Hopedale, Labrador

923^rd AC&W Squadron,
APO 434, New York, New York.

John T Nelson, Major, USAF

AN/FPS-3C; AN/TPS-502; AN/FPS-502; AN/FPS-14.

General:

The final quarter of 1959 was marked by the presentation of the 64^th Air Division "A" award to the 923rd AC&W Squadron. On 12 December 1959, Brigadier General Frederick R Terrell, Division Commander, in formal ceremony at the site presented the "A" award scroll and flag to Major John T Nelson, Squadron Commander, in recognition of outstanding accomplishment in operational effectiveness for the period 1 August 1958, to 31 July 1959.

Also during the quarter the squadron, in keeping with Department of Defense policy, celebrated United Nations Day, 24 October, 1959, with an appropriate special United Nations Day Dinner. Another highlight was during the Christmas season when the squadron held a Christmas party for the children of the adjacent village of Hopedale.

Administratively, the squadron underwent a personnel change as 1^st Lt. Glen L Bowers replaced 1^st Lt. Lee Burner, Personnel and Administrative Officer. Educationally, 1^st Lt. Billy R Givens, squadron Education Officer, instituted a program of USAFI group study classes in October beginning with a class in fundamental algebra. The program was continued in December with another algebra class and the addition of a class in the principals of television, taught by Mr. Howard Guptil, Philco Technical Representative and Site Engineer. A total of 45, Officers and Airmen, were enrolled in the course series.

Operations:

Operationally, there were no serious problems confronted, but personnel wise, December saw the loss of seven airmen, to rotation, with a gain of only two. Training was continued throughout the quarter. Unlike previous quarters, there were no instances of emergency assistance rendered to aircraft in distress.

Communications and Electronics:

The largest problem encountered in the C&E phase of squadron operation was found in the prime height finder area. During the month of October this equipment was off the air 35 hours. A considerable amount of maintenance time was spent aligning servo amplifier units and correcting difficulties in the continuous and sector scan operations of the HRI.

In November, the prime height finder problem was confined to the realignment of the trigger and range calibrator and the sweep generator. These were bench checked and several defective tubes in both units remedied, but a total of 56 ½ hours of unscheduled maintenance was consumed to correct these malfunctions.

In December, the problem was confined to external interference on the lower beam of the prime search set, caused by a defective pressurizer motor which sparked false radiation. Considerable preventative maintenance time was consumed in correcting this difficulty. In addition, several major sweep generator problems were encountered with necessary repairs completed and set realignment accomplished.

In other areas of C&E maintenance there were no major problems but a concerted OJT radio maintenance program was established and steps were taken to secure a packaged OJT program.

Installations & Engineering:

Main efforts in the I&E field revolved around the repair of the roofs of buildings assigned to the 1876^th Radio Relay Squadron, a tenant unit, which suffered severe damage caused by September-October high winds.

In power plant operations there were no power failures recorded.

Supply:

The squadron supply section, in October, completed the requisition action for FY 1960 SUNEC supplies as requisitions were forwarded to the squadron support base for further processing.

By the end of October, 60% of the re-warehousing of supplies had been completed and that figure moved to 80% completion in November and to full completion in December.

John T Nelson, Major, USAF