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/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl General Category >> The Cafe >> Nike Missile Base PH75 /cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1493041004 Message started by philthymike on 04/24/17 at 06:36:43 |
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Title: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by philthymike on 04/24/17 at 06:36:43 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nike_missile_sites#Pennsylvania Having an interest in Cold War history I've decided to make bike trips to visit remaining Nike missile base ruins in my surrounding area. I found a list of them online. In fact there are quite a few resources available for locating them and learning the history behind them. Most of us older folks remember the air raid drills and hiding under our desks in school. These Nike facilities were setup around most major cities around the country (12 for Philly) in order to protect us a little better against Soviet bombers than our trusty desks could. I find it disturbing that so much of this period in our history is being bulldozed and paved over or left to rot away. So I intend to go see these remaining historic sites by bike as I am able to. This past weekend I went to see PH75 near Newtown Square, PA. Only 20 minute ride for me. Here's some pictures of the control facility. The launch facility is on the grounds of a National Guard base so no luck seeing it. But the gate to the control area had a big gap I could squeeze through so I did. It was heavily overgrown though so hard to move around to find things. I found a building and two radar towers. |
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by philthymike on 04/24/17 at 06:38:31 This might be the only building left standing or the others were so overgrown I couldn't see them. I took some more pics let me know if you have an interest in seeing them. Next weekend I'm going to try to find PH32 in NJ as well as visit the Nike Site PH-64DC in Pedricktown, NJ in Fort Pendricktown which was the Command Control base for this region. http://www.radomes.org/museum/documents/GibbsboroAFSNJpedericktown.html Quote:
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by justin_o_guy2 on 04/24/17 at 09:23:53 Buy one, sell tours,, move in, have it declared a national treasure, whatever... |
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by philthymike on 04/24/17 at 09:30:32 SF-88 has been restored and you can take tours of it. https://youtu.be/J0owdCMDVDo Anybody else interested in finding and visiting these sites? They're all over the country. Maybe we can do a variation on the Scavenger Hunt? |
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by philthymike on 04/24/17 at 10:02:41 Ironically the Nike Missile program began life as Project Thumper! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Wizard |
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by Gary_in_NJ on 04/24/17 at 10:17:21 I was born in '62, so I should have been aware of these...but for some reason this is new info to me. Maybe because none were near enough to me that I had any awareness. Good info and it made for some interesting reading. |
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by MnSpring on 04/24/17 at 10:28:46 Here is a Photo of one: http://legacy.mnhs.org/sites/legacy.mnhs.org/files/project_images/3284-photo_of_panel06.jpg Others: http://www.startribune.com/missile-in-st-bonifacius-stands-as-a-reminder-of-the-cold-war/222201881/ http://discover-stboni.com/ 10 Miles away from me. When de activated, and sold, one site, with the under ground silos & Elevators, was used, (still is) for winter Storage of boats, MC' s etc. The other property, made, explosive bolts, for US, jet ejection seats. The Hercules Missile, which stands in the Park, every year, 'snowflakes', want it taken down. The, History committee, prevails. When it was active, and several 100's of young, 18-20 year soldiers, were in town. One 17 year old female, got, 'pregnant', from swimming in a public pool. (or so she said) LOL A unique prescriptive, and reminder of the 'cold war'. |
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by thumperclone on 04/24/17 at 10:56:21 I was raised in socal in the 60s and remember seeing the nike test launches and the monthly "drop" drills |
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by Ruttly on 04/24/17 at 11:48:55 There is a working Nike base (as a historical park) in Marin headlands in CA, operational except the missles. Whole string on them from Canada to Mexico on the western seaboard. One was minutes from where I grew up. They would give advanced warning of test firings to open your windows & doors ,if you lived too close it would blow your windows out. After it's closing we would go in the silos & artillery bunkers , got lots of stories about that place , if was cool ! |
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by philthymike on 04/24/17 at 12:16:02 I was raised in the same town as this... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montauk_Air_Force_Station Camp Hero. It is a state park now and you can go walk around and see the radar facility. Unfortunately they tore down 75% of the base's structures when it became a park. As a kid I was fascinated by the huge rotating dish, which was operated even after decommissioning by a private company into the early 1980's. It was originally part of the S.A.G.E. system under control by NORAD. Once the place was finally shut down it became a favorite place to go for exploration while dirt biking. Later in life it became a favorite place to party. I had several inebriated dares out to the end of the catwalk in the cone. Looking back on it it is a wonder I'm still alive. After several unfortunate falls by drunken kids they stationed the Park Police headquarters on site. Which meant there was a slight possibility of getting caught. That didn't stop me either. Anyways it was the start of my interest in this historical period. Now that I'm older it's more interesting in its history than as a party spot. http://https://bdn-data.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs.dir/311/files/2015/12/DSCN2108-e1450986549487.jpg Many of the Nike sites were tied into SAGE over the years until the Nike program got shut down. Overall it was a huge system with so many bases in the US as well as Greenland, Canada, Norway and elsewhere. There's so much to learn about it. I recently learned of Texas Tower 4 which I was shocked to not know about considering where I'm from. Gary_in_NJ might find it interesting as well. Google it. |
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by Ruttly on 04/24/17 at 12:43:05 The place was huge and tied to 2 other near by radar stations. We had many a good party's there as well as some great riding up on the 3 ridges that made up the site. In the last few years it's been covered over and is part of the coastal park system but still a few remnants remain ! |
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by Dave on 04/24/17 at 12:59:43 I am not aware of anything cool like that around northern Kentucky. Cincinnati has an old subway that has tunnels - but they never got any cars so they just ran utilities in the tunnels....they have complete stations that were never used. There are also some "beer tunnels" and large underground rooms where they used to age lager (I have been in some of those). |
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by verslagen1 on 04/24/17 at 13:13:21 It's a wonder we made it thru the cold war. |
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by philthymike on 04/24/17 at 13:25:27 7E45485F4E42595F444C415E2D0 wrote:
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by Dave on 04/24/17 at 13:57:17 I had no idea those were around here...or how to search for them. It appear they are all locked behind gates and fences........ |
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by verslagen1 on 04/24/17 at 14:13:34 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Vicente_Mountain_Park http://https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/Former_LA96C_Nike_Missile_site_in_the_Santa_Monica_Mountains.JPG/675px-Former_LA96C_Nike_Missile_site_in_the_Santa_Monica_Mountains.JPG |
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by Ruttly on 04/24/17 at 21:57:42 Idk what number it was but it was located on the ridge between Pacifica and San Bruno CA. Think it's called Milgra Ridge and the radar was on Sweeney Ridge or maybe I got it backwards , I think its right. In the artillery bunker that had 2 huge guns one at each door , the bunker was built into the hill,hallway between doors over 500 ft long and went back into the hill close to 1000 ft after you went thru the nuclear blast door that had a huge civil defense emblem on it. Above that bunker was a pillbox bunker looking out to the Pacific Ocean and behind that was 2 massive underground water storage areas , we used to swim inside it , Brrr ! |
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by philthymike on 04/25/17 at 08:50:54 The sites I want to see next weekend are under private and/or township ownership so I'll just go knock on doors and ask if I can go in. Failing that I'll try to get the best pics I can from a distance. But it never hurts to ask. At Camp Hero in Montauk there are also 4 artillery batteries for 16 inchers that had "underground" passages between them. In this case the passages were actually above ground structures covered over with soil and vegetation to look like natural hills. In fact this camouflaging of stuff was one of the best features at this base. It was made to look like a tiny fishing village. Even the Anti-aircraft bunkers had fake wood siding and trim cast into the concrete as well as actual wood shingle roofs over the actual rooftops. In old time photos of the bunkers they looked like cheerful beach cottages until you noticed the gun slits right under the eaves with 20mm gun barrels sticking out of them. All this effort to conceal is seen only in the structures from WWII when the coastlines were being observed by U-Boats. During the Cold War they gave up the pretense completely. After all how do you make a rotating radar dish 135 ft. across look like part of a cutsie seaside resort? ;D http://scontent.cdninstagram.com/t51.2885-15/s480x480/e15/10520305_522036087941830_698369261_n.jpg?ig_cache_key=Nzg5MTMyNTUwMjQ3NDA3NDY2.2 |
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Title: Re: Nike Missile Base PH75 Post by Ruttly on 04/25/17 at 12:33:27 The silos where big, guess each one could hold 70 to 80 cars with steel doors to stairway down in. Silo doors were pretty long with a platform elevator that would rise up to ground level to fire the missle then down to reload. Guided missles all were fired from the same position, no aiming it. |
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