The Ground Observer Corps was important in the 1950s
E-mail from Cheryl
Facts from the past gleaned from the Moses Lake Herald, Columbia Basin Herald and The Neppel Record by Cheryl (Driggs) Elkins:
From the Columbia Basin Herald on July 31, 1952:
Dennis note: The Ground Observer Corps began as a Civil Defense program during World War II. The organization was disbanded after the war in 1944.
However, the Cold War saw a need for the organization to reform in the 1950s as part of the Air Force Civil Defense network. The purpose of the group was to provide aircraft tracking using over 200,000 civilian volunteers.
The program expanded in 1952 and became Operation Skywatch with over 750,000 volunteers. The driving force to expand was Russia having the atomic bomb and long-range bombers. The 1959 automated Air Force radar network, known as SAGE, ended Skywatch.
The idea of the Ground Observer Corps and Operation Skywatch was to track aircraft using the naked eye and a binocular. The volunteers were trained in the identification of aircraft. When an airplane was spotted, the observer would call a collection center who would forward the information to the Air Defense Command.
This might seem a bit silly now, with all of our computers working to keep track not only of airplanes, but trucks, trains and even every one of us with a cell phone. Back in the 1950s this was serious stuff.
My mother, Enid Clay, was a Skywatch volunteer. I remember visiting her in the observation tower, which was located where the cinderblock building is next to today's Moses Lake police station.
Columbia Basin Herald Editor Ned Thomas volunteered to stand watch and told of his experience in a July 31, 1952 article, just as Operation Skywatch was beginning. Read on.
Trucks sound like airplanes to spotter in lonely vigil for Operation Skywatch
By Ned Thomas
Ever heard of Alfa Coca 40 Black? If you're an airplane spotter you have, because it's the code name and number of the Moses Lake observation post in Operation Skywatch. The "post" is a beat-up little trailer parked on the hillside above the Bureau of Reclamation camp off the Wheeler Road.