Contact: Phil Hearn
Retired MSU administrator Chester McKee displays a section of the once-buried cable.
Construction workers exposed a bit of post-World War I military history on the Mississippi State campus this summer when they dug up an old communication cable once used by ROTC cadets in simulated artillery drills.
The strange looking strand--steel-wire jacketed with telephone-type internal conductors--drew puzzled stares when it recently was unearthed by a back-hoe in a parking lot being renovated just east of Lee Hall and north of the McCain Engineering Building. The lot sits squarely between Lee Hall and a long-gone campus landmark called Military Pond.
Chester McKee, who was raised in Starkville and practically grew up on the MSU campus during the 1920s, recalled two ROTC artillery observation posts were located on the west side of Military Pond. He said a .30-caliber rifle barrel and breech mounted on a carriage was the "artillery" model that sat between the two observation posts.
"What (construction workers) dug into was the communication cable connecting the observation posts and gun position with the plotting room in Lee Hall," said McKee, noting the "fire-control" room was located in the basement of Lee.
McKee said Military Pond was constructed in 1924 to primarily serve as a source of emergency cooling water for then-Mississippi A&M College's new power plant. He said the pond site now is a parking lot adjacent to Middleton Hall, the current home of Army and Air Force ROTC.
"That cable had been in place for nearly 75 years," he said. "Military Pond ceased to exist as the Skinner steam engines that drove the generators supplying all electric power to the campus were shut down."
Recalling the firing protocol, McKee said, "At the command 'mark', the post observers took the azimuth of the target 'ship' being towed by cable across the pond. The bearings were plotted on a large board in the fire-control room to attain the intersecting position of the target.
"With that information, along with appropriate firing tables for the gun, and the Critch circular slide rule, the azimuth and elevation for the gun were calculated to result in a hit on the target at a position it was approaching," he said. "The gun-control crew was given the proper settings by telephone and stood by for the command 'fire.' Upon that command, the gun between the two observation posts was fired, with the observers reporting a hit or a splash."
McKee is a former Mississippi State electrical engineering department head, graduate school dean and vice president for research who retired in 1979. He recently authored a book covering 100 years of history of the university's Bagley College of Engineering, entitled "From Slide Rules to PC."
He remembered that the campus model of an actual coast artillery battery was developed in the mid-1920s by officers of the Coast Artillery Corps ROTC unit, with the help of mechanical engineering professor and U.S. Army Reserve Col. Ernest L. Lucas.
"All advanced ROTC Coast Artillery Corps cadets received instruction and experience on the active model prior to their summer camp training," McKee said. "Two years of the basic ROTC course were required of all male students, with engineering and science school students assigned to artillery."
Two 120-millimeter "long-tom" guns also were placed on the campus after WWI and were used by both basic and advanced course students in simulated gunnery drills.
"They were positioned in the area between the Perry Cafeteria and the Lloyd-Ricks Building, where they stayed until the Army called them back to 'active duty' in 1942," said McKee. "At summer camp, the advanced students had experience with an actual 'live' battery, with 120-milllimeter guns firing semi-fixed ammunition."