During 1965 I was assigned to the Gap Filler Radar Maintenance out of the main host radar station at Oakale Army Installation where the 662nd Radar Squadron was located on the Army Nike Missle site. We had three Gap Filler sites to maintain. Thompson, Ohio, Brookfield, Ohio, and Thomas, West Virginia. We would have multiple crews and drive from our site near Pittsburgh, PA usually on a Wednesday and stay over to perform maintenance for the week, and return on Friday.

We had two crews on the road. One crew went to Ohio and traveled between those two sites. One crew drove further into West Virginia and stayed 3 days. Primarily, I was assigned to the West Virginia site. We had an AN/FPS-18 search radar with two channels of transmitter and receiver. One channel was on line at all times. The other channel was in standby. Remote control of the site was handled by the Radar Operations personnel back in Oakdale. They could send coded pulses along a dedicated phone line to a computer at the Gap Filler site which would make equipment changes.

If, there were maintenance problems that the Operations people could not reset, they would call our stand-by team to come out, check out the equipment at the main base site and if necessary, we would have to travel for emergency maintenance.

It was an interesting year. One good thing was that because we had to be on standby for emergency travel at all times, we were exempt from unit/Squadron details!

The Thomas, W. VA site became "my" site of responsiblity during my time at Oakdale in the Gap Filler Duty Section.

Everybody hated those day long drives.

First, I went into the Gap Filler Duty Section after being on site for 3 years. (I had previously worked on the AN/FPS-26A Height Radar and AN/FPS-6/90 Height Radar at Oakdale as well as the Indicators in the Operations shack while I was an apprentice (3-level) and journeyman (5-level) until I was tapped to work Maintenance Control for 6 months)

I was moved to the Gap Fillers because I had a lot of radar experience and I had been promoted to Airman First Class (3 striper E-4 in those days). I received the only 3 stripe promotion that year - 1965 in the whole squadron. There were many people with torqued jaws. But, what could I say or do? Division picked me and I was not going to turn it down. So, they wanted to assign me to a gap filler site as I guess I proved my ability to do the job.

SSgt Russell G. Kniffen was the Crew Chief of Thomas, WV when I was assigned. He and I started making the weekly trips to Thomas, WV. He and I were there when the power grid failed along the Eastern seaboard performing the radar overhaul. We had two klystrons out of their transformer sockets and were changing out the insulating oil when the power crash happened. We worked quickly and re-installed one channel and was back up on the air in a few hours because we thought the Russians were invading! We had diesel power going and we were back on the air searching the skys. We were there until at least 2 in the morning, until we learned there was no attack and then went to the Smith`s Stone Motel where we had a room each week. There was only one motel in town back in 1965-1966. Today, the internet yellow pages lists one: Montwood Motor Inn, maybe it was sold and renamed!

They also had a restaurant attached to the motel where they made great "French Onion Soup". One of my favorites.

When Russ Kniffin took control of the two Ohio Gap Filler Sites (Brookfield and Thompson) (I used to travel there also to do emergency repairs when it was my standby weekend) I took charge of the Thomas, WV site and had a young A2C assigned to me. I can`t remember his name but he was a good troop. We worked well together.

We used to make the drive from Pittsburgh to Thomas in a grey GSA Dodge Pickup with that long stick shift on the floor. Sometimes we could get the 4 wheel drive Jeep, but not when we needed it, like when there was snow on the ground.

Remember those special government combination dial padlocks? Hard as a rock and if the dial froze up in the icy weather, almost impossible to open? Well, once we had to travel for our weekly trip, the snow was bad and the roads were slick. What usually took 4 hours to make the trip took us 7!!!!!

We used to stop 1/2 way at some small town where there was a restaurant for a safety stop and to receive telephone messages from the boss. We didn`t have "cell" phones or car phones then!!!! Today`s troops have it easy!

Well, we got to the site in the Dodge pickup with all the test equipment we carried in the back and you could see the long access road from the park road to the site compound. Well, we could not get the Dodge up the access road due to the snow, and we had no 4-wheel drive so we chugged on foot carrying our heavy test equipment to the gate. When we got there the lock was frozen!

We were stranded, no cigarette lighter would work and there was no weather cover on the lock, so there we were, standing in the snow.. It`s now almost dark, 7:00 and we are wet and cold. I said to my partner, "OK this is it" and I pee`d on the lock. The steam warmed up the dial and we were able to open the fence gate and didn`t have to climb up over the barbed wire fence.

Another luxury of the Thomas site was the bottled water fountain as this was our only drinking water. We used to bring a fresh bottle of bottled water down once a month or so. Today, military troops bring personal refrigerators, microwaves, coffee makers, radios and tv`s and what-not. Then the rules did not allow you to plug in any electrical applience into the wall socket unless it was a government approved item. "They" would always say it may short out and start a fire!

Another luxury was the old-fashioned one-holer outhouse about 10 feet from the building. Most of the time the outhouse had blown over in the wind and we would have to stand it right side up, especially in the winter months. You always had to remember to rob toilet paper from the barracks if you wanted to attend to the emergency call of nature. Yes, there was a half-moon cut in the door.

Of course, during the summer months when we used to take the diesel man with us. It was always "chancy" to use this one-holer, because pranksters would sometimes push over the outhoue while you were inside on the throne! Funny guys!!! You needed two people to do this so it was safe without the diesel man on the trip with us.

After work.. we usually went to the motel, changed clothes and ate at the motel and went to one of the two bars in town. The state had a law then where the club could not sell alcohol only beer and wine. You had to go to the STATE-owned ABC store and purchase your own bottle and once you brought it to the bar they would mark it with your name and then sell you setups to mix with your drink. Truly a BYOB situation (Bring Your Own Bottle). you could not take your opened bottle out side once it was opened, so our bottles stayed there for us when we came back each week. Good thing I was 23 years old back then!

We had to make sure we parked the GSA at the motel and walked to the bar because we could not give the impression that the government was mixing business with pleasure.

Well there were always lots of local young ladies trying to hitch up with the GIs to get married and move out of town. We always had a ride back to the motel.

We were accepted by the local community night life in town as we were there each week. I could tell in this small town, unless you were a local you didn`t fit in. Maybe they liked Uncle Sam`s troops because we brought outside money to town; two nights in a motel every week and maybe an overnighter if we had emergencies. Also, we ate in the restaurant, bought setups at the bar, fed the jukebox with quarters for dance music and would get our haircuts at the local one-chair barbershop.. I remember old "Pops" Saenger the barber who was over 70 years old and still cutting hair. He had a pot-bellied coal stove in the center of the shop and all wooden slat floors. He had lots of old black and white photos of logging, mining, railroading. Those were mighty fine photos of the early 1900s...

Old Pops would tell us stories of the area. We HAD to get a haircut each week, so we could be known and appreciated. Besides, he gave a good old fashioned hair cut. Thanks for the great hair cuts, old "Pops" Saenger!! RIP!!!

The roads were bad driving up and down the mountain. There would be water runoff which could freeze on the roadway. I was always afraid we would spin out and crash. We never did, though.

One good thing about being in Gap Fillers was the TDY pay. We used to get so much extra per day to compensate for eating out at restaurants. We would fill out travel vouchers after each trip and turn them in. After the first two trips there was always a green check in our orderly room mail boxes when we got back to Oakdale.

Also, because we parked our personal cars on the main radar compound by the gap filler office in the operations building, we didn`t use gas for 3 days a week so we saved money on car expenses.