Nike Missile Site LA-09 IFC, Mount Disappointment / Barley Flats California

LA-09 sat on a mountain with a bleak name, but its job was anything but minor. From the flattened top of Mount Disappointment and the launch ground at Barley Flats, the Army watched the northern sky over Los Angeles during the first missile-defense decade of the Cold War.

LA-09 was a split Nike Ajax battery in the Angeles National Forest, with the control function associated with Mount Disappointment and the launch function associated with Barley Flats. The site stood near the Mount Wilson and Red Box area, above the Los Angeles Basin and within the rugged San Gabriel Mountains.

The Los Angeles Defense Area was one of the largest and most complex Nike air-defense networks in the United States. By the late 1950s, Los Angeles was ringed by sixteen Nike batteries. The defended area included the port and shipyards, Los Angeles and Long Beach industrial districts, aircraft plants, communications and transportation corridors, nearby military installations, and a major share of the nation's aerospace industry.

Nike batteries were the Army's final layer of continental air defense. Air Force warning radars and interceptor aircraft were supposed to meet enemy bombers farther out. If bombers reached the target region, the Nike batteries around Los Angeles would use ground-based radar, analog fire-control computers, and surface-to-air missiles to attempt an intercept.

Most Los Angeles sites began as Nike Ajax batteries. Ajax was a liquid-fueled, command-guided missile with a conventional warhead. Selected sites were later converted to Nike Hercules, a larger, solid-fueled, longer-range missile that could carry either conventional or nuclear warheads. The Los Angeles Hercules-converted sites were LA-04, LA-29, LA-32, LA-43, LA-55, LA-78, LA-88, LA-94, and LA-96. The Ajax-only sites were LA-09, LA-14, LA-40, LA-57, LA-70, LA-73, and LA-98.

A Nike battery was normally a split installation. The Integrated Fire Control area, or IFC, contained radar, computer, command, communications, and generator equipment. The launch area contained underground magazines, elevators, launchers, missile assembly and test facilities, security structures, roads, utilities, and support buildings.

Site Configuration and Decoded Meaning

Decoded meaning: The launch area had three underground magazines total, one Type B and two Type C. The authorized missile load was 30 Nike Ajax missiles. The 12L-A ending means 12 Ajax launchers.

Site History and Setting

The Los Angeles Defense Area overview records one of the site's most vivid episodes. In 1959, soldiers of Battery B, 1st Missile Battalion, 56th Artillery maintained a continuous vigil to protect Nike control radars on Mount Disappointment from a major forest fire that had burned through much of the Angeles National Forest.

LA-09 was an Ajax-only site and therefore belonged to the first generation of the Los Angeles Nike ring. It closed in 1961 rather than being upgraded to Hercules, which places it among the batteries that were useful during the rapid Ajax buildout but not retained for the later nuclear-capable Hercules network.

The current landscape preserves the split history in uneven ways. The control area has been described as a former work-camp and mountaintop military site with some surviving or abandoned features, while the launch area is listed as obliterated and associated with later Los Angeles County Sheriff aviation use.

Units and Manning

Nike duty at LA-09 would have centered on readiness rather than combat action. Crews maintained radar, communications, generators, launchers, elevators, missile test equipment, fuel or missile-handling systems, security fencing, vehicles, and fire-control procedures. The site existed for an emergency that never came, but it had to be able to respond quickly if aircraft penetrated the outer air-defense screen.

Post-Closure and Current Status

The closure of LA-09 fits the broader decline of the Nike system. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Soviet bomber threat had been overshadowed by intercontinental ballistic missiles, while the cost of maintaining large labor-intensive air-defense batteries became harder to justify. LA-94 closed in 1968, LA-29 closed in 1971, and the remaining Los Angeles Hercules sites were removed from service in 1974. Ajax-only sites such as LA-09, LA-14, LA-40, LA-57, LA-70, and LA-73 had already closed earlier.

Chronology

• Early 1950s The Army and Corps of Engineers selected permanent and alternate Nike sites around Los Angeles while gun batteries still formed part of the regional air-defense system.
• 1953 The Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District was obtaining properties for Los Angeles Nike batteries, using military property where possible and negotiating or acquiring non-DOD sites where necessary.
• 1954 to 1958 The permanent Los Angeles Nike ring came into operation, with Ajax batteries established around the basin, coast, mountains, and inland approaches.
• 1956 LA-09 entered active service.
• Late 1950s and early 1960s Selected Los Angeles batteries were converted to Nike Hercules. LA-09 should be treated according to its specific system type above.
• 1961 LA-09 was deactivated or removed from active Nike service.
• 1974 The remaining Los Angeles Nike Hercules sites were removed from service, ending the regional Nike mission.