Map created by the Los Angeles Almanac using JPL satellite image.ģ0940 Hawthorne Blvd, Rancho Palos Verdes Map of former Los Angeles Defense Area Missile Sites. Rancho Palos Verdes City Hall occupies the former administrative building for the Palos Verdes Missile Site. The Federal Court House in Pasadena is located on a former Nike support facility. The California National Guard currently uses the former Van Nuys and Stanton sites. Gleason, Barley Flats), local government maintenance yards (El Monte, Palos Verdes), an oil field (Brea), an office complex (Long Beach), a commercial radar site (Newhall) and a cement company (Saugus). Former sites have been "beaten into plowshares" and are now used for such diverse purposes as fire department and correctional facilities (Malibu, Mt. On February 4, 1974, the Army ordered all Nike missile sites to deactivate.įew signs are left of the former Los Angeles Nike missile system. By 1971, only 6 of the 16 original Nike launch sites in the Los Angeles area remained operational. Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) became the dominant strategic threat. Times Photographic Archive at UCLA Library.īy the end of the 1960s, the need for anti-aircraft missiles had begun to diminish. In 1958, Chatsworth's LA-88 site became the first in the nation to be guarded by sentry dog teams. These were highly sensitive, secured military installations, guarded by armed soldiers. Army soldiers Specialist Willie Booker and Private First Class Keneth Warner train with a Canine Corps dog to defend Nike missile installation LA-55 in Rancho Palos Verdes. In November 1958, four sentry dogs and their handlers began patrolling the LA-88 missile launch site in Chatsworth.ġ966. In order to protect this vital arsenal, the Los Angeles area air defense system became the first in the nation to use Army sentry dogs to protect missile sites. Due to the enhanced capabilities of Nike-Hercules, the Army reduced the number of launch sites around Los Angeles from 16 to 9. Unlike the earlier generation Ajax, the new missile could be armed with a nuclear warhead, which, in the event of having to defend Los Angeles, could be exploded far out to sea near approaching bomber formations. In 1958, the Army began upgrading its Nike missile sites in the Los Angeles area from the Nike-Ajax missile to the more powerful and longer-range Nike-Hercules missile. At each site, missiles were concealed in underground bunkers and, in the event of a threat, were brought to the surface, loaded onto missile launchers and elevated for firing. Gleason, Barley Flats, El Monte, Brea, Stanton, Long Beach, San Pedro, Palos Verdes, Torrance, El Segundo, and Playa del Rey. These sites were located in Malibu, Van Nuys, Chatsworth, Newhall, Saugus, Mt. By 1958, the brigade had 16 Nike-Ajax launch sites ringing the Greater Los Angeles area. However, within a few years, the Army began operating its first Nike missile launch sites in the Los Angeles area (site LA-78 in the Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu, in 1954, being the first, according to the Fort MacArthur Museum). Initially, the unit only had anti-aircraft guns to deploy, the same as Los Angeles had since World War II. On November 20, 1952, the 47th Air Defense Brigade established its headquarters at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro, taking responsibility for the air defense of the Los Angeles area. Its answer to this threat came to be Nike supersonic anti-aircraft missile launch sites surrounding key American population and industrial centers such as Los Angeles. Army Redstone Arsenal Historical Information.ĭuring most of the 1950s and much of the 1960s, the United States saw large formations of attacking bombers as its primary strategic threat (presumably from the Soviet Union). Nike Hercules missile site LA88, north of Chatsworth. Court & Vital Records from Orange County, CA.Postal Zip Code Look-up for Los Angeles County.The Los Angeles Basin - A Huge Bowl of Sand.Can a Volcanic Eruption Occur in Los Angeles?.
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