Roma 0. Saltzgiver, Jr. 767 6th Ave. Salt Lake City, Utah 84103 Background Battalion Radar Officer, 250th Coast Artillery while in Kodiak. Alaskan Service: Arrived in Kodiak Dec. 22, 1942 To Adak, Sept. 1943 To Amchitka, Dec. 1343. All of 1944 on Amchitka. Back to lower states June 1945 "Coast Artillery mans fixed gun emplacements and has the mission of defending against an attack from the sea." "We had two 155mm mobile guns that were mounted in a fixed emplacement at the point of Spruce Cape and two near the end of the present Airport runway on the beach. There was a Searchlight Battery on Long Island. There were other installations that I never saw." "The gun emplacement on Miller Point was constructed by the Navy CB’s. The guns were placed in position during the summer of 1943. They were 8 Inch 50 caliber Navy guns of the type used on a Heavy Cruiser. They were unloaded at a cannery dock in Kodiak. The army had to reinforce the dock to take the weight. The guns caused a lot of excitement with the local people as they were moved through town." (R.O. Aug. 20, 1976). Page 2 of 10 Roma 0. Saltzgiver Excerpts from a taped interview with Roma 0. Saltzgiver by Dave Albert, Park Ranger at Abercrombie, Aug. 2, 1976. Side 1 The 8” guns "Cosmolene—a waterproof preservative grease to keep it from rusting and we’d just taken the muzzle cover off but all that stuff that’s hanging around is part of that cosmolene. Actually, these guns, they were an obsolete type. They’d been stored very well because they were in excellent condition." Question: They’d never been used but they were World War l’s that had just been surplused? "I’ll bet you that during World War ii when they were building new 8- inch gun cruisers they made some of these guns brand new for those." About the Photographs That is at Miller Point. At Fort Abercrombie now they call it. We didn’t call it anything except Miller Point. All the pictures are just various different----this is the gun carriage, that was me out there. Yesterday, with the help of Dave, we took a picture of me standing in approximately the same position. Course I couldn’t stand on this cause this is all blown up and cut up and everything else. It’s a mess. But this is where the gun was finally put up and it sitting back there still. But out there in the gun pit, the concrete with the metal that was reinforcing around here it is still there pretty good and you can sure tell that rt’s the same area that it went into. These aren’t shells, these are just big bolts and they almost look like they could be 40 millimeter but they aren’t, they’re actually just part of the big bolts. And what was amaztng to me, as much weight as that gun has (it can) maneuver. About the Guns Question: You were saying yesterday that you actually had to perform maintenance daily on the bearing races? "Yeah, on the bearing races. We had to just go out and move it around a little bit and be sure it wasn’t sitting in the same position all the time, so that the massive weight of the gun wouldn’t make a little impression in the bearing races so she bounces all over." "The bearing races are. . .the main bearing where this whole thing sits. You can see them at Chiniak very clearly. You can’t see them at Abercrombie until the pit gets dug out a little." Page 3 of 10 Roma 0. Saltzgiver About the Photographs They’re just preparing here to lift that up and swing it into position. Here its being supported by the crane and it pulls the load way out from under it. They’ll now have to swing it around and set it down on. . . like this there. Where the gun is sitting on this, then this whole carriage within this pit would rotate completely around in a circle so the gun would fire in any direction. Question: Was this the first gun of this type on the island? "Yes, they had no placements of that size anywhere, on the iland, but not in Alaska. We had some back in the states, in San Francisco that i'm familiar with cause I was on active duty in San Francisco. They had big 16 inch rifles like the ones that are on the battle ships. They had those spotted at various places around the harbor. But they didn’t have anything like this in Kodiak until those went in." Question: What would you say, when you were here, was the feeling about their being needed? Was everybody here pretty sure that things were gonna get pretty hectic in a hurry or. . .7 "Not necessarily, we didn’t have that feeling that things were gonna get hectic in Kodiak itself, but being Coast Guard artillery and that being the weapons that Coast Guard Artillery used, we were excited about getting the weapons here like getting a new car or something. We were excited that way but we didn’t think they’d ever be needed cause we didn’t expect the Japanese to get back here again from out where they were. About the Radar Question: You said a civilian operation put the radar in that you used? "Yeah, now the radar set that was put in was something like the Alaskan Communications Company System or something like that. They were actually a civilian outift and they would supervise the installation of the radar set. Here they did, now further out the chain they didn’t." Question: Were the gun placements and the radar set put in at the same time? "They were going in simultaneously in 1943." Question: What time of year was this taken (in reference to the photographs)? "Oh, probably June of July, essentially mid summer of ‘43. This was when all these were going in." Question: What would you say about the tower, was it used for sur— veillance? “Yeah, it houses the antenna of a radar set that was used to get the information to the guns and learn what to shoot at.” Page 4 0f 10 Roma 0. Saltzgiver Question: What type of radar do you remember what type of set it was? "That was a 5CR 296, It was a gun laying set." Question: What set of range would it have had? "Well beyond anything that we could shoot at. It was accurate up to 50,000 yards." About Kodiak Question: Do you remember your impressions of what Kodiak was like when you arrived here? "Oh when I arrived here I thought I was at the end of the World. This was December 22, 1942.. Snow all over the place, not much daylight then. It was going to be my first Christmas away from home, that was rather a bleak christmas, that December 25th of 1942 but that wasn’t the lasting impression. I don’t draw on that as much as I do of how much I enjoyed the summer of ‘43, out there on Miller Point. That was really a beautiful summer out there in spite of the rain. Cabin on Spruce Cape Question: Did you take these pictures? "No. I don’t know who took these pictures really. Then again, that’s me and that’s the little log cabin that was out on Spruce Cape, and we used that as an office quarters in the winter and spring of ‘43. I was there until the weather got feasible to start construction on the point. Then I went on the point and stayed there the rest of the summer." Question: You built this cabin there is that right? "No, it was there. I don’t know who built it. It was there when I got there and that was where Captain Williker was but he wouldn’t know anything about the guns because he left here, I guess it was about Feb. of ‘43, when we first put troops on Amchitka Island." About the Radar Question: Yesterday you mentioned the difference between a gun line radar and a surveillance radar. The one in Abercrombie was strictly a gun line radar? "Yes, strictly a gun line radar." Question: How did this work out as far as once you spotted a target or potential target? How was this set up and the information went from radar to spotting and plotting? "By phone." Page 5 of 10 Roma 0. Saltzgiver Question: Coordination of a screen, or what kind of a system were you using? "Yeah, we read them. The 296 had for range purposes, it had a base line with a base notch in at, as they call it, the main pulse would show as the transmitter pulse. But then we had just alot of base line that ran out there and thenout here was a little notch and this ran on. Targets appeared just as things like that. Now you can just crank that target in to the range notch, actually that’s just what it amounted to. So when you cranked it so it was down here like that, then you could just read off the dials how far out it was to it. The antenna had a low switching process up there so that you on the azimuth or direction scope had two bits and as you cranked in to the smaller one all the time and you could crank the smaller one and it would get bigger and bigger and distance would cut down to the point where you had them both the same height they you are on for direction and then again from the dials you could just read the direction so then all you did was give the pawing (plotting ?) room and just give them the range and direction and they with their arm men their radar set being surveyed in, they just ran that arm out to the angle we told them and stuck a pin in there. Then on the plotting board was another surveying thing, the gun Army called it, and they ran the gun arm out there and immediately read the range and the direction of the guns. Since this thing picked up like it did, it was actually shooting out a narrow beam and bringing back the information so it wasn’t all that good as a search set. you could use it, you could go back and forth across the area, crank it manually back and forth across your area and pick up a target that was out there. What they ususally did with them, like we were going out at Amchitka, the surveillance scope it had a bunch of range circles on it and you’d pick up a target somewhere out there that you’d see and as soon as you got one you could give the approximate range and direction the 286. Then the 296 would get out on there and come in. It might seem that you have to lower and match those fits visually and crank that into the notch. It sounds like it might not be very accurate but actually they were very accurate.” Question: You said about 50,000 yards was a reasonable range for it? "Yes, a reasonable range for it, or to the horizon actually. But it was capable of going that far but it would just barely bend over the horizon but not much." side 2 About the Gun Batteries Question: at the time you were here were there 155's out at Long Island? "No, there were no 155’s out at Long Island. We had a searchlight battery out there." Page 6 of 10 Roma 0. Saltzgiver Question: Later in the war there were at least two batteries (at Spruce Cape?) I believe of those put in? "They may have. I would surmise that once the guns at Abercrombie were operational, then those two at Spruce Cape, they wouldn’t have needed those because the guns at Miller would handle that sector that those two at Spruce Cape would handle. So, they could have moved those anyway." Question: Once you pick up coordinates off of this thing (the radar) at the time you were here were there actually spotting and plotting sections sitting out at Spruce Cape? "Right." About the FDC Question: At the time you were here, there was no battery commanders tower at Abercrombie either, it was later that there was 48 foot tower at the point I showed you yesterday. So at that time all spotting like at Spruce Cape had to be done from gound level as there was no towers at all? "I don’t know what the time interval was but when we were actually using the base end stations and the FDC, (Fire Direction Control) we made all our readings simultaneously on 15 second intervals. And we had an old tone on the telephone system that each 15 seconds it would give you the tone and that’s when they’d read their directions on the base end stations. And the guns would actually fire on one of those tones too cause everything was plotted. And if you have a moving target that you’re shooting at out there you plot it’s course. Then you have to predict where ft’s going to be on the next tone and then you have to have what you call a set forward point. The point that you fired on the next tone taking into account the time of flight where that target is going to get to, the time the shell gets out there. So you fired on the tones, you make your readings on the tones and I’d imagine it would be much the same. know its the same cause that’s the principal that the Coast Artillery used all the time. The only difference. . .sometimes the reading intervals weren’t always 15 seconds, sometimes it was 20 and someimes as much as 30 seconds between tones. That’s how we function in fire control center." About 6" Naval Gun Question: Another thing you mentioned was another gun, this period, as used Naval gun or something? "It was badly worn 6 inch gun that the Navy had discarded. As you come this way from the airport runway towards the village Kodiak, there was a high bluff and it was up on that bluff covering out that direction of the bay. Since the General that was on the island at the time, I don’t know the man’s name, he saw that gun and decided that it shouldn't be sitting where the Navy had discarded it. He had it installed out there till we called the battery General. We actually didn’t use base stations to fire that one, we used a Navy range finder to get the range and fire the thing. It was very inaccurate. We never really knew where Page 7 of 10 Roma 0. Saltzgiver the first round was going as far as range was concerned but after the first, we could adjust it up. or down." About the Searchlights Question: Whould you have any guess on what kind of a range you could get out of these searchlights? "Well, no. I really don’t know the range on them but far enough for those particular searchlights and the ones we were using. The 155’s they probably were pretty well illuminated and the searchlights were mainly to enable the guys on the base end station to have some visual track on out there in case this vessel was in total black out the searchlight would pick it up for them and would reach out as far as those old GPF’s (?) would reach so we could track for them." About the Radar Question: Was that to your knowledge the first radar set up in Alaska or was there other in here at this time? ‘‘I would say that was the first radar set that was operational as a gun wave set to use in conjunction with artillery, Coast Artillery. I’m sure that they had other radar sets they were using with the Navy and Air Force was using some type of radar. I would say the first on, in my knowledge, when I left here, that set was operational out there in August of ‘43. When I left here and went to Adak the same type of set 236 to.be sent to use in Adak (was) not operational until November. Matter of fact, I went from Adak over to great Sitkan right there, a volcanic island. But we went over there and did like an invasion on a beach. We went ashore and installed a radar orientation target over there ,just a frame work with chicken wire on it so we had a good positive point to raid (range) in and check the accuracy of our sets all the time. And we installed that set over there and that set was operational but not until November of '43. And I went on to Amchitka island and they had two sets out there that were operational but later than August of '43. Here, we didn’t have a general surveillance set. I assume that they probably had one later. But on Amchitka we had two of these gun wave sets, 296's, and we did get a 584 general surveillance set that we used there. The general surveillance set would be on the air 24 hours a day except we shut it down once a day for preventive maintenance for an hour. And when we did that, then we had the 296’s search the area for an hour to make sure they were working all the time too." Question: The 296's they were one ear kept operational all the time since there was no surveillance? "Right, manually they slowly cranked it back and forth across its sector. By crank I mean just turning the antenna slowly back and forth across the sector to pick up any targets that were out there because it didn’t have an automatic system to turn it back and forth." Page 8 of 10 Roma 0. Saltzgiver Question: What kind of watches or shifts did they have? "It took a five man crew for 8 hour watched. One officer in charge of radar set and a Sergeant on each shift and watch. . .4 men and one Sergeant. It took a five man crew for 8 hour watched." Question: What exact positions were there? "One on range unit, one on azimuth unit, other two observed all the dials kept on watch in case of emergency and relieve on scope." Question: You said the antenna had to be moved manually? "Actually turning a wheel, amphamine (?) generator. picked up on this generator then supplies power to a motor that turned the antenna. It could actually spin the antenna fast." About The Radar "We also had a desiccator unit, 236. Had one pipe in the middle and one pipe outside the conductors that energy from the transmitter up to the antenna and back down. And it was big, about the diameter of the outer conductor was about an inch and a half. (The) outer diameter of the inner conductor was about 3/4 of an inch but we had to keep that pipe inside completely dry because any moisture in there, the energy would short out. So this desiccator unit was pumping air through it all the time or pumping air out of it or through it to keep it dry." "That was another thing with those sets. That steel tower that they put those sets on, they came up from the states with that, actually complete set with that steel erection tubes including a big power hack saw. Once the tower was in you had no use for all that stuff. Those sets were packed from the states on export and came up as though you wouldn’t be able to get a thing to put them up with. They were self contained. Everything came with them and everything to put them in came with them. And like I said all of the things used in the construction once they were in you didn’t need all those tools. But it was a good thing you had them. And the spare parts,. . .spare parts for tubes and condensors." Question: What kind of capabilities do you have in that respect as far as anybody capable of repairing the set? "Everyone of the men in the radar sections including the radar officer had extensive training on just that particular set. Like myself for instance, I went back for a radar school in Portland Roe (?) Virginia for ten weeks. Ten weeks doesn’t sound like much time to become an electronics expert and I really wasn’t an expert I just studied the 296 and it was just like learning the abc’s. Once you learn the abc’s if someone moves the b, if you look at it you can see the b is missing and it was much like that. The radar set has test points that you put the test prongs on the points as you go down you get a certain picture on the screen if everything’s right. So, at test point 8 everything is right and at test point 9 everything was wrong you know the trouble’s between 8 and 9 and nothing else, you can pull out that whole unit between 8 and 9 and put in a new unit." Page 9 of 10 Roma A. Saltzgiver Question: It was pretty much modular? "Yes, a spare modular of each one of them that was already made up. And we had enough spare parts to make several of the modulars. As time went on we actually turned out to be a repair point and a supply point for all of the local radios. I mean for a little local radio station operating like out on Amchitka, powerful 15 watter. I kept people in batteries to keep their radios running. About Personnel at Abercrombie Question: At the time the CB’s were replacing this unit, the gun at Abercrombie, was there already people there to man them or some unit at 250th have ammunition available to man them or waiting for personnel to man them? "I don’t believe we had the full men at the time." "When I was out there, there were about 30 men out there pulling guard duty and manning the 40 millimeter and things out there but there certainly wasn’t all the personnel that would be on an active gun battery out there just waiting for the guns to being. . . they had very much of a skeleton crew out there." Question: Of the 250th itself? "Yes. They were calling a third battalion, no third battalion existed at the time. There were very few people." About the Radar "The radar, the ones we had, they were built by Western Electric which is the manufacturing arm of A T & T Telephone Company. They were in great shape. They were good ones. It was just a matter of undoing four thumb screws and pulling the whole set out and undoing the bus that connected it to it and that was it. We could have a transmitter go out for instance and in 30 seconds we could be back on the air with the spare transmitter. We could pull that battery out and put the new one in and be going just that quick. Then you had time to find out what the matter was with the other one. The two men that weren’t on the scopes, if something like that happened, the instant that they got that old meter out that wasn’t functioning properly, why they immediately went to trouble shooting it to get it back functional so it could back up the one that was going." "There was actually an article of war that dealt with radars. It says in there that nobody by virtue of rank no matter who they are had any right to be inside a transmitting shack of a radar installation. See the radar officer actually he could keep the base commander out of his damn shack if he wanted to, of course it wasn’t as if he wanted to come in but he could have kept him out if necessary and so that was a good place to set up raison jacks (?). Page 10 of 10 Roma O. Saltzgiver "I remember one time one of the forest plans and training officers came out to look at the radar set and he had us turn it on and he was looking at the range notch and we were explaining to him how we used it. So he decided he’d like to fire a test round from one of the 155’s that was there. Arid so he picked a hypothetical point out in the water out there and (we) just had him fire but the 296, after he tracked the shell you could see this dip as we called it running right along the base line, dropped in the range notch and then got bigger as it hit the water out there. And that so excited him and he was so thrilled to see that, he had us fire three more just so he could watch them go out and blow up in the range notch."