McChord Manual Direction Center P-4 (1951-1959) - A Cold War Manual System Direction Center first established in 1951 on McChord Air Force Base, Lakewood, Pierce County, Washington. Named McChord Manual Direction Center after the base. Assigned a Permanent System ID of P-4. Deactivated as a Manual Direction Center in 1959.
Holabird, Root & Burgee Designed Type 4 Command/Control Station. ADC's first generation Command Center at McChord AFB, Site P-4 as it appears in 2017
History
Established in 1951 and became operational in 1951 as McChord Manual Direction Center P-4. This was the first of the original set of eleven permanent system command centers.
The Manual System Command Centers were based on the standardized AC&W infrastructure site design of the Chicago design firm of Holabird, Root & Burgee. These designs dated to 1949 but construction did not begin on any facilities until after the beginning of the Korean War. At system completion, 16 of these command centers were built. The Command Center was designated as a Type 4 Site while the most common operations center configuration at the AC&W radar sites was the Type 2. The Type 2 Operations Center had similar characteristics to the Type 4 Direction Center except the operations centers were single story. The site designs included, where appropriate, a power plant, an administrative building and one or two radomes all incorporated into a secure compound. The Command Centers and the Operations Centers can be easily identified by a small louvered ventilation tower that rises above the roof.
Key features of the Type 4 Manual Control Center
Reinforced concrete column-and-beam structure, oversized columns and thick beams
Flat, reinforced concrete roof (thick)
Double concrete-block exterior walls, with intervening airspace
Four-inch thick interior concrete-block walls
Heavily protected communications cable trenches
Exterior pilasters (reinforcing strengthening)
Windowless
Outer- and inner-lock rooms
Air baffles and chemical filter banks
Pressurized interior air system (air conditioning)
Ventilation shaft (tower)
Clean- and contaminated-clothes areas, with disinfector
Decontamination showers
Gas-proof clothes chutes
Communications, code equipment, and message rooms
Two-story, open central operations room with balcony glassed-in observation cubicles
War room
Associated administrative building (type 3 station), power plant, and radomes
The Manual System Direction Centers did not survive the transition into the SAGE System because they were far too small for the massive SAGE computers and consoles and did not have big enough power or HVAC plants. The radar site Type 2 operations centers did survive into the SAGE System but each one required the construction of an attached SAGE Annex for the large FST-2 computer system and later additions were necessary for those chosen as BUIC Sites.
McChord Manual Direction Center P-4 Radar Sites(edit list)
Cornett, Lloyd H. & Johnson, Mildred W., A Handbook of Aerospace Defense Organization (1946-1980), Office of History ADC, Peterson AFB, Colorado, 31 Dec 1980, 179 pages, Pdf, page 54.
Weitze, Karen J., Ph.D., Cold War Infrastructure for Air Defense: The Fighter and Command Missions, Prepared for Headquarters, Air Combat Command Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, Nov 1999, Contract DACA63-98-P-1363 United States Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District, 167 pages, Pdf
