On May 20, 1941, the Office of Civilian Defense, United States Federal Emergency War Agency, was established by Executive Order 8757 to coordinate state and federal measures for the protection of civilians in case of a war emergency. Its two branches supervised protective functions such as blackouts and special fire protection and "war services" functions such as child care, health, housing, and transportation. It also created the Civil Air Patrol. This agency was replaced under Executive Order 9562 of June 4, 1945. The new agency, the Office of Civil Defense, with similar duties, was established.
During this period, all of this was voluntary, and there was no law requiring participation. The state and federal governments aided to a certain extent with minor supplies, but the actual cost of the effort was paid by the local communities.
In Wilbraham, these programs were entrusted to the selectmen. The very first appropriation made by the Town was at a Town Meeting in 1944. It was “voted to raise and appropriate the sum of $500 to be expended for civilian protection and defense by the Committee on Public Safety under the direction of the Board of Selectmen”.
Civil defense as an official government program began in 1950 when Congress passed a public law, which became known as the Federal Civil Defense Act.
Wilbraham took these measures very seriously. You would have to be mindful that Westover Air Force Base was located in nearby Chicopee and Ludlow. In 1951, Air Defense Command was established at that facility but then turned over operations in 1955 to the Strategic Air Command, which included air refueling operations. The 99th Bombardment Wing arrived in 1956. These operations at the base were so important that in case of nuclear war, an alternate SAC command bunker, called the “Notch”, was constructed deep within nearby Bare Mountain within the Holyoke Mountain Range.
From 1954 to 1962 the Stony Brook Air Force Station in Ludlow, was a nuclear weapons Operational Storage Site, one of five in the United States. In 1962 Stony Brook was transferred to Strategic Air Command and stored and maintained nuclear weapons for their aircraft at Westover until deactivation in 1973.
The 1950 Federal Act was the basis of legislation enacted by the various states. Massachusetts quickly followed the lead of the federal government by the passage of Chapter 639 of the Acts of 1950, which remains the control of all civil defense programs in the state. A part of this Act reads “Each political subdivision of the commonwealth is hereby authorized and directed to establish a local organization for civil defense in accordance with the state civil defense plan and program…”
The Massachusetts state plan divides the state into four areas each of which is divided into sectors, there being 20 sectors. Wilbraham is in Sector 4A of Area 4. This sector’s headquarters were located in the Perry barn which was located at the corner of Main and Maple Streets. This barn was also used by the Wilbraham Water Department.
At this point, most of the costs associated with civil defense were paid by the state and federal governments. The town’s civil defense program was the basis of how much money would be allocated by “aid grants”.
In 1955, the Governor of Massachusetts declared a state of emergency resulting in widespread damage caused by a flood. During this emergency in Wilbraham, some confusion was caused by the noticeable overlapping of authority between the three selectmen and the civil defense officials. To rectify this problem, the town appointed one selectman as Director of Civil Defense. Wilbraham became the first town in the state to take such action.
On December 7, 1958, the nation’s first federally approved underground radiological fallout shelter display was unveiled in Wilbraham during a Civil Defense / Pearl Harbor Day program. This shelter was located next to the Boston Road Fire Station. It was built at no expense to the town through the assistance of the Massachusetts Civil Defense Agency. Over a thousand people saw that shelter during the unveiling that day. Many residents in town afterward built their fallout shelters in some remnants of these shelters can be seen today. In 2012, after considerable discussion, the fallout shelter was determined to be too far gone for any type of restoration. It was eventually taken down for safety reasons, the same year during the fire station renovations.
With much pride of the town’s civil defense members are the survival plan, rescue equipment, and the communications system which was said to be unsurpassed in the state. As with today’s modern Massachusetts Fire Service and EMS Mobilization Plan, the state had mobilization plans as far back as the 1950s. In October of 1957, one such plan was exercised, called Operation Rollaway. This drill involved the Sector 4A Civil Defense Fire Battalion. The towns and cities that were part of this extensive exercise were, Wilbraham, Three Rivers, Monson, Springfield, Ludlow, East Longmeadow, Palmer, Bondsville, Chicopee, and Hampden. The drill included 30 pieces of fire apparatus and 150 men. Auxiliary police units handled any traffic issues as the American Red Cross volunteers manned a mobile canteen unit which dispensed coffee and doughnuts to the personnel. The purpose of this drill was to determine how mobile sector fire apparatus would perform in the event of an emergency. Thousands of people that day viewed the battalion convoy units as they moved from their hometown bases to the target assembly point at Legion Field in Palmer. Wilbraham’s hometown base assembly point was at Memorial School on Main Street. The drill was declared a “sweeping” success by the State Civil Defense officials.
The history of civil defense in the United States and what we now know of it today as Homeland Security has been one of frequent policy and organizational changes The changes have been driven by many factors including an evolving threat to the environment with major natural disasters that have resulted in immense destruction, and the specific preferences of presidential administrations. One of the most important recent drivers, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, led directly to increased funding and focus on homeland security, specifically the creation of DHS. However, just a few years later, the scale of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina showed that the country remains vulnerable to natural disasters, as well as man-made accidents.
Civil defense began with the desire to involve Americans in the protection of their fellow citizens and critical infrastructure from destruction at the hands of our enemies and evolved to encompass coordinated, professional efforts, involving all levels of government, the private sector, and citizens, to address a wide range of disasters and attacks
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