North Truro Air Force Station

North Truro Air Force Station
Part of Air Defense Command (ADC)
North Truro, Massachusetts
A map of the station
North Truro AFS Location of North Truro AFS, Massachusetts
Coordinates	42°01′53.38″N 70°03′11.84″W / 42.0314944°N 70.0532889°W / 42.0314944; -70.0532889 (North Truro AFS P-10)Coordinates: 42°01′53.38″N 70°03′11.84″W / 42.0314944°N 70.0532889°W / 42.0314944; -70.0532889 (North Truro AFS P-10)
Type	Long Range Radar Site
Code	ADC ID: P-10 NORAD ID: Z-10 (NTAFS)
Site information
Owner	National Park Service
Controlled by	United States Air Force
Open to the public	Partially
Site history
Built	1951
Built by	United States Air Force
In use	1951–1994
Garrison information
Garrison	North Truro, Massachusetts
Occupants	762d Radar Squadron, 6th Space Warning Squadron

North Truro Air Force Station (AFS) is a closed United States Air Force General Surveillance Radar station. It is located 2.2 mi (3.5 km) east of North Truro, Massachusetts.

Most of the site was inactivated by 1994 and turned over to the National Park Service, the radar site remainder becoming a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) VHF omnidirectional range/Tactical air navigation system (VORTAC) and radar site, part of the Joint Surveillance System (JSS), designated by NORAD as Eastern Air Defense Sector (EADS) Ground Equipment Facility J-53.

The former North Truro AFS is the site of a radar station and several abandoned buildings including barracks, a library, a bar, a bowling alley and a family housing area located to the south. NTAFS has been redeveloped into The Highland Center. It is also the site of the Jenny Lind Tower.

North Truro AFS was one of the first of twenty-four stations of the permanent Air Defense Command (ADC) radar network. On 2 December 1948, the Air Force directed the Army Corps of Engineers to proceed with construction of this and twenty-three other sites around the periphery of the United States.

The 762d Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron (AC&W Sq) began operations with a pair of World War II Air Transportable Search and Detection AN/CPS-3 radars at North Truro in 1951 and assumed radar coverage previously covered by a temporary Lashup Radar Network site at Otis Air Force Base (L-5), and initially the station functioned as a Ground-Control Intercept (GCI) and warning station. As a GCI station, the squadron's role was to guide interceptor aircraft toward unidentified intruders picked up on the unit's radar scopes. In 1955 these units were joined by an AN/FPS-8 model. Eventually converted to an AN/GPS-3, this radar left service in 1960. In 1956 a GE CPS-6B search radar was the main search radar.