Gateway National Recreation Area - Sandy Hook Summer Programs (U.S. National Park Service)

526th Anti-Aircraft unit at Sandy Hook in 1956.

U.S. Army Photograph in the NPS/Gateway NRA Museum Collection.

Battery B, 526th AA at Fort Hancock in 1954.

Tour the Fort Hancock Nike Missile Sites Summer 2009

Nike Missile Radar Site Open House

Parking Lot L

3 p.m. to 8 p.m. on the following dates:

Saturdays, June 20, July 11, August 8

Sundays, June 28, July 19, August 16

Tour the site where radar once guided missiles that protected New York City.

Cold War Defenses Tour

Meet at the Nike Ajax Missile launch site, ¼ mile north of the Ranger Station

Thursday, July 23 at 7 p.m.

Car caravan to the Sandy Hook Nike Missile sites that were built as part of the Cold War era air defenses in the 1950s.

Nike Missile Launch Site Tour

Meet at the Nike Ajax Missile launch site, ¼ mile north of the Ranger Station

Monday, August 17 at 4 p.m.

Tour Fort Hancock's Nike missile site. Supersonic missiles at Sandy Hook defended New York from air attack during the Cold War.

Full Alert at Sandy Hook:

Occasionally, during the 1960’s and 1970’s, nuclear tipped surface to air missiles were raised out of their underground bunkers and readied for firing against a possible Russian bomber attack. Here are three times Fort Hancock's weapons were on Full Alert.

November 1965-Northeast Blackout

June 1967-Six Day War

October 1973-Yom Kippur War

The National Park Service preserves the memories of former Nike Hercules missile men who were once stationed at Sandy Hook. Oral histories of veteran missile men and other soldiers and civilians can be found at www.nps.gov/gate/historyculture/sandyhookpeople.htm

Special thanks to Fort Hancock Nike Missile veterans Russ Marsh, Bill Jackson, and John McKenna for providing this information.

Nike Missiles raised to firing position.

U.S. Army photograph in the collection of NPS/Gateway NRA.

Nike Hercules Missiles at Fort Hancock in the firing position.