AT&T Archives: The Dew Line (Bonus Edition)

I had just stuck my head out the tent flap when I saw the polar bear I was staring right into its face those are the words of Jack London not the famous fiction writer who died in 1916 but a distant cousin who worked for Western Electric on the dew line project in 1955 the dew or distant early warning line was a radar defense network that stretched across 3,000 miles of frozen tundra north of the Arctic Circle it was a cold war project whose purpose was to warn the US and Canada in the event of an air strike from the north in December 1954 18 T's manufacturing and supply unit Western Electric was contracted to build it under the supervision of the United States Air Force they were given 32 months to complete the job Jack was on the site team dispatched first to map out locations for the radar stations he and his colleagues spent weeks on end in the remote wilderness living in tents or traveling in wagons essentially shacks on skis that were towed from Barren site to barren site behind caterpillar tractors their stories are told in daily logs sent back to New York to report progress on the dew line Thursday strong wind blowing snow drifted deep I have to shovel to keep tents from collapsing often hastily scribbled on scraps of paper while bouncing over treacherous terrain or crouching beside oil-fired space heaters their daily dispatches spoke a bitter cold temperatures capable of freezing exposed flesh in minutes Friday temperatures 55 below didn't feel good during the night pain in chest first aid was administered by rigging an oxygen mask and using welding oxygen tank gave some relief called for playing these logs offer a little personal context to this 1958 film documenting the amazing feat of engineering that is the dew line the Arctic desolate savage remote a wilderness of unending barren vistas through most of the year locked in bitter cold and almost endless darkness in the short summers a swamp like morass not too bad for caribou or polar bears but no place for human beings yet this roof of the world holds a stark menace to our country to our very existence the Menace lies and the basic new fact of our time that no two nations on earth are any longer cut off from each other by geography we all live at the edge of the same ocean the air ocean which envelops the globe and in the air age geography has new meanings for the safety of the American and Canadian people what was once the impassable Arctic now provides the quickest routes for attack from a wide sector of Europe and Asia beset by the nightmare of this threat the American government acted with the advice of some of the country's best scientists brought together at MIT famed Lincoln laboratories experimental installations like this one were built and tested in northern Alaska by the Western Electric Company guided by the successful tests the nation's leaders decided on a tremendous undertaking this was to build with the cooperation of Canada a radar early warning line north of the Arctic Circle starting at the northernmost tip of Alaska it would stretch 3,000 miles across the continent to Baffin Island opposite Greenland distant early warning line they named it Dew line it became at the proposal to create such a line in that distant wilderness old Arctic hands shook their heads in doubt but the dew line had to be built their men had to conquer that unknown frozen wasteland and transform it into a vital outpost of Western civilization the United States Department of Defense faced a major question - what organization should our country assign the dew line mission the answer was given by the secretary of defense in requesting the Bell System to take on the job under US Air Force supervision the Bell System with its integrated planning development engineering manufacturing and logistics organization is uniquely qualified to undertake this project which is so vital to the safety of the country the contract went to the Western Electric Company the Bell systems manufacturing and supply unit and international headquarters was swiftly organized a host of special consultants called in to help start work on a dozen fronts wherever it would help speed up the project sub contracts were left the contract called for the dew line to be delivered within 32 months impossible some said at best there was no time to lose recruiters were dispatched to every part of the country visited every unit for the belt system seeking out the right people for the right jobs Jack Jennings of Dayton Ohio commercial service engineer for the Ohio Bell Telephone company signed up for a new job as dew line installation department chief Bob Reed of Madison South Dakota lineman for Northwestern Bell finished a job one day packed his tools and headed north his destination somewhere north of the Arctic Circle somewhere west of tuk tuk Don Gore's of Milwaukee Wisconsin installation supervisor for the Western Electric Company said goodbye to his friends and took off to become a do line section chief from all over America they came across section of the technical competence the scientific imagination and the management know-how which go into creating reliable telephone service all told one thousand Bell System men and women enlisted to serve in Project five seven to codename for the dew line undertaking in the same headquarters building the US Air Force established a project office this enabled the Air Force to work closely with the project supervisors and provide prompt decisions to meet the exacting schedules by now the critical decisions as to exactly where the dew line station should go were nearly finished aerial photographs of the proposed site areas were analyzed by skilled photo interpretation men so the tentative site plans could be drawn now men had to go Lord and check the tentative plans on the spot it was February the worst possible time of year to go to the Arctic these were the dew line pioneers the sighting teams they took off from snow-covered fields in the north with a few all-important tools and instruments and the bare necessities for living they came down into the isolation of a pinpoint marked on a map they checked the educated guesses of the photo interpretation men explored the beach approaches conducted tests to be sure each site would be well suited for placing the new radar and radio systems being designed for the line and marked the sites to guide the construction crews as they completed their missions site-by-site a 3,000 mile long strip somewhere north of the Arctic Circle began to shed its timeless anonymity to take on an historic identity dual line clothes on the heels of the sighting teams came the advanced construction crews first a few an advanced construction party went in by light ski plane another ski plane followed with basic materials and supplies and a small tractor we're that much they made camp set up radio communications and cleared the snow from a frozen inlet to make a nice strip big enough for wheeled planes to land on the bigger planes brought in a bigger tractor more men and supplies but at some sites the wind kept piling up the snow so fast that a small tractor was helpless then the only way to get a bigger tractor in was to drop it by parachute the first time they tried it didn't work one way they learned on the dew line was for mistakes they had lost one tractor this way but they wouldn't lose anymore they knew now how to do it right finally they had ice tips wide enough and long enough for the biggest cargo planes the air force c-124 globemaster is made aviation history with those ice landings they brought the construction crews what they had to have the big machines that could date and pile and handle and haul and could stay on top in the running battle with the drifting snows and above all that could work gravel digging and moving gravel is the start of just about everything in the Arctic without it you can't build roads permanent airstrips or building foundations by early spring stateside they tremendous mobilizing task was in full swing this was a teamwork job government and private enterprise military and civilian working closely together there was teamwork - between nations throughout the project the US Air Force and the Royal Canadian Air Force maintained a cordial productive liaison engineering problems had to be worked out quickly decisions made on 10001 vital details the construction planners had to develop new techniques for building the dew line structures under arctic conditions at Bell Telephone laboratories the all-important electronic experimental work was nearly finished as rapidly as possible after development work was finished the actual manufacturing and assembly of the electronic equipment was pushed intensively procurement was another mammoth test every item that would be needed in the Arctic from radar antennas to paperclips how to be anticipated and ordered more than 113,000 do line purchase orders went out from Western Electric and its subcontractors to more than 4600 different business enterprises located in every state of the union every province of Canada a substantial number of these suppliers were small businesses employing less than 500 people the job of transporting the material called for a planned continental in scope it will include a West Coast sea lift out of Long Beach in Seattle another on the East Coast from Philadelphia and Halifax and an inland barge lift down the Mackenzie rivers meanwhile Canadian and American commercial aircraft of all types and sizes were bearing the full burden of supply for the early construction along the line they flew what by all odds was the greatest commercial airlift in history all together aircraft carried 30,000 tons of machinery and supplies to do line sites before the ice landing ships softened in May and June of that first year nothing stopped the airlift planes were lost and courageous men gave their lives but the supply of the construction work went on in the camps of the construction contractors living conditions were primitive but already the crews were changing the face of that far north country the Eskimos - were recruited and they did a good job the crews built roadways developed water supply sources laid down building foundations and made the beaches ready for the sea lifts at the same time to the appointed places of assembly for the sea lifts came the materials that would be the dew line came the tools to build it every item was handled with dispatch according to a plan carefully designed to put it in the right spot on the beach when it reached its dew line destination supplies of petroleum oil and lubricants built up acre on acre at Long Beach on the west coast Philadelphia in the east in June they started loading on the west coast the petroleum first then these ships went on to Seattle at Seattle they loaded for a solid month at Halifax loading for the East Coast Sealift continued for a month plus ten days the ships were operated by the military sea transport service of the United States Navy on board would be soldiers of the US Army transportation Corps intensively trained to handle the unloading of the ships and deliveries to the beaches on the dew line there would be no going down to the store for a loaf of bread or a package of nails or anything else everything had to be transported there and you'd be hard for to name an item that wasn't stowed in these ships the westcoast Sealift was to be in convoy the slower ships left Seattle first the others following a few days later it was a long voyage from Seattle to the convoy rendezvous point of icy cave Alaska west of Point Barrow is 3,000 miles and I seek aid the ships had to wait on the unpredictable behavior of the ever-shifting ice pack meanwhile on the East Coast the ships out of Halifax were having their own hard going some made their way singly to their destinations along the east coast of Baffin Island the others rendezvous and headed into Fox Basin enroute to the sites on the west coast of Baffin Island and on the Melville Peninsula at the rendezvous point they were joined by two Canadian icebreakers which led them northward through 450 miles of heavy ice after eight days of nervous going in the Uncharted Seas eight days of steady grinding with no advance at all on some days the convoy made it to the Melville Peninsula from here an airlift would have to fly everything to other sites not accessible by water inland from a staging area at Edmonton Alberta material for some of the central sites was shipped by truck and rail to the river town of waterways where it was put on barges the barges proceeded downriver for 300 miles then because of Rapids in the river the entire expedition had to take to the land or a portage even the new tugboat acquired for large operations had to make it along this 25 mile stretch of terra firma in the river again the barge train resumed its water route across Great Slave Lake then it continued northward down the Mackenzie River to the Beaufort Sea two thousand miles in all to the western convoy waiting off icy cape the word came at last that the ice was retreating but still it was touch and go with the ice breakers clearing the way some ships - to nearby destinations as the narrow corridor was opened up others pushed through to reach more sights spotted for 1,200 miles further to the east at many sites the ship's had to unload in desperate haste for a shift in the wind could bring the ice back into Shore overnight through late August and into September the unloading of the ships proceeded along the full length of the line every item carefully logged in and stored according to plan now to build with the material brought by the ships in a race against the approaching winter work was rushed on the permanent living and operating quarters these were prefabricated structures made up of standard units called modules in the boulder-strewn terrain of some eastern sites where there were no gravel deposits the big rock crushers brought in by the sea lifts were put to work to supply the great quantities of gravel and sand needed it was in this area where the terrain was worst that the longest roads had to be built here the stations were to be placed on top of cliffs some as high as 2500 feet above the sea without the roads module units could not be hauled to their foundations October 10 months had gone by all too soon the long winter closed in with its fierce storms its brief Twilight's and long dark missiles finishing the module interiors called for all the crafts of the building trades Americans and Canadians were recruited from every corner of the two countries for these skilled tasks the module concept solved the problem of providing shelter on the dew line that would be adequate comfortable and safe and could take it from a savage elements at the same time the technicians began the all-important task of installing the radar and radial equipment the wiring of these systems was extremely complex but experience and careful training paid off they were ready now to install the radar control consoles being flown up by the air force from a Western Electric plant in North Carolina but some sites had no landing strips for the big cargo planes - these a helicopter had to shuttle in the one and a half ton crates containing the consoles another job for the c-124 is that winter was getting the big antennas of the search radars to the line from an Air Force Base in Delaware the delicate matched parts of each antenna were packed in 17 crates especially designed in assorted shapes and sizes to fit into to see 124's with the installation of the control consoles the inside electronic work was well underway the stations were still locked in the grip of the second do line winter but the crews could not wait longer to start on a steel tower work they blasted holes for the foundations out of the frozen earth they mixed concrete and heated tents as they poured the concrete in the bitter cold they kept it from freezing by pumping in heat under topologies with the foundations in the tower work went steadily forward June of the second year 18 months gone 14 to go summer in the Arctic brings a bloom of wildflowers and temperature sometimes as high as 60 degrees more often the temperature stayed near freezing but the winds subsided much of the time then it was good weather for erecting the search radar antennas these precision mechanisms would be damaged if a sudden windstorm came up so once started the job had to be finished as fast as possible the crews worked around the clock until the entire assembly was in place and its protective covering erected in that second summer a new Sealift came and went another transportation epic but already an old story on the dew line ranking officers of the air force on their inspection tour late that summer had good reason to be satisfied with the progress they found both air force and Bell System officials kept infrequent first hand touch with work on the line as summer gave way to fall the crews pushed intensively to finish installing the antennas in the aircraft alarm towers and the various permanent radio systems when the radio antennas were up the Stations of the line would be able to communicate with each other more dependably and the line could communicate with the air defense control centers far to the south with permanent strips completed at most of the sites the airlift was giving full year-round service to virtually the entire life some of those new permanent air strips in the rugged eastern terrain were pretty well rugged December and the second dual line Christmas by now many of the sites were fully built project 572 was proceeding on schedule but indoors many months of work still remain to finish installing and testing the radars and the communication systems and to coordinate them from station to station here in the modules which housed this equipment was the heart of each new line station on the performance of the electronic equipment the success of the whole vast undertaking would stand or fall the work went on and once more the Arctic winter closed in often the expression snowed in had a completely literal meaning but nature and the Arctic no longer seem so savage for life on the dew line had become pretty civilized your quarters were a pleasant room which had quite a few of the comforts of home your shift was one of three that kept the radar and communication systems continually manned you worked through the morning and broke for a good lunch then back to work on off time there were various sports to help you keep fit spring baseball practice started early while you were working up an appetite the chef would be doing something about it after dinner it was each man to his own pleasure it might be music perhaps you preferred a rousing game of table tennis no quarter given you could curl up with a good book or there was that other fine intellectual pastime called poker no quarter given here either but always and mainly there was the work the continuous testing the precise calibrating of the electronic equipment so radically new in many respects through that third winter and spring more than a million tests were made to check out the detection and tracking capabilities of the radars July 31st of the 32nd month since the job began on that day the dew line system was declared officially operational completed on schedule in about half the time such an undertaking normally would require even in a civilized area henceforth the Canadian and American people would have a distant early warning line guarding them against attack from the north but the building of the dew line has done more than provide a vital warning system it has conquered the far northern wilderness this remote part of the world may now be put to whatever purposes men wish the dew line stations may in time be further equipped taking advantage of new technological advances and meeting new military threats but perhaps the true historical role of the dew line will prove to be the opening up for peaceful and productive purposes of a vast new frontier above the Arctic Circle the untapped resources of which we have as yet barely glimpsed that would be the finest reward of all for the men who built the dew line you you

Channel: AT&T Tech Channel

Views: 45,223

Rating: 4.9376945 out of 5

Keywords: AT&T, Tech, Channel, History, Archives, Military, Communication, Dew, Line, Canada, Cold, War

Id: q7hFJZf9fWk

Length: 30min 18sec (1818 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 05 2012