NAVRADSTA LOLA NC

Back to Main COMMSTA page
Back to NECPA Ships Page
Please send me email with any more photos, info, etc.

Naval Radio Station Lola NC (Cedar Island) was one of three UHF troposcatter links to the NECPA ships (National Emergency Command Post Afloat) - the others were located at Lewes DE and Cape Cod MA. Lola was linked to NAVCOMMSTA Norfolk via microwave. From December 1968 Naval Communications Bulletin - U. S. Naval Radio Station Lola, N.C., a component of NAVCOMMSTA Norfolk, Va., was formally activated at commissioning ceremonies conducted on 24 October. The new RADSTA joins similar stations previously constructed at Lewes, Del. and Cape Cod, Mass. in giving the Navy a much needed, high capacity communications link with Atlantic Fleet ships. The Lola station extends coverage of this system southward along the Atlantic Ocean frontier. The three stations are landward terminals of a tropospheric scatter communications system. The tropo technique provides two-way communications with many channels of information, and relies on reflection of transmitted signals over the horizon by dense layers in the atmosphere. Construction of NAVRADSTA Lola was authorized by Congress in 1963. Resolution of problems related to siting and land acquisition required several years, and final detailed design and construction spanned an additional 15 months. Lieutenant Bruce T. Mundy, USN, whose most recent previous assignment was as Communications Advisor to the RVN Navy in Saigon, is the RADSTA's Officer-in-Charge and Captain J. J. Zammit, USN, commands the parent NAVCOMMSTA at Norfolk. Captain L. S. Ashley, USN, Assistant Commander for Communications Systems Planning; Naval Communications Command, was guest speaker at the ceremonies.
Info and photo from Robert Owen RM2 - stationed there from commissioning (1968) to decommissioning (1970)
Aerial View 1967		LT Bruce T. Mundy OIC ETMC Hicks ET1 Louis Adams ET1 Roy Carlson ETC Bedows ET2 Kerry Sedgewick ET3 Bill Logan ET2 Bill Lowery RM2 Robert Owen RM2 Ted Tatro BM1 Richard Hanna BM2 David Jackson Cook Chief Paul Kline Callsign CONDOR III
Most of what I remember about Cedar Island is about the local color and the individuals involved. I had just gotten out of B school in Bainbridge MD and had been sent to Norfolk VA. Was there only a couple of weeks and I was told that I had been given a top secret clearance and was going to go to Cedar Island NC which fell under the jurisdiction of DOD. I was picked up by a first class ET in a black Ford station wagon and off we went. I found out the how remote the station was and that all (or most of our support) was out of Cherry Point and the remainder from Camp Lejeune. As I remember there was a lot of commotion due to the fact that construction was behind and the station was being readied for commissioning ceremonies. I think. I was the last one there before it was actually commissioned. The OIC was Lt Bruce T Mundy and he was a warrant officer just back from Nam. Bruce and I hit it off at once and became fast friends. Bruce was really informal and his uniform of the day was usually shorts and flip flops. Bruce had no use for protocol and did not want to be called sir. Remember he was just back in the states and if you remember watching MASH you will have an idea of his military bearing. He was one of the greatest men I had ever met and people would bend over backwards to please him. The buildings were brand new and there were only three at that time. The barracks were T-shaped. It was placed sideways on the property. So facing the building from the parking lot from left to right were rooms( we all had private rooms ) A small two room apartment for the OIC. Bathrooms with laundry facilities and the on the other end was a rec room and galley and small office. The rooms were well furnished. Each had two closets a large dresser, desk with chair, easy chair and two night stands as well as bunks. In typical Navy fashion the galley could have easily fed 100 men. We had one of those huge coffee urns (that was never turned on) as well as enough equipment to feed the world. The cook was Chief Paul Kline and he was fabulous. Really a tough but loving guy. He had been on subs all of the time and this was his first land base. He was a guy in his forties and had finally met the the woman of his dreams and they had a new baby boy. He lived in VA and he would go home for the weekends. In fact I had the best time at his house and he was so proud of that little boy that he just beamed. The operations building was across the road. Surrounded by a chain link fence. Our only security was a chain and small padlock on the gate. The duty key hung on the fire extinguisher with a piece of wire and also on that wire was one of the large nuts that had been designed to go on the bolts that held the tropo antenna to the base. As I understand it there was a second antenna scheduled but never built. The building was bisected by a hallway. So when you entered the end of the building you came into the end of the hall. Across the far end was the equipment room. Off the hall was an ET shop, crypto room, office ,bathroom and supply closet . We always laughed because the building was not on a slab. It had a crawl space under the floor The exterior cement block wall went to the ground and there were openings around the side to let the outside air ventilate the space under the building. There was a trap door that was in the floor to allow access to the crawl space. And where did the NAVY in their wisdom put this trap door? You guessed it. In the crypto room. So much for security. As for equipment I only had to deal with the crypto gear. That was set up once every 24 hours. We had two types One used an IBM card and the other had a block with little cords that had to be removed and the reinserted in a different order. The thing that is so strange is that this was supposed to be state of the art. One of the ships involved was the Northampton and the rumor was she was in dry dock to be refitted with this gear for 28,000,000.00 dollars. Now remember the whole purpose of this stuff was a way to get phone lines to the ship so we in theory could run the country from off shore. We were fed by a microwave tower that was about 1/4 mile away and totally not secured. Microwave is line of sight. So if you took out any of the microwave towers in the system the system went down. Maybe this explains why the project was scrapped before becoming operational. I mentioned there were three buildings. The third was a building that housed two diesel generators. I hope this gives you a bit of the flavor of NAVRADSTA LOLA
Modern photo	Modern photo - antenna pedestal	==