by Karen Piper
Then I sped away.
China Lake duplexes, 1948
Earl Piper, 1941
Dad’s engineering sketch
Boy playing with old bomb at China Lake
First base pass
Dad in New Mexico, where he often traveled to use the wind tunnel
Me in an F-16 fighter jet, circa 1971
Mom at China Lake
China Lake Boulevard, 1975
Salt Wells bobcats
Christine and me with Patches
Mike and Christine, 1984
Mom’s missile, the Tomahawk
John F. Kennedy at China Lake, June 7, 1963
Dad at Cannon Beach
U.S. Navy rock art
Acknowledgments
First, and most important, I must thank my mom and Christine for putting up with me as I wrote this book and, especially, for sharing their stories with me even though they knew I would warp them into something new. I could not have written this book without the pooled collection of resources in our brains. I could not have written without those stolen letters and notes. My mom did not know about my experiences in college and graduate school until she read the first draft of this book; for forgiving me for all my mistakes, as always, I am grateful. My sister is an expert genealogist and recorder of oral histories; many of my relatives’ stories came from her, while there are many more yet to be written.
Beyond my immediate family, there are so many more that made this book happen, a whole industry of support, in fact. I will list them chronologically and ask for forgiveness from those I forgot to mention. The Sitka Center for Art and Ecology was the first to believe in this book and provided me with a writing residency at Cascade Head, Oregon. There I shared space with the artists Alex Chitty and Deedra Ludwig, whose sense of color and landscape inspired me to see the empty paper as a palette. At the time, Chitty was making woodblock prints of dead birds, Deedra was making paint out of mushrooms she had collected, and I was putting the Oregon woods to paper. It was a magical time.
The University of Missouri graciously let me have time away from teaching and provided funding so I could visit China Lake one last time. Robin Albee gave me visions of landscapes across America and encouraged me to change this book from fiction to nonfiction almost a decade ago. The people at China Lake—from Bill Porter to Burrell Hays—will forever impress me for their integrity. Composer Patrick David Clark helped me see writing as a symphony and stayed up far too late with me more than one night, talking me through the various movements of this book. Bill Roorbach encouraged me to keep writing and helped with an early draft of this book.
Steve Weinberg, who is a blessing to all writers, encouraged me when I felt stuck; his friendship, editing eyes, and dedication to journalistic integrity were irreplaceable to me in shaping this book. He also recommended me to my agent, Colleen Mohyde, who laughed with me through the dark days of a “Snowpacolypse,” a conservative backlash to student protests at Mizzou, November 2016, and my near-death brush with HAPE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema) in the Sierras. She fought to get my story out there through this all, even when I sometimes wondered why it mattered. Steve Weinberg put her in touch with Carole Desanti at Viking Penguin, who then acquired the book. Chris Russell proved an excellent editor until he was picked up by Axios to write. Emily Wunderlich then took my book to the finish line, and her Missouri calm in the whirlwind of New York City publishing made me feel at home. The whole team at Penguin—from graphic artists to my copy editor—made me realize why people call it a publishing “home.”
Thanks to the English department in Missouri who left me to my own devices until “nobody knew what the hell was going on” with me. That space allowed me to write this book; while the kindness, sassiness, and intellectual strength of my colleagues—particularly my dear friend Anand Prahlad—always lifted me up. Joanne Hearne and Kavita Pillai sang ditties and Bollywood songs with me across India as we chased dreams of feminist languages, farming methods, and films. Finally, if the University of Missouri had not funded my travel, particularly to Iraq, I would not have the perspective I needed to finish the book. If my mother had not gone with me, there would be nothing to write about. I may have been too scared to go.
I also want to thank the Kawaiisu, Shoshone, and Paiutes of California. It is their space that I occupied to tell this tale, without their permission. Hopefully it does not displease. I know that my tale in the desert is only a small dot in history in comparison to theirs. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer quotes her elder Henry Lickers, who spoke of Europeans settling here: “You know, they came here thinking they’d get rich by working on the land. . . . But the land is the one with the power—while they were working on the land, the land was working on them. Teaching them.” Thank you to the land that taught me.
Author’s Note
If three people all tell the same story, it will be quite different each time. So I must apologize to my family for the things misremembered or just downright wrong. For instance, after talking to my mom about the “Great Flood,” I realized that I might have conflated two floods in my mind. She filled in a few blanks about what she remembered but could also not remember where I was. I have only my own faulty memories to rely upon. Dialogue between family members is also impossible to remember accurately from childhood. I tried to capture the gist of our conversations and the way we talked instead.
In contrast, China Lake’s history was acquired mainly through extensive archival research, though names have been changed for some base employees (and ex-boyfriends) to protect their privacy. I did my best to be true to my own memories, particularly the emotions behind them, since this book is a record of history for me too. Memoir is a collection of impressions, memories, historical fact, and art. It is meant to be not an encyclopedia but a memory, and that’s how memories work. They are partly fiction, partly family collaboration, partly gone forever—and a little bit true, one hopes.
The Lost Continent
Works Cited
Part One: Becoming China Lakers
“The region surrounding China Lake”: NWC Information Guide: Naval Weapons Center, China Lake, California, April 30, 1971, NWC Administrative Publication 132, rv. 1, publishing division of the Technical Information Department. First printing September 1968. According to this booklet, “over 75% of the airborne weaponry in use by the free world today was developed at NWC.” In 1973, NWC commander Henry Suerstedt Jr. called China Lake “the Navy’s foremost research and development facility.” See “Center’s Impact on Kern County Economy Cited by RAdm. Suerstedt,” Rocketeer, January 26, 1973. www.chinalakealumni.org/Downloads/Rocketeer/1973/Rktr01.26.1973.pdf.
pictures in Life: “Rocket Town,” Life, February 16, 1948.
“rigors of peacetime malnutrition”: Frederick Hovde of the Office of Scientific Research and Development wrote this in a letter to E. C. Watson. Quoted in J. D. Gerrard-Gough and Albert B. Christman, The Grand Experiment at Inyokern: Narrative of the Naval Ordnance Test Station During the Second World War and the Intermediate Postwar Years, Washington, DC: Naval History Division, 1978, 173.
veered straight up: Elizabeth Babcock, Magnificent Mavericks: History of the Navy at China Lake, California, vol. 3, China Lake, CA: China Lake Museum Foundation, 2008, 241.
“We get lost”: Paul A. Dudchenko, Why People Get Lost: The Psychology and Neuroscience of Spatial Cognition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
“for eight seconds”: Ilana R. Yurkiewicz and Jack W. Tsao, “Book Review: Why People Get Lost: The Psychology and Neuroscience of Spatial Cognition by Paul A. Dudchenko,” Journal of the Neurological Sciences 313, issues 1–2 (February 15, 2012): 197–98. www.jns-journal.com/article/S0022-510X(11)00583-1/fulltext.
“he saw a jet three feet off”: “The Skipper Sez,�
� Rocketeer, September 7, 1984. www.chinalakealumni.org/Downloads/Rocketeer/1984/Rktr09.07.1984.pdf.
slot machines at the officers’ club: See Gerrard-Gough and Christman, Grand Experiment at Inyokern, 52. The authors write, “For a price, a person could get a 50-mile-round-trip ride in a battered old touring car, marked ‘Taxi,’ to the mining town of Red Mountain, then notorious for its ladies of the evening.”
“war-weary veterans”: A. L. Pittinger, as told to Virginia Pittinger, “Captain Burroughs Credited with Success of Military/Civilian Team,” Rocketeer, April 8, 1993. www.chinalakealumni.org/Downloads/Rocketeer/1993/Rktr04.08.1993.pdf.
living in three sedans: Before the Navy, booklet, Ridgecrest, CA: Maturango Press, 1997, 32, 67.
“an American Peenemünde”: Quoted in Gerrard-Gough and Christman, Grand Experiment at Inyokern, 45.
“men and arms”: “NAWS Mourns the Loss of China Lake’s First Commander,” Rocketeer, October 1, 1992. www.chinalakealumni.org/Downloads/Rocketeer/1992/Rktr10.01.1992.pdf.
“All service personnel”: Letter from Walter V. R. Vieweg to all departments, divisions, and branches of the Naval Weapons Center, Station Order No. 52-52, chapter 8: “Restrictive Action; Out-of-Bounds,” August 15, 1952. Filed with the National Archives and Records Administration, Riverside, California, under “Naval Weapons Center, Weapons Department, China Lake, California, Project Files 1952–1976.”
“Housewife to Draftsman”: Babcock, Magnificent Mavericks, 172.
maintain a “dual reporting”: James P. Pfiffner, The Character Factor: How We Judge America’s Presidents, College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004, 55.
Robert Drinan testified: “Representative Robert Drinan Opening Statement,” C-SPAN TV news archive. Accessed July 10, 2013. https://archive.org/details/CSPAN3_20140806_022200_Representative_Robert_Drinan_Opening_Statement.
Lemuria: The Lost Continent: W. S. Cervé, Lemuria: The Lost Continent of the Pacific, 2nd ed., San Jose, CA: Rosicrucian Press, 1935.
CBS News had reported: CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, aired October 17, 1973. See also “Mississippi Authorities Ask Federal UFO Probe,” Brownwood Bulletin, October 17, 1973.
Ohio’s governor: Brian Albright, “Ohio versus the Flying Saucers,” Country Living 58, no. 2 (December 23, 2014). (Country Living has since been renamed Ohio Cooperative Living; the magazine is the official publication of Ohio’s Electric Cooperatives.)
a man named “Burro” Schmidt: Bob Jones, “Kern Tunnel: Monument to Old Man’s Dream,” Bakersfield Californian, March 6, 1977.
Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker: Craig Ammerman, “UFO Sightings: Whatever Became of the Little Green Men?” Brandon Sun, October 23, 1983.
They call it Operation Monarch: Cisco Wheeler and Fritz Springmeier, The Illuminati Formula Used to Create an Undetectable Total Mind Controlled Slave, self-published, 1996. Available online at: http://educate-yourself.org/mc/IlluminatiFormulaindex.shtml.
“not impeach a president for unlawful war-making”: Representative Robert Drinan (D-Mass.) Opening Statement, Nixon Impeachment Hearings, U.S. Congress, C-SPAN, July 25, 1974.
On July 18, 1945: Gerrard-Gough and Christman, Grand Experiment at Inyokern, 203.
“you can’t shake off”: Al Christman, Target Hiroshima: Deak Parsons and the Creation of the Atomic Bomb, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998.
“sort of crude sense”: Robert Oppenheimer interview about the Trinity explosion, first broadcast as part of the television documentary The Decision to Drop the Bomb, produced by Fred Freed, NBC White Paper, New York: NBC News, 1965.
Groves had built: K. H. Robinson, “Salt Wells Stars in Vital AEC Project for National Defense,” Rocketeer, November 8, 1958. www.chinalakealumni.org/Downloads/Rocketeer/1958/Rktr11.08.1958.pdf.
“willing to have other people killed and wounded”: Robert S. Norris, Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Project’s Indispensable Man, Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2002.
“From the psychological point”: “Minutes of the Second Meeting of the Target Committee Los Alamos, May 10–11, 1945,” U.S. National Archives, Record Group 77, Records of the Office of the Chief of Engineers, Manhattan Engineer District, TS Manhattan Project File ’42–’46, folder 5D, Selection of Targets, 2 Notes on Target Committee Meetings. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson struck Kyoto from the list over the objections of General Leslie Groves. According to Professor Edwin O. Reischauer, “The only person deserving credit for saving Kyoto from destruction is Henry L. Stimson, the Secretary of War at the time, who had known and admired Kyoto ever since his honeymoon there several decades earlier.” Edwin O. Reischauer, My Life Between Japan and America, New York: Harper & Row, 1986, 101. See also Leslie Groves, Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project, New York: Harper & Row, 1962.
sneaking onto the base: For more information on Charles Manson in the desert, read Bob Murphy, Desert Shadows: A True Story of the Charles Manson Family in Death Valley, Morongo Valley, CA: Sagebrush Press, 1993.
another “hippie commune”: “Navy Helicopter Used to Airlift Deadly Chemicals,” Rocketeer, November 5, 1971. www.chinalakealumni.org/Downloads/Rocketeer/1971/Rktr11.05.1971.pdf.
relied on Dr. Spock: Benjamin Spock, Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care, 9th ed., New York: Gallery Books, 2012, 438.
“had a prayer breakfast”: This is from a comment by “Bill from Maryland” posted on September 1, 2008, in response to the blog entry “It’s a Mountain of Foreclosures in California,” in The Housing Bubble (blog) by Ben Jones, August 31, 2008. Accessed February 29, 2016. http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=4898.
“Although ACE recommends”: Lisa J. L. Kelley, “An Analysis of Accelerated Christian Education and College Preparedness Based on ACT Scores,” Theses, Dissertations and Capstones, thesis submitted to the Graduate College of Marshall University, paper 95 (2005), 22. http://mds.marshall.edu/etd/95.
“undermined the authority”: Catherine Speck and David Prideaux, “Fundamentalist Education and Creation Science,” Australian Journal of Education 37 (1993): 279–95.
“father to be head of his family”: Quotes and screen shots from PACEs can be found in Alexis Record’s November 2016 post, “Exposing Accelerated Christian Education,” in the Children and Parenting blog of Karen Garst’s website The Faithless Feminist. Accessed December 2016. www.faithlessfeminist.com. Other examples are from memory or from old PACEs I purchased online. It appears the PACEs have not changed much since the 1970s.
near the Paluxy River: John D. Morris, “The Paluxy River Mystery,” Acts & Facts 15, no. 1 (1986).
“inconceivable without God”: Wernher von Braun, “Forward,” in Harold Hill, From Goo to You by Way of the Zoo, Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1976.
“Don’t spank the child”: Jack Hyles, “Why God Is for War,” Sunday evening sermon, March 15, 1970. Accessed March 1, 2005. www.jackhyles.com/godforwar.htm.
we passed “Kennedy’s Forest”: “Command Performance: President John F. Kennedy’s Visit to Naval Ordnance Test Station, China Lake, California, 7 June 1963,” special chapter edition from the History of the Navy at China Lake California, vol. 4 (unpublished), NAWCWD TS2013-108, Technical Communication and Library Division, November 2013.
“Idealized missiles” and “fair-weather attacks”: Howard A. Wilcox, “Sidewinder Seminar Notes,” China Lake, CA: Naval Weapons Center, 1953. Filed with the National Archives and Records Administration, Riverside, California, under “Naval Weapons Center, Weapons Department, China Lake, California, Project Files 1952–1976.”
sixteen percent in Vietnam: Don Holloway, “Fox Two!” Aviation History, March 2013. See also Carlo Kopp, “The Sidewinder Story: The Evolution of the AIM-9 Missile,” Australian Aviation, April 1994. Kopp writes, “Kill probabilities were in the tens of percent, very sensitive to how the launch craft was positioned.”
&n
bsp; “trafficking in the black arts”: Quoted in Jason Weindling, “Donald Trump is the Kremlin’s Man: A Comprehensive Case for Russian Influence in the GOP Campaign,” Paste, October 12, 2016. Accessed February 5, 2017. https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/10/donald-trump-is-the-kremlins-man-a-comprehensive-c.html.
“Like parents bracing”: “Command Performance.”
aim a missile at the president’s head: “Command Performance.”
defense contractor a cigarette: Babcock, Magnificent Mavericks, 207, 397.
“shot of whiskey”: “Command Performance.”
“I cannot think of a prouder occupation”: “Command Performance.”
“I am not an atomic playboy”: Gerard J. DeGroot, The Bomb: A Life, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
“Not a Pax Americana”: John F. Kennedy, “1963 Commencement Speech,” American University, Washington, DC, June 10, 1963.
he devised a plan: James K. Galbraith, “Exit Strategy: In 1963, JFK Ordered a Complete Withdrawal from Vietnam,” Boston Review, September 1, 2003.
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara: James K. Galbraith, “Kennedy, Vietnam, and Iraq,” Salon, November 22, 2003.
