25 March 1948 and the Air Defense Emergency

                                     PART ONE

In Mr. Steinman and Colonel Steven's book on Aztec, it is written that General Marshall declared an emergency on 25 march 1948 which was then rescinded later that same day.

After careful research it was found that there was indeed an emergency declared that day...but not by General Marshall. It was an 24 hour a day air defense emergency, declared by Chief of Staff of the new Air Force, General Carl Spaatz. This makes much more sense, as he was CS of the AF and General Marshall was then head of the State Department. The State Department would not be the ones to declare an air emergency.

It was also found that it was NOT rescinded that same day. The emergency lasted until April, after the new Chief of Staff, General Vandenberg, rescinded it. Actually, it was one of the General's first actions as CS. 

source: The Emerging Shield, the Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense 1945-1960, by Kenneth Schaffel, 1953-1988, for the Office of Air Force History, Pages 77,78 beginning with Paragraph 4 on Page 77:

    After moving from the west coast to participate in the war games, the 505th was expected to remain in the east. ADC planned to concentrate its meager radar warning and control resources in the northeastern United States pending approval and funding of the Radar Fence Plan, but its plans were abruptly and drastically altered late in March 1948. With no advanced warning, Headquarters USAF directed that an emergency air defense system be established to operate around the clock in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Shortly after, First Air Force in the east was ordered to put its fighter units on alert. The usefulness of this move was uncertain since First Air Force did not yet control the services of the 505th and thus lacked any type of radar warning and control capability. 119

These events began Thursday, March 25, when Spaatz suddenly informed the Air Staff that he wanted Alaskan air defenses "augmented" immediately.120 

The following day, a top secret message over his signature went to Alaskan Air Command directing it to 'place existing radar warning [units] on continuously operating basis by 4 April.'121

Skipping to last paragraph on page 78:

Spaatz initiated emergency air defense measures in March 1948 for a number of reasons. First, it is clear that, contrary to the views of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) (established in 1947 under the provisions of the National Security Act) and by the intelligence divisions of the Army and Navy, Air Force intelligence believed the United States in danger of surprise attack from the Soviet Union.

      119 History, 1AF, Jan-Jun 1948, 120 HQ USAF Interstaff memo, Brig Gen                    Edward J. Timberlake to Maj Gen Samuel E.  Anderson, Mar 25, 1948  121 Ibid.                                                                     

A cross checking with other historical works on our air defense, by reputable researchers, it was found that only Captain Schaffel's team noted the 25 March date. Others used the 26th, the 27th or the 28th. But as the reader can see, there is a notation provided by Schaffel in the form of an inter-staff memo. For instance, in the well known work: Searching the Skies, by Winkler and Webster,* they write: 

As Project SUPREMACY was undergoing consideration, relations with the Soviet Union continued to sour. In February 1948, there was a Communist coup in Czechoslavakia. In China, Communist forces continued to gain ground against Chiang Kai-shek. Air Force intelligence warned that the Soviets were preparing to conduct a surprise attack. On March 27, 1948, General Spaatz, concerned about the vulnerability of the Atomic Energy Commission plant at Hanford, Washington, ordered the recently placed ADC radars at Arlington, Spokane, Neah Bay, and Hanford, Washington, and at Portland, Oregon, to begin operating on a 24-hour basis. Due to insufficient personnel and material resources, round-the-clock operations in the northwest proved beyond ADC's capability. Despite these problems, ADC was ordered to take AN/CPS-5 and AN/TPS-1B/1D radar sets out of storage for operation in the northeast and in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

 I contacted Archie Defaunte at the Air Force History Museum and asked him about the incident, and the interstaff memo. He agreed to do a search. He and his team spent the entire weekend looking for the memo but could not locate it. I had also asked for March 1948 air accident reports which he was able to produce and he sent that on to me.

*Searching the Skies, the Legacy of the United States Cold War Defense Radar Program, by United States Air Force, Air Combat Command, June 1997  Authors credited: David F. Winkler and Julie L. Webster Performing Organization: U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratories (USACERL) Special Report 97/78