Why There are Towers on Topsail Island By Blake Loflin
Have you ever stopped and wondered why there are old towers on Topsail Island? Some of them stand alone and look extremely weathered and unkept. Others are much harder to locate, but if you look very closely, you will find them there. The towers were built for a secret government project called Operation Bumblebee and still serve purposes today.
Operation Bumblebee was a top secret project that the United States Navy started in March of 1947, on Topsail Island, North Carolina. The operation started at the end of World War II. It was named after a bumblebee because bumblebees should not be able to fly, but they fly anyway. The project was very successful. It helped improve the design of supersonic jets and also helped improve spacecraft design.
The Navy was responsible for building nine towers on the island. The towers were strong and sturdy and were built only for the purpose of Operation Bumblebee. Every tower aided in the experimentation and firing of ramjet missiles. Most of the towers were observation towers, and one was the control tower. There were two hundred rockets fired from the towers during Operation Bumblebee. Unfortunately, the project was abandoned eighteen months after it started. It was
successful, but the weather on the island and the increase in boat traffic around the island made it too
dangerous to continue testing the missiles.
After the project ended, the island and the towers were given to local landowners. Today, there are still two of the towers left intact. The control tower is one of these two towers. Four of the remaining towers have been converted into homes or used as part of homes. My favorite renovated
tower is tower number seven because it is a beautiful home. One of the towers was part of a fishing pier, but today it stands alone. Sadly, the last two towers have been destroyed. One was destroyed by
a hurricane, and the other tower was torn down after a lady jumped off of it to her death.
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