E-mail from Cheryl

Facts from the past gleaned from the Moses Lake Herald, Columbia Basin Herald and The Neppel Record by Cheryl (Driggs) Elkins:

From the Columbia Basin Herald on July 31, 1952:

Columbia Basin Herald Editor Ned Thomas volunteered to stand watch at the beginning of Operation Skywatch, which was a part of the Ground Observer Corps. Today we continue his account of airplane spotting.

Dennis note: The motivation for the expansion of the original Ground Observer Corps into Operation Skywatch was the Cold War and Russia having the atomic bomb and long-range bombers.

This program involved over 750,000 volunteers in observation posts across the United States reporting approaching aircraft to authorities. Read on.

Continued: Trucks sound like airplanes to spotter in lonely vigil for Operation Skywatch.

By Ned Thomas

You never know what airplane spotting is like until you've tried it. I tried it from midnight until 2 a.m. Saturday, having been caught in a weak moment when the Lions Club decided to furnish volunteers to man the post every Saturday.

Inasmuch as Skywatch has just started and there are few experienced observers, most of us spotters are starting out green. I spent most of my first "trick" reading the instruction manual, ducking outside every few minutes to make sure there weren't any Russian bombers overhead.

I found out mighty soon that Moses Lake's part in the nation-wide Skywatch program was in its embryo stage. A look at the duty log revealed that the post hadn't been manned for 22 hours up to the time I arrived. That situation has been cured this week, according to John O. Kolve, supervisor in charge, but it's a good thing nothing happened while this observation Post went untended. Kolve's still looking for volunteers, by the way.

The official thermometer says it got down to 51 degrees that night, but it was uncomfortably cold just the same. I'd showed up with a T-shirt and wool shirt, and before my trick was over I'd put on a jacket and it wasn't too warm then. That in the middle of July!

Being alone on a hilltop in the middle of the night is a lonesome and an eerie sensation. The sleeping city lies below, only the OP is in a spot where directions are different from what you'd think. There's a chart nailed in the trailer which gives you compass readings.

Noises at night fool you. Every so often I'd hear what sounded exactly like a transport plane or a jet fighter. A good look around would prove it to be a truck making a run for the U.S. 10 hill. Traffic coming into town on the Ephrata road is another misleading thing. Headlights of cars making the big curve near the fairgrounds look just like a low-flying airplane hovering over the town. It takes a while to get used to them.

But to get back to what I was supposed to be doing up there. The post has a direct telephone line (the number's 20-W) and in case of emergency you pick up the receiver, yell "Aircraft Flash" at the operator and you're immediately connected with the Spokane Filter Center.

There your report of a strange aircraft is correlated with similar reports from other observation posts. If it's the real thing, fighter interceptors are ordered up immediately from nearby Air Force bases.