Ephrata man recalls time at Othello radar base

EPHRATA - Retired furniture store owner Lowell Moore remembers his time serving as an aircraft controller at the Air Force's Othello radar station.

The station was located six miles south of Othello, serving as a base for 200 members of the 637th Radar Squadron, according to an article posted online at Historylink.org.

Moore, now living in Ephrata, served at the station in the 1950s. The station was closed in 1973.

The squadron's function was to protect Central Washington, and specifically Hanford to the south, during the Cold War, he said.

"They were still building the bombs," he said of Hanford. "There was a lot of very strict laws at the time."

He said they would have to "scramble three F-86s and take them down, if (suspicious planes) were in that area."

"That really shook up the private pilots when we did that," Moore said. "That was flight following. In other words, one of the radar sights would say 'I have a DC-3' and we would take him through the clouds, across the air and pass him off to someone else."

If more airmen were needed, an alert was called to bring everyone off duty to work.

Moore and the other airmen served on missions once a month.

At the time, the U.S. was still worried about the Russians "sneaking to the top of the (North) Pole and sneaking down with a (bomber)," Moore said.

He said the U.S. had early warning sites, with a bank of locations near the Canadian border, clear across the U.S.

The banks were available where they didn't have radar.

People went out every night and watched the stars.

"They would report and we'd get a notice of early warning in Othello, from north, up into Canada," he commented.

There were similar facilities clear across the upper part of the U.S., starting at Neah Bay, Wash., and going into Idaho.

He called the Othello station's presence "quite an economic boom to the city of Othello."

"If airmen were married, they still lived in town," he said.

He called his time there a good experience, but didn't plan a military career. He had a furniture store to return to.

At the time, the Korean War was over and the U.S. was getting ready to go into Vietnam.

The position of aircraft controller was a "very in-demand position," he said.

Although Moore wasn't a pilot, he and few other college graduates were allowed to serve as controllers.

"The talent we had was really short," he said. "They brought us to Florida to train us for about six weeks and then we had on-the-job training."

Once in Othello, airmen sat in a big building, somewhat like a theater, positioned 40 feet from a big plastic screen to watch the planes.

"We controlled the fighters from that area," he said. "Someone would say 'there's an unknown aircraft that's going into our area.' We would talk right to the pilot and take control of the fighter, especially if they were going into the Hanford area."

About the time Moore was discharged in 1956, the controlling was moved from Othello to Larson Air  Force Base in Moses Lake, to computerize the system.

"It was a great idea on paper, but by the time they got operational, it was obsolete," he recalled.