After almost fifty years of documenting the rich and varied chapters in Riverton’s history, it is a rare treat for the Society when we encounter a new one.
What alerted us to the role played by Riverton in the establishment of our nation’s Ballistic Missile Early Warning System was a Facebook post made last week in which Sara Sinexon Gual asked, “Does anyone remember where RCA/BMEWS was located?”
It was the BMEWS (pronounced be-muse) radar arrays that provided the capability to detect an incoming ICBM attack and provide 15 minutes warning.
Resident John Hartnett got the ball rolling when he commented, “East Riverton, banner st”.
However, it was former resident Rob Gusky‘s link to an essay by Gene McManus that really opened up the story. Mr. McManus, a former USAF radar technician recounts his training experience at Riverton (actually, East Riverton) in February 1961, for BMEWS training and his subsequent BMEWS deployment at Thule, Greenland.
Here, a classified ad, perhaps similar to the one to which Mr. McManus responded, outlines the need for positions of engineers, technicians, and technical writers at Riverton and on-site in the Far North.
If you know Riverton geography, you know that there is no Bannard Street within its boundaries. While all of the news clippings we found listed the address of RCA Service Company as 1908 Bannard Street in Riverton, Bannard Street actually lies within East Riverton, an unincorporated community located within Cinnaminson Township.
The following screen capture from google maps shows the location of 1908 Bannard Street, East Bannard Street, Cinnaminson Township, Burlington County, New Jersey. Can anyone tell us more about the RCA operations that once took place there?
Other clues to the beginnings of the BMEWS story were once in plain sight.
Remember Moorestown’s “golf ball”? That now-gone landmark, located on Centerton Road in Moorestown, was a radar station built by RCA and a prototype for the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System,
As any school child of the 1950s and 60s who experienced a “duck and cover” drill can attest, the possibility of a nuclear attack was something for which we prepared. It caused anxiety and fueled our nightmares.
The undated RCA produced color film linked below (probably from the late 1950s-early 1960s) mentions RCA Moorestown shortly after 3min:53sec. The construction process at Thule commences at 8min:05sec.
Another USAF produced video, Eyes of the North, explains the difficulties of constructing such an installation in the harsh conditions above the Arctic Circle. Look for one of those “golf balls” and the radar array inside it at about 2min:19sec.
Our purpose here is not to thoroughly examine BMEWS (other sources do a better job of it), but to simply provide a place for other readers from this area to tell of their first-person experience with this massive technological achievement that provided advance warning to the United States of an enemy missile attack during the Cold War.
Please leave a comment below or contact us at rivertonhistory@gmail.com. -JMc
P.S. Speaking of long-forgotten stories, former Riverton resident Edith Harris once told me that she worked on developing bombardier sights at Optical and Scientific, Inc. in the Collins Building for the US Government during World War II. Can anyone corroborate that?
Added 12/07/2020: Thank you to George Pfeffer who sends this first-hand recollection of his time at a BMEWS installation in Greenland.
After having served 3 years in the Army – two and a half of those years in Germany I went to work for RCA at their BMEWS headquarters in Riverton. Having worked in Army administration I was hired as a clerk. After about two months things were slowing down and I had a choice of either being terminated or going to J-site at Thule Greenland. I was a young 21 year old single guy looking to get ahead so it was Thule.
They had no openings in administration at the time so I went there as a utility man which was basically janitorial maintenance. I was told when there was an opening I would move into admin. I worked with a great crew of young guys and really didn’t mind waxing floors and emptying trash cans. I was eventually promoted to Leadman and decided to stay in maintenance for my 18 months. Once we stayed 18 months everything we had made was tax exempt.
Being in Greenland was the experience of a lifetime, the dark season, the light season, the tremendous winter storms (phases). Going to work on the midnight shift wearing sun glasses. RCA provided nice dorms and the food was terrific all at no cost. I was a Delran Twp resident so the Riverton location was just down the road. I loved everything about my time with RCA and the BMEWS project and especially my time in Thule Greenland. I have spent the past 50 plus years in law enforcement and at 79 I am still working.
Thank you for the opportunity to reminisce and comment on my time with the BMEWS project. Even now I will go on google maps and bring up the site and the dorm I lived in. One of the other young men who were with me in Riverton and then in Thule was Ken Landis. Ken drove a trash truck at the site but later became a prominent Tax Attorney in Collingswood. We all moved on to other vocations but none of us will ever forget our time with BMEWS.
– George Pfeffer
Added 2/12/2021: I love it when someone googling the internet for a topic finds just what they had sought here. Such was the case when a reader found our story above and sent us his following recollection of BMEWS. Sounds like hard work and long hours to us but he remembers it as “Great Fun.” You’re a better man than I am, Dennis Skiffington!
BMEWS
I went to BMEWS school in Riverton in the summer of 1965… Don’t remember much as my 81-year-old brain cells pretty much are FUBAR… Remember the school was on the main drag in Riverton, east (?) of town. Used to hang out in a bar in Palmyra. ‘Graduated” and headed to J-Site in Thule, worked in the RCS (Rearward Communications System), on the ground floor of Bldg 2, right next to the covered tramway/road that connected the 3 main bldgs… Pretty much worked every day… Lived in Bldg 1098 (?) on main base. Took those old Wayne school busses to and from work, always lugging our bag of survival gear… Great Fun (????)…lol
Added 5/3/2022: We thank Michael Blaber for this record of his father’s experience with BMEWS
My father, Keith Blaber, flew from Mildenhall to McGuire Air Force Base, Burlington County, New Jersey on 1 March 1962. His VISA was valid to 30th April 1962. Whilst there he stayed at the Walt Whitman Hotel, Camden, NJ. He was a radar technician from Fylingdales in the North Yorkshire moors. Part of the defense early warning system monitoring Soviet ICBMs. He was visiting/working at RCA Riverton.
Added 8/6/2022: Thank you to Bill Pierce for sending in this info about his father’s experience.
BMEWS
My dad worked for RCA on BMEWS from late 1958 until late 1968. We moved into our brand new house at 2302 New Albany Road in Cinnaminson just before Thanksgiving ’58, and stayed until October of ’69. While there, Dad was sent to Clear, Thule, and Fylingdales in England, where he was in management, installing communications networks. After BMEWS, the company transferred him to Anchorage, where RCA had just bought the bits and pieces of what became Alascom. We rented out the house on New Albany for 18 months to be with him in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, and we were part of a community of RCA families that lived in Ravenswood, Fountain Farms, and Pheasant Run back in the States. Cold War Nirvana.
Added 2/22/2023: Thomas Fletcher writes –
I was a technical writer at this facility in 1959 and continued working for RCA Service co. Thru 1963. Spent short period in Fylingdales UK at Site IIi of BMEWS.
Keep it up, guys. You might reconnect with an old acquaintance. We welcome comments, photos, and scans from readers that will add to this chapter of Riverton history. – JMc, Editor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_Missile_Early_Warning_System
https://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/bmews.htm
https://www.afspc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/994247/bmews-is-gone/
https://www.radomes.org/museum/thule/
