A curated archive of Cold War-era defense technology

Archive

Primary source documents, artifacts, and the complete source bibliography.

Documents & Artifacts 21 entries
Title Year Author/Source Class.
Battle in the Ionosphere (English Translation) 2008 Aleksandr Babakin (author); AI-assisted translation UNCLASSIFIED Project Wood Duck: CW Doppler Detection Experiments 1954–1955 Defence Research Board / RCAF DECLASSIFIED Mid-Canada Line ASR-3 Radar Removals 1960–1961 Department of National Defence / RCAF DECLASSIFIED (FORMERLY SECRET) US Patent 4,121,298: Central Processing Unit for Numbers Represented in the System of Residual Classes 1978-10-17 Israel Yakovlevich Akushsky, Vladimir Mikhailovich Burtsev, Bulat Esenovich Duisenov, Ivan Timofeevich Pak, Anurbek Orymbekovich Zhautykov UNCLASSIFIED HAER No. CA-319: Beale AFB PAVE PAWS Written Report 2002 (fieldwork 1998) Karen J. Weitze / Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service UNCLASSIFIED / PUBLIC HAER No. CA-319-A: PAVE PAWS Technical Equipment Building 2002 (fieldwork 1998) Karen J. Weitze / Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service UNCLASSIFIED / PUBLIC Final EIS: Operation of the PAVE PAWS Radar System at Beale AFB (1980) 1980 United States Air Force UNCLASSIFIED Cabinet Conclusions on the Mid-Canada Line (1965) 1965 Cabinet of Canada / Privy Council Office SECRET (DECLASSIFIED; LAC ACCESS CODE 90: OPEN) NORAD/CONAD Historical Summaries (1958-1959) 1959 NORAD/CONAD Directorate of Command History SECRET (DECLASSIFIED) A Handbook of Aerospace Defense Organization 1946-1980 1980 (first edition 1973) Lloyd H. Cornett Jr. and Mildred W. Johnson, Office of History, Aerospace Defense Center UNCLASSIFIED Searching the Skies: The Legacy of the United States Cold War Defense Radar Program 1997 David F. Winkler / USAF Air Combat Command UNCLASSIFIED The SAGE Air Defense System: A Personal History (Jacobs, 1986) 1986 John F. Jacobs / The MITRE Corporation UNCLASSIFIED ADSEC Final Report - the Valley Committee (1950) 1950 Air Defense Systems Engineering Committee (chair: George E. Valley) CLASSIFIED (SINCE DECLASSIFIED) Why the Over-the-Horizon Radar System Was Shut Down (JPRS translation, 1991) 1991 Joint Publications Research Service (JPRS); original article by Aleksandr Babakin UNCLASSIFIED (APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE, DISTRIBUTION UNLIMITED) A History of the DEW Line, 1946-1964 (ADC Historical Study No. 31) 1965 Air Defense Command, Directorate of Historical Services (author: Thomas W. Ray) CONFIDENTIAL (SINCE DECLASSIFIED) Search for Tropospheric Scatter Communication Sites: Amderma, Tiksi, and Dudinka, USSR (CIA/PIR-61041) 1965 CIA Imagery Analysis Division TOP SECRET (DECLASSIFIED) Troposcatter Facilities: Types and Deployment, USSR (CIA briefing notes, 23 March 1966) 1966 Central Intelligence Agency TOP SECRET (DECLASSIFIED) Dudinka Troposcatter Facility, USSR (NPIC Basic Imagery Interpretation Report, February 1969) 1969 National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) TOP SECRET (DECLASSIFIED) TWIN DISH Antenna Orientations, USSR (NPIC memorandum for NSA, 6 August 1973) 1973 National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) TOP SECRET / TALENT-KEYHOLE (DECLASSIFIED) Soviet Troposcatter Equipment Locations in Europe (NPIC PIR-024/77, September 1977) 1977 National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) TOP SECRET (DECLASSIFIED) Tropospheric Scatter Principles and Applications (Collins Radio Company, March 1960) 1960 Collins Radio Company, Cedar Rapids, Iowa UNCLASSIFIED (APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE, DISTRIBUTION A)
Source Bibliography 68 entries
Academic Theses
Title Year Author/Source Class.
Distant-Early-Warning Line Radars: The Quest for Automatic Signal Detection (Lincoln Laboratory Journal, 2000) — F. Robert Naka and William W. Ward, MIT Lincoln Laboratory PRIMARY Military Radar Defence Lines of Northern North America: An Historical Geography (Fletcher, 1989) — Roy J. Fletcher, University of Lethbridge SECONDARY No Modernization on their Radar: The Long Road to DEW Line Replacement (JMSS, 2024) — Alexander Michael Daniel (DRDC) SECONDARY Proceedings of the IRE, vol. 43 no. 10 (October 1955) — the scatter-propagation special issue — Institute of Radio Engineers (Bullington; Norton, Rice & Vogler; and others) PRIMARY The Defence Research Board of Canada, 1947 to 1977 (Turner, PhD thesis, 2012) — Jonathan R. Turner, University of Toronto SECONDARY Universal Combined Radio Relay and Tropospheric Scatter Equipment [AN/FRC-( )] — IRE Transactions on Communications Systems — A. Emurian and R. Marks (Rome Air Development Center programme) PRIMARY История загоризонтной радиолокационной системы «Дуга» (Dubrovskiy & Kostuchenko, 2012) — I.N. Dubrovskiy, V.I. Kostuchenko SECONDARY Отечественный опыт разработки и применения первых комплексов тропосферной связи (1959—1986) — Военно-исторический журнал — D.A. Antropov, Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces SECONDARY Этапы развития автоматизированных систем управления авиацией и ПВО (Vestnik Almaz-Antey, 2015) — Vestnik Kontserna PVO Almaz-Antey, No. 2, 2015 SECONDARY
Books
Title Year Author/Source Class.
Fluttar DEW-Line Gap-Filler (Skolnik, in Advances in Bistatic Radar, 2007) — Merrill I. Skolnik PRIMARY Pioneers of Soviet Computing (Malinovsky, English edition 2010) — Boris N. Malinovsky (ed. Anne Fitzpatrick, tr. Emmanuel Aronie) PRIMARY Special Contract: A Story of Defence Communications in Canada — A.G. Lester PRIMARY The SAGE Air Defense System: A Personal History (Jacobs, 1986) — John F. Jacobs PRIMARY Афера В.И. Маркова с «загоризонтными РЛС» (from Grigory Kisunko's memoir) — Grigory V. Kisunko SECONDARY Битва в ионосфере (Battle in the Ionosphere) — Aleksandr Babakin (Александр Бабакин) PRIMARY
Film & Video
Title Year Author/Source Class.
Bell System Distant Early Warning Nuclear Attack Warning System Film — Periscope Film PRIMARY History Bytes April 13, Alsask Dome — — SECONDARY Mid-Canada Line Radar Site Contamination (5-Part Series) — — SECONDARY Mid Canada Line - Test Fence Site - #12 — Capital Gems SECONDARY
Government Documents
Title Year Author/Source Class.
ACE High Tropospheric Scatter Communications System (NATO Standing Group memorandum SGM-0568-62) — NATO Standing Group PRIMARY Air Defense Systems Engineering Committee Final Report (Valley Committee, 1950) — Air Defense Systems Engineering Committee (chair: George E. Valley) PRIMARY Cabinet Defence Committee minutes, 25 June 1954 (Documents on Canadian External Relations, vol. 20, doc. 466) — Privy Council Office, Canada PRIMARY CIA press file on continental air defense, autumn 1953 (Collier's and Newsweek clippings) — William A. Ulman (Collier's); Newsweek staff; compiled by CIA PRIMARY Exchange of Notes and MOU on the Modernization of the North American Air Defence System (1985) — Governments of Canada and the United States PRIMARY Final EIS — Operation of the PAVE PAWS Radar System at Beale AFB 1980 US Air Force PRIMARY National Missile Defense and Early Warning Radars: Background and Issues — IEEE REFERENCE NIE 11-3-65: Soviet Air and Missile Defense Capabilities (1965) — US Intelligence Board / Director of Central Intelligence PRIMARY NORAD historical image library (USNORTHCOM FOIA release 26-R-025) — U.S. Northern Command / NORAD Public Affairs PRIMARY Radiation Intensity of the PAVE PAWS Radar System 1979 National Research Council PRIMARY Searching the Skies: The Legacy of the United States Cold War Defense Radar Program 1997 Headquarters Air Combat Command PRIMARY Soviet Strategic Defense Programs (DoD/DIA, October 1985) — US Department of Defense / Department of State (foreword: Weinberger & Shultz) PRIMARY White Alice Communications System, HAER No. AK-23 (Historic American Engineering Record) — Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service; survey photographs Rob Stapleton PRIMARY
Museums & Archives
Title Year Author/Source Class.
Historic American Buildings Survey — Beale Air Force Base — Library of Congress PRIMARY Mid Canada Line (Canadian Civil Defence Museum, with Thorne 1979 and Buss 1957) — Maj. D.H. Thorne (1979); Lydus H. Buss, CONAD Directorate of Command History (1957) SECONDARY NORAD North Bay: The Story of Living Underground (Canadian Civil Defence Museum) — Canadian Civil Defence Museum and Archives SECONDARY North Warning System (radomes.org, participant account) — SSgt James E. Bollinger, USAF PRIMARY The Pinetree Line archive (Military Communications and Electronics Museum) — Ren L'Ecuyer (compiler) / C&E Museum PRIMARY Tropospheric Scatter System pages, Pinetree Line archive (Canadian Military C&E Museum) — Canadian Military Communications and Electronics Museum (contributors incl. Ren L’Ecuyer, Dennis Abbott) SECONDARY Акушский Израиль Яковлевич — personnel-file biography (Malashevich, Virtual Computer Museum) — Boris M. Malashevich PRIMARY Кузьминский Франц Александрович — NIIDAR «Наша гордость» memorial page — AO NPK NIIDAR (institutional) PRIMARY Неизвестные модулярные суперЭВМ (Unknown Modular Supercomputers, Malashevich) — Boris M. Malashevich SECONDARY ТРРЛ «Север» — trrlsever.org (veterans’ site of the Sever tropospheric relay line) — Veterans of the TRRL Sever line (collective, site founded 30 April 2006) PRIMARY
News Articles
Title Year Author/Source Class.
ACE HIGH (Andy Emmerson’s history of the NATO troposcatter system) — Andy Emmerson SECONDARY Air Force eyes upgrades to PAVE PAWS, BMEWS, and PARCS ballistic missile warning radar — Military & Aerospace Electronics SECONDARY Holberg - Western Land Anchor of the Pinetree Radar Line (The Roundel, 1965) — Sgt. Bill Johanson, RCAF PRIMARY Mystery Soviet over-the-horizon tests (Wireless World, February 1977) — Wireless World (staff) PRIMARY NWS: it's working people who make the radar run (Nunatsiaq News, 2011) — Jane George SECONDARY Remembering Pinetree (CAHS Journal, 1996) — Paul Ozorak SECONDARY The Russian Woodpecker… A Closer Look (David L. Wilson, Monitoring Times, August 1985) — David L. Wilson PRIMARY «La ligne de radar Mid-Canada ne défend pas vraiment notre pays» (Limbrick, Perspectives/Le Soleil, 1959) — Charles Bernard Limbrick (Group Captain, RCAF, ret.) PRIMARY «Пирамида» началась с «Воздуха» (VKO journal, on the Vozdukh-1 system) — Vozdushno-Kosmicheskaya Oborona (VKO) journal SECONDARY Загоризонтная эпопея (VKO journal, on the over-the-horizon saga) — Vozdushno-Kosmicheskaya Oborona (VKO) journal SECONDARY ЗгРЛС «Дуга»: Любеч-1 – праве око радянського союзу на Чернігівщині (informer.media, 2024) — Illia Hriaznov, informer.media SECONDARY Любеч-1: що залишилося від військової частини, яка обслуговувала секретний об'єкт «Дуга» (Suspilne Chernihiv, 2021) — Yuliia Siryk, Suspilne Chernihiv (public broadcaster) PRIMARY Як живуть під Черніговом незаконні мігранти з 29 країн (Ukrainska Pravda, 2018) — Ukrainska Pravda PRIMARY
Personal Accounts & Memoirs
Title Year Author/Source Class.
Beale Air Force Tour Notes — Ed Thelen Memoirs of a Boffin 1995 J. Rennie Whitehead Mid-Canada Line Radar (recollections) — John Keys Service Reflections of Maj James Webber, USAF 1972–1992 — James Webber
Websites & Online References
Title Year Author/Source Class.
7th Space Warning Squadron Fact Sheet 2024 US Space Force PRIMARY A Brief History of CRC 1992 LeRoy Nelms, Bill Hindson SECONDARY AN/FPS-115 — Radar Tutorial — Radar Tutorial REFERENCE FPS-115 — FortWiki — FortWiki SECONDARY Mid-Canada Line on DEWLine Adventures — Larry Wilson SECONDARY Mid-Canada Line Test Fence Site 012 — Capital Gems SECONDARY PAVE PAWS Radar System — USSF Fact Sheet — United States Space Force PRIMARY PAVE PAWS — Federation of American Scientists Space Policy Project — Federation of American Scientists SECONDARY PAVE PAWS — GlobalSecurity.org — GlobalSecurity.org SECONDARY
CR-26 COLD WAR TECH - SOURCE REGISTRY 68 entries catalogued