Camp David at Catoctin Mountain, Md. | |||
| |||
Elevation | 1,900 ft. (579.1 m) | ||
Location | |||
Location | Frederick County, Maryland, USA | ||
Range | Appalachian Mountains | ||
Coordinates | +39.648333N -77.466667 W | ||
17 Nov 65 started work at Cactus
Camp David was originally built as a camp for federal government agencies and their families, by the WPA, starting in 1935, opening in 1938. Winter at Camp David
Tower History and Purpose
Cactus was built on the Presidential Retreat at Camp David Md. The White House Communications Agency (WHCA) was responsible for the installation and maintenance of all of the communications equipment at the facility. The staff at this facility was assigned to The Defense Communications Support Unit (DCSU) and they were permanently stationed at Camp David.
 |
| Facility Map of the presidential Retreat at Camp David |
The Cactus facility consisted of a cylindrical tower and a two-level bunker. The construction of the tower and bunker was completed during the mid to late 50’s. It was one of the first Presidential Emergency Facilities to be completed.
Cactus was part of a microwave network designed to provide emergency communications to the President of the United States, Secret Service and visiting dignitaries while at Camp David. This microwave route connected Camp David, the Pentagon (Site R) and Mt. Weather directly to the President or White House.
When Nikita Khrushchev visited Camp David as a guest of President Eisenhower there was an attempt to disguise the true purpose of the Cactus Facility and a sign was placed on the wooden fence that surrounded the facility It read WATER WORKS. I don’t know if Khrushchev ever found out the real use of the water tower.
There was a Major upgrade to the old board, and the relocation of the switchboard room in the tower which occurred in 1971. The cords were gone, and buttons replaced all of the cords, they debuted the space-age headsets.
Also there was a big upgrade to all of the cabins including turning Laurel into big conference meeting room (Richard Nixon made 26 weekend visits to Camp David in 71). WHCA also provided and repaired all of the television sets and stereo equipment installed in all of the guest cabins as well as Aspen Lodge.
 |
| Aspen Lodge |
The Secret Service and the White House Staff used two-way FM radios to communicate with each other. Communications to Marine One was accomplished by using a two-way UHF radio system. There was also a surface to air radio link for direct voice communications known as Echo Fox the AF1 Presidential Communications Network. This nationwide system was maintained by AT&T.
WHCA maintained the electronic fence surrounding Camp David as well as providing the Marine Guard phones at the main gate and various guard posts around the perimeter of the entire facility. All of these phones terminated on a one-position manual switchboard located on the lower level of the Cactus Facility.
We would joke about the various "Class of Service" for various phones within the confines of the perimeter. A guard post phone for the USSS or Marines could only call the Command Post or other guard phones and not access outside lines without assistance from the WHCA operator. More than once the President would pick up one of those phones and ask for something. It was difficult to find some of these "tree phones" for call backs! I am sure with the advent of wireless, most of those phones are gone.
WHCA personnel from Camp David were also responsible for the communications equipment installed on the Presidential Train’s communications car “Crate” located just outside Harrisburg Pa. Our primary responsibility was to maintain the Comm. Equipment and the generators.
Old Camp David stories (1955-1960) by Roger Zabkie
Learning to type the Army way.
When Rodgr Zabkie arrived at David as a PFC (E3) the whole of the radio equipment complement was in a wooden shed-type building. There were three upright Motorola base stations, for the Able, Baker, and Charlie nets; two TRC-29 MW terminals; and an HF radio setup complete with TTY console.
Roger was assigned to turn on the BC-610 HF transmitter every hour and attempt to communicate with the WH, plus keep a log of how it went. So on the hour I fired up, tuned the HF receiver, and there it was: CACTUS DE CROWN INT QRK. (Fortunately someone had thoughtfully left a copy of the Q codes lying around.)
But I couldn't type! Spending several long minutes, I managed to peck out CROWN DE CACTUS QRK 55 INT QRK and make a log entry. This exchange continued until after nightfall when the propagation on that band turned to crap.
When MSGT Shorten came in the next morning he indicated that I did a not-so-bad job for a green Soldier whose MOS was Microwave Radio Repair, and I headed for my bunk determined to pick up a new skill: typing. The thing is that MOS then and there meant very little -- we all cross-trained in several fields, picking up a variety of skills along the way. It was a great prep for the real world.
About Trout Dinners
Any evening when one of us from the WHASA Camp David group might be returning up the hill in an official vehicle (which was painted black and sported DC plates), we would call on Able radio channel to see if anyone needed anything from Thurmont. Often the reply would be “Two trout dinners.”
Now, each of us had a personal callsign that began with the letter T, and since there was a guy there, an E-6, whose call was Trout and who was a serious beer aficionado, a “Trout dinner” naturally translated to “a six-pack of beer.” This went on for years although Camp David was as officially dry as a Navy ship.
One day when our ranking Soldier, a warrant officer, made a visit to Raven Rock he was asked what the hell was this trout dinner they heard about so frequently on the radio. Of course he didn’t know, which was just fine with us enlisted types.
The beer tasted really good on boring evenings when the PRESUS was not at camp.
The Chief and the Skunk
In the late1950s the only permanently assigned at Camp David in the beginning were Navy Steward’s Mates, who were all Filipinos billeted alone in a lodge near Aspen, the President’s quarters. Their sole job, as far as I knew, was to cook for and serve the President and his guests during visits to the facility.
The stewards’ leader was a round, pleasant Chief Petty Officer known to us only as Bob Goony. Chief Goony was a career man with about thirty years in service. He drove a big Cadillac luxuriously equipped with all the latest gadgets such as self-dimming headlights and mirror, a radio that sought out stations, and I don’t remember what else. It was pretty advanced for a time when transistor technology was only beginning to replace vibrators and vacuum tubes in passenger cars
Bob would bring his Caddy around to our shop whenever he thought there was a malfunction in his radio or whatever and we were happy to tinker with his toys because of their novelty and also because Bob was a really likeable character.
One night one of the younger stewards tried to pet a skunk that showed up in the woods outside their lodge -- with predictable results. Needless to say, he was quarantined for some time until repeated showers reduced the odor enough that the rest of the crew could stand him. When another steward explained to Chief Goony that since there are no skunks in the Philippines the victim didn’t know to avoid the animal, Chief Bob’s response became a classic at camp: “Now he know.”
Tragically, Chief Bob Goony met an untimely death when his Cadillac was hit by a train one night as he was returning to camp from a late poker game down the hill. Word was that he fell asleep on the railroad tracks and never knew what hit him. His was one of only two traffic fatalities, both Sailors, that happened during my tenure. Thank goodness.
The Case of the Talking Antenna
One night in the late ‘50s we were testing a new portable antenna which we placed on the lawn next to Aspen. The antenna consisted of a fiberglass rod around which was wrapped in a spiral of wire, and a flat stand with ground plane wires stretched out on the grass. It was maybe six feet tall.
When I came outside – probably for a smoke – the Marine sentry told me that the antenna was talking to him. I thought he was crazy until he repeated certain words, like “Cactus” and “Crown.” Still skeptical, I went and asked my fellow Soldiers to give a test count while I traveled back up to the antenna location. There it was: a small fireball where the wire ended on the tip of the antenna, modulated by the SSB signal, eerily speaking English.
Lessons learned: the Marine wasn’t drunk and there’s a reason why most antennas have a corona ball on their tip.
The Case of the Holy Cable:
One day in 1959 or 1960 another sergeant and I were ringing out a newly installed lead-shielded cable. Since it was not color-coded the technique was to terminate one end on a frame then ring out the other end pair by pair. About halfway through the procedure we began getting strange results, so he and I started walking along the cable’s path from the water tower down to the switchboard room, where the main distribution frame was located, eyeballing it to see what the problem could be.
The cable was laced down on a Western Electric tray from the mainframe to where it disappeared into a passageway on its way to the tower. The tray was almost as high as the concrete ceiling, behind the switchboard operating position, and there, right smack in the middle of one of the tray’s crossmembers, was a hole.
That’s a bullet hole, says my E-7 partner. Can’t be, says I. But he, being a veteran of WWII and Korea, knew a bullet hole when he saw it. How could a bullet hole have penetrated a steel cable tray and a lead-shielded cable there in one of the most secure pieces of real estate in the country?
Well there was that loaded M2 carbine mounted on the wall next to the switchboard, ready to defend the facility from who knows what.
As the story eventually came out, a bored young switchboard operator was killing time on a slow Sunday afternoon by fondling the carbine. When the board lit up, he set the butt down on the floor and the gun fired maybe three rounds into the ceiling and our cable. He tried to hide the event and might have gotten away with it except for the defective cable, as well as that he was overheard talking about it in his sleep a week or two after our discovery.
He was of course shipped out. And the carbine was subsequently relocated to the crypto room with the other firearms. All in all, yet another chapter in the Camp David story. I helped install the Raytheon equipment there before the end of my 2nd hitch. The new tower & all was the last change I was involved in.
 |
Google Earth view of Cactus Tower and bunker (1988) see shadow in foreground, the building shaped like an F is the Barracks and Mess Hall, the Staff swimming pool is right below the Tower Don Cammel remembers back when he was a shift worker at our DCSU Detachment 3 at Site R, his OIC was Frank Sisco. It was when CWO Ray Horst the OIC at Camp David was sidelined for major stomach surgery and recovery, Frank was running both Detachments. He was attending an Annual Christmas Open House with LBJ on the 18 acres, and it lasted until around 10pm. Frank and his wife went somewhere with some other attendees, and eventually headed back to his home in Waynesboro PA. At midnight, all the Towers had a roll call communications check on all the frequencies in order. Now, Frank had a Motorola radio unit installed in his car. A few seconds after all the Comm checks were completed, there was a very long loud belch over the ALPHA net. After a short pause, “CACTUS…CANNONBALL, READ YOU LOUD AND CLEAR”! Frank pulled off at the next pay phone and melted the phone line. I personally spent many days and nights at Cannonball with Mr Van Zant in the mid 60's. Two Microwave types stationed at CD went TDY for a week at a time to Cannonball, a microwave repeater tower which was located on a 2,600 ft peak (Cross Mountain) near Mercersburg Pa. On Monday morning we would leave CD with enough groceries for a week’s stay in a concrete silo. There were no windows in the nine floor structure so unless you went down to the entrance and went outdoors you had no idea what the weather was like outside. there were two people permanently assigned to the facility and when they went home at night, we were left without transportation, so keeping yourself occupied could become a challenge. Nobody knew what went on during nights and weekend when the guys were left alone and to this day nobody has incremented themselves   l knew many people did hunt at Cannonball during deer season! We always wore bright colored clothing and made lots of noise when we went outside!! A hunt club owns property including the access road presently. I remember a Radio Tech at Det 3 that volunteered to go TDY up there a couple times so he could go hunting "after hours"? He always had venison in his freezer. When I reported for duty in Nov 1965 and the only thing that hadn't changed from when Cactus was first built was that SGM Shorten was still there in DCSU HQ. The tower was completely finished with Switchboard, Comm Center and microwave systems up and operational Raytheon KTR 1000's had replaced the TRC-29. Technology obsolescence of the microwave radio network was the primarily reason that the tower was closed and the advancement of communication technology especially satellite systems and fiber optic cable. I know that the tower at Camp David was taken down some time in the mid 90's. They also tore down the old U-shaped barracks, mess hall, DCSU Headquarters, Radio Shop and Garage. They still maintain part of the bunker, but I cannot verify that. The new DCSU headquarters is a large office building with satellite downlink antennas out toward the back gate near where the old Log Periodic, HF antenna was located. You can clearly see the building on Google earth; you can also see a satellite dish behind the new mess hall. I cannot be 100% sure that it is not for cable TV. Also if you look closely at the last building it appears to have a flat roof with some kind of white radome, could this be the down link? Of course I do not know for sure, but all the speculation is that the bunker under Aspen Lodge has been expanded and manned full time. Now that the "Water Tower" is gone and has been replaced with satellite terminals, internet, and cell phones. I often wonder what Camp David will look like in 50 years from now! Will it even still be there? |
 |
No comments:
Post a Comment