| Charlie
Battery Unit History |
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The
Army Air Defense Command |
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During
the Cuban Missile crisis the first military units to hit the beach were
not the Marines, they were the men of the Army Air Defense Battalions
which manned Hawk Missile Batteries deployed there in
October of 1962.
The beaches they hit,
were the southernmost point of the United States, on the island of Key West, Florida, just 90 miles from
the Cuba. These men and their weapons became the front line in protecting
our cities from direct air attack from Cuba.
This
is the story of one of those units. Charlie Battery of the
6th Battalion (Hawk), 65th Air Defense Artillery.
It is
also, in part, the story of both the Army Air Defense Command (ARADCOM)
under which Charlie Battery served, and of the Hawk Missile System
in general.
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| President
Kennedy Inspecting The Troops In Key West
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| However,
rather then attempting to rewrite ARADCOM's entire history here, I would
recommend reading
"Vigilant and
Invincible" by
Colonel
(Ret.) Stephen P. Moeller who has written the most comprehensive assessment of the Command published on the
internet, and is quoted several times in our historical synopsis.
In addition, we recommend reading our technical overview
section of The HAWK System.
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Early HAWK
Launcher circa 1960 |
Although
none of the Army air defense battalions that rushed to Florida in
October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, were from ARADCOM,
only five months after their arrival they were permanently
assigned to the command. Much like the rush deployment of
gun battalions in 1950 during the Korean War, these Hawk and
Hercules battalions occupied unprepared positions.
Hurricanes
and humidity, coral and glade, snakes and mosquitoes: all of
these... posed special problems for the isolated defenders of
Homestead-Miami and Key West3. |
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the tense days of October were over, and despite the fact that the
Hawk system was intended to be an extremely mobile weapon, the
soldiers of Charlie Battery received orders to dig in and fortify
their position on the island. ARADCOM had a long history of developing fixed sites, and with the help of the Army Corp of
Engineers, new Tactical Air Defense Command (TAC) sites were
quickly constructed.
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USGS View of
Charlie Battery TAC Site circa 1996 - Click To Enlarge
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They built
twenty-foot towers to hold radars, ready rooms to hold the troops,
conduits to hold cables, and re-enforced concrete armories to hold
the warheads. They used local coral as a building material
to build 15 foot berms around each launcher. Fences and
barbwire went up. Sheds were built to hold generators.
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| Left to Right:
"B" Firing Section HIPAR, "J Box" Shed, ROR
Radar |
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Maintenance buildings were constructed. Coral paths linked
the TAC Site together. Even houses with doors, windows and
singles were built to hold the little "J" (junction) boxes
which connected the launchers with the Battery Command Center
(BCC). After it was finished, Charlie battery
finally moved into it's permanent home, south east of the Naval
Air Station, on the island of Geiger Key.
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| "A" J
Box, Pulse Acquisition Radar (PAR) Generator Sheds |
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The
6th Battalion (Hawk) of the 65th Air Defense Artillery, consisted of four
independent Hawk Batteries (A-Alpha, B-Bravo, C-Charlie, and
D-Delta), and a Headquarters Battery (HHQ). With the
exception of the HHQ, each battery had two missile firing sections
consisting of three launchers each. Since
each launcher held three Hawk missiles, there could be up to 72
missiles "locked and loaded" in Key West at any time, with
many more in reserve, ready to be
reloaded after the original missiles were fired. |
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Front Gate To
Charlie Battery, with the Ready Room behind
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There
is an old saying "they also serve, who only watch and wait"
which seems to apply particularly well to the men who served in the Hawk
units in Key West. They endured hardship, isolation,
loneliness, boredom, 24 hour shifts, and the continuous alerts and
training drills associated with their mission which was to
maintain a constant vigil over the southernmost skies of the United States.
They performed this duty everyday for twelve years, until ARADCOM was officially disbanded in October of 1974.
ARADCOM
was the Army's contribution to the North American Air Defense
Command (NORAD) which during the cold-war years, integrated the
Air Force's Ballistic Missiles, Strategic Air Command (bombers)
and the Army's Air Defense Missile (Hawk and Nike Hercules)
components into a single early warning and air defense
system. NORAD had it's command center located deep beneath
the granite in Cheyenne Mountain outside of Colorado Springs,
Colorado. |
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North American
Air Defense Command (NORAD),
Colorado Springs, Colorado
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The 90mm antiaircraft
gun
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Charlie
Battery's history began as early as when airplanes first started being
used as a military weapon. To counter this new airborne
threat,
new forms of weapons needed to be developed and new tactics were required
to detect, fight, and destroy this new enemy. Thus the
historical roots
of our Hawk unit are like those of a giant oak tree. Slow to
develop, wide and deep, they were able to support a structure that
withstood all of the forces pressing against it. Charlie
Battery descended from the 65th Antiaircraft Artillery
Battalion (see
below). The roots
of the Hawk system, include the development of advanced anti-aircraft
weapon systems, America's rocket and missile development era, the
mission to protect the continental United States from air attack, and the
evolution of various
organization commands, required to coordinate and accomplish the
mission. |
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late 1940's the
Army's portion of continental air defense consisted mostly of National
Guard units. There were approximately 534 federally recognized
antiaircraft units with an aggregate strength of more than 21,000 men.
However, as
early as 1945, the Army's Ordnance Corps had began to
assess the development of an antiaircraft system
incorporating guided missiles. Amazingly, given the new technologies that would
have to emerge, the Nike Ajax system fielded just eight years later
closely resembled this initial study.2
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Captured German
scientists, including Wernher von Braun,
who headed Germany V-1 and
V-2 programs, begin arriving at Fort Bliss, Texas, in October 1945.
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More than a
hundred German scientists and technicians were assembled at Fort
Bliss and missile tests were underway at nearby White Sands, New
Mexico. |
The
Army formed its Army Antiaircraft Command (ARAACOM) in July 1950,
with a mere handful of people stationed at the Pentagon. During the
decade, the new command would experience unprecedented growth,
employ at its height nearly 45,000 soldiers with more than 240
missile batteries throughout the nation, and advance from
antiaircraft guns to two versions of the Nike guided missile system.
Moreover, the Army air defenses were only a part of the overall
military juggernaut that started rolling in the 5Os.2 |
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network was beginning to unfold that included supersonic jet fighters, antiaircraft guns and
missiles, radars of all varieties, hundreds of information-passing
nodes, and tens of thousands of soldiers, airmen, sailors and
civilians established to counter the anticipated Soviet bomber
threat. When the Soviets realized they could not achieve superiority
or even parity with America's offensive might, they strategically outmaneuvered the United States by
choosing, instead, to compete on the ballistic missile playing
field.2 |
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The Nike family
of surface-to-air missiles replaced
the antiaircraft artillery guns of the 1940s. |
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The
HAWK system used by Charlie Battery has provided US forces with
low to medium altitude air defense for the past forty years. Basic
HAWK was developed in the 1950s and initially fielded in 1960. The
system has been upgraded through a series of product improvements
beginning with the Improved HAWK in 1970.4 |
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latest HAWK missile modifications were fielded in the early 1990s
to the US Army and US Marine Corps (USMC). The system is
effective against a variety of targets, including jet and rotary
wing aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, and cruise missiles. The
mobile, all-weather day and night system is highly lethal,
reliable, and effective against electronic countermeasures.4 |
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The
Hawk was originally named for the predatory bird but later the
name was turned into an acronym for "Homing All the Way
Killer." Although HAWK missile batteries were deployed
by the U.S. Army during the conflicts in Vietnam and Persian Gulf,
American troops have never fired this weapon in combat. The first
combat use of HAWK occurred in 1967 when Israel successfully fired
the missiles during the Six Day War with Egypt.4 |
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The
65th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion
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The
linage of Charlie Battery begins with the constitution of the 1st
Battalion, 65th Artillery (Coast Artillery Corps) on December 26, 1917 as
a Regular Army unit organized on January 1, 1918 at Fort Rosecrans,
California. Served in several World War I campaigns with honors. The
unit was then demobilized on February 28, 1919 at Camp Lewis, Washington.
Reconstituted
on July 1, 1924 in the Regular Army as 1st Battalion, 65th Coast Artillery
(Antiaircraft) at Fort Amador, Canal Zone. The current unit crest
and insignia honor the time the unit spent in the Canal Zone, through the
use of the Ocelot and Strangler Fig tree, both indigenous to tropical
America. The unit was then inactivated on April
15, 1932.
Reactivated
on June 1, 1938 at Fort Winfield Scott, California. Reorganized at
Fort Ord, California and redesignated May 10, 1943 as the 65th
Antiaircraft Artillery Gun Battalion (Semi mobile).
Departed
San Francisco Port of Embarkation on July 12, 1943 for overseas service
and arrived in Alaska on July 22, 1943. After defending the western
coast of the United States, returned from overseas
service and arrived at the Seattle Port of Embarkation on December 16,
1944.
Inactivated
(less Batteries B,C and D) on January 26, 1945 at Camp Hood Texas. Simultaneously
Batteries B,C and D were redesignated the 427th, 428th and 429th
Antiaircraft Artillery Gun Batteries, respectfully.
Activated
(with Batteries B,C and D) May 1, 1949 on Okinawa. Redesignated
February 23, 1955 as the 65th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion.
Inactivated September 1, 1958 in Japan.
Consolidated
July 31, 1959 with the 65th Artillery, a parent regiment under the Combat
Arms Regimental System.
Campaign Streamers:
World War I
St Mihiel
Meuse-Argonne
Lorraine 1918
World War II
Aleutian Islands
Shield:
Gules, six piles or, from chief terminating at the nombril point overall a
strangler fig tree (Ficus specia) standing on a plot of ground, all
proper. The shield is red for Artillery while the yellow rays signify the
direction of antiaircraft fire. The six rays and the five spaces
between refer to the numerical designation of the organization. The
strangler fig tree is indigenous to tropical America and indicates that
the Canal Zone was the home area of the Battalion for many years.
The ocelot, a native of Panama who roams as fare south as Patagonia,
further signifies the character of the organization as this animal usually
climbs trees and fights upwards for it's prey.
Crest:
On a wreath of the colors (or and gules) an ocelot rampant or, spotted
sable. The insignia is the crest of the coat of arms (with wreath
omitted). The sample of the insignia depicted was originally approved for
wear by the 65th Coast Artillery on September 21, 1925.
Motto:
Sursum (Upwards)
Editor's Note: This is all
of the official history of the linage of the unit, obtained from the US
Army we have at this time. I obtained it from Fort Bliss. More
research is still under way. Steve Spray is also drafting a
historical summary of the units deactivation in the 70's, which I will
publish when complete. I will also scan a black and white photocopy
I have of the unit crest and insignia sometime soon.
Don Scanga - 4/1/01
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1
Chapter 1 "Vigilant and
Invincible" By Colonel
(Ret.) Stephen P. Moeller
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2 Chapter
2 "Vigilant and
Invincible" By Colonel
(Ret.) Stephen P. Moeller
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3 Chapter
3 "Vigilant and
Invincible" By Colonel
(Ret.) Stephen P. Moeller
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4
Federation of American Scientists, Special
Weapons
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