Comments on: Murphy Dome - From Someone Who Was There

By: Roy Bowers

Roy Bowers — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 04:26:33 +0000

I was stationed at Murphy Dome in 1963 and 1964. I was worked iun the power plant as a power porower production tech. I remember Mr. HJohn Grass who was thye Duty Engineer for the power plant, and there was also a civilian who worked in the heating plant who we called Stew Captian Barnes was the oifficer in charge during that time. I have lots of photoes of the site. Would enjoy hearing from anyone that we could share info with.

By: Larry Smith

Larry Smith — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 22:11:34 +0000

May 1963-May 1964 Army, Signal Corp, Maintance supervision AN/FSQ-34 Missile Control System. Five of us maintained the system on the air 24-7. This system controlled the five Nike Hercules missle sites that circled Eielson AFB . The system at Murphy Dome was operated by Army Artillery personal; counting my Signal Corp five, Army totaled about twenty. The Air Force computers supplied the Army radar display with search radar and the Airforce interception patterns. We displayed the Airforce fighter, the enemy aircraft and the point of interception. If the interception point was at the Nike Lock On Ring, the Air force fighter would be called off and a Nike Site would be assigned the target. This could all be done without voice commands. All data and voice was via the microwave network called White Alice. The southern Alaska control center was Fire Island near Cook Inlet by Anchorage. Some interesting times were had with the earthquake March 27th 1964 and JFK November 1963.

By: Mike Soukup

Mike Soukup — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 05:50:56 +0000

Apologies to others for my being “loose of the mouth” on this site, but I need to make a correction. I stated earlier that the first military female assigned to Murphy occurred while I was there in 1979. That does not appear to be true. Earlier, there seems to have been a few USAF women assigned to Murphy - just not more than a few. These women were apparently NCOs, and not youngsters out of high school and basic/tech training. But, I do not know. Supposedly, the woman officer I mentioned was the first female officer ever assigned to Murphy. I knew her from a previous assignment. I do recall hearing from higher ups, including site commanders, that the USAF was VERY reluctant to send women to the Alaskan sites. Interestingly, it was thought OK to send women to remote sites such as Wallace AFS in the Philippines, though, but not the “manly” tougher sites like in Alaska. Indeed, only the “softer” sites like Murphy, King Salmon, and Campion ever got women that I heard about during the last few years these sites were active. I think it would be interesting to hear from women who did go to the Alaskan sites.