Eyes of the North (1966)

[Music] in the lives of men and Nations one quter of 1 hour 15 minutes is a tiny span of time yet 15 minutes is time enough for many things to happen Perhaps it is enough time to measure the distance between office and home it is enough time for a moment of worship it is enough time for a beginning it is enough time for recreation enough time to end something 15 minutes is one thing in times of Peace another in time of war in the event of War an enemy would have to destroy our strategic forces our tactical forces our cities and our people on One attack and the chances are that the enemy would strike us from the North to those responsible for the defense of our civilization 15 minutes could be the Priceless interim between the first alarm of approaching enemy missiles and The Counter Strike of our own forces to get this 15 minutes of warning time the United States has formed a partnership with the members of the Free World a partnership that guards the transpolar route against attack the Arctic is one of the most forbidding territories on the earth looking in any direction you get the feeling that man does not belong on this icy rim of the world the evidence is all around the V fness The Emptiness the loneliness the glow of unnatural colors the extremes of soundlessness soundlessness that fills the intervals between screaming winds winds that can whip snow into drifts higher than a barn in minutes for about 3 months in the Arctic winter the sun does not rise and for 4 months in the summer it does not set temperature rise to only some 65° in that brief summer moment and dip to 65° below zero for seemingly an endless Witter but startling as it may be men have been living in the Arctic fighting the cold the winds the darkness for thousands of years and now to guard us against possible attack over the pole modern men men from cities like Dallas and Atlanta men from States like Oregon and New York men from Denmark and the United States have learned also to live in the Arctic they have moved in to build maintain and operate the most spectacular Warning Systems in the world Warning Systems that will track the paths of intercontinental ballistic missiles and the flights of Mann bombers among the electronic eyes of the north that never close are the great Radars of the ballistic missile early warning system called bees this system is maintained by radio Corporation of America through Air Force contract each big detection radar of beuse is larger than a football field standing on its side and the tracking antenna is housed in a protective radome 140 ft in diameter the complete installation is as tall as a 15-story building the Radars are among the greatest construction Feats in history and they can detect an object as small as a house door at a range of 1,500 nautical miles this is roughly the distance from Washington DC to El Paso Texas The beu Radars send out carefully calibrated beams of pulsed radar energy at two elevations above the Earth these form two horizontal detection fans one above the other if a missile passes through the lower fan radar pulses bounce back from it and its position is detected seconds later the missile will pass through the upper fan from these two points track velocity and impact area are instantly and automatically figured by the beu electronic computer [Music] their electronic memory systems store Recollections of every missile spacecraft or piece of satellite debris that has come within its [Music] range there are three beu sites the Tuli Greenland site is linked with one in filing Dale's Moore England and another in clear Alaska the beu site at Clear Alaska is in an isolated area Northeast of Mount McKinley this site provides the detection capability for the west side of the United States and Canada overlapping the edge of the radar originating from Tuli Greenland the Tuli site is on the very edge of the treacherous Greenland ice cap and the site at filing dalees is over 200 M north of London England in a location that completes the northward coverage for ICBM over the North Pole and extend Southeast detection down through Europe against a midcontinental missile attack it also overlaps the West edge of the Tuli beuse radar beuse is fine for detecting missiles but not for detecting bombers bombers can fly in undetected beneath the be's radar fan but bombers can't get by the D line undetected d stands for distant early warning line The Radars of the DU line are designed for low and highlevel air traffic surveillance they are operated and maintained by the federal Electric Corporation through contract with the United States Air Force they are strategically placed along the Arctic Circle so that no bomber on an Arctic route can fly under around or over their search patterns from Alaska across the Barren Wilderness of the North through Canada and over the 10,000 foot thick ice cap of Greenland more than 30 duine sites form a fence of electronic eyes 5,000 m long on the Eastern end it is tied into the surveillance systems of our NATO allies through Iceland to Norway no matter how isolated the site no matter no matter how long the Arctic days and nights around it no matter how terrible the cold every sight of the Dew and beu systems is a place where men must live work and survive under some of the strangest conditions in the world on the Greenland ice cap some du line buildings have to be jacked up as much as 10 ft a year to keep them above snow the feet of the buildings are already 65 ft under snow and yet each year six more fet of snow snow pile up and the buildings have to be jacked up again and again the buildings are five stories above the level of the snow so that the cold air can circulate underneath them if there were no cold air space underneath the building would melt the ice beneath it with its own heat and quickly disappear into the ice [Music] cab where buildings are built on permafrost the bottom of of the buildings have to be air conditioned to keep the heat from melting the permafrost in a land where the wind can jump from 15 to 150 mph in a few minutes no man is safe wherever Men Travel there are emergency Huts by the roadside called phas Shacks these Huts have a telephone emergency food rations and a gas stove when a man must go out in a severe Arctic Storm he must take a buddy with him no man goes out alone then the wing command post has declared Tuli Airbase to be in a phase three condition all personnel must be accounted for immediately if you have been ordered to remain on duty report your location to your barracks Chief immediately dully Airbase is now in a phase three condition the alert is also given in Danish this means that exposed flesh will freeze in 60 Seconds what kind of protection does this demand first thermal underwear double socks and regular clothes on top of that muckluck quilted pants mittens parkas and face mask if a man omits any of these articles of clothing under these weather conditions the Arctic winter in seconds can or kill him survival is an iron discipline one mistake and a man does Liv door knobs are plastic covered metal on a door knob would freeze to the Flesh of a man's hand under the worst conditions if the power failed at some sights even the men in the building could be frozen solid in 45 minutes 99% of the time there is no place to go except into the Next Room the men fight boredom as well as the Cod maintenance men become amateur Carpenters mechanics become sound experts electricians become lapidarists polishing semi-precious stones and some men even raise tropical fish or try to but the principal work is watching the sky toward the North Pole that let C Roger D here yes D can I have an notification on the last track I sent in please Roger that track is unknown at the moment thank you D [Music] this this constant watch is kept at places called Sagle Melville at Goose Bay Pingu at Mountain Cape Dyer but Arctic Harbors are frozen solid for 9 months out of the year only in the summer can the Coast Guard and the Navy keep them open with ice breakers on the voyage North the vessels break through the ice pack and pass 200 and 300t icebergs structural damage to reinforced Halls is common sometimes the ice back will close upon a ship during wailing days many ships were trapped in the ice and crushed by tremendous pressure in three short months ships of the United States military sea Transport Service must deliver most of the supplies for an entire [Music] year the Army's 264th transportation company from Fort Eustace Virginia supplies stor support for the unloading operation at Tuli beginning in July approximately 200 men spend 3 months unloading vessels that supply Tuli airbase and other sites with everything from tea bags to 50 T [Music] cranes every site has to be supplied with everything eggs antennas and [Music] M airlift must be used for the more remote site aircraft operate from all types of landing servfaces at hoffen Naval Air Station Iceland a Navy c47 must land on a gravel Beach mail and supplies are then loaded on a fishing [Music] boat after a trip across a small Inlet it'll be loaded onto trucks for the final 12 M ride to the site at Die 3 ski equipped c130s land on the Greenland ice cap every month of the year the runway is an endless stretch of snow it must be remembered that the eyes of the north form a defensive system not an offensive system the Air Defense command of the United States Air Force supplies over 70% of the man and equipment that make up our eyes of the north including aircraft to intercept enemy bombers the Navy has powerful anti-submarine forces patrolling the Arctic [Music] seas these are defensive forces but B news is our first line of warning in the north if a missile threat occurs automatic transmission circuits take [Music] over the beu rearward communications net is operated by a number of military and civilian organizations the Canadian Marone company one of these relays this information information racing with an electronic speed of light from beu sites at Clear Alaska Tuli Greenland and filing dalale Mo England to the North American Air Defense command norac the underground combat operations center located at Colorado Springs Colorado voice Communications back up this electronic radar warning all that this is filing the senior duty officer we have one object in the coverage I have seven DS in the computer all B news sites report in micros seconds over a Communications net equivalent to twice the distance around the equator at the DU line experienced eyes detect aircraft by a blip on a du line radar [Music] scope at a similar scope at a direction Center further south a team of professionals plot its course its approximate speed its altitude radar sightings are compared with known air traffic if the aircraft radar track fails to match a logged flight plan it is declared unknown NORAD combat operations Center gets the word d Line Station Delta mik reports four unknowns bearing 36° 49,000 ft tracking 2 000° ground Speed 500 at NORAD the threat is analyzed military decisions are made if Mass missiles and bombers were reported the entire free world could be instantly alerted attention all NORAD regions command commander-in Chief NORAD declares defense condition one All Region commanders will take necessary action to disperse all fighter forces all weapons will go to Delta status immediately authenticate please if it's a missile attack there are only 15 minutes if the threat is enemy bombers there could be as much as several hours this is the precious warning time the eyes of the north have given us enough time for every military installation in the United States and in every NATO Nation to prepare for the attack and the [Music] [Music] Counterattack on the other hand however small the threat our defense is just as quick to react United States Air Defense command f102 is standing by on 5minute alert scramble to investigate an unknown aircraft red flight's ready for take off Red Flight wind 1 120° at 10 not cleared for take off [Music] [Music] Roger the ground controller directs the flight into position Inkspot this is Red Flight Red Flight this is Inkspot 15 Read you loud and clear how me Roger loud clear Roger Red Flight Vector 140 climb Angels 40 set speed [Music] liner Roger Vector 140 Angels 40 AR safety check complete red plant I have your target bring 13050 [Music] Red Flight contact in spot Red Flight targets a Soviet Badger he is taking no evasive action this happens sometimes we are being watched too even as our Air Defense command carries out its NeverEnding protective mission in this vast expanse of the Arctic even during Winter's endless Darkness the unblinking eyes of our Northern defense are always on the alert Americans Canadians greenlanders Danes icelanders and Englishmen in tactical operation rooms on the flight line in generator rooms in kitchens fight the cold and the boredom Manning the eyes of the north to give us maximum warning time time to prepare time to retaliate minutes of Priceless [Music] time [Music]

Channel: Nuclear Vault

Views: 54,600

Keywords: Turning Point

Id: eT9-ProfSC0

Length: 21min 25sec (1285 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 16 2024