The barracks at Peaked Hill are deserted. The Army radar station, installed and opened under circumstances of great secrecy in the early days of the war, is closed and locked, its war service completed. At one time a considerable contingent of troops was stationed at the hill, the exact number to be disclosed sometime when the history of the war has been written.
The greatest importance of Peaked Hill was in the early period of the war when an invasion of the American coast by air or even by sea was considered a possibility and, by many, amateur experts, a probability. The Vineyard soon had a good idea of what the Peaked Hill installation was for, but no word ever went forth. The main thing was that airplane spotters used to wonder why they were on the job for a task Peaked Hill was doing on a wider scale.
Eventually the spotters were retired with thanks, but by that time the threat of invasion had virtually disappeared from the public mind.
The Peaked Hill project began way back in 1941, before Pearl Harbor, when a southern attorney with a soft accent, a car and a chauffeur, all representing the dignity of the United States government, arrived at the courthouse at Edgartown to look up land titles.
It developed that the highest summit of the Island, Peaked Hill, 311 feet, was the government’s interest, and the hill was later taken, a road built to the top, barracks constructed, and the familiar antennae of what was later identified as radar appeared on the skyline. Now Peaked Hill is once more deserted but never can it be restored to its pre-war condition.
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