I was assigned to what was called a "gap filler" at Great Falls (now Malmstrom) AFB, Montana in 1954-55. I am pretty sure that it was the 801st AC&W Squadron that is listed as SM-147 with an operational date of 1957. Of the 12 persons registered on the site roster (Oct, 2002) none have dates prior to 1957.

We almost built this site by hand. There were about a dozen of us initially; officers, NCOs and airmen, and we scoured the base for a place to mount our Korean War vintage TPS-1D search radar. We initially wanted to put it on top of the hanger used by the resident Fighter-Interceptor Squadron but they were fearful that the radiation would fire off the 2.75-inch rockets in the F-94Cs. We ended up finding an empty barracks complex consisting of several one-story barracks and a central latrine. One of the barracks was set up as a combination orderly room and supply room. We decided to mount the radar in the supply room and cut a hole in the roof to accommodate the mast. After we got the mast rotating it was relatively simple to mount the antenna and make all the proper connections. Not having a lot of equipment to test and maintain this set we weren`t sure the set was radiating so we pointed it at the PX which was about a quarter-mile away and sent two brave souls over to the PX to "observe." At 1400 or 1600 - whatever - the lone maintenance man turned the set on and promptly blew every flashbulb in the photo department. That`s what we hoped would happen. I was one of the "brave observers" and suffered no ill effects as my children will attest.

We figured then that the set worked and got it hooked up to the scopes and started to calibrate it with the aid of the Base Flight Section and several fliers. We used T-6s and T-33s with one of us in the back seat handling communications. We had the site up and running in about three weeks. I was the operator-on-duty when Colonel Einar Malmstrom, the Vice Commander of the SAC wing crashed a T-Bird into the side of Gore Hill after flaming out following takeoff on a flight down to March AFB. I left in March of `55 to go to Korea.