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Show NEED CEASES GOC System In Cedar City Deactivated Ground Observers Corps which was organized in Cedar City several sev-eral years ago and which participated parti-cipated on a 24-hour surveillance for some time before reverting to the present status of "standby alert," will be deactivated, according ac-cording to R. E. Winterrose and Mrs. Fred L. Biederman, local COC leaders. In a recent communication from the United States Air Force,' for whom the GOC was organiz-l d, notification of the complete deactivation of the GOC program by Jan. 31, 1959, is planned. Following are portions of the letter from Headquarters Air Defense De-fense Comma rid of USAF. j ". . . The decision to relieve you from active participation on "the air defense team is based on. the following three considera- tions. "1. The present radar network and its further expansion and Improvement that will be ac-i complished by January gives assurance as-surance that an enemy bomber can be detected and identified before it reaches the borders of the United States . . . "2. The Increasing speeds of potential enemy bombers and our own fightoer Interceptors make it necessary that we develop de-velop an automatic means for processing air defense data within with-in the continually reducing time limits. We are convening to a system that can receive, process and transmit information at greater speeds than is now possible pos-sible by our manual procedures. The manually operated air de-ense de-ense system is now being replaced re-placed by semi-automatic ground environment system which meets present and future requirements. "3. Air Force recognition of its responsibility to relieve the volunteers vol-unteers of a heavy burden of duties du-ties when the effectiveness of the electronic air surveillance system will permit." Lt. General J. II. Atkinson, commander of the Air Defense Command, expessed his thanks to leaders in the GOC program In Cedar City and Mr. Winter-rose Winter-rose and Mrs. Biederman In turn extend their appreciation to the many citizens and organizations who responded to the program when it was Initiated and operating operat-ing In this area. |