The Aircraft Warning Corps (AWC) was a

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

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 II ...

organization for

Continental United States The contiguous United States, also known as the U.S. mainland, officially referred to as the conterminous United States, consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the District of Columbia of the United States in central North America. The te ...

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

Army Radar Stations An army, ground force or land force is an armed force that fights primarily on land. In the broadest sense, it is the land-based military branch, service branch or armed service of a nation or country. It may also include aviation assets by p ...

" 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 & Air Forces Space; 1 AF-AFNORTH & AFSPACE) 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 i ...

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 defended ...

Third Air Force The Third Air Force (Air Forces Europe) (3 AF) is a Numbered Air Force, 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 ...

, 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 Reserv ...

. 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 Ground-controlled interception (GCI) is an air defence tactic whereby one or more radar stations or other observational stations are linked to a command communications centre which guides interceptor aircraft to an airborne target. This tactic wa ...

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) 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 at APG. There are 11 major commands among the tenant units, ...

" in Maryland, a 1939 networking demonstration at Twin Lights station (New Jersey), and 2

SCR-270 The SCR-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, since it was an SCR-27 ...

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 beach city in the North County (San Diego area), North County area of San Diego County, California, United States. The city had a population of 174,068 at the 2020 United States census, making it the most populous city in the Nort ...

, B-30 at

Lompoc, California Lompoc ( ; Chumashan ) is a city in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Located on the Central Coast, its population was 43,834 as of July 2021. Lompoc has been inhabited for thousands of years by the Chumash people, who called t ...

, and J-23 at Tillamook Head (

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 was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

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 May 15, 2025. The airp ...

Tampa Tampa ( ) is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. Tampa'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 t ...

: 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 A signal corps is a military branch, responsible for military communications (''signals''). Many countries maintain a signal corps, which is typically subordinate to a country's army. Military communication usually consists of radio, telephone, ...

' Project 414A contracted to

Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, the company operates several lab ...

in 1945), and by 1947

March Field March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Its length is 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of March. The March equinox on the 20 or 21 m ...

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 ( ; ) is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. The population was 97,422 in the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and it ranked as the 23rd-largest city in Florida in 2022. Many people with a Boca Raton Address, ...

, to Keesler

hich Ij () is a village in Golabar Rural District of the Central District in Ijrud County, Zanjan province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq ...

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 5 July 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 (', English: ''National Retailers Consortium''), stylized CONAD, is an Italian retail store brand which operates one of the largest supermarket chains in Italy. History Created in 1962, Conad is a cooperative system of entrepreneurs, ...

, number=ADC Historical Study No. 9 (cited by Volume I, p. 132) {{Cite web, url=https://groups.yahoo.com/group/COWRadarVets/message/354, archive-url=https://archive.today/20130217021440/http://groups.yahoo.com/group/COWRadarVets/message/354, url-status=dead, archive-date=17 February 2013, 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 Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

, work=General Histories , publisher= Office of Air Force History , 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.'' , access-date=23 September 2013 , archive-date=10 November 2013 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131110121813/http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/bmd/BMDV1.pdf , url-status=dead 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