S90-DC, Fort Lawton - Washington - Nike Missile Sites on Waymarking.com

(Missile Master, BIRDIE) - LOC - W Seattle, W Government Way, ((P) Seattle Discovery Park) also a temporary Nike site (/55-/56) Missile Master was linked to the nationwide SAGE (Semi Automatic Ground Environment) air defense system which linked radar sites, computers, digital land lines, command and control facilities, fighter interceptor aircraft and anti-aircraft missile batteries.

{Stone, J} In the middle of Ft. Lawton is a highly reinforced building, it's kind of half-underground, half-above ground. The exterior walls vary from 3 ft to 6 ft in thickness, all reinforced concrete. The building is roughly 200' x 250'. The building was obviously designed to be able to "lock-down" and to have a full crew work and live inside for a good long while. Most all of the mechanical systems-air decontamination, HVAC, electrical, etc. are still there and in outstanding condition. The perimeter of the inside consists of dozens of rooms from 100 sq ft to 1000 sq ft. In the very center of the building is the old "blue room". It's walls are painted blue. It was obviously a command and control facility. The best way I can describe it is it looks exactly like the main control room in the movie Wargames, but not as large. The only thing missing is the operator consoles, but you can still see where they were fastened to the floor in three tiers. Literally hundreds of black-light flourescent tubes still function on the ceiling. Tube amplifies line the walls at the ceiling. The floor in this room is false. Underneath are more electrical devices and some very large tanks. An old timer once told me that he thought these were used for water storage.

{Bender, D} This Missile Master served to coordinate the firing of all of the Nike missile batteries in the Seattle Defense Area (10 sites). Personnel identified hostile aircraft and directed the batteries to engage specific targets. This served to avoid a wasteful duplication of effort (i.e., two or more batteries engaging the same target, and perhaps neglecting yet another incoming hostile aircraft.). It also assisted with the identification of friendly (U.S. or possibly Canadian) aircraft operatin in the region and prevented the Nike batteries from accidentally firing on them.

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