Ear on Chicago; Ft. Sheridan

I'm ready on my left, ready on my right, ready to fire in line, safety's off, commands This is Hugh Hill, speaking from Fort Sheridan, Illinois, located north of Chicago, unlike Michigan, one of the historic army sites belonging to the United States government. This is the story of Fort Sheridan, some of the activities that the army has here. We're going to be talking to Master Sergeant Terry Roland, who is a public information officer here at Fort Sheridan. As you are hearing right now, there's target practice going on. Sergeant, this looks like the Air Force over here. What are they doing, borrowing your facilities? They're just about borrowing our facilities for a little while, Hugh. And as you know, we have an Air Force,

the Army has an Air Force of our own. So occasionally we like to let them come out and look at ours too. But aside from that, how about taking a ride over and seeing our Air Force hangar, the Army Air Force, that is. It's just a short distance over, so let's go over and have a look at the planes and helicopters over there. All right, fine. First of all, let me enter here a little bit of explanation. When I said Sergeant Terry Roland, I don't suppose many people really realize that I was going to be talking to O 'Wack. And when the voice came on, they certainly could. But you are a Wack, and I suppose then that you have a Wack installation up here at Fort Sheridan. Lieutenant Paul Garber is here, and I'd like to talk to him just very briefly about some of the activities that go on here at Fort Sheridan. First of all, since we opened up the program with the firing range, Lieutenant, you might tell us something about it. The Air Force here is practicing the day, I assume. And a little while ago, we watched them fire one round and then recorded the second round. This one from, as

the lieutenant over here said, the sitting position. After they fired that other round, we watched them as they marked the targets. And the marking of the targets means, I suppose, indicating where the shots hit and how many points they get. Is that right? That's correct. Some flags were raised back there, at least some kind of a round target or flag. Red flag and black flag on sticks. What does all that mean? That means that they missed a target or they failed to get a hit in at least the number three ring. What does the white one mean? The white one means they got a bull's eye. And the red one? The red one means they got a tooth. And the black one? The black one means it's a number three. And that red flag waving, we call out of Maggie's drawers. That's a miss. That's right. But what do you do? Allow the Air Force to come over here and use your target range. This is for Sheridan's target range. That's right. In all probability, the Air Force does not have their own range at their installation.

Well, all right, Lieutenant, thank you very much. By the way, how often do you fellas come out here to practice? All people are all men in the army must far at least once annually. And so you come out here once a year? That is correct. Okay, Lieutenant, the sergeant has invited us to go down here to the air strip, which is just right here to our right. And I can see from here a couple of helicopters. I suppose they have some helicopters in. Yes, you, they do. In fact, they have two or three, and they're probably going to get more as time goes by. And they have some very good pilots out here who can do some very fancy demonstrations in these helicopters. It should be a lot of fun, I think. So I want to go over and see. All right, let's go. Well, as you can hear in the background, an airplane is being warmed up, and we've arrived over at the fifth Army flight detachment operations. We're going to talk here to Major James F. Thompson, who is the man in charge of this operation. I didn't know the Army had an Air Force anymore, Major. It's not an Army Air Force, but it's an Army aviation, which is organized

to support various units in the Army. And for example, we support fifth Army headquarters with our airplanes here. What is your primary duty for transportation? The biggest part of our work is transporting the officers of the fifth Army headquarters. Fifth Army covers 13 states, and we make some pretty long missions sometimes. You know, we probably could talk a little better if we walked away from the airplane and maybe go to your office, where it'll be a little more quiet. And what is he doing? Just warming it up? Right, I have him shut it down here a little bit. Yeah. Well, that's a little bit better. We can stand outside still. It's a beautiful day. I'd rather stay out here and talk. Well, now you say it's used primarily for transportation and other purposes. That's right. We have other missions, medical evacuation, emergency transportation,

reconnaissance missions, observation, that sort of thing. For instance, the engineers this morning are out taking pictures of the Cal SAG canal and the waterways south of Chicago. And we have another mission this evening for the engineers to look over some of the flooded areas along Lake Michigan. I notice you have a helicopter over there, as a matter of fact, farther down from the big one is another small one. How many helicopters do you have out here, all told? We have six right now. The Fifth Army flight detachment has three H -25s. The AAA, which is operating on the field with us here, has three H -23s. That's the small, hillar helicopters. What about small aircraft, such as this one right here? We only have two of this type. That's an L -19 there, assessment L -19. You only have two of those. That's right. Well, now, once in a while I suppose you're called upon for service out over the lake when somebody gets into trouble, aren't you? Since I've been here, that hasn't happened, but it's very

possible that we could be. I mean, we're set up to give assistance if that shouldn't come up. Did you have to do any evacuation during the recent floods? I'm not talking about specifically the Chicago flood, but I was thinking down around St. Louis. We had some calls, but for some reason, rather we were not able to get down there at that time. I believe it was weather or something that kept us from getting down to St. Louis. You know, recently I had a chance to take a ride in one of the helicopters that's being used downtown. Wasn't an Army helicopter. It was a civilian helicopter. I was amazed at the wonder of this type of flying. How do you like it? Well, being a helicopter pilot myself, I can say I personally don't really enjoy flying helicopters, but most pilots in the Army are sure that the helicopters will revolutionize the ground forces, because it makes them so much more mobile. You mean you'll be moving troops by helicopter? They will do that, and in fact, there are

already organizations in the Army which do that. They have helicopter companies. Maybe you could talk the civilians into moving people by helicopter, and there wouldn't be so much traffic down in the loop. Well, as a matter of fact, there's a darn much traffic in the air now that it's almost as crowded as it is on the ground. Yes, you're right there, especially around Chicago, and if you get out around Midway Airport, why it's even worse. So if they throw a lot of helicopters in the air, why I suppose it would be a little bit worse than that. But even so, there's a lot of room up there. There's more room up there than there is down here. There's room up there, but the pilots have more to look at than say the other airplanes. They're so busy flying different types of machines, which are getting more and more complicated nowadays. Actually, the air is very crowded around Chicago with a low visibility caused by some of the smoke around Chicago. It gets a little bit dangerous sometimes, I

think. Yes, Major, we ought to talk a little more specifically about your operation, looking through the window of your operations room here. There are a number of telephone, for example, and off to the right of the telephone is some sort of a radio operation. What is the communication setup here? Well, let me see. We have about six different radio sets in there. A direct line to military flight service at Dayton, Ohio, through which we get our weather and file flight plans. We have a radio net, which joins the fire department in case of emergency. Downtown, you mean? No, here at Fort Sheridan. Oh, I see. In the daytime, we have a fire truck station out here from Fort Sheridan. In addition to that, we have three VHF radio sets and one ultra -high frequency radio set. How large is your detachment, Major? We have 23 enlisted men and 10 officers right now. All pilots?

The officers are all pilots, yes. Don't have any ground officers, as such. No, we don't. All the pilots double up and they have extra duties as ground officers. Don't we get any conflicts with the Air Force, do you? No, we get along extremely well with the Air Force and also the Navy at Grandview, as a matter of fact, the people at our hair field have helped us out on any number of occasions. And vice versa, I suppose? Well, we try to help them. Well, Major, it's been a pleasure talking to you and finding out about your detachment here. As I said before, it's interesting to me to find out that there's still such a thing as an Air Force within the United States Army, because that's what I was in, and I still kind of liked that if I were going to be in something I'd like to be in still in the Army Air Force. I wouldn't tell that to anybody unless I was on the Air Sea. I wouldn't tell that in private, and especially I wouldn't say to it to my friends in the Air Force because that probably gets shot. Well, with a unification, we wouldn't want to mention that anyway. No, we wouldn't. Thank you very much, Major, for talking to us. Oh, you're welcome. We're glad to have you out. Well, that was Major

James F. Thompson, and we're going to be moving on our way after a while. We've got to go over to the museum and take a look at that, and in just a few minutes we'll move on. But I want to talk to Sergeant once again, our whack who is guiding us on the tour and the public information officer here, Sergeant Roland. Sergeant, I suppose that if General Phil Sheridan, after whom this fort is named, would come up here today and see helicopters flying around, he'd wonder what in the world has happened to his great installation. Let's talk a little bit about some of the old days at Fort Sheridan. First of all, it has a great history and background. When was it established? It was established here by the 49th Congress in March of 1887. So it is quite an old installation and very famous, particularly to people, of course, in Illinois. And then, of course, one of the principal reasons for establishing the post here, after the Civil War and so forth, everybody was a little jittery, naturally. And then the Chicago fire came along

and that sort of upset a lot of people. And so it was decided that to sort of keep everything quiet and peaceful, they would establish an installation out here and have some of the soldiers or troops stationed here to take care of any emergency situations. So that's why Fort Sheridan was established. And three local Chicago citizens were responsible for donating the money or the land to the government or to the army for setting up the installation out here. And was named after Phil Sheridan? Yes, it was. The Great Civil War cavalry general, I believe. Yes, that's right. And that's a unique feature in that very few installations or very few posts are named after a person who is still alive, as was the case with General Sheridan. When the post was named Sheridan, he was still alive at the time. Fort itself was used when it was first set up to take care of Indian prisoners. And among those Indian prisoners was the famous sitting bull. Oh, sitting bull was out here? Yes,

that's right. As a prisoner. As a prisoner. What was that? That was in 1889. And of course, at the time there were a number of frontier uprisings and I take it that everything was pretty lively around here at the time. So they brought a lot of the Indian prisoners here. Well, now what do you have here today besides the Air Force? Of course, well, I shouldn't say Air Force, but the flight detachment that we saw just now. The target range that we saw, the museum that we were going to see, and the Nike installation that we're going to see. What else? Well, of course, being a member of the Women's Army Corps, I have to mention the fact that we do have wax stationed here. And they do all sorts of jobs, including cryptography, administrative work, which is a stenography and a secretary of work. And then, of course, there's the type of work I do, which is public relations that takes in news writing, radio, television, and all the related fields. And we have a good, rather large group of women

stationed here. You have a separation center here? Yes, we do. That's one of our primary functions here to take care of all the people coming from overseas and throughout the United States to be separated here. This is the only separation point in the Fifth Army area, which takes in 13 states. Who's the commander of the post here? The commander of the post is Colonel John W. Hammond. And he is under, of course, the post is under the Fifth Army. Yes, it is. And the commanding general of the Fifth Army? Is Lieutenant General Arnold? All right. I think we've got everybody's name to mention. We've got plenty of plugs in here for the generals and all. And now we've got to move on. Now, the next place I'd like to see is the museum. And we're back there. We'll be talking to the lieutenant again, I suppose, going to talk to Lieutenant Paul Garber because that's his operation over there, isn't it? Yes, and I think he'll do a very fine job explaining to you just what the museum is there for and their functions and activities. All right. Let's move on over there. Well, now we've come over to what they call their museum. And certainly that's exactly what it is. We're standing in a room about

50 feet long and about 20 feet across. And in the room is an exhibit of a number of projectiles, artillery shells, and a few bombs and a picture, a mock -up of a one of the missiles that they're building down in redstone, and a few other things. Lieutenant, how did you get all of these shells? Well, we arrive at these items through various means. One, of course, is we requisition these items from the depots to be used as training aids. Another method is we pick up some of these items from the police department of the various towns. How does the police department get them? The police picked these items up from various people who brought these back as souvenirs from World War. Do you mean some of these huge shells were actually used as souvenirs by people in their home? That is correct. Well, it's kind of dangerous to have a thing like that laying around the house, isn't it? Well, some

people know that, some people don't know that, of course. Well, now what would happen, for example? Well, let's pick out one that you've picked up, we'll say, from somebody's home. Have you got one within sight or distance here? Yes, here's a... If we can get over this far. Yeah, what's this? This is a Japanese 81 -millimeter mortar, weighs approximately six or seven pounds. And if this thing exploded inside of a room, it would probably kill everybody within the room. Where did you find that, or can you tell me? From a town in Wisconsin. Somebody brought that home as a souvenir. That is correct. Well, was it likely to explode? As it turned out, this item was inert. It did not contain any explosive, but it could have. Have you ever found any that did contain explosives? Yes, we have. Well, now what do you do when you find one that does contain explosive? How do you handle a situation? Well, of course, we have to take it to a place where we can explode it to get rid of it. You don't detonate it or make it inactive on the spot. No, we do not. Never try anything like that.

No, of course not. Well, is it safe enough to move it? Well, I'm still here, so nothing must be safe enough for you. You know anybody that did have an accident in your... from an organization such as yours? Yes, there was a captain in Germany. I had better not tell you his name, of course, but he was killed from a rocket. What was he trying to do? We don't know because he was by himself at the time of the explosion. I see. Well, what's the name of this organization that goes out into the communities and brings back these things? What's the name of your outfit? Our outfit is a 543rd ordnance detachment. Our job is explosive ordnance disposal. Well, now this museum, I assume, is for the purpose of displaying to some visitors that you have out here at Fort Sheridan. Just what explosives are used nowadays and what have been used in the past, is that right? That is correct. I understand you have some explosives and projectiles that were used in the Civil War. Let's go over here and take a look at them. I suppose this is the

earliest that you go back, or do you go back any earlier than the Civil War? The earliest we found are items used during the Civil War. We have about six here, of various sizes, shapes that you can see. Were these found in the Chicago area? I'm not too sure, but I don't believe so. Well, I have been reading somewhat lately of some of the battles of the Civil War. I'm sure a lot of people are because the interest in the Civil War is increasing day by day. One of the things that you continue to read about that was such a dangerous weapon for the infantry to face in the Civil War was canister. Do you have anything that resembles a canister or do you have a canister shell or whatever it was? Yes, we have one round that was the four runner of our modern canister round. Which is that? That's this item. It's about three inches in diameter, about eight inches long, weighs about six pounds. It's made of

paper, wood, a little canvas, wrapped in wire, and on the inside there was steel balls. What you can see the steel balls is actually sticking out, I guess, can't you? That's right. And then wired all together, and what went inside? Some explosive, a small charge of black powder. Well, then what would you do? Would you fire this from a cannon? You fired it from a cannon, yes. And would it explode when it hit or what? Well, it exploded so many seconds after it was fired from the cannon, depending on the length of the fuse. Oh, I see. And so it could explode right over the head of a group of infantrymen. Yes. And when it did, I can imagine that would have caused a great deal of damage because there must be 50 or 60 of those steel balls in there, isn't there? Yes. Maybe not that many, but certainly a large number. And you can see where that would explode, those steel balls could do a lot of damage. Very interesting. What's this big round ball over here? It looks like a huge steel ball. Was that used in the Civil War? That's right.

How was that fired? It was fired from the older type cannons, loaded from the muzzle. It was merely rolled down the muzzle after they had inserted a large charge of powder. What do you mean, rolled down the muzzle? What do you mean, rolled out on the ground? No, it was picked up by, in this case, two men. And merely rolled down the muzzle of the weapon. Oh, I see what you mean. Well, when it was fired, how far would this thing travel? I couldn't possibly lift that. That's about a good foot in diameter, and it's just a round steel ball. How much does it weigh, do you know? I would say close to 100 pounds. How far would it travel after it was fired? Well, it may travel 10 feet, or it may travel a mile, depending on how accurate their fusing device was. In those days, they could fire 100 pounds steel ball for a mile? If they were lucky, yes. And then what would they fire it against? This couldn't be used against

infantrymen, for example. It wouldn't be of any use there, would it? Well, in the old days, our artillery was merely used against anything. Troops, personnel. The Navy used them against ships. They were used for any purpose. I suppose this could very well knock down the wall of a fortress if it hit it. Well, I imagine it would. Well, besides the display of civil war projectiles, you also have some modern projectiles. I'd like to mention them just briefly. We won't move down in that particular area, but just tell me a few of the things you have down there. We have, over on your right, a few examples of our aerial bombs. On working around the room, we have aerial rockets. We have a fairly good display of land mines. And over farther to the left, we have a good example of five or six different countries mortar rounds. All right, Lieutenant. Thank you very much for telling me about this. Sergeant, we're about to move on. I understand we're going

out to the Nike site. Yes, you. I think after seeing the museum here, maybe you'd like to see some of the really big things that we have out here, as compared to some of the smaller, very lethal souvenirs we have here. Well, the Nike is by no means a souvenir, but we'll go take a look at it. Fine. Well, shall we be off? All right, fine. You are now in the air. As you can hear, we're at the Nike installation site now, and huge doors are opening downward. And as we look down into that open cavity down there, we can see several quite gleaming monkeys. They're going to load one and bring it up into a firing position. We're going to talk now to Sergeant Archie Johnson, who was out here at the Nike site. And you'll be hearing some conversation over the loudspeaker just here to my left from time to time. But Sergeant, what's going on right now? The elevator is raising into position to bring the missile up to the firing position,

from which we will fire. A little while ago, I heard a bell ring. What did the bell ring? The bell is a warning device to warn everyone or anyone on the doors to get off the doors immediately. The doors will be opening downward. All right, now the Nike has been brought up into a horizontal position. Are we going to see it go into the air or ghost? I mean, aim straight up. Yes, the Nike will be raised into firing position. Launcher one is ready. I just heard him saying. That means that all the electrical and hydraulic connections have been made, and the Nike is ready to be raised to the firing position. How long does it take to get into the firing position? Well, it's only a matter of seconds. What position do you call this in the horizontal position? In the horizontal position, right. There it goes. It's at about a 15 or 20 degree angle and moving very rapidly straight up. Now at a 45 degree angle. I'm sure you can hear that whine over my voice. It's almost at a

perpendicular angle now, almost straight up. Just a minute it will be. And there it is in position. What do you call that position? Firing position? That is the firing position, yes. Well, now Sergeant, we saw the missile come up through these two doors and go into the firing position. Actually, this is a part of an alert that you practice every once in a while. Oh, yes, right. We practice only average at least once a day. What happens during the practice? How does it start? Well, the siren goes off on the LCT. That's the launch control trailer. At which time the men above ground will go downstairs and begin the alert. The actual alert. Well, what about the men who are supposed to be running over here? Are they all here at all times? Well, no, if they're down in any of the buildings and the word will come over by telephone and they will leave the buildings and come out here to the pits. Have you ever timed yourself? Yes, we have. What's your

best time? Eight and three -quarter seconds. Eight and three -quarter seconds. Oh, minutes. Pardon me. Eight and three -quarter minutes from the time we received the alert. Eight and three -quarter minutes of missiles were all in the air ready to be fired. Well, that's pretty fast. You could get them up there and flying around in the sky before long. Oh, right. Absolutely. Well, okay, Sergeant. I think that wraps it up for us. It was an interesting thing to see over here. The Nike installation. This is all just part of Fort Sheridan. And we're doing the story today of the Fort Sheridan installation. How many men, by the way, do you have out here? Is that classified? Well, we have just gone under a new tier and E, so I'm not sure myself exactly what the thing is. It isn't all straightened out yet, so... Well, I'm not going to ask you about how many Nike's you have out here or anything else, because it probably is classified, too, and we don't want to get into that sort of information. But at least thank you very much for helping us describe what actually takes place here. You're welcome. Thank you. Civilians can come out to the Nike site, as they can do almost any Nike site, as I understand it throughout the Chicago area, and observe what goes on. I don't think they can actually go down and see where

the Nike is in the ground, but they can see it as it's launched into position. We can look around us and see a number of Nike's. Those familiar white missiles that you see around the Chicago area in different locations. This has been the story of Fort Sheridan, and we want to thank Sergeant Terry Rowland, the public information officer here, Lieutenant Paul Garber, who told us about the museum and the rifle range, and Major James F. Thompson, who told us about the air detachment, and Sergeant Johnson, we just talked to. Sergeant, it was very nice of you to come around with this, and very pleasant indeed. This is the first time I think that we've done here on Chicago, when we've had a young lady as pleasant and as charming as you to guide us around. Thank you very much. It was a pleasure for all of us. I'm sure we like to have visitors come out, and we're always delighted to try to entertain them as well as we can, and we do like to show you the various activities here at Fort Sheridan. You tell Colonel Hammond that I was sorry he was out of town today, and off of the base,

otherwise we'd have been most happy to talk to him. Well, I certainly will, and on behalf of Colonel Hammond, and all of the military personnel here, thank you very much, and come back and see us again soon. And thank you, and that's the story of Fort Sheridan Illinois. This is Hugh Hill speaking.