1961 — Jan 15, Nor’easter, USAF Radar Platform No. 4 fails ~70M east of Barnegat, NJ-28

–28 Berg. Wreck Valley Vol. II…Shipwrecks off Long Island’s South Shore and [NJ]. 1990, 157.
–14 Crew
–14 Repairmen
–28 NPR. “Fifty Years Later, 28 Men lost When ‘Old Shaky’ Collapsed…Honored.” 2-9-2011.
–14 US Air Force airmen
–14 Civilians
–28 NWS FO, Philly/Mount Holly. “Historical Weather Facts for the Philadelphia/Mt. Holly”
–28 NY Times (Love). “Hope for Radar Men Ends; Tapping From Hulk Stops. 1-17-1961, p.1.
–14 US Air Force
–14 Civilians
–27 New York Times. “27 Lost in Storm as Radar Tower Collapses at Sea,” Jan 16, 1961.
–14 US Air Force servicemen
–13 Civilians
–27 Snow, Edward Rowe. “The Texas Tower Disaster.”

Narrative Information

Berg: “The Texas Tower No. 4 was a triangular shaped Air Force Radar Tower, or D.E.W. (Distant Early Warning) built in Portland, Maine, back in 1957. The three deck platform weighed 500 tons and stood 67 feet above sea level.

“On August 29, 1958, Daisy, the first of two hurricanes, severely damaged the radar station. Hurricane Donna hit in September 1960, inflicting even more damage to the Tower’s already weakened underwater legs. By this time, the crew had nicknamed to tower, Old Shaky. In November, 1960, all but 14 crew and 14 repairmen were evacuated for safety reasons. By early January, conditions on board had worsened, but the Air Force would not evacuate for fear that nearby Russian trawlers would capture the abandoned tower and the electronics within her. By the second week of January with 50 knot winds and 30 foot seas enveloping the tower, the crew on Old Shaky feared for their lives. Evacuation orders were finally received and the aircraft carrier, Wasp, rushed to the rescue. At 6:00PM the tower radioed ‘the tower is breaking up’. At 7:20 PM Captain Mangual in a rescue craft had his eyes fastened on the towers radar image; ‘suddenly the image blurs and is gone’. Mangual tried to radio Tower No. 4. There was no reply. It was too late. At 7:33 PM, Sunday January 15, 1961, the Texas Tower slid into the ocean, taking all 28 men to their deaths.

“After the tragedy, only one body was recovered….

“Today the Tower rests in 180 feet of water 58 miles out of Fire Island Inlet….” (pp. 154-157)

NWS Forecast Office, Philly/Mount Holly: “A nor’easter battered the Mid-Atlantic region. PHL received 0.52” of precipitation, of which 2.2” of snow fell, and winds were from the NE, with a fastest mile of 34 mph recorded. 78 miles E of Barnegat, NJ, waves exceeding 35’ and winds of 85 mph destroyed the Air Force radar Texas Tower 4, killing all of the 14 airmen and 14 civilian workers. The 3-legged tower was nicknamed Texas tower because it resembled the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Tower 4 had previously been damaged by hurricanes Donna in 1960 and Daisy in 1958. (PHL)(BCT: Wed, Nov 12, 2003)” (NWS FO, Philly/Mount Holly. “Hist. Weather Facts…Philadelphia/Mt. Holly”)

Snow: “….Texas Tower Number Four, under command of the Air Force at Otis Field, Cape Cod, was built at a total cost of $21,000,000. Six stories high, the tower rested firmly on three steel legs driven through 180 feet of ocean water into the Atlantic Bottom 65 miles off the New Jersey coast. It was erected as one of the United States’ early warning radar systems which guard against surprise enemy attack, and was one of three in the Northeastern area, the fourth not having been constructed. The three were called Texas Towers because they resembled the structures used to draw oil from the sea off the Texas coast.

“Construction, begun during the early summer of 1956, was finished in December, 1957. Similar to the Texas Tower Number Two, located on George’s Shoal about 107 miles easterly of Highland Light, Cape Cod, number Four had two decks, including full facilities for a crew of 90 men. There was a recreation hall, gymnasium, swimming pool, and infirmary. Outstanding features of this particular tower were the three plastic domes on top of the edifice. Housing radar gear, these domes indeed made the appearance of Number Four resemble something from outer space, or to say it another way, an “oversize three-legged Erector set,” as Newsweek stated.

“Hurricane Donna, which lashed the Northeastern states on Sept. 12, 1960, apparently weakened the supports of Texas Tower Number Four. Skin diving at the scene confirmed the belief that Number Four was in serious trouble, and workmen were sent out to the tower to begin repairs. The tower was then christened with the unhappy name of “Old Shaky.”

“General William E. Eider of the Boston Air Defense Section ordered a cut in manpower after the hurricane damage had been appraised, and the directive was carried out. Nothing further developed until a storm began in the middle of January, 1961, but by Sunday afternoon, January 15, the waves were so high that the tower began to shake violently.

“At 7:15 that night the Navy supply ship AKL-17 was only ten miles from Number Four when she picked up an SOS from the tower. The edifice was now tilting back and forth. Capt. Gordon T. Phelan, commanding officer in charge of the 13 Air Force personnel and the 14 civilians in the Texas Tower, is reported to have said that he thought the tower could hold out until dawn. As a lull in the storm was expected around two o’clock Monday morning, he was planning on evacuation of the men at that time.

“Immediately upon receiving the SOS the AKL-17 proceeded as fast as the great storm would allow toward the tower, keeping the structure on its radar screen. Suddenly at one minute past eight that night the image of the tower vanished and was never seen again. It is presumed that the tower collapsed at this moment.

“The aircraft carrier Wasp was also in the vicinity, having been directed there by Navy officials that evening after Capt. Phelan had requested evacuation of the personnel on the tower. Men on duty in the Wasp’s radar room at the time noted the vanishing of the image at about the same moment that it was reported from the AKL-17…

“There were no survivors from whom the story of the disaster might have been learned, and we can only attempt a reconstruction of the final moments of Texas Tower Number Four. All evidence indicates that the men on the Tower had been thrown into the sea without warning and with no preparation for the collapse. Even if there had been time to use lifeboats and other survival gear, however, it is unlikely that any man could have survived the overwhelming gale which was then blowing. Wreckage later picked up in the vicinity ‘clearly indicates there was no time for an organized attempt to abandon the Tower,’ according to Task Group Bravo Commander Rear Admiral Allen M. Shinn.

“Five craft soon reached the scene: the Wasp, the destroyer F.T. Berry, the destroyer Norris, the destroyer Lloyd Thomas, and the destroyer McCaffery. Helicopter and S2F search of the area had to be postponed because of wretched weather and visibility conditions….

“Immediately afterwards, in adverse sea conditions, the McCaffrey put over a boat from which Lt. J. G. Bevearage Cash, USN. Of Georgia, made a shallow water dive that determined the jagged edges of the tower were then within 20 feet of the surface. In the luminous glow from the structure below, he was able to estimate that the mass of the tower was still lying parallel and nearby….

“Because of this hope for survival, civilian divers were taken out to the Wasp…In all, four men descended into the sea to look for signs of life on the sunken radar tower. These efforts resulted in definite proof that no one was still alive within the structure when the diving was carried out. Divers who opened the structure found no bodies but plenty of debris.

“The only direct evidence of the loss of the 28 men was found that Monday when the McCaffrey pulled the body of Air Force Master Sergeant Troy F. Williams, 32, of Salt Lake City, Florida, from the water, after his remains had been spotted by helicopters from the Wasp. They also noticed another body floating, but it sank before they could recover it.

“Sixteen miles from the tower searchers found one small boat heavily smashed and a capsized 35-foot motor whaleboat. A floating mattress, some loose debris, and the heavy smell of diesel oil and gasoline were all that remained to indicate that a $21,000,000 Air Force installation had once stood out in the stormy Atlantic off the New Jersey coast.” (Snow, Edward Rowe. “The Texas Tower Disaster.”)

Sutton: “When we had traveled south of the tower the USS Wasp received the emergency call put out from the Texas Tower. Task Group Bravo was ordered to turn around and proceed back to the tower at the highest safe speed possible as the tower was in danger of collapsing. I do not recall the exact time we received the call (log book entry is wrong in stating the time as 2031, more than likely 1731 hrs.) or how far out we were (24 miles is stuck in my mind) but I do recall the radio traffic going back and forth between the Wasp and other ships. The USS Wasp stated they were unable to launch helicopters or planes due to the severe winds and waves. We were ordered to proceed to the tower and give whatever aid we were capable of. At approximately a minute or two after 8:00 pm, as I watched the tower on the scope, the image started to break up. After two to three sweeps the image was gone completely. I imagine the image appeared to be breaking up because of the different angles the radar was picking up as the tower tilted and slid into the waves. We were 18 miles out from the tower.

“Eventually we arrived at the location were the tower had stood and looked for any possible survivors. The McCaffrey was the first ship to go over the site and picked up noises coming from the wreckage. Shortly after this it was decided to send a signal in case any survivors were trapped in the structure. The classic ‘Shave and a Haircut’ was used. The McCaffrey stated they got a response back from the structure. Later on we made a pass over the structure and all we heard were noises that were caused by objects shifting and rubbing against each other. We stayed on station looking for survivors until late Tuesday morning….” (Sutton, Ralph (USS Lloyd Thomas). “Texas Tower #4 Tragedy.”)

Lee: “….I was on one of the destroyers (USS Lloyd Thomas DDE 764) that was at the scene trying to rescue the people when the tower started to go down….I had friends that were in the sonar room at the time and I was told that there were tape recordings of the people in the tower sending messages by tapping on the walls of the tower to the surface ships. It was known that some of the people were alive after the tower had went below the surface….I never did find out how long sonar was able to hear the tapping….they used the signal “shave and a haircut” which most everyone knows…” (Lee, Wilber. “Texas Tower #4 January 1961.”)

Newspaper

Jan 16: “An Air Force radar tower with twenty-seven men aboard collapsed under gale winds and high waves and sank eighty miles southeast of here last night. A Navy Task force was searching for survivors, but none had been found by early this morning. A life preserver, a mattress and several large oil and Diesel fuel slicks were floating on the water where the giant platform had stood.

”A Coast Guard spokesman said that the chances for survivors among the fourteen servicemen and thirteen civilians ‘looked bad.’ The civilians were repairing damage to the tower from Hurricane Donna. The Air Force said, ‘the tower is presumed lost.’ It added that the tower had been equipped with life boats.

“Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force units had been searching through the early part of the night after a distress signal was received from the tower, a triangular structure on piles used for air defense. A murky overcast lowered visibility to 500 feet and the high winds – 50 to 70 knots – made it difficult for the aircraft to determine whether the tower was still standing.

“A naval task force, commanded by the aircraft carrier Wasp, which had been steaming in the area, learned of its collapse….One of the destroyers in the force spotted gasoline and Diesel oil slicks in the area later. After an additional search the Naval force radioed Coast Guard Air and Sea Rescue headquarters in New York that ‘the tower has collapsed.’

“At 1:05 A. M. the Coast Guard abandoned its emergency restriction on ship broadcasts in the area – a restriction imposed to permit unimpeded direction of the rescue operation. At 1:22, the Coast Guard warned ships in the vicinity to proceed with caution because of danger from wreckage of the collapsed tower, which was 187 feet long on each side of its three sides. At the same time it urged vessels to keep a lookout for possible survivors.

“The tower was one of three operated as part of the United States air-defense warning system by the 4604th Squadron. The lost tower, known as No. 4, had been partly evacuated last September after the winds of Hurricane Donna had damaged its supports.

“The first distress call from the towers crew was received at 7:25 P. M. yesterday, when the signal Mayday – an internationally used sign of extreme distress – was received at Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod, the home of the 4604th Squadron. At 8:01, a report of a brief verbal communication with the tower was relayed to the base, but there was some question as to whether the report was genuine. In any event, there was no further word from the tower.

Sixty-one servicemen on the tower weathered the hurricane in September, but most of them were taken off Nov. 17 when it was discovered that the underwater bracings had been damaged. The tower was battered by winds of eighty-five knots and gusts of 100 knots and by thirty foot seas during that storm. Evacuation of the tower had been requested by the Air Force at the time of the storm. Two Coast Guard cutters, the Campbell and Tamaroa, were sent to the scene, but the seas were so rough that small rescue boats could not be launched. When the hurricane subsided it was unnecessary to remove the crew, but about four weeks later the Air Force announced that it had ordered a temporary evacuation as a precautionary move. It was reported at the time that there was little or no danger to the tower from the winds.” (NYT (Richard Eder). “27 Lost in Storm as Radar Tower Collapses at Sea. Navy Task Force…,” Jan 16, 1961.)

Jan 17: “Hope vanished last night [26th] for men believed to have tapped out a rescue call from the sunken hulk of an Air Force radar tower seventy miles south of Long Island.

“All twenty-eight men aboard the missile warning station are dead or missing. The tower, built on three massive pilings, toppled into the pounding Atlantic Sunday night.

“One body was recovered from the water and another was sighted in a day-and-night search by eleven ships, by six aircraft and thirty-one divers.

“Early this morning, a Coast Guard official said that ‘a realistic view at this time must be that the men in the tower are no longer alive.’ He added that ‘salvage teams are giving it everything they have on the assumption that they may still be.’

“The search fort he twenty-six remaining men, regarded as hopeless by mid-morning, was galvanized into new urgency when a destroyer’s sonar equipment picked up the tapping noises. Hope flared higher when the destroyer reported that it had exchanged signals with the tappers and that it had heard what might have been a human voice. Searchers said it was possible that some of the missing men had found a pocket of air inside the 4,300-ton structure when it went under. Divers, a diving bell and salvage and rescue equipment were sent out from New London, Conn.; Otis Asir Force Base, Cataumet, Mass., and New York City, 117 miles northwest of the tower site.

“But by lat afternoon, Vice Admiral Allen M. Shinn, commanding the rescue flotilla from aboard the aircraft carrier Wasp, said there was no more than an ‘outside possibility’ of rescuing any men from the tower. He said by radio-telephone that the taping signals had become ‘weaker and more random’ and had finally stopped about 2:30 P.M. This was eighteen had a half hours after the tower collapsed and four hours after the sounds were first heard by the destroy4er McCaffrey.

“Attempts by divers to reach the interior of the superstructure continued last night by underwater illumination.

“Admiral Shinn said the wreckage ‘clearly indicates there was no time for an organized attempt to abandon the tower.’….

[Continuing on page 30, col. 3.] “The radar warning station called a Texas Towr because of its resemblance to offshore oil rigs, was battered down by thirty-five-foot waves and gale-force winds of fifty to seventy knots.

“The tower that sank, called No. 4, was the southernmost of a chain of three such radar stations built as far out on the undersea continental shelf as practicable in order to add precious seconds to advance warnings of approaching aircraft or missiles.

“Plans for Tower No. 1 were scrapped. Towers No. 2 and No. 3 stand off the Massachusetts coast.

“Three radomes or plastic bubbles protecting radar antennas, painted in orange and black checkers, stood sixty-seven feet above the water on Tower 4. The domes covered part of a two-deck, twenty-foot-thick triangle measuring 187 feet on a side that housed the crew and equipment. Three huge legs, two holding fuel oil and the third sea water for distilling, planted the whole structure on the ocean floor, 185 feet down.

“The $21,000,000-towr – a $9,000,000 structure with $12,000,000 worth of radar and other equipment – ordinarily had a complement of about seventy servicemen. Most of them had been taken off Nov. 17 when it was discovered that Hurricane Donna had weakened the structure last September. The twenty-eight men aboard when the tower collapsed included fourteen civilian workmen and thirteen Air Force men under the command of Capt. Gordon T. Phelan of Los Angles, 34 years old and the father of four children.

“Messages relayed to Washington yesterday by Admiral Shinn indicated that Captain Phelan had wanted his men evacuated as the wind and seas rose on Sunday. However, he believed he could wait until daylight yesterday for helicopters from the Wasp. Captain Phelan had remained in radio contact with a Military Sea Transport Service ship that brought him supplies on Friday, Admiral Shinn said. The tower commander had been concerned about forecasts of bad weather and had asked the supply ship to stand by. ‘Things getting worse, tower shaking and beginning to break loose,’ Captain Phelan told the supply ship Sunday afternoon. At 7:10 P.M. he told the ship he was expecting evacuation by helicopters the next morning. The tower transmitted May-day, the international signal of distress, at 7:25 P.M.

“Admiral Shinn said the tower had disappeared from the supply ship’s radar screen at 7:33 P.M.

“Towering seas that broke over the decks of destroyers hampered the search until after daylight yesterday. Fog, driving sleet and a low overcast shrouded in a blind white glare the light of flares dropped by planes during the night and the searchlights that the Wasp played on the sea.

“Twelve hours after the disaster, the body of M/Sgt. Troy F. J. Williams, 33, of Lake City, Fla., was found floating in a life jacket sixteen miles from the site of the tower. A second body was sighted but not recovered….

“Last night, Scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus) divers made out the hulk of the platform fifty feet beneath the surface of the water. Two of the platform legs were still standing. They had been snapped off, one ten and the other twenty-five feet from the surface….The water temperature at the position was 48 degrees….

“The families of several of the missing airmen reported that the men had expressed fears the tower was unsafe. Mrs. Raymond J. Martel of Biddeford, Me., said her 34-year-old husband had telephoned from the tower a few hours before it fell telling her that it was unsafe and that he expected to be evacuated

“Mrs. Kenneth Green of Elmira, N.Y.,, said her 27-year-old husband had told his superior officers the tower was ‘very shaky’ before he reluctantly returned to duty aboard it Jan. 4.

“Both the Air Force and the Senate Preparedness Investigating subcommittee ordered investigations into the disaster. Lieut. Gen. Joseph H. Atkinson, air defense commander, appointed a board of inquiry headed by Maj. Gen. James C. Jensen, commander of the Thirtieth Air Division, Truax Field, Madison, Wis.” (New York Times (Kennett Love). “Hope for Radar Men Ends; Tapping From Hulk Stops. 1-17-1961, p.1.)

[Blanchard note: The New York Times of 1-17-1961, p. 30, includes a “List of Radar Tower Men,” which provides the names of all the Air Force and Civilian personnel lost, including age, position, and city and state of residence.]

Sources

Berg, Daniel. Wreck Valley Vol. II: A Record of Shipwrecks off Long Island’s South Shore and New Jersey. Wahoo Edition. East Rockaway, NY: Aqua Explorers, Inc. 1990.

Lee, Wilber. “Texas Tower #4 January 1961.” Accessed 10-27-2010 at: http://www.usslloydthomas.com/ttlee.html

National Public Radio (Mark Memmott). “Fifty Years Later, 28 Men lost When ‘Old Shaky’ Collapsed Are Honored.” 2-9-2011. Accessed 6-11-2021 at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/02/09/133628393/fifty-years-later-28-men-lost-when-old-shaky-collapsed-are-honored

National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office, Philadelphia/Mount Holly. “Historical Weather Facts for the Philadelphia/Mt. Holly, NJ Forecast Area.” Mount Holly, NJ: NWS FO, Oct 17, 2005 update. Accessed 1-4-2018 at: https://www.weather.gov/phi/hist_phi

New York Times. “27 Lost in Storm as Radar Tower Collapses at Sea. Navy Task Force off City Hunts in Gale for Survivors,” 1-16-1961. At: http://www.usslloydthomas.com/nyttt.html

New York Times (Kennett Love). “Hope for Radar Men Ends; Tapping From Hulk Stops. 1-17-1961, p.1. Accessed 6-11-2021 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1961/01/17/118013120.html?pageNumber=1

New York Times. “List of Radar Tower Men.” 1-17-1961, p. 30. Accessed 6-11-2021 at: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1961/01/17/issue.html
Snow, Edward Rowe. “The Texas Tower Disaster.” Accessed 10-27-2010 at: http://www.usslloydthomas.com/ttdisaster.html

Sutton, Ralph (USS Lloyd Thomas). “Texas Tower #4 Tragedy.” Accessed 10-27-2010 at: http://www.usslloydthomas.com/ttsutton.html