The Navesink Military Reservation (also called the Highlands Military Reservation) was added as a historic district to the National Register of Historic Places on 13 October 2015.[2]
In 1917 during World War I, four 12-inch coast defense mortars were placed on the Navesink Highlands for seacoast defense, transferred from the mortar batteries at Fort Hancock, New Jersey on Sandy Hook. These were called Battery Hartshorne.[9][10][11] The battery was named for Richard Hartshorne, a settler who acquired the land in the 1670s.[12][13] This battery was disarmed in 1920. By 1933, Harold A. Zahl's radio range experiments had begun from the Twin Lights lighthouse,[14] and an August 1935 US Army Signal Corps radar test at the lighthouse allowed a searchlight beam to track an aircraft.[15] An SCR-268 radar assembled in August 1938 was demonstrated at the Twin Lights lighthouse in 1939.[16] In 1942-44 the Navesink (or Highlands) Military Reservation was built, which included Battery Isaac N. Lewis (also called Battery 116), a casematedcoastal defense battery of two 16"/50 caliber Mark 2 guns, along with Battery 219, a coastal defense battery of two 6-inch M1903 guns on the hill to the south of the Twin Lights Lighthouse.[10][11][17] The batteries were garrisoned by the United States Army Coast Artillery Corps as part of the Harbor Defenses of New York. Battery Lewis was one of the primary batteries guarding Greater New York in World War II, along with another 16-inch battery at Fort Tilden in Queens and two 12-inch long-range batteries at Fort Hancock on Sandy Hook.[9] These rendered all previous heavy guns in the area obsolete, and these were gradually scrapped during the war.[10] After World War II it was determined that gun defenses were obsolete, and the guns at Navesink were scrapped in 1948.[17]
In 1958, Highlands Air Force Station began providing data to Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) Direction Center DC-01 at McGuire AFB which had Air Defense Commandinterceptor aircraft and CIM-10 Bomarc surface-to-air missiles. In September 1959, the Highlands Air Force Station was the first site in the nation with a General Electric AN/FPS-7 Radar used for long range surveillance for the Martin AN/FSG-1 Antiaircraft Defense System and the Air Force.[9] (The 1262nd U.S. Army Signal Missile Master Support Detachment provided site maintenance to the Martin AN/FSG-1 Antiaircraft Defense System from 1960 to 1966.[21][22]) The Missile Master at the Highlands Air Force Station was the Army's command post for the New York-Philadelphia Defense Area and was designated as Nike Site NY-55DC and was a NORAD Control Center. It was operated by the 52nd Artillery Brigade (Air Defense). Texas Tower 4 (call sign "Dora") was an offshore radar annex of Highlands Air Force Station operated by a 646th Radar Squadron (SAGE) from 1958 until it collapsed into the Atlantic Ocean on 15 January 1961, killing 28 people. The Highlands Air Force Station had an AN/FRC-56 Tropospheric scatter Communications shore station which communicated with the Texas Tower 4. In 1960 the Air Force installed an AN/FPS-6B height-finder radar at Highlands which, along with the AN/FPS-6, had been replaced by 1963 with AN/FPS-26A and AN/FPS-90 sets. On 31 July 1963 the site was redesignated as NORAD ID Z-9. The United States Secretary of Defense announced on 20 November 1964, that the Air Force operations would be closed.[23]
The Highlands Army Air Defense Site (HAADS) was established in 1966 with the first Hughes AN/TSQ-51 Air Defense Command and Coordination System in the nation. This replaced the Martin AN/FSG-1 Antiaircraft Defense System in the Missile Master nuclear-hardened bunker, which used radar data to guide Nike missiles. HAADS assumed control of the USAF station after the DoD announced its closure for July 1966.[1][24] The 646th Radar Squadron (SAGE) was inactivated on 1 July 1966. The Army's use of the site ended in 1974 under Project Concise when the Nike missile program ended.[25] Most of the buildings were demolished in the mid-1980s and mid 1990s,[26] and a few building foundations remain in a small clearing within the site's overgrowth of vegetation. However, the concrete remains of Battery Lewis, Battery 219, and the Plotting and Switchboard Bunker still stand.[27]
^ abc"Highlands Radar Site Closing"(PDF). The Daily Register. Red Bank, New Jersey. 20 November 1964. p. One. Archived from the original(PDF) on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 10 October 2011. Gov. Richard J. Hughes said yesterday he had been informed that a radar unit at the Air Force facility would be inactivated by July, 1966, affecting approximately 19 civilian employees and 186 military personnel.... Lt. Col. Ralph W. Frank, Jr., commander of the Air Force Station, indicated that the U.S. Army radar unit stationed at the base will be left intact.... The Army radar unit consists of approximately 300 men, of which about 200 are tied in with Fort Hancock operations or Sandy Hook as part of the U.S. Army Defense Command, according to the Air Force base commander.... According to the base commander, the entire Highlands Air Force Station, including the Missile Master, occupies about 241 acres, of which 103 undeveloped acres have been approved by the assistant secretary of defense as surplus property.... If land were to become available, it's probable that Middletown Township would have first claim on it, Mayor Guiney said. The installation, though named for this borough, is actually located in the township, the mayor reported, but it is serviced by the Highlands Post Office. "Geographically, Middletown could gain from this – possibly new ratables," said Mayor Guiney.
^Rauch, Steven J. "Edward P. Alexander versus Albert J. Myer: Success and failure at the Battle of Bull Run"(PDF). United States Army Communicator: Voice of the Signal Regiment. 36 (3). Archived from the original(PDF) on 20 September 2011. Retrieved 9 October 2011. Both Myer and Alexander…carried out a final series of trials with Myer stationed on the New Jersey Highlands and Alexander 15 miles away at Fort Tompkins on Staten Island. … Alexander…could read signals made with a four-foot flag on a 12-foot pole "with [only] a small and weak glass."
^ abc"The Historic Atlantic Highlands Military Reservation (MR)". Fort Tilden. 11 November 2005. Archived from the original on 5 October 2012. Retrieved 7 October 2011. Battery 219, Atlantic Highlands MR, NJ … This same plot of land on the Atlantic Highlands was later used as a control center for Nike air defense missiles during the Cold War.... Many Army units were based here: HQ 52nd [Air Defense Artillery] Brigade: November 1968 to September 1972, HQ 19th Group [19th Artillery Group HAADS]: December 1961 to November 1968, HQ 16th Group: June 1971 to September 1974, HHB/3/51st: November 1968 to September 1972..., HHB/1/51st: September 1972 to June 1973.((cite web)): External link in |quote= (help)
^Davis, Harry M. (1st Lt) (1972) [1943, declassified 1972]. "Chapter IV". The Signal Corps Development of U.S. Army Radar Equipment. Signal Corps. Archived from the original on 26 April 2012. Retrieved 8 October 2011. The Ordnance Department, which had voluntarily relinquished the "[radar]" project to the Signal Corps in 1930, now argued…that the data from a short-wave radio detector might eventually be applied directly to the gun director, eliminating the searchlight and replacing the sound locator. …the opening of the new Squier Laboratory building at Fort Monmouth, the personnel on 30 June 1936 consisted of only eight officers, seventeen enlisted men and ninety-two civilians.((cite book)): CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^ abVieweger, Arthur L; White, Albert S. (1956). Development of Radar SCR-270 (Report). p. 23. Archived from the original on 6 September 2013. Retrieved 8 October 2011. Such radars were therefore imported from England for analysis and comparison in a field set-up at the Signal Corps Radar Laboratory, in Belmar, N. J. … final version of SCR-271 with… Transmitter Peak Power - 500 KW (using the same WL-350 tubes); Pulse Width - 20 microseconds - Antenna - 64 dipoles 8 × 8 configuration; Antenna Beam Width Approx. 10° … at Oakhurst, N. J. … "Diana" using the major components of SCR-271…succeeded in…receiving echoes from the moon in January 1946.
^Terrett, Dulany (1994) [1956 - CMH Pub 10-16-1]. The Signal Corps: The Emergency (To December 1941)(PDF). Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History. LCCN56-6002. Archived(PDF) from the original on 27 September 2012. Retrieved 13 November 2011. Secretary Woodring was discovered to have brushed the stop button on the rectifier unknowingly.
^The AN/GPS-3 is composed of a surveillance radar set,[e.g., radar set of the AN/FPS-8] Tower AB-397/FPS-8, and Radar Recognition Set AN/UPX-6. Source: MIL-HDBK-162A Radar Set, Integrated Publishing, 15 April 1964
^"TEMPORARY TEAM (photo caption)"(PDF). The Daily Register. 20 November 1964. p. One. Archived from the original(PDF) on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 4 February 2013. Lt. Col. Ralph W. Frank, Jr., left, commander of Highlands Air Force Station, and Capt. John W. Nolan, commanding officer of U. S. Army Signal Support Detachment stationed at bate, review roster of men to be detached from installation under directive issued yesterday by U.S, Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara. Air Force personnel will be inactivated by July, 1966, leaving Army radar unit at base intact, according to Lt, Col. Frank.
^"Awarded Army Medal"(PDF). Red Bank Register. 5 June 1964. p. 12. Archived(PDF) from the original on 25 April 2012.
^Fay, Elton C. (20 November 1964). "What's Behind Decision"(PDF). The Daily Register. Washington, DC. p. One. Archived from the original(PDF) on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 10 October 2011. Over the past four years 574 U.S. military bases around the world... have been closed or their activities sharply cutback. Thursday, he tacked another 95 to the list.... McNamara struck 16 more Air Defense Command radar stations from the category of necessary installations.
^"McNamara Firm on Base Shutdowns"(PDF). The Daily Register. Red Bank, New Jersey. 20 November 1964. p. One. Archived from the original(PDF) on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 10 October 2011. The latest stroke of McNamara's economy scalpel cut at two naval shipyards employing a total of 17,000 workers, six bomber bases, Army and Air Force training sites, arsenals, radar posts and other installations in 33 states and the District of Columbia.... The actions will be completed for the most part by mid-1966...
United States Air Force
646th AC&W Squadron (1948-1966), 52nd Artillery Brigade (Air Defense) (1960-1963, 1967-1973), 19th Air Defense Artillery Group (1963-1967), 608th Signal Aircraft Warning Battalion (1942-1945)
