Texas Towers were a set of three radar facilities off the eastern seaboard of the United States which were used for surveillance by the United States Air Force during the Cold War. Modeled on the offshore oil drilling platforms first employed off the Texas coast, they were in operation from 1958 to 1963. After the collapse of one of the towers in 1961, the remaining towers were closed due to changes in threat perception and out of a concern for the safety of the crews.
Planning
Upon re-formation of the Air Defense Command in 1951 to oversee the nation's developing surveillance radar network, there was concern that shore-based radars along the east coast provided insufficient warning time. A 1952 report from MIT's Lincoln Laboratory looked into the possibility of extending radar coverage by building platforms in the Atlantic using offshore oil drilling technology. They concluded that a set of such platforms, equipped with radars, could extend coverage several hundred miles offshore, giving half an hour additional warning of an attack. Originally the towers were to be linked to shore by submarine cable, but this was eventually rejected as too costly; the AN/FRC-56 tropospheric scatter microwave link was installed instead, with an array of three parabolic antennas attached to one edge of the platform. UHF and VHF equipment allowed communication with ships and aircraft as well as providing a backup to the microwave link.
Installations
Five towers were planned, in an array off the New England/mid-Atlantic coast. The most northerly two proposed were dropped from plans due to budgetary constraints. The was used to supply the stations, with transfer being effected with a platform called the "donut", consisting of an inflated rubber ring surmounted by a railing, which was lowered from the platform to the waiting ship's deck. These transfers could take place only at slack tide, when the ship could maintain position.
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: left; height: 100px;"
|-
!Tower ID
!Location
!Staffing unit
!Mainland station
!Notes
|-
| TT-1
| Cashes Ledge off New Hampshire coast<br>
|
|
|Not built
|-
| TT-2
| Georges Bank off Cape Cod<br/>
| 762d Radar Squadron
| North Truro Air Force Station
|decommissioned 1963
|-
| TT-3
| Nantucket Shoals<br/>
| 773d Radar Squadron
| Montauk AFS
|decommissioned 1963
|-
| TT-4
| off Long Beach Island, New Jersey<br/>
| 646th Radar Squadron
| Highlands Air Force Station
| collapsed (1961)
|-
| TT-5
| Browns Bank south of Nova Scotia<br/>
|
|
| Not built
|}
Operational history
Texas Tower 2 was the first to become operational, starting limited service in May 1956. It became fully operational in 1958, as did Tower 3; Tower 4 followed in April 1959. The original plan to integrate these radars into the SAGE system had to be modified when the direct cable connection was eliminated; instead, they were used to provide manual inputs.
All the towers were noisy and prone to vibration from the equipment. The relative flexibility of the supports also caused them to shake and sway in response to wind and waves. These made it impossible to tow the platform on the level; instead, the structure was laid on its side for transport and then tipped upright at the site. Divers were brought in several times to inspect the structure and to perform repairs, and an additional set of crossbraces was installed immediately below the platform, above the waterline, in 1960. Crewmen were frequently seasick from the swaying, and Tower 4 was nicknamed "Old Shaky". After assessment of the damage and initial repairs it was decided to reduce staffing to a skeleton crew and prepare to dismantle the station. As the storm built, , which was in the vicinity, was also dispatched with the intent of evacuating the station via helicopter, shore aircraft being unable to take off. Only two bodies were recovered. The 4604th Support Group was supposed to be located at Pease Air Force Base, New Hampshire. The USAF approved the construction of Tower #5 on January 11, 1954, but the tower was never built because of improvements to radar over the area.
Closure
The loss of Tower 4, together with the increasing emphasis on ICBMs as the predominant threat, led a reassessment of the remaining towers. Escape capsules were added to the two remaining towers, allowing rapid evacuation.