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Aerospace Defense Command was a major command of the United States Air Force, responsible for continental air defense. It was activated in 1968 and disbanded in 1980. Its predecessor, Air Defense Command, was established in 1946, briefly inactivated in 1950, reactivated in 1951, and then redesignated Aerospace rather than Air in 1968. Its mission was to provide air defense of the Continental United States (CONUS). It directly controlled all active measures, and was tasked to coordinate all passive means of air defense.
Continental United States air defense forces during World War II were initially under the command of the four air districts – Northeast Air District, Northwest Air District, Southeast Air District, and Southwest Air District. The air districts were established on 16 January 1941, before the Pearl Harbor attack. The four air districts also handled USAAF combat training with the Army Ground Forces and "organization and training of bomber, fighter and other units and crews for assignments overseas". The air districts were redesignated on 26 March 1941 as the First Air Force, Second Air Force, Third Air Force, and Fourth Air Force. The First and Fourth Air Forces, through their interceptor commands, managed the civilian Aircraft Warning Service on the East and West Coasts, respectively.
The USAAF's Aircraft Warning Corps provided air defense warning with information centers that networked an area's "Army Radar Stations" which communicated radar tracks by telephone. The AWC information centers also integrated visual reports processed by Ground Observer Corps filter centers. AWC information centers notified air defense command posts of the "4 continental air forces" for deploying interceptor aircraft which used command guidance for ground-controlled interception. The USAAF inactivated the aircraft warning network in April 1944.
Continental Air Forces
Continental Air Forces (CAF) was activated on 12 December 1944 with the four "Air Forces" as components to consolidate the CONUS air defense mission under one command. For aircraft warning, in 1945 CAF had recommended "research and development be undertaken on radar and allied equipment for an air defense system [for] the future threat", e.g., a "radar [with] range of 1,000 miles, [to detect] at an altitude of 200 miles, and at a speed of 1,000 miles per hour". HQ AAF responded that "until the kind of defense needed to counter future attacks could be determined, AC&W planning would have to be restricted to the use of available radar sets". CAF's January 1946 Radar Defense Report for Continental United States recommended military characteristics for a post-war Air Defense System "based upon such advanced equipment", and the HQ AAF Plans reminded "the command that radar defense planning had to be based on the available equipment."
Reorganization of Continental Air Forces began in 1945, when ground radar and interceptor plans were prepared for the transfer at CAF HQ in the expectation that 'it would become Air Defense Command.' CAF installations that were transferred to ADC included Mitchel Field (21 March 1946), Hamilton Army Airfield (21 March 1946), Myrtle Beach Army Air Field (27 March 1946), Shaw Field (1 April 1946), McChord Field (1 August 1946), Grandview Army Air Field (1 January 1952), Seymour Johnson Field (1 April 1956), and Tyndall Field (1 July 1957).
Air Defense Command
Shield of Air Defense Command
Air Defense Command was activated on 21 March 1946 with the former CAF Fourth Air Force, the inactive Tenth Air Force, and the tbd's Fourteenth Air Force. Second Air Force was reactivated and added on 6 June 1946. In December 1946 the "Development of Radar Equipment for Detecting and Countering Missiles of the German A-4 type" was planned, part of the Signal Corps' Project. The Distant Early Warning Line was "first conceived—and rejected—in 1946".
A 1947 proposal for 411 radar stations and 18 control centers costing $600 million was the Project Supremacy plan for a postwar Radar Fence that was rejected by Air Defense Command since "no provision was made in it for the Alaska to Greenland net with flanks guarded by aircraft and picket ships for 3 to 6 hours of warning time", and "Congress failed to act on legislation required to support the proposed system". (In the spring and summer of 1947, 3 ADC AC&W plans had gone unfunded. By 1948 there were only 5 AC&W stations, including the Twin Lights station in NJ that opened in June and Montauk NY "Air Warning Station #3. SAC radar stations, e.g., at Dallas & Denver Bomb Plots.
ADC became a subordinate operational command of Continental Air Command on 1 December 1948 and on 27 June 1950, United States air defense systems began 24-hour operations two days after the start of the Korean War. By the time ADC was inactivated on 1 July 1950, ADC had deployed the Lashup Radar Network with existing radars at 43 sites. In addition, 36 Air National Guard fighter units were called to active duty for the mission.
Reformation 1951
ADC was reinstated as a major command on 1 January 1951 at Mitchel Air Force Base, New York. A rudimentary command centre was established that year from a former hallway/latrine area. The headquarters was moved to Ent Air Force Base in Colorado Springs on 8 January 1951. It received 21 former ConAC active-duty fighter squadrons (37 additional Air National Guard fighter squadrons if called to active duty). ADC was also assigned the 25th, 26th 27th and 28th Air Divisions (Defense) ADC completed the Priority Permanent System network for Aircraft Warning and Control (ground-controlled interception) in 1952. Gaps were filled by additional Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) radar stations and the Ground Observation Corps (disbanded 1959). In May 1954, ADC moved their initial, rudimentary command center into a "much improved 15,000-square-foot concrete block" building with "main battle control center".
During the mid-1950s, planners devised the idea of extending the wall of powerful land-based radar seaward with Airborne early warning and control units. This was done by equipping two wings of Lockheed RC-121 Warning Star aircraft, the 551st Airborne Early Warning and Control Wing, based at Otis Air Force Base, Massachusetts, and the 552nd AEWCW, based at McClellan Air Force Base, California, one wing stationed on each coast. The RC-121s, EC-121s and Texas Towers, it was believed, would contribute to extending contiguous east-coast radar coverage some 300 to 500 miles seaward. In terms of the air threat of the 1950s, this meant a gain of at least 30 extra minutes warning time of an oncoming bomber attack. ADC's Operation Tail Wind on 11–12 July tested its augmentation plan that required Air Training Command interceptors participate in an air defense emergency. A total of seven ATC bases actively participated in the exercise, deploying aircraft and aircrews and supporting the ADC radar net. As the USAF prepared to deploy the Tactical Air Command E-3 Sentry in the later 1970s, active-duty units were phased out EC-121 operations by the end of 1975. All remaining EC-121s were transferred to the Air Force Reserve, which formed the 79th AEWCS at Homestead Air Force Base, Florida in early 1976. The active duty force continued to provide personnel to operate the EC-121s on a 24-hour basis, assigning Detachment 1, 20th Air Defense Squadron to Homestead AFB as associate active duty crews to fly the Reserve-owned aircraft. Besides monitoring Cuban waters, these last Warning Stars also operated from NAS Keflavik, Iceland. Final EC-121 operations ended in September 1978.
Air and Aerospace Defense Command
The United States Army Air Forces activated Air Defense Command (ADC) in 1946, with a Numbered Air Force of the former Continental Air Forces, from which it took its mission of air warning and air defense. In September 1947, it became part of the newly established United States Air Force. The command become a subordinate organization of Continental Air Command (ConAC) on 1 December 1948. ConAC gradually assumed direct charge of ADC air defense components, and ADC inactivated on 1 July 1950. But five months later, on 10 November 1950, Generals Vandenberg and Twining notified General Ennis C. Whitehead that "the Air Force had approved activation of a separate Air Defense Command [from CONAC] with headquarters on Ent." The new command's mission was to be to stop a handful of conventionally armed piston engine-powered bombers on a one-way mission. The command was formally reactivated on 1 January 1951.
With advances in Soviet bombers, ADC completed improved radar networks and manned interceptors in the 1950s. At the end of the decade it computerized Air Defense Direction Centers to allow air defense controllers to more quickly review integrated military air defense warning (MADW) data and dispatch defenses (e.g., surface-to-air missiles in 1959). ADC began missile warning and space surveillance missions in 1960 and 1961, and established a temporary missile warning network for the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1968 it was redesignated Aerospace Defense Command (ADCOM).
In 1975, ADCOM became a specified command and the United States' executive agent in the North American Air Defense Command—the single CINCNORAD/CINCAD commanded both. ADCOM's last surface-to-air missiles were taken off alert in 1972, and the Federal Aviation Administration took over many of ADCOM's SAGE radar stations.
Tactical Air Command and ADTAC
On 1 October 1979 ADCOM interceptors/bases and remaining air warning radar stations transferred to Tactical Air Command (TAC), with these "atmospheric" units assigned to Air Defense, Tactical Air Command (ADTAC). ADCOM's missile warning and space surveillance installations transferred in 1979 to the Strategic Air Command's Directorate of Space and Missile Warning Systems (SAC/SX) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command's Air Force Element, NORAD/ADCOM (AFENA), which was redesignated the Aerospace Defense Center. The command was inactivated on 31 March 1980.
With the disestablishment of TAC and SAC in 1992, the Aerospace Defense Center, the ADCOM specified command organizations, along with SAC's missile warning and space surveillance installations. became part of Air Force Space Command (AFSPC). Air Force Space Command activated its headquarters in the same Chidlaw Building where ADCOM had been inactivated.