TOPSAIL BEACH — Driving south on Highway 50 toward the end of Topsail Island, you’ll notice a dilapidated three-story concrete tower. It’s one of several that are spaced out along the beaches of Surf City and Topsail Beach. Some have been incorporated into beach houses – one was turned into a popular restaurant – but this one, though in the worst condition, is the clearest reminder of Topsail’s role in the very beginnings of the Cold War.
That history, which would ultimately help lead to ICBMs, space flight and the iconic SR-71 Blackbird, is documented at the Missiles and More Museum, in Topsail Beach.
The museum is housed in the building, built at the end of World War II, where the military and scientists collaborated on some of the first rocket engines.
Operation Bumblebee
Rose Peters, the museum’s director, is eminently knowledgeable about the building’s – and the surrounding area’s – history.
“Operation Bumblebee. It was the United States Navy and civilians, scientists from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory,” Peters said. “They set up shop here before it was called Topsail. It was just known as the sand spit. The only other thing out here was simple wooden fishing shacks.”
In 1946 the U.S. Navy, along with APL physicists and engineers, set to work on building a guided missile. Rockets had existed for some time, but being able to steer a projectile was a new idea. And while the immediate goal of the project was to provide medium-range defense against enemy aircraft, there were inklings from the beginning that the top-secret work (which remained classified for decades) could quite literally open up whole new worlds.
“What they built here was designed to help fill the gap between anti-aircraft guns and sending up fighter planes, in terms of defense against bombers,” Peters said. “But this was the beginning of the Cold War, and they were thinking bigger. The technology they worked on here, the guidance systems and the rockets themselves, led to much bigger things.”
The “ram-jet” technology, which allows an engine to use its own forward motion – instead of a turbine – to funnel air into a jet, would eventually lead to ultra-high speed planes, like the SR-71 Blackbird. The solid fuel boosters, which got a ram-jet going fast enough to work, ultimately led to the rockets that powered the trip to the moon, the space shuttle, and the ICBMs which – for the bulk of the Cold War – kept the world on the brink of nuclear Armageddon.
Kitty Hawk, Version 2.0
But all that, good and bad, was still on the horizon. First they had to get a rocket to fly where they wanted. Or, to be more accurate, first they had to get a rocket to fly.
“So, the name – Operation Bumblebee – the story goes, one of the scientists saw a plaque hanging in the office of an officer. And it’s true, apparently, what the plaque says, bumblebees – according to the laws of physics – shouldn’t be able to fly. But they do. They do it anyway. And the scientist said, ‘that’s it, that’s perfect. That’s the name.’ Because they all knew what they were trying to do was going to be very difficult, maybe impossible, but they were going to do it anyway,” Peters said.
According to David Stallman’s book, “Echoes of Topsail,” the perseverance of the officer – Captain Carrol L. Tyler – and the scientist – Dr. Merle Tuve – allowed for breakthroughs “as significant to jet travel as the first flight, venerated at Kitty Hawk, is to propeller flight.”
Stallman, an Ohio native who now lives in Wilmington, became heavily involved with efforts to preserve the history of Topsail island. He was instrumental in collecting information about Project Bumblebee and his work helped bring the Museum to life, Peters said.
‘Boy Scouts’ on the beach
For two years, the Navy and APL worked out of the building on the then-unnamed barrier island. The presence of explosives and fuel was a constant risk. Peters said when the building was renovated, staff discovered dozens of copper electrodes mounted in the floor, designed to carry any static electricity away. The building was also outfitted with heavy-duty lighting rods.
Though the ram-jet rockets were state of the art technology for the time, launching them was a very simple operation.
“They loaded them onto a cart, carried them out to the beach, loaded them into a makeshift launcher, and fired them off. They were like Boy Scouts playing out there on the beach, I’m surprised they didn’t sleep in tents,” Peters said.
The beginning – and the legacy – of Topsail Beach
Then, in 1948, the Navy packed up and left, leaving the engineering and construction building – and the towers – behind to whoever wanted them, the earliest residents of the newly-named Topsail Island.
The work would continue, but at other, even more top secret labs around that nation. Ten years later, NASA’s Mercury program would be launched. The most famous rocket launches in history would come from Cape Canaveral, but – according to Peters and Stallman – they would never have been possible without the work done on Topsail Beach.
For those interested in more Topsail-area history, the Missiles and More Museum is located at 720 Channel Blvd. in Topsail Beach. More information is available at its website.
Send comments and tips to Benjamin Schachtman at ben@localvoicemedia.com, @pcdben on Twitter, and (910) 538-2001.
