Albuquerque's Environmental Story
Albuquerque's Environmental StoryThe community called Kirtland Air Force Base traces its origins back to the 1920s when a private airstrip, Oxnard Field, was built on a part of what is now the east side of the base, and to the late 1930s, when Albuquerque's municipal airport began operating near what is now the base's west side. That field and airport eventually became two large military complexes now unified as one base.
Military activity near the municipal airport began in 1939 with the leasing of 2,000 acres for use in servicing transient military aircraft and airplanes being ferried to Great Britain for the war effort.
A committee of Albuquerque civic leaders visited Washington during the same year to urge expansion of this early aviation activity. Their efforts resulted in creation of one of the country's largest bomber crew training bases, named for Colonel Roy C. Kirtland, a military aviation pioneer who learned to fly with the Wright brothers.
By 1941, B-17 and B-18 combat crew training was under way at Kirtland, and during subsequent war years, training of bombardiers, glider pilots, and B-24 crewmen occupied the expanded facilities. The drone of multi-engine AT-11 and B-24 bomber trainers filled Albuquerque skies well into 1945.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Army Air Forces established a training depot for aircraft mechanics to the east of Kirtland Field, near the original private airport, Oxnard Field. The depot later became known as Sandia Base. With completion of the mechanics' training program in 1943, Sandia Base was used as a convalescent center for wounded air crewmen and then as a storage and dismantling facility for war-weary and surplus aircraft as the war ended. Over 2,000 such planes were stripped and melted down, reclaiming some 10 million pounds of aluminum alone.
While both Kirtland Field and Sandia Base were making their contributions to the war effort, Los Alamos Laboratory scientists were racing to develop the first nuclear weapons for the Manhattan Engineering District. One was tested in great secrecy south of Albuquerque in 1945, and two were dropped on Japan weeks later to end the war. The need for extensive flight support and test facilities reasonably near Los Alamos became apparent, and during September of 1945 units of the Z Division of Los Alamos Laboratory were moved to Sandia Base. The unit was the predecessor of Sandia Corporation, which was organized in 1949. It became Sandia National Laboratories and remains the largest tenant unit on Kirtland. Sandia National Laboratories has consistently been involved with development and testing of special weapons and, more recently, with research and development of energy sources and systems.
Other nuclear-related units were formed at Sandia Base and Kirtland AFB, as the west side was redesignated in 1947. The Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (later the Defense Atomic Support Agency, then the Defense Nuclear Agency) operated Sandia Base and provided support to the secretary of defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and military departments in matters concerning nuclear weapons, nuclear effects, and testing. In addition, the Air Force Special Weapons Command was established at Kirtland in 1949 and was redesignated the Air Force Special Weapons Center in 1952 to help develop the nuclear deterrence to all-out war. The Navy also got into the Kirtland picture during 1949, with establishment of weapons test detachments that evolved into the Naval Weapons Evaluation Facility.
The late 1940s and the 1950s were expansion years as both Kirtland and Sandia played increasingly greater roles in the nation's defense efforts. Expansion resulted in new buildings, hangars, and the east-west runway, which is now owned by the City of Albuquerque.
During that period air defense, weather, and atomic test squadrons operated from Kirtland, and people from both bases took part in the 12 nuclear test series conducted in Nevada and the Pacific. Special Weapons Center biophysicists flew through nuclear clouds to determine radiation hazards, and its engineers launched sounding rockets to study the effects of high-altitude nuclear explosions and to explore the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding the earth.
In 1958 the U.S. agreed to a moratorium on nuclear testing. The resulting limitations on determining weapons effects inspired efforts by the Special Weapons Center and Sandia Corporation to develop methods of simulating nuclear effects with non-nuclear techniques. These efforts continued into the 1960s, when the moratorium was ended by the Soviets. Kirtland and Sandia people then participated in Operation Dominic, a 1962 series of atmospheric and subsurface tests in the Pacific. They were the last such tests conducted before the existing Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed with the Soviet Union, prohibiting nuclear testing in the atmosphere, in space, and under water.
In the wake of the full-scale tests and signing of the test ban treaty, the Air Force Weapons Laboratory was created from elements of the special Weapons Center. The Weapons Laboratory built facilities during the 1960s to simulate nuclear effects such as transient radiation, X-rays, and electromagnetic pulse. To study the latter, the Trestle--the largest simulation facility ever built--was completed on the east side of Kirtland in the late 1970s.
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In 1971, the Special Weapons Center assumed new management responsibilities when Kirtland and Sandia merged into one base, under control of the Air Force (Kirtland AFB). The center then began providing base support services and continued to do so for the next five years, while Field Command, Defense Nuclear Agency, became a major base tenant rather than the base host organization.
Twelve months after the merger, Kirtland became the home of one of the country's most important industrial management units when the Air Force Contract Management Division (a component of Air Force Systems Command) moved to the base from Los Angeles.
Early in 1974 the Air Force Test and Evaluation Center was organized at Kirtland to direct and oversee operational testing of emerging aircraft and systems. It remains one of the base's more important tenants.
Due to budget restrictions and reorganization, the Special Weapons Center was disestablished during 1976. Its responsibilities as Kirtland's "landlord" were transferred to the Contract Management Division, and a new support organization, the 4900th Air Base Wing, was created to discharge those responsibilities.
As these organizational changes were being made, the Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service moved its 1550th Aircrew Training and Test Wing (later the 1550th Combat Crew Training Wing) to Kirtland from Hill AFB, Utah. That unit's helicopter and fixed-wing training brought regular flight operations to Kirtland in addition to the usual support provided for transient military aircraft.
On July 1, 1977, the base once again changed hands with the creation of the 1606th Air Base Wing when Military Airlift Command took over responsibility for operating Kirtland from Air Force Systems Command.
Kirtland became the hub of Air Force space technology when the Air Force Space Technology Center was activated in October 1982.
In June 1990, the Air Force Contract Management Division was deactivated as a result of the Defense Management Review. And in December 1990, the Air Force Space Technology Center and Weapons Laboratory consolidated to become Phillips Laboratory, which is operated under Air Force Materiel Command's Space and Missile Systems Center, headquartered in Los Angeles.
In October 1991, the 1606th Air Base Wing and 1550th Combat Crew Training Wing merged into one "super" wing called the 542nd Crew Training Wing. In January 1993, the base again changed hands as the newly formed Air Force Materiel Command acquired Kirtland from Air Mobility Command. The 542nd became a tenant unit and the 377th Air Base Wing formed from support elements of the 542nd to become the base's host organization.
In the summer of 1993 the Air Force Inspection Agency and the Air Force Safety Agency moved to Kirtland from Norton AFB, California. In April 1994 the 542nd Crew Training Wing became the 58th Special Operations Wing under Air Education and Training Command.
Today Kirtland has a population of about 5,900 active-duty military personnel and 14,300 civilian workers. The Air Force Materiel Command's 377th Air Base Wing manages the base. Kirtland is an unusual base in that all branches of the Military--Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard--are represented.
The Albuquerque Public School System operates three elementary schools on Kirtland. Ninety percent of the students are from military families. There are also more than 2,100 family housing units on the base.
Kirtland is essentially a self-contained community. A large base exchange, one of the largest commissaries in the Air Force, service stations, banking institutions, health care, a library, flower shop, laundry and dry cleaners, optical shop, and many more concessions are all operated on base. Kirtland has two chapels with regular services and many programs, e.g., counseling, spiritual retreats, and religious education classes.
A full range of recreational opportunities can be found on base: an 18-hole golf course and a riding stable, for example, and two gymnasiums providing a variety of indoor ball sports, weight lifting, martial arts, sauna and whirlpool, and intramural sports. The Youth Activities Center offers social and other programs. The National Atomic Museum, operated by Sandia National Laboratories, offers tourists two distinct display areas--the history of nuclear weapons and Department of Defense programs.
The 377th Services Squadron provides such a variety of services to families--from music lessons and crafts classes to field trips--it's possible for a family to supply all its needs without ever leaving the base gates. Kirtland is truly a community in every sense of the word.
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