NORAD Santa Tracker 2021: How to follow Father Christmas journey on Christmas Eve telegraph.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from telegraph.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Paul Barbano December 23, 2020
It is holiday time and time for gifts and flights of fantasy. During World War II the American playing card company Bicycle sent decks of cards as gifts to American prisoners of war held by Germany. The cards, when soaked in water, showed maps of escape routes. And in 1955 Sears ran an ad telling kids to call Santa directly, but the phone number was a misprint, and instead of getting Santa, kids spoke directly to Colonel Shoup who manned the hotline of the Director of Operations for the U.S. Continental Air Defense. Colonel Shoup ordered his staff to give the children updates on the flight coordinates of Santa s sleigh. It is a tradition carried on to this day.
NORAD Santa Tracker 2020: How to follow Father Christmas journey on Christmas Eve telegraph.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from telegraph.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Posted on Dec 24, 2020
On November 30, 1955, a phone rang on Col. Harry Shoup’s desk at Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD). CONAD was tasked with watching for a Soviet attack by air and alerting Strategic Air Command. In the midst of the Cold War, a phone call to Colonel Shoup’s desk could have brought critical news for national security.
Colonel Harry Shoup, the Director of Operations at CONAD in 1955
However, when Colonel Shoup answered, the little voice on the other end asked “Is this Santa Claus?”
“There may be a guy called Santa Claus, at the North Pole, but he’s not the one I worry about coming from that direction,” was Shoup’s reply, according to an article that ran the following day. One can only imagine how the young caller reacted.