Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
History Quarterly Digital Archives

Source: July 1990 Volume 28 Number 3, Pages 115–119

The Nike Base on Diamond Rock Hill

Hob Borgson

• Sources

Page 115

At about the same time that it was announced that the Berwyn Observation Post atop the roof of the Tredyffrin Township building was being closed, the U. S. Department of Defense announced plans to build an anti-aircraft guided missile base on Diamond Rock Hill.

Ironically, the observation post, organized during the Second World War to spot hostile planes, and affiliated with the Ground Observer Corps of the U. S. Air Force, was being closed "due to lack of support by the citizens of this section". In announcing its closing, F. Alfred Patton, in charge of the Post, explained, "We cannot operate our schedules as long as newspapers and news commentators say there is no danger, and people believe it."

The proposed base was to be one of sixteen missile bases, ten in Pennsylvania and six in New Jersey, in an overlapping ring around Philadelphia to provide an anti-aircraft defense system for the Delaware Valley area. The bases were to be armed with Nike missiles, named for the Greek goddess of Victory. The missiles were capable of traveling at supersonic speeds, with a range of 20,000 yards, or about 12 miles, to intercept attacking aircraft, and were described as "the nation's first combat-ready surface-to-air missile system" in anti-aircraft defense in the country.

Development of the Nike Ajax missile had started nine years earlier, in 1945. The first step was a four-month preliminary "paper" study conducted by Bell Laboratories at the request of the Army Ordnance Corps to determine the problems involved in a high-speed, maneuverable, controlled rocket projectile.

Page 116

Upon completion of this study, Bell and the Douglas Aircraft Company began work on the actual design of the missile and its launching equipment. The first successful test firing of the missile, without any guidance system, was made in the fall of 1946, and two years later tests were conducted, in secret, of a controlled missile. The program was then approved as operational, and production started.

It was hardly a surprise that there was considerable opposition locally to the proposed missile base when plans for it were first announced in March 1954. It was quickly pointed out, however, that the opposition was not so much to the over-all concept of the anti-aircraft defense of which the base was to be a part, as it was to the location of the base in the midst of a desirable residential area.

Despite several meetings by army personnel with various local community groups, in which the army officials attempted to reassure the residents of the defensive character of the weapon and base, its safety features, and that the personnel coming to the base "would be of the highest type", for the next several months opposition, led primarily by the Great Valley Association, continued to mount. It was suggested that the situation would not be unlike that at the installation at Gladwyne at which, it was alleged, "lights burn all night", the landscape was stripped of trees and "an ugly clearing was made", and "friends with sleeping bags came out from Philadelphia to visit". It was also contended that an "army atmosphere" was not suitable to the area. Letters of protest were sent to persons "prominent in army or political life", among them then-Congressman Paul Dague and U. S. Senators Edward Martin and James Duff.

Others sought assurances that Diamond Rock Hill was, in fact, the truly necessary and only possible location for the installation, and clearly preferable to any other sites that might be considered.

By early June, however, it was apparent that the protests were to be of no avail. Bids for the construction of the base (and also for a missile base at Edgemont) had already been solicited, and replies received by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The next month a court order was issued by Deputy U. S. Marshal William Ruth notifying the property owners concerned that approximately 40 acres of ground along Swedesford and LeBoutiller roads had been condemned for a military installation.

"With the formal condemnation of the site," it was reported in the Upper Main Line News, "all opposition was withdrawn. A spokesman for the Valley group, it was further reported, "has said that since the Army is convinced this is the site, above all others, which is proper in this very important defense move, then no one should offer further opposition."

By February the following year, construction, under the direction of Major Edgar of the 24th AAA Group, was sufficiently completed for the base to receive troops.

Page 117

The new base was manned by Battery A of the 175th Anti-aircraft Artillery Missile Battalion. The unit had originally been organized in May 1944 as the 176th Coast Artillery Battalion of the U. S. Army, and was activated at Makin Atoll in the Gilbert Islands in the South Pacific. During World War II it earned a campaign streamer for its part in the air offensive against Japan. At the end of the war, in December 1945, it was put on inactive status.

In February 1955 the unit was reactivated at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland, and later that month moved to the Diamond Rock Hill base. Shortly after the move, it was redesignated a unit of the 176th AAA Missile Battalion.

The Battery consisted of six officers and about 130 enlisted men, of whom about one-third were on active duty at one time.

The base consisted of two sections, located about two miles from each other. The fire control unit was situated along the top of Diamond Rock hill, while the rocket launching area was located nearer to Swedesford and LeBoutiller roads, on the lower ground.

The area on the top of the hill was the larger of the two sections, and included five buildings in addition to the two vans and a small building with the fire control equipment. There were two barracks buildings, one for the personnel of the fire control platoon and the other for the support personnel (cooks, clerks, truck drivers, and others). The Battery mess hall was also located in this section, as was the administration building with the unit commander's headquarters, the orderly room, the supply room, the unit dayroom, and the post exchange. There were also three radar towers for the three radar systems by which the guided missiles were directed, and a small generator building.

At the launching site were three launching platforms, each with four missile launchers. Other buildings at this site were the barracks for the launching platoon personnel, sheds for the storage of fuel, a missile assembly building, a testing building, and another generator building.

Busses were used to transport personnel from one section to the other and to take the launching platoon personnel up the hill to the mess hall for meals.

Daily runs were also made from the base to the Valley Forge Hospital near Phoenixville to pick up rations, supplies for the PX, and other supplies. At the same time, the base was designed to be self-sufficient; if necessary for an extended period of time. A two weeks' supply of C-rations was kept on hand at all times (and periodically were served to the men so that they could be replaced with fresh supplies). In addition to the two generators to provide emergency electric power, the base also had its own water supply and sewage system.

Page 118

Each missile was about one foot in diameter and about thirty-three feet overall in length, the rocket itself being about 20 feet long, with a booster about 13 feet long attached to it. The missiles were stored in an underground bunker, and were raised to the launching platforms by elevators. As a safety precaution, the warhead of the missile could explode only when the missile was in flight.

As had been indicated when the base was still in the planning stage, the personnel assigned to the unit were specially selected men, many of whom had received special training in radar operations and in electronics at Fort Bliss, Texas in a special 48-week course.

The base was on a continuous 24-hour "ready" basis, with daily checks of the launching mechanism and radar system. There were also drills in the assembly and fueling of the missiles, including safety precautions, in addition to the normal routine physical fitness programs and drill.

Without any warning, training drills were also called from time to time, at any hour of the day or night, by the North American Defense Command from its Colorado Springs headquarters, to test the response of the unit to simulated air attacks. Although no rockets were ever put into the air from any of the bases in the Philadelphia area, personnel from the base were flown to the firing range at Camp McGregor in Texas for actual firing practice and exercises.

Despite the fact that only about a third of the personnel at the base was engaged in these training operations at a time, the recreation facilities of the base were quite limited. In addition to pool tables and ping pong tables in the dayroom, a swimming pool was built on the base by "scrounging" material and using left-over concrete donated by the Warner Lime Company. Movies were shown two or three times a week in the dayroom, and the USO and Salvation Army also made visits to the base. Trips to baseball games and other sporting events were also arranged for the men from time to time.

From the time the base opened, the unit also took part in various community actvities. In its first summer at the site, for example, with special permission from the Defense Department, it brought one of its Nike rockets to Paoli, where it was the highlight of the annual Fourth of July celebration at the Paoli School. Over the years the men also contributed to the local United Fund campaign, and were willing donors to the local blood banks. Several of them also served as Scoutmasters and worked with local Boy Scout troops. An "open house" was held at the base each Wednesday, and special tours of the installation were arranged for various groups. In the winter the base not only provided men and equipment to assist in snow removal operations and to plow out roads and driveways for its neighbors, but also furnished some of its supply of C-rations and other food for marooned households.

And the neighbors reciprocated. Nearby tennis courts were made available to the servicemen. On Tuesdays and Thursdays they had the use of the Braendel's lake for swimming. Volunteers from the local Red Cross visited the base regularly every other week to sew on insignia and do mending.

Page 119

("Anyone who has ever watched a young soldier darning his socks," Capt. John Allen, one of the early Battalion commanders, commented, "will realize just how welcome that particular service is.") The Red Cross also provided "cheerful" red table cloths for the mess hall; and held picnic sand dance lessons at the base. Beginning in June 1956 religious services were conducted on the base every Sunday by the Upper Main Line Ministerial Association.

The officers at the base continually worked with local civic groups to encouraqe these activities. When Lt. Ryan Yull was the unit commander, for example, he pointed out that the men at the installation "are just like your sons in the military service away from home", and called upon the community to provide the kind of atmosphere and facilities that its members would desire for "their own boys" and to invite the servicemen to their homes.

Although a few of the neighbors continued to be concerned about the possibility that an accident might occur -- fortunately none ever did -- the overall reaction to the question "How do you feel about Nike missile sites surrounding our 20-mile area?" in the "What's Your Opinion?" column of the Upper Main Line News at the end of 1956 was generally quite favorable.

In 1957 the unit was redesignated as Battery A of the 2d Battalion of the 59th Artillery. The installation continued as a regular army base until early 1960, when the responsibility for the Nike sites was transferred to the Pennsyvania National Guard. Ceremonies marking the change-over were held on the parade ground at Valley Forge Park on May 14, 1960, with Major Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, Adjutant General of Pennsylvania, the speaker.

After the transfer the base was manned by Battery D of the 2d Battalion, 166th Artillery of the National Guard until May of 1964. By that time the original Nike-Ajax missiles had been superceded by the longer-range solid fuel Nike-Hercules missiles. The base at Diamond Rock hill was no longer needed, and so it was phased out.

Fortunately, it was never necessary to put the Nike system into action or to fire the rockets. But for more than ten years a Nike missile base, an integral part of the anti-aircraft defense of Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley, was located in Tredyffrin Township on Diamond Rock Hill.

Sources

Conversations with Capt. Domonic Pasquini, Sgt. Michael Paparo

Files of the Wayne Suburban, the Upper Main Line News

Clippings from the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, West Chester Daily Local News