Air Defense Command: "Shield of Freedom" 1963 US Air Force Film SFP-1099; Narrated by Raymond Massey (Patreon)

more at http://quickfound.net/

PORTRAYS AIR DEFENSE COMMAND'S DOMINANT ROLE IN ORGANIZING, TRAINING AND PROVIDING AEROSPACE DEFENSE FORCES TO NORAD. PICTURES MAGNITUDE OF THIS COMMAND'S MISSION OF DETECTION, IDENTIFICATION, INTERCEPTION AND DESTRUCTION OF BOMBER OR MISSILE ATTACK ON THE NORTH AMERICAN CONTINENT. RAYMOND MASSEY IS NARRATOR.

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerospace_Defense_Command

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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...

Air Defense Command was activated on 21 March 1946 with the former CAF Fourth Air Force, the tbd's Tenth Air Force, and the tbd's Fourteenth Air Force (Second Air Force was reactivated and added on 6 June.) In December 1946 "Development of Radar Equipment for Detecting and Countering Missiles of the German A-4 type" was planned (part of Signal Corps' Project 414A contracted to Bell Laboratories in 1945). 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 [required] for 3 to 6 hours of warning time... By 1948 there were only 5 AC&W stations...

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. The headquarters was moved to Ent Air Force Base in Colorado Springs on 8 January 1951...

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...