Civil defense

1950s COLD WAR CIVIL DEFENSE GROUND OBSERVER CORPS FILM "THE SKY IS YOUR TARGET" 42504

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• published: 05 Jun 2016
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Made in 1955 at the height of the Cold War, THE SKY IS YOUR TARGET shows how civilians can support the U.S. Air Force in maintaining national security by identifying and reporting suspicious aircraft. In this era prior to the widespread deployment of ICBMs, the Soviet threat to the continental USA would have taken the form of a large scale surprise attack by Russian bombers. "Radar is limited to line of sight range," explains the narrator, "and is reduced by storms and milder natural disturbances." To fill the gap, the U.S. Air Force set up a civil aviation reporting system, vividly shown starting at about the 2:40 mark where a civilian couple named the Fosters who call in a strange-looking aircraft to a civil defense bureau. In this case, the plane turns out to be a USAF plane operating on a drill. The Civil Observer Corps and the Air Defense Filter Center were part of Cold War defense, and an offshoot of WWII efforts. Ground Observer Corps was reformed during the Cold War as an arm of the United States Air Force Civil Defense network which provided aircraft tracking with over 200,000 civilian volunteers. The corps was established in early 1950 to supplement the Lashup Radar Network and a permanent radar network started with "ADC radar site" P-1 (McChord AFB) on June 1, 1950. "Filter centers" (e.g., in New Haven, Connecticut and Baltimore, Maryland) received telephoned voice information from 8,000 posts, and the information was relayed to Air Defense Command ground control interception centers. By 1952 the program was expanded in Operation Skywatch with over 750,000 volunteers at over 16 thousand posts (98 per post in shifts) and 75 centers. The program ended in 1958[6] with the advent of the automated 1959 USAF radar network (SAGE) and the automated Army networks (Missile Master). GOC volunteers were encouraged to continue their service in the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES). We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example like: "01:00:12:00 -- President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference." This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com