A LINE in the ICE by Peter Grier
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IT HAS BEEN A HALF-CENTURY SINCE THE “DEW LINE” FIRST STARTED RISING IN THE ARCTIC WASTE. A LINE IN THE ICE By Peter Grier HEY’RE still up there in the frozen north, some of them. They rise abruptly from the icy wilderness, a jumble of buildings and platforms topped with giant white domes. They look like relics from another time, which, in a way, they are. When Tthey were built, the United States’ primary adversary was communism, not terrorism. The US military’s greatest fear was of a sneak attack by Soviet bombers, flying undetec- ted over the North Pole. Five decades ago this year, the US and Canada launched one of the most ambitious construction projects ever— the Distant Early Warning, or DEW Line, a series of radar early warning stations from Greenland to Alaska. Over the next two-and-a-half years, thousands of people and some 460,000 tons of material would be shipped, hauled, and airlifted some 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, up to a line IT HAS BEEN A HALF-CENTURY SINCE THE “DEW LINE” FIRST STARTED RISING IN THE ARCTIC WASTE. A LINE IN THE ICE By Peter Grier HEY’RE still up there in the frozen north, some of them. They rise abruptly from the icy wilderness, a jumble of buildings and platforms topped with giant white domes. They look like relics from another time, which, in a way, they are. When Tthey were built, the United States’ primary adversary was communism, not terrorism. The US military’s greatest fear was of a sneak attack by Soviet bombers, flying undetec- ted over the North Pole. Five decades ago this year, the US and Canada launched one of the most ambitious construction projects ever— the Distant Early Warning, or DEW Line, a series of radar early warning stations from Greenland to Alaska. Over the next two-and-a-half years, thousands of people and some 460,000 tons of material would be shipped, hauled, and airlifted some 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, up to a line running roughly along the 69th paral- “You had a lot of time to think,” cated near major US metropolitan lel. When the crash project was over, says Ranson, who still works as a areas. Lashup may have been better North America had something that, boilermaker, in Winnipeg, Canada. than nothing, but its old radars did for the era, was a technical marvel. It For centuries, the United States not have much range, and it would had also gained a crucial few hours’ depended on broad oceans and peace- have provided little advance warn- extra time to respond to any incursion ful neighbors to protect its people ing of attack. Air Force officials by aircraft carrying nuclear bombs. and home-based forces from mili- wanted something more—distant That strike never came, of course. tary attack. From the beginning of warning of attack. Yet year after year, the radar techni- the age of flight, however, visionar- Canada was worried as well. With- cians, radio operators, pilots, cooks, ies realized this geographic isola- out its own nuclear deterrent, Ot- metal workers, and military com- tion might no longer serve as an tawa saw air defense as its best pro- manders who constituted the isolated effective buffer. As early as 1916, tection against Soviet attack. In the DEW Line population braved cold Alexander Graham Bell worried that early 1950s, the US and Canada be- and boredom to keep watch for the airships might be able to float over gan joint construction of the Pinetree West. Today, their mission may be the waves and bomb US cities. Line, a series of some 30 radars that largely forgotten. Any traveler hap- During World War II, the conti- ran roughly along the line of the US– pening upon the abandoned stations nental US remained virtually un- Canadian border. This system was might wonder what on earth they touched, despite West Coast fears fully operational in 1954, with the were for. about Japanese aircraft. Japanese US paying two-thirds of its cost. troops and aircraft did gain a foot- At around the same time, with its Watching, Waiting hold in the western Aleutian Islands own funds, Canada began building “To that, I must answer that, for early in the war, but withdrew by the another line farther north, near the a brief while, we stood on guard,” middle of 1943. After the war, the 55th parallel. This Mid-Canada Line writes former DEW worker Rick threat to the US homeland seemed was a simpler microwave warning Ranson in his book Working North. minimal, and air defense budgets device, prone to false alarms set off “Like ancient guards in a lonely crumbled accordingly. by geese and other large birds. How- outpost on the Great Wall of China In the late 1940s, however, Soviet ever, the fact that Canadians were or Hadrian’s Wall, we watched, we acquisition of atomic weapons, plus even attempting to build this barrier, waited, and we slowly went nuts.” Moscow’s development of a long- whatever its limitations, intrigued Some civilian technicians bought range bomber force, quickly changed some US defense officials. If Canada snowmobiles and went out hunting the situation. In 1947, the US Air could undertake a difficult construc- in their free time. Some hung around Force proposed a $600 million radar tion task in the often-bitter weather station bars, playing cards and swap- fence composed of 411 radar sta- of the 55th parallel, why couldn’t ping tall tales. Some immersed them- tions and 18 control systems. The the US do the same even farther selves in solitary hobbies like pho- cost seemed high to Defense Depart- north? A trip wire situated above the tography. ment officials, who sent USAF back Arctic Circle would provide hours Some couldn’t take it and fled when to the drawing board. By 1950, the of extra warning of bomber attack. their contracts were up. Others loved Air Force erected an interim system Top Air Force officials were not it and today remember their time on named Lashup, which consisted of initially enthusiastic. They thought the line with fondness. 44 World War II-vintage radars lo- that erecting and maintaining a string of high-tech radars in such weather was not feasible and that even trying would drain crucial funds from the main mission of SAC. They favored offensive nuclear deterrence, but nev- ertheless agreed to provide supplies and advisors for a February 1953 equipment test on Barter Island, off the northeast coast of Alaska. Breakthrough It was at this experimental out- post, with nothing but the icy bleak- ness of the Arctic Ocean stretching away to the north, that personnel from MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory and from Western Electric achieved the breakthroughs that made the DEW Line possible. Lincoln scientists developed automated alarms that sounded when radars picked up a target, so that op- Out There. At a DEW Line outpost, radar antennae probe the skies. “Like erators did not have to stare at scopes ancient guards,” USAF radar technicians, radiomen, and support personnel for hours on end. They perfected stood lonely watch in the desolate Arctic. communications via radio waves 66 AIR FORCE Magazine / February 2004 bounced off the troposphere, over- coming the difficult radiation char- acteristics of the far north. They hard- ened, for Arctic use, two radars—the AN/FPS-19, which had a range of up to 65,000 feet and out 160 miles, and the AN/FPS-23, which handled low- level detection through its ability to pick up targets flying as low as 50 feet above water. “So that neither would record flocks of migratory birds, both were set to disregard objects flying slower than 125 miles per hour—a feature the Mid-Canada Line lacked,” notes The Emerging Shield, a 1991 publi- cation of the Office of Air Force History about the evolution of US continental air defense. In July 1953, the US began building an 18-site test line running across Lifeline. Isolated DEW Line sites were resupplied by aircraft such as the ski- Alaska and northern Canada. Work- equipped C-47 at left and the then-new C-124 at right. The flying was danger- ing from an old US Navy base in ous work; 25 people died in aircraft accidents in 1956 alone. Barrow, Alaska, workers towed pre- fabricated modules across the tundra sands of men who slept, ate, worked, The basic unit of construction was to selected sites, then set them up. Air played cards, did laundry, and gener- a modular building 28 feet long, 16 Staff concerns about the difficulty of ally carried on a normal life—as nor- feet wide and 10 feet high. Made of Arctic construction faded away. In mal, that is, as one could be in such prefabricated panels, these modules December 1954, the Pentagon awarded frozen isolation. were combined into “trains” like a Western Electric the project. Site selectors went in first. They string of blocks. Main stations had The DEW Line was on. came in overland by Caterpillar trac- two 400-foot trains, connected by an The DEW Line was the largest con- tor “trains” in the Alaskan portion overhead bridge, forming a giant H. struction project ever undertaken in and by ski plane in much of the The trains were laid on gravel pads the Arctic and one of the most difficult Canadian portion. With the help of or mounted on stilts to prevent thaw- construction projects of any kind, ever. parachute-dropped bulldozers, they ing of the permafrost beneath and Even today, the idea of constructing a cleared airstrips, often on frozen were oriented with the prevailing string of habitable stations across track- lakes, long enough to handle C-124 winds so as to minimize snow drifts.