331231.pdf , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121201202922/http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA331231 , url-status=live , archive-date=December 1, 2012 , publisher=U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratories , accessdate=2012-03-26 Cold War military installations of the United States Telecommunications equipment of the Cold War Air defence radar networks