Harmon Control Tower, ca. 1945
Have you ever seen a wave length walking? Probably not since Grandma stepped off of the merry-go-round - but many of the officers and enlisted men at Harmon Field know a great deal about wave lengths and about the machines and equipment used in the mysterious and largely invisible world of modern communications.
Mysterious is the word because the 136th AACS Squadron's detachment at Harmon, like the entire AACS organization, has operated since 1942 strictly like "The Shadow." Restricted signs around AACS areas are as plentiful as Generals in the Pentagon. But while many of the facilities are still classified, the security veil is gradually being lifted and AACS is coming up for air.
There were few installations, ATC, Signal Corps or AACS, at Harmon Field in the spring of 1942. A week after Pearl Harbor, the former private yacht North Gaspe moved out of Brooklyn POE. She headed for St. Johns, carrying 50 Weather and AACS technicians and FBI men. The North Gaspe reached St. Johns 19 December 1941, during one of the darkest periods of the war. Allied air fields and installations in the Pacific were wrecked and under attack, Rommel's Afrika Corps was at El Agheila ready to launch the Fourth Lybian Campaign, Von Bock, with the main weight of German armor and infantry, maneuvered on the approaches to Moscow.
Major (now Brig. Gen.) Ivan L. Farman met the yacht at St. Johns and formed the 19 AACS men into the 8th Airways Communications Squadron. Scheduled to build and operate four stations in Newfoundland, these men made up the personnel of the first AACS Squadron to serve outside the States. AACS had not planned to move to Harmon until March, 1942, but the Signal Corps men, rushing installations and attempting to maintain communications, needed help.
Five AACS men, S/Sgt. Russell Horn, S/Sgt. James Herron, Sgt. John Smoko, Cpl. Henry Adams and Pfc. Nick Evangelisti, came to Harmon 13 January 1942. Harmon was young! S/Sgt. Horn found that he was the highest ranking soldier on the field, holding all positions from commanding officer to officer of the day in addition to his regular duties.
The five men immediately went to work with the Signal Corps. Sgt. John Barolet, then in charge of the Signal Corps outfit, later transferred to AACS and, finally, out of the Army, proving that anything can happen. Contrary to rumor, the Signal Corps and AACS are not competitors. Most of the heavy work and the bulk of the technical installations and facilities used by AACS in some 52 countries. including Newfoundland, are set up by Signal Corps installation teams. And luckily for S/Sgt. Horn, who had plenty of AACS work to do, a Signal Corps officer soon arrived at Harmon to assume general supervision of the field.
B-17's were using the uncompleted runway, and the field needed radio, tower and range facilities. On 15 February, Lt. Col. Farman sent his first orders, written in long-hand, from St. Johns: "Set up a transmitter, install a receiver in a section of the barracks, intercept as much weather data as possible, move the receiver to the hangar lean-to as soon as the AACS room in the hangar is ready, help the CAA man set up the radio range."
In so many clear sentences, this was a typical Farman order: set up a radio station and get the messages through! By 2 March, Col. Farman had fight-checked the new range and the Harmon station made its first contact with Gander AACS on 3 March.
Like many other phases of modern communication, these contacts over land and water represent a miracle of technical equipment and skill, yet they usually occur with all the publicity accorded a defeated politician. New stations are never announced and the man who makes the first contact is likely to turn around and say, "Got Gander on umpteen kilocycles." After which he is just as likely to add, with or without justification, "And is he ever a lid." A "lid" is a slow or sloppy operator who can sit down to a radio post and make enemies on two continents within six hours.
Several weeks after the station opened, Col. Farman radioed from Presque Isle, Maine, asking that he and all stations concerned be notified at least six hours before AACS at Harmon went off the air to move its receiver site from barracks to hangar. Station Chief Herron and his men were out to show their CO. They had devised a method of moving the receiver without taking it off the air. A return message told the Colonel that the receiver had already been moved and that the station had not been off the air for a second. This was one of the earliest signs of individual initiative that has become a routine in AACS work.
The 136th Squadron detachment at Harmon in the summer of 1945 would be a strange sight to the nine men who pulled 24-hour watch on three radio positions besides handling tower work in the summer of 1942. M/Sgt. Nick Evangelisti knows how the outfit has grown. Present NCOJC of the detachment, he is the only member of the original cadre still working at Harmon.
Now Capt. John N. Timmer commands men with a bewildering variety of technical skills. These men operate and maintain radio ranges, direction finding apparatus, instrument landing devices, tower and radio facilities, teletype, radio-teletype and cryptographic devices. Operation of many of these aids to air navigation and radio communications requires a high degree of training and skill.
Range facilities, while they usually run automatically, must be attended by men who know how to service the devices, who know when, for any reason, the various ranges are not functioning properly. The localizer radio transmitter with attendant glide path radio transmitter and check points is radio science's newest entry in the fight to land planes safely during periods of heavy overcast. AACS men at Harmon must set up, operate and maintain the mobile instrument landing equipment associated with the use of this new radio "blind landing" system.
Radio operators and code clerks also must reach a high degree of technical skill. Sometimes the pressure of work over a six-hour shift brings strange results. Six hours may sound like a short shift but the operators must sit at one position, wearing a pair of earphones, concentrating intently during every minute of the shift. At the end of six hours those earphones weigh a ton. As a result, radio men may stand in the chow line talking like one-syllable Section Eight entrants: "Dit-Dah," "Dit-Dah-Dit," "Dah-Dah-Dit..." And although no one has heard Capt. Guv Shaw's code clerks talking in five-letter groups, the war isn't finished either.
In the dim past these men had the usual civilian occupations: clerking, farming, teaching and studying. Some jobs weren't so prosaic. Sgt. Russ Bender wrote "whodunits" and Cpl. Jim Welty was an auto racer. To keep him away from jeeps, AACS made him a control tower operator. Sgt. Bender is usually locked up in the code room but sometimes he breaks out long enough to stomp out "Mona" at the NCO Club.
Along with all Harmon Field departments, the 136th AACS detachment will he busier than ever before during the remainder of 1945. To do its share in connection with the redeployment of planes and personnel from the ETO, the detachment has expanded its facilities, especially in the air-ground section. Higher AACS echelons at Squadron, Group and Wing have stressed the importance of a safe return for combat soldiers, that every AACS station must, as nearly as humanly possible, insure that air navigation aids, radio communications and personnel function to prevent the loss of any aircraft through failure of AACS equipment or men.
On Sunday 24 June, tuned to the proper frequency, you could have heard the AACS approach control men at their usual work: "Hello Army two three one four...this is Harmon control...you are cleared number one for straight in approach across St. George's intersection at 2000...call Harmon when you are over the intersection and when you have the field in sight...you have numerous tactical aircraft descending both east and west of the field from all altitudes...some making instrument approaches on the west leg...do not proceed east of the range station...all airways blocked all altitudes between Harmon and Gander...Harmon latest altimeter three zero point one eight...over."
But unless you have the right frequency, AACS remains the silent partner of the AAF and ATC - which is the way it should be. The AACS mission is to provide a route net, complete with traffic signals, for men who fly. Whether planes are carrying wounded or well men, VIPS or Privates, Harmon control tower gives the same glad hand: "Army two three one four check your own final approach...wheels down and lock...cleared number one to land."
Source: The Harmoneer (Stephenville), USAAF publication, August 1945