Bob: It was to protect the DFW area from possible enemy (Russian) nuclear attack via long-range bombers. This was a real concern during the cold-war era of the early-mid 1950’s. About this time, the Soviets had acquired nuclear weapons and had begun open aggression against the west by supporting the North Koreans and Chinese in the Korean War and continually creating tensions in West Berlin and in all over Europe in general. Many thought that they planned to continue or accelerate their plan of world domination by communism, including future attacks against the continental US. The Nike Hercules antiaircraft missile systems were quickly developed and deployed to protect against this threat. Most major population centers in the US were ringed by Nike sites, especially the ones in the more vulnerable coastal areas. The DFW area had Carswell AFB (a major B-52 Base), Camp Wolters (Mineral Wells), Dallas Naval Air Station, Ft. Hood, Bell Aircraft, Chance-Vaught Aircraft and at least one other aircraft mfg. plant, TI, and probably many other defense-related industries that were thought to be attractive targets for enemy attack, hence the development of the sites there.

Don: Carswell AFB was home to the super secret B-58 Hustler at that time too. It was a new, single mission, supersonic aircraft designed specifically to deliver nuclear warheads to the enemy (aka: Russia) The B-58 was being built there at the adjacent Convair plant (now days known as Lockheed). I personally think that the Convair plant, Carswell AFB and the military industrial complex (LTV, Chance-Vaught, Bell Helicopter etc) around here were of greater interest to the DOD than the DFW area in general.

Bob: It opened in early December, 1959, when we all moved over from Camp Wolters in Mineral Wells, where were we were temporarily housed until the Denton facility was completed. Prior to that, it was under construction for 1-2 years. The official name was: A Battery, 4th Missile Battalion, 562nd Artillery.

Bob: We were very well-received for the most part. Denton had not had any type of military presence (except maybe a Reserve/N.G. unit) since WWII. We generated a lot of public interest and tried our best to present a good public image through open-houses, etc.

Bob: About the same as Denton, I suppose. People of this era were pretty matter-of-fact about the need to build a strong defense against the Soviets.

Bob: No, it was never an airfield. The site is located on rather hilly terrain and was ranchland prior to the base being located there. The land had to be expropriated by the US from the lady who owned it and she was always rather hostile toward us after that. (She still owned all of the surrounding land).

The Hartlee Field to which you refer was located a few miles NE of Denton, just beyond the new loop and on the so. side of Hwy 428, and was a training field for glider pilots in WWII, as I understand it. When I was stationed at the missile base, Hartlee was a little general aviation airport with several hangars and a nice grass runway. I took my first ride in a small airplane there at a little flight school in 1960. According to my current FAA sectional maps, it is now a privately owned airfield and is closed to the general public.

Bob (with a follow up answer): Regarding the location of an airfield on the Nike site, I got to looking into that and found a website Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields which looks at a number of abandoned airports in the north Texas area. It is dedicated mainly to the old Amon Carter/Greater Southwest Int’l Airport (which we used to fly to Ft. Bliss to fire in 1960), but it also covers the old Hartlee Field. The site also shows a 1944 pilot’s sectional map showing the existence of an airfield west of the missile base shown only as Denton Field, so your information may be correct. To further confuse things, it has a 1945 sectional map which refers to that same location as College Field. It further shows an aerial photo of the area of “Denton Field” which has the IFC area shown on it. It is pretty hilly in there, but on the aerial photo, it looks like there is a place west of the base where a grass runway could have been. So, I guess that there could have been an air field there all the time we were, but time just sort of swallowed it up and we never noticed it. Come to think of it we didn’t venture onto the land surrounding the base much if ever, because the landowner it was so hostile towards the Army. And from the looks of the aerial photo, the only areas level and long enough for a runway would have required a quarter mile or more walk into “enemy territory” from the IFC area.

Don: The IFC area was only 10 acres and the Launcher area was about 30 to 40.

Bob: Everything north of where the new library is on N. Locust St. (hwy 2164) was pretty much open pasture land. There wasn’t very much traffic on the road at all.

Bob: It was about like it is now, except for a smaller population and the absence of all of the surrounding bedroom communities. Once you got south of the present I-35, there were many miles of open farmland between Denton and Ft. Worth and Dallas.

It had the two colleges and a farm and ranch economy in addition to being the county seat. Denton proper is remarkably unchanged from 1959-60: the major changes are the interstate and the dramatic growth around Denton.

Don: Lake Dallas was quite small at that time, of course there was no I-35 E or W, and the only road to Ft Worth that I was aware of was 377. (I used to have to drive a large Army truck (2 1/2 ton transport) to Carswell Air Force base bi-weekly and 377 was my only way there. University Blvd was Hwy 24, instead of 380 as it is called now days. The Missile Base was on North Locust, rather than Hwy 2164 as it is called today. Our Missile Base and the VFW were the only places in Denton County that were legally allowed to have and sell beer to its "members". Other sources were some (very limited) parts of Dallas, same for Ft Worth but a lot more available than in Dallas, and across the Red River in certain areas.

Bob: +/- 120 people.

Bob: Most soldiers were single and lived in one of two barracks in the IFC area. Married men received a housing allowance and lived in Denton.

Bob: Initially, it had both kinds: One section of Ajax and two Sections of Hercules. After a year or two, the Ajax was replaced with the Hercules.

Bob: Yes

Bob: 18, I think, if they were they were all Hercules missiles; a few more when we had both the Hercules and Ajax types.

Bob: They usually stayed underground unless they were being used in a drill, were being tested with test equipment or we were in a really high state of operational alert.

Bob: If they were raised to the straight-up firing position, they could be seen. Otherwise, they were pretty well concealed from the road. After all, they were over a quarter mile from the road and behind a 25' earthen berm.

Don: They were quite visible when in the raised position (they were bright white and no effort was made to hide them) but that road was a very seldom used back then aside from a local farmer or two during the daylight hours. Obviously the missiles spent most of their lives underground and only came "top side" for drills and occasional maintenance.

Bob: It only seems like the missiles were “pointed” north because the missile launchers were situated to the north of the Fire Control Area. However, the missiles were fired essentially straight up and upon being fired, could attack targets in any direction.

Don: I believe the missiles could go in any direction after they were launched. All launch sites were oriented away from the area they were designated to protect. That in itself seems like a natural way to set things up but it was also to create a booster drop zone outside the area of protection too.

Bob: None were ever fired from their home sites in the continental US. We went to McGregor Guided Missile Range near El Paso every year, where we fired two missiles for score. In December, 1960, the Denton Site fired the highest score over all other Nike sites in the US, and in so doing we won the Army Air Defense Command’s “Commanders Trophy” for the year.

Bob: ~ 1 mile north of the launcher area.

Bob: Yes, the IFC (Integrated Fire Control) area was to the south and the Launcher Area was a mile or so to the north of it.

Bob: I was a school-trained “Guided Missile Installation Electrician”, responsible for the operation and repair of all the “Army Corps of Engineers” equipment on the site. This equipment consisted of the hydraulic elevators that raised the missiles from the underground magazines, air conditioning, heating and ventilation equipment in the radar vans and underground magazines, diesel electric generators, high voltage frequency converters (converted 416v/60 cycle power to 416v/400 cycles per second) and a high-pressure, 5000 psi air compressor. I had an office in the generator building in the launcher area, since that was where most of my equipment was. In early 1961, I was transferred to a Hawk Missile unit in Germany and spent the next 18 months in that unit.

Don: I was based here with Bob from 12/59 until 7/62 and I worked in the Assembly building where we assembled, tested, and maintained the missiles. The assembly personnel also did the fueling and warheading of both the Ajax (3 high explosive warheads per missile) and the Hercules which, in the case of the Denton site, were all nuclear rounds designed to destroy whole formations of incoming long range bombers as well as the weapons they carried.

Bob: We did a lot of different things in our off-time. A lot of our guys were from the DFW area and from nearby Oklahoma, so were able to go home fairly often. The base also had access to beachfront property on Lake Dallas and we liked to go there. The abundant night life in Dallas and Ft. Worth was popular on paydays and there were pretty young ladies to pursue in Denton from all of the schools there. A lot of the single guys hung out on the two college campuses and some took night-college classes at UNT. Some had night jobs in Denton to supplement meager army pay.

Don: Denton was blessed with Texas Woman's University and North Texas State University (now UNT) so there was not a lot of need to wander far afield to find interesting things to do. There was however a good deal of travel to Dallas and certainly to Fort Worth too. Many of the guys were from Oklahoma so a lot of travel up that direction took place also.

Bob: IFC Area: The First Long (Administrative) Building on the street housed the Day Room (TV, Recreation room), the Orderly Room (housed clerks and First Sgt.), C.O. and X.O. offices, Supply Room, Armory (small arms storage), a small Barbershop, PX, and Communications Room. On the hill behind the admin bldg. was the IFC Platoon Barracks and to the right of the Admin. Bldg. was the Launcher Platoon Barracks and Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ). Up the hill from the barracks was the mess hall. Around the bend in the road and on top of the hill were the Generator Bldg., the Radar Tracking and Battery Control Vans and three (later four) radar antennae. There was an Acquisition Radar antenna in the center surrounded on either side by the Target Tracking Radar (TTR) and the Missile Tracking Radar (MTR). In about 1961 or so, they began to install a High Power Acquisition Radar (HIPAR) to increase the range and quality of the acquisition radar system and this included the building of a large geodesic dome style of radar antenna adjacent to the others. The foundations for all of the radar antennae are still on top of the hill today. The IFC area also had a parking lot, a basketball court, water well and storage tank and underground diesel storage tanks.

Launcher Area: The building closest to the road is the Ready Room, where the launcher crew slept during times of alert. It had living, sleeping and shower facilities. The next building to the west (ignoring the little huts and small observatory) was the Missile Assembly Building, where the missiles arrived in “cans” for assembly and electronics-testing prior to war-heading. The building next to the Assy. Bldg and next to a large earthen berm was the Generator Building, which housed four, 150 KW diesel generators. Behind the berm was the Warhead/Fueling Building, where all warheads were installed prior to the missiles going into the underground storage magazines, and where all Ajax-type missiles were filled with liquid fuel and a really hazardous (red fuming nitric acid) oxidizer. The Hercules had solid-fuel rocket motors and didn’t require this step. To the immediate west of the Warhead Bldg was the Launcher Area, a large paved area surrounded by double fences and patrolled by guards and attack dogs. In this area were 3 underground storage pits with missile elevators, missile transport rails and launchers mounted topside for moving and raising missiles into firing position. When in firing position, the missiles stood at +/- 85 degrees.

Bob: It was in mid-late 1964.

Don: It occurred in 1968 (may have been finished in '69).

Bob: I don’t think that politics were involved. Although the Hercules was an outstanding and accurate missile system, it had outlived its purpose here in the US once the Soviets developed ICBM delivery systems that would reach the US. The Nike Hercules was not designed to take out ICBM’s and the Army’s research on and attempt to develop a Nike Zeus anti-missile system ultimately was not successful. To this day, the US does not have a viable way to intercept and kill incoming ICBM’s. The Hercules was still being used recently by some of our allies in Europe, Turkey and Korea since those countries are still vulnerable to attack by aircraft from nearby countries.

Don: As Bob explained, simply because the threat of long range bombers had given way to the ICBM's on both sides of the Iron Curtain and the Hercules was no longer a deterrent. Additionally, the US and Russians had conducted the SALT talks about that time and the disassembly of nuclear weapons was taking place on both sides. We got credit for every nuclear weapon we took out of service and the Herc's counted the same as a long range nuclear weapon so they had to go. Like Bob mentioned, the Army was working on the Nike Zeus (anti missile missile) program and we all thought we would be involved with that weapon someday but it never was successful and to this day there is still no such weapon system in our inventory.

Bob: The dogs usually were used at night inside the fences surrounding the missile magazines and were not used in the IFC Area. Only guards were used there. The dogs were usually only used after regular work hours, since there would be crew members around most of the day. The army was more concerned about securing the Atomic warheads than the barracks and mess hall. Plus, there were always people in the IFC area after hours and security was not as big a concern there as in the launcher area. It must have been a pretty good strategy because I never heard of any breaches in security at any site in the US. I think that there were 4 dog handlers and some MPs, plus some of the regular missile and radar crewmen pulled guard duty at times too. The guards usually had a side arm and an M-31 carbine. The guards in the high security area around the missiles also had attack dogs and sawed off shotguns with buckshot.

Don: Actually the security on the base was very good. The nuclear material came to us in the form of a warhead, manufactured by a civilian contractor (and delivered to us via civilian 18 wheeler escorted by armed, Army MP's) and all we did was install it on the missile, program it to arm at a particular altitude after launch (it was a lot more involved than it sounds of course) and then babysit it from that point forward. No one was ever allowed to be near the missiles alone. There was a "2 man" rule that applied to everyone inside the second fence 24/7/365 (a minimum of 2 men were required to be together everywhere and NO ONE could be alone inside that 2nd gate). There were 3 fences around the Launch area (in General terms that is). Once you were inside the first gate, in the area of the "ready room" there was not a great deal of security concerns. When you entered the second fence, with access to the assembly, fueling and warheading areas you were under the "2 man" rule from that point forward. It was particularly enforced when you entered the 3rd fence that allowed physical contact with the missiles and in my 3 years there, I never saw anyone bust that particular rule. It just wasn't done! You have to also take into account that the 60's were a lot nicer times than we have now. Patriotism was a very important thing. That was back in the dark ages when we thought the Russians were the liars and the US Government always told the truth. We had armed guards on each of the gates and they would NEVER have allowed anyone to enter those areas alone or, in the case of VIP's and high ranking visiting officers, unescorted by qualified personnel. We were young and idealistic at that time and believed very strongly in the good guys vs the bad guys and there was absolutely no doubt as to who would have won that fight. So you see, securing a small base is actually a lot easier than a large one.