Olaf Engvig, author, maritime historian, lecturer, coastal skipper, ship restorer and preserver.   The Ships That Built the West: The Scandinavian Navy, WAPAMA and VAERDALEN The Ships That Built the West: The Scandinavian Navy, WAPAMA and VÆRDALEN

Olaf Engvig has published English and Norwegian editions of his new hardcover book: The Ships That Built the West: The Scandinavian Navy, WAPAMA and VÆRDALEN. Read stories of the "Scandinavian Navy" and its impact on the U.S. Pacific coast, and two very different tales of two historic ships. Learn more!
Olaf Engvig's home page. Olaf Engvig's expertise. Olaf Engvig's publications. Olaf Engvig - Small Boats. Olaf Engvig - Ships. Olaf Engvig - Morris Minor. Olaf Engvig - Nike. Olaf Engvig - Author's Notes. Contact Olaf Engvig.    Nike.
Welcome! Space Capital of the Universe. Huntsville, Alabama.
OGMS school emblem.No NATO country had such a strategic location as Norway, with its long coastline and border with the Soviet Union. Nike Hercules was a surface to air rocket developed at Redstone in the 1950s. It could carry nuclear warheads. Nike was an important part of the military build-up within the NATO alliance due to the Cold War.

In 1957 Engvig and two other Norwegian petty officers were elected to receive training to become specialists on this new rocket system that Norway would receive through NATO. On January 23, 1958 they were sent to the US Army Ordnance Guided Missile School at Redstone Arsenal, Huntsville, Alabama.

They were in downtown Huntsville on January 31, when a modified Redstone rocket lifted Explorer 1 into orbit initiating the start of the US space program.
Huntsville Times from February 1, 1958.
After eighteen months in the US, having been trained on the track radars and guidance system for the Hercules, they returned to Norway with the rockets in the summer of 1959. They were solely in charge of higher echelon maintenance for the entire battalion of Nike Hercules missiles deployed to Norway.

Learn more details about the Nike system, international relations and Engvig's experiences.

Barrack 3211, our first home on the base.

Olaf T. Engvig     150 Chickasaw Street     Ventura, CA 93001
Phone: 818.266.5170     olafengvig@earthlink.net

New Hardcover Maritime History Book by Olaf Engvig
The Ships that Built the West: The Scandinavian Navy, WAPAMA and VÆRDALEN

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