The it through you
the Arctic desolate savage remote
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 caramel 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 in 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 enveloped 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 a base
set 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's same Lincoln laboratories experimental
installations like this one were built
and tested in northern Alaska by the Western Electric Company guided by the
successful test. 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 three thousand miles across the continent to Baffin Island
opposite Greenland Distant Early Warning line they named two
lines. It became.
At the proposal to create such a line in the distant loneliness.
Old Arctic can put their heads in doubt but the new line had to be built their.
Man had to conquer that unknown frozen wasteland
and transform it into the vital outpost of Western civilization.
The United States Department of Defense faced a major question to what organization
should our country assign the due line mission.
The answer was given by the secretary of defense
and 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 law just take organization as 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 front.
Wherever it would help speed up the project some contracts were left the contract
called for the new line to be delivered within thirty two months impossible some
said there was no time to lose recruiters were dispatched to
every part of the country visited and.
Of the belt system seeking out the right people by the right jobs.
Jack Jennings of Dayton Ohio commercial service engineer for the Ohio Bell
Telephone Company signed up for a new job as an installation department.
Bob Reed of Madison South Dakota lineman for Northwestern dentist a job.
One day packed as tools
and headed north is destination somewhere north of the Arctic Circle somewhere west
of Dr Don Gores of Milwaukee Wisconsin installation supervisor for the
Western Electric Company said goodbye to his friends
and took off to the gum Odelein Section three from all over America they came
across a 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
and listed the servant project five seven to code name for the new line undertake
in the same headquarters building the U.S.
Air Force established a project office vision able the Air Force to work closely
with the project supervisors
and provide prompt decisions to meet the exacting schedule.
By now the critical decisions as to exactly where the New Line station should go
were nearly finished.
Aerial photographs of the proposed site areas were analyzed by a skilled photo
interpretation meant so
that tentative site plans could be drawn now men had to go north
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 dual line pioneers the size eighteen.
They took off from snow covered fields in the north with a few all important.
Tools and instruments and the bare necessities for a living.
They came down into the isolation of a pinpoint markdown
that they checked the educated guesses of the photo interpretation meant.
Exploring the beach approaches conducted tests to be sure each side would be well
suited for placing the new radar and radio system as being designed for the line
and mark the sights to guide the construction crew.
As they completed their missions site by site three thousand mile long strip
somewhere north of the Arctic Circle began to shed its timeless anonymity to take
on an historic identity line close on the
heels of the sighting teams came the advance construction crews first W.
and Advanced construction party went in by light ski place
and another ski plane followed with basic materials and supplies
and a small trench with
that much they made camp set up radio communications
and cleared the snow from the frozen inlet to make a nice big 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 would help 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 DO line was from mistakes they had lost one tractor
this way they wouldn't lose any more. They knew now how to do it right.
Finally they had ice caps wide enough and long enough for the biggest cargo planes.
The Air Force C.
One twenty four the masters made aviation history with those Icelandic they brought
the construction crews what they had to have the big machines that could take
and pile and handle in the hall
and could stay on top in the running battle with the drifting snow
and above all I 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 springs stateside
they'd remember us mobilizing task was an old swing this was a teamwork job
government and private enterprise military and civilian working closely together.
There was teamwork too between nations.
Throughout the project the US Air Force on the Royal Canadian Air Force maintained
a cordial productive lives on engineering problems.
How do they work out quickly decisions made on ten thousand and one vital details.
Had to develop new techniques for building the DO 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 on assembly of the electronic equipment was pushed
intensively procurement was another mammoth.
Every item
that would be needed in the Arctic from radar antennas to paperclip had to be
anticipated and ordered more than one hundred thirteen thousand do a lot.
Purchase Orders went out from Western Electric
and its subcontractors to more than forty six hundred different business
enterprises located in EVERY STATE OF THE UNION.
Every province of God of the substantial number of the suppliers the job of
transporting the material called for a plan Continental in scope it would include a
West Coast Sea live out of Long Beach in Seattle another on the East Coast from
Philadelphia and Halifax
and an inland barge live on the Mackenzie River.
Meanwhile the Canadian and American commercial aircraft of all types
and sizes were bearing the full burden of supplies for the early construction along
the lines. They flew
but by all odds was the greatest commercial airlift in history all
together aircraft carried thirty thousand tons of machinery
and supplies to do line sites before the ice landings dips off and in May
and June of that first year.
Nothing stopped the airways 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 too were recruited and they did a good job.
The crews build roadways developed water supply sources laid down building
foundations.
And made the beaches ready for the sea live
at the same time to the appointed places of a family of all those.
He lives in the materials that would be the new line came the tools to build it.
Every item was handled with this batch.
According to a plan carefully designed to put it in the right spot on the beach
when it realigned destination supplies of petroleum
oil
and lubricants build up a car on a car at Long Beach on the west coast selling Elvia
in the east in June.
They started loading on the west coast petroleum first then the
ships went on to Seattle at Seattle they loaded for a solid month
at Halifax loading for the East Coast Sea live continuing for a month plus ten days
the ships were operated by the military sea transport service of the United States
Navy. Onboard would be soldiers of the U.S. Army transportation car.
Intensively trained to handle the unloading of the ships
and deliveries to the beaches on the new line
that 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 put to name an item
that wasn't stowed in the ship's the West Coast sea lift was to be income boys.
The slower ships left Seattle for the others following a few days later
whose whose
it was a long voyage.