Memories of Spotted Island
Von E LeVan
I was Radar Maintenance Officer at the 684th AC&W Squadron located at Mt. Lemmon in Arizona at the time that I was transferred to Spotted Island. Mount Lemmon was a unique site as it sat on top of the mountain, some 9185 feet above sea level. It was high in the Catalina Mountains some 45 miles south of Tuscon, Arizona.
Like everyone else, I did not volunteer for the tour at Spotted Island. In those days you went where "Uncle Sam" told you to go – no questions asked. I was a Radar Maintenance Officer at the time. I also was a physicist. My MOS, of which I had several, was 1041 Radar Maintenance officer.
I traveled by air to McGuire AFB, then by air to Goose Bay, and finally by chopper to Cartwright and Spotted Island. My arrival at Goose Bay was interrupted by the death of my father and I immediately returned to Arizona to take care of family matters
I ultimately arrived at Spotted Island in July 1959. I would speculate that the island was about five by two miles in size - certainly easy enough to traverse during periods of good weather.
From the perspective of passing the time away, I kept myself quite busy as there were many things to over see in my capacity of Commander. Our station was operated 24 hours a day. The search radar, which was an old spark gay system, was somewhat easy to maintain. We had a supply system for every part we used – regardless of whether it was a vehicle snow plow, a truck, a pump house, boilers or whatever. Accurate records were maintained and about April of every year, these were all put together and sent forward to logistic command for the yearly supplies. It was a time consuming job keeping track of all the punch cards.
We had our hobbies and our work to keep us busy. On one occasion, we built a school house for the Eskimos. We picked up an old scrapped out generator and applied some old-fashioned maintenance. It was in find shape when we got though with the maintenance, thanks to the talents of the airmen that were present. We also grafted some old connack boxes, welded them to gutters and covered them like a old root cellar that the farmers did in the country to keep the produce in. It worked quite well.
When I got back to the states I left the Air Force to take care of my mother who lived in Tempe, and I worked at General Electric as a Product Engineer.