By Walker Joyce
The world changed forever on August 6th, 1945. It was the date of the Hiroshima bombing, when America detonated the first atomic weapon ever deployed. It incinerated that Japanese city, and when it didn’t bring a ceasefire, President Truman ordered a 2nd bomb to wipe out Nagasaki three days later.
That finally caused Japan to surrender, bringing an end to World War II.
It also ushered in a Cold War with the Soviet Union, our ally in the prior conflict, destined to be our chief rival and adversary for the next 44 years. Those decades were a tense time of arms and space races, proxy wars in Korea and Vietnam, and one close call in 1962, when the Russians tried to put offensive missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles off our coast.
Thankfully, luckily and maybe unbelievably, no nuclear weapons have ever been used again—thus far—and have arguably kept us from igniting another global conflict.
When I was a boy attending grade school in the 1960s, the notion of atomic bombs dropping was a real threat, causing the construction of fallout shelters and safety drills that are now silly memories. We saw films narrated by a cartoon turtle who taught us to “Duck & Cover” by hiding under our desks. We were never told this was a completely useless exercise, that if a bomb ever landed, we, the classroom, the town, and probably the entire state would be destroyed.
We were also never told there were atomic weapons within walking distance of our New Providence school.
I refer to Army Base NY-73, an installation built in the Watchung Reservation, straddling Berkeley Heights and Summit. It was equipped with Nike armaments, including the Hercules class of missiles, which had nuclear noses.
This post was one of several that formed a final line of defense for New York City, ringing Manhattan from within and north of our borders. There were 14 in all, in places like Mahwah, Holmdel and Livingston. A similar circle, including southern NJ locales, was established to guard Philadelphia.
Each one had missiles tucked below ground in shallow silos, which could rise on elevators to reach launch pads. The idea was to fire at any incoming planes, destroying them in mid-air before they could release their lethal payloads.
I’m not sure what the expectations were immediately afterward, i.e., how we’d be protected from falling debris and the radiation released in our atmosphere. Blessedly, the attacks never came and the bombs remained in their cellars.
But for about 20 years, our suburbs gave cover to tripwire military installations, manned around the clock, and armed with the deadliest weapons on earth. On their first visit to our home in Murray Hill, my aunt, uncle, and cousins got lost and stumbled upon the local post office on Glenside Avenue. Their car was immediately surrounded by a security detail and turned back at gunpoint!
By 1974, the bases were being decommissioned, made obsolete by new technology and more “enlightened” strategies based on the MAD doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction.
Not all were completely disassembled, and certain buildings, such as barracks and radar towers, were left to rot. The ruins are still visible in a few locations, and you can view tours of the sites, during and after their operation, on YouTube.
