Photo: Wcleeuwenburg, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Drive the length of Topsail Island and you will pass a handful of squat concrete towers, some tucked between beach houses, one turned into a home. Guests ask about them every week. The answer is one of the better stories on the North Carolina coast.
1946: the Navy borrows an island
After World War II, the Navy and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory needed a quiet place to test a new kind of weapon, the ramjet powered guided missile. Topsail Island, then reachable only by boat and nearly uninhabited, was ideal. The program was called Operation Bumblebee, named for the insect that, according to the engineers, should not be able to fly and does anyway.
What they built
An assembly building, a launch platform on the beach, and a line of observation towers spaced down the island, each with cameras and instruments to track the missiles as they flew out over the Atlantic. About 200 test firings took place between 1946 and 1948. The work done here led directly to the Talos, Terrier, and Tartar missiles that armed the Navy for decades.
What is left
Several of the towers still stand along the island, and the old assembly building in Topsail Beach is now the Missiles and More Museum, a small volunteer run museum with missile hardware, photographs, and exhibits on the island's other history: the pirates who supposedly hid in the sound (the "top sail" in the name), the fishing families, and the hurricanes that reshaped the beach. It is open seasonally with limited hours, so check before you drive down; it makes a fine hour on a cloudy afternoon paired with lunch in Topsail Beach.
Why it matters to your week
The Navy's brief stay is the reason the island developed late and slowly. By the time the program moved to Cape Canaveral in 1948 and the land was sold off, the rest of the coast had a head start. Topsail stayed quieter, and the north end, where our homes sit, stayed quietest of all. When you notice how little is between your deck and the horizon, you are looking at the long tail of Operation Bumblebee.
Quick answers
What are the concrete towers on Topsail Island?
They are observation towers from Operation Bumblebee, a Navy guided missile test program that ran on the island from 1946 to 1948.
Where is the Missiles and More Museum?
In Topsail Beach at the south end of the island, inside the original Operation Bumblebee assembly building. It is open seasonally with limited hours.
Stay on the quiet end the Navy left behind
Seven oceanfront homes on the north end of Topsail, where the beach is still the main attraction.