The Aircraft Warning Corps (AWC) was a

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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

United States Army Air Force The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War I ...

organization for

Continental United States The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...

air defense. The corps' information centers networked an area's "

Army Radar Stations An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

" which communicated radar tracks by telephone, and the information centers also integrated visual reports processed by

Ground Observer 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. The AWC notified air defense command posts of the

First Air Force The First Air Force (Air Forces Northern; 1 AF-AFNORTH) is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Air Combat Command (ACC). It is headquartered at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida. Its primary mission is the air defense of the C ...

Second Air Force The Second Air Force (2 AF; ''2d Air Force'' in 1942) is a USAF numbered air force responsible for conducting basic military and technical training for Air Force enlisted members and non-flying officers. In World War II the CONUS unit defende ...

Third Air Force The Third Air Force (Air Forces Europe) (3 AF) is a numbered air force of the United States Air Forces in Europe - Air Forces Africa (USAFE-AFAFRICA). Its headquarters is Ramstein Air Base, Germany. It is responsible for all U.S. air forces in ...

, and

Fourth Air Force The Fourth Air Force (4 AF) is a numbered air force of the Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC). It is headquartered at March Air Reserve Base, California. 4 AF directs the activities and supervises the training of more than 30,000 Air Force Res ...

. These command posts would deploy interceptors which used

command guidance Command guidance is a type of missile guidance in which a ground station or aircraft relay signals to a guided missile via radio control or through a wire connecting the missile to the launcher and tell the missile where to steer to intercept its ...

to achieve ground-controlled interception.

Background and deployment

United States electronic attack warning began with the 1929 Air Corps "experimenting with a rudimentary early-warning network at

Aberdeen Proving Ground Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) (sometimes erroneously called Aberdeen Proving ''Grounds'') is a U.S. Army facility located adjacent to Aberdeen, Harford County, Maryland, United States. More than 7,500 civilians and 5,000 military personnel work a ...

" in Maryland, a 1939 networking demonstration at Twin Lights station (New Jersey), 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" (New York). When " Pearl Harbor was attacked, here were 8 CONUSearly-warning stations" (Maine, New Jersey, and 6 in California), and Oahu's Opana Mobile Radar Station had 1 of 6 SCR-270s. CONUS Army Radar Station deployments after Pearl Harbor were primarily for anti-aircraft coastal defence, e.g., L-1 at

Oceanside, California Oceanside is a city on the South Coast of California, located in San Diego County. The city had a population of 167,086 at the 2010 census. The city is a popular tourist destination, owing to its historic landmarks, beaches, and architecture. ...

, B-30 at

Lompoc, California Lompoc ( ; Chumash: ''Lum Poc'') is a city in Santa Barbara County, California. Located on the Central Coast, Lompoc has a population of 43,834 as of July 2021. Lompoc has been inhabited for thousands of years by the Chumash people, who calle ...

, and J-23 at

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 ...

(

Seaside, Oregon Seaside is a city in Clatsop County, Oregon, United States, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. The name Seaside is derived from ''Seaside House'', a historic summer resort built in the 1870s by railroad magnate Ben Holladay. The city's population ...

). California's B-78 Mount Tamalpais Radar Station, subsequently became a

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 t ...

station of the Lashup, Permanent, SAGE, and JSS radar networks. Aircraft Warning Battalions included: 551st at tbd, 555th at tbd, 558th, and 599th (

Drew Field Tampa International Airport is an international airport west of Downtown Tampa, in Hillsborough County, Florida, United States. The airport is publicly owned by Hillsborough County Aviation Authority (HCAA)., effective December 30, 2021. The ...

Tampa Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough C ...

: 30 March 1944).

Phaseout

The USAAF inactivated the aircraft warning network in April 1944. By June 1944 AWC volunteers "assigned to filter centers serve on the same days that ground observers are on duty" (information centers continued processing radar information 24 hours a day, e.g., plotting radar tracks). By 1946, post-war considerations were for '"development of radar equipment for detecting and countering missiles of the German A-4 type" (part of Signal Corps' Project 414A contracted to

Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial Research and development, research and scientific developm ...

in 1945), and by 1947

March Field March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It is the second of seven months to have a length of 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of Mar ...

had one of the remaining World War II AC&W radar stations. The AAF announced in late May 1947 plans to move "its Radar School from

Boca Raton, Florida Boca Raton ( ; es, Boca Ratón, link=no, ) is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. It was first incorporated on August 2, 1924, as "Bocaratone," and then incorporated as "Boca Raton" in 1925. The population was 97,422 in the ...

, to Keesler

hich Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...

officially opened on 14 November 1947" (originally at Scott Field, then Morrison Field from February to 1 Jun 42). (p. 113) In 1948, the CONUS " five-station radar net" included the Twin Lights established in June 1948 and Montauk's "Air Warning Station #3 on July 5, 1948

References

{{Reflist , refs= {{Cite book , author=Air Defense Command , author-link=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 A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autono ...

, number=ADC Historical Study No. 9 (cited by Volume I, p. 132) {{Cite web, url=https://groups.yahoo.com/group/COWRadarVets/message/354, title = Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos {{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's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific du ...

, isbn=0-912799-60-9 , access-date=2011-09-26 , url-access=registration {{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.'' Ground-based air defence observation corps Branches of the United States Army Military units and formations of the United States Army Air Forces 1941 establishments in the United States Military units and formations established in 1941 Agencies of the United States government during World War II