convert

A BRIEF HISTORY OF

WHITE SANDS PROVING GROUND

1941–1965

ORLD

AND

THE

ULAROSA

ASIN

1941

The U.S. Army Air Corps began planning for rapid expansion of
existing aircraft training facilities throughout several western states
in 1941. The Air Corps was rechristened the U.S. Army Air Force

(USAAF) on June 20. Anticipating the inevitable fall of Europe to the
Axis and direct American participation in World War II, military

planners recognized the need for a fallback position for the Royal
Air Force (RAF). In April, Major General H. H. “Hap” Arnold,

USAAC, met with Vice Marshall Sir Guy Garrod, RAF, to establish
the British Overseas Training Program, which would use new air

bases built in the vast, open spaces of the American West.
Alamogordo Army Air Field (AAAF) was officially established on

Easter Sunday, April 13, 1941. By October, the government ordered
local ranchers to begin disposing of livestock in anticipation of the

establishment of the proposed bombing range. In December,
following the air attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States declared

war on Japan, Germany, and Italy, and ranchers in 55 townships in
four New Mexico counties were rapidly notified that grazing leases

on public lands had been canceled to accommodate the newly
established Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range.

1942

By early 1942, new construction was underway at the Alamogordo,
Carlsbad, Deming, Clovis, and Roswell Army Air Fields, resulting
in a massive increase in the military presence in southern New

Mexico. Five of the 14 major bombardier training bases in the
United States, designed to accommodate 45,000 trainees, were

located in New Mexico. Five additional bases were located in Texas,
and one was built in each of the states of California, Colorado,

Arizona, and Louisiana. Ten practice ranges had also been
established in the New Mexico-Texas Southwest. Most of these

ranges lay within Doña Ana, Otero, and neighboring counties
within or close to the current White Sands Missile Range (WSMR)

and U. S. Army Fort Bliss reservations. Construction began at AAAF
on February 6, and the base was elevated to full status on June 1.

In June, the Manhattan Project, initiated the previous year, was

transferred from its original headquarters at the Manhattan, New
York, Engineer District, to the U.S. Army, under the command of

Eidenbach

White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

(then) Colonel Leslie Groves, who supervised its relocation to the

secret site of Los Alamos, New Mexico, the following year. Groves,
promoted to Brigadier General on September 22, continued to

command the Manhattan Project until its transfer, in March 1947, to
the new Atomic Energy Commission.

Robert Goddard’s rocket research group, the only such effort in the

United States prior to World War II, had been operating in nearby
Roswell, NM (about 200 miles northeast of WSMR and Fort Bliss),

since 1930, under the sponsorship of the Guggenheim Foundation.
Goddard’s program relocated to the Naval Engineering Experiment

Station in Annapolis, Maryland, in July 1942, just three years before
the fruits of his early research arrived at the new Proving Ground

with the captured V–2 program. Goddard, who had flown the first
liquid-fueled rocket in 1926, had failed to interest the War

Department in rocketry until September 1941, when he finally
obtained contracts with the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics and the

Army Air Corps. Ironically, Goddard’s success in obtaining military
sponsorship and the subsequent relocation permanently removed

him from participation in the first major U.S. rocketry programs that
took place in the western United States.

On October 3, 1942, Goddard’s early rocketry research bore fruit in

Peenemünde, Germany, with the first successful launch of an A–4
(V–2) missile for the German Army. This rocket was larger but

almost identical to missiles Goddard tested years earlier at Roswell.
In December, the German Air Force pulse-jet propelled V–1 was also

successful in tests at Peenemünde, although this first flight only
achieved a distance of 3,000 yards.

1943

U.S. Army and Air Force histories suggest that by 1943, the

AAAF was already being informally considered as a guided-missile
development site. The Rocketry Branch, called the U.S.Army

Ordnance Corps, was officially established in September of that
year.

In August, the Luftwaffe in Italy began attacks on allied combat

ships with Fritz X, the first successful air-to-surface missile (ASM).
On September 9, a 1,400-kilogram armor-piercing Fritz X sank the

battleship

Roma

and severely damaged the

Italia

in the Strait of

Bonifacio. The following week, Fritz X sank two cruisers, damaged

two others and a battleship, and sank several merchant ships off
Salerno.

Eidenbach

White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

1944

In   May   1944,   the   USAAF,   through   the   Office   of   the   Chief   of
Ordnance   (OCO),   contracted   with   the   Jet   Propulsion   Laboratory
(JPL)   of   the   Guggenheim   Aeronautical   Laboratory,   California

Institute of Technology (GALCIT), for the Army’s first ballistic-
missile program to “develop long-range rocket missiles and ramjets

and...associated guidance and launching equipment.” This project
became known as ORDCIT, an acronym for Ordnance-California

Institute of Technology, also used as the name of the original range.
Between 1944 and circa 1960, the ORDCIT program produced the

Private A and F, the WAC (Without Attitude Control) Corporal,
Corporal E, Bumper-WAC (two-stage V–2/WAC combination to

demonstrate launch and separation using available components),
and Sergeant missile series. Historian William Burrows suggests an

alternative explanation for the name. He states that WAC was
“named after the Women’s Army Corps because its developers

thought of it as Corporal’s little sister.”

Also in May, the search began for a location to test the Manhattan
Project’s atomic bomb. Eight potential locations were originally

identified: one in Colorado, one in South Texas, two in California,
and four in New Mexico. The final choice was narrowed to three:

the Grants, NM, Malpais (lava flow); the Rice, CA, Desert Training
Area; and the Jornada del Muerto, NM. The Grants Malpais was

eliminated because of the difficulty of moving Jumbo (the
plutonium-containment vessel) across the lava. Groves refused to

consider the California Desert Training Area because George Patton
(whom he considered “the most disagreeable man I have ever met”)

had trained his Africa Corps troops there. The Jornada del Muerto
(Journey of the Dead) was chosen. Col. Roscoe Wriston,

Commander of the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range,
turned over an 18-by-24 square mile area to the Manhattan Project,

and construction began in November.

On June 13, one month after the ORDCIT project was initiated,
German V–1 Buzz Bombs began to strike London. Within three

weeks of the first impacts, American engineers had “reverse-
engineering” a V–1 copy, JB–2 (Jet Bomb–2), from parts recovered at

unexploded crash sites in occupied Europe and England. The JB–2
was tested between 1944 and 1946 at Muroc Army Air Field (later

Edwards AFB) in California, Eglin AFB in Florida, and Wendover
AAF in Utah. It was finally transferred to Holloman Air Force Base

(HAFB) in 1948, when both HAFB and White Sands Proving
Ground (WSPG) missile programs began to expand.

Eidenbach

White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

IRTH

THE

HITE

ANDS

ROVING

ROUND

During the summer of 1944, less than one month after the

Normandy D–Day invasion, the first Allied radio-controlled
Aphrodite drone aircraft missile, carrying 20,000 pounds of TNT,

struck German rocket launch-site targets in the Pas de Calais.
During the fall, selection of a suitable missile test range began under

the command of Major General G. M. Barnes, Chief of the Research
and Development Service, OCO. The selection criteria required a

large, level, uninhabited area within the continental United States—
with clear skies and access to water, rail, and power facilities—near

a permanent Army post. WSMR historian Tom Starkweather
believes that initial alternatives were identified in Utah, Nevada,

California, and Texas. A Corps of Engineers team, led by Colonel G.
W. Trichel, Chief of the Rocket Development Division, OCO, visited

the alternative locations. The selection team, under the command of
Col. L. R. Skinner, OCO (coinventor of the bazooka), identified the

Tularosa Basin in south-central New Mexico as the best of several
available sites. The following February, the OCO directed the Corps

of Engineers to acquire the lands necessary for establishing the
ORDCIT Range, Area 3.

On November 20, OCO contracted with General Electric to

undertake the Army’s second missile program, the Hermes Project,
to develop long-range surface-to-surface guided missiles (SSM). By

December, OCO had decided to include the V–2 rocket within the
Hermes Project and began planning the capture of 100 V–2 rockets

after the liberation of Europe. That same December, the first of 24
JPL Private A missiles was fired at Camp Irwin, California.

1945

Early in 1945, OCO contracted with Western Electric’s Bell
Telephone Laboratories to develop a supersonic surface-to-air
guided missile (SAM) to attack high-speed, high-altitude aircraft. By

October 1946, Bell (which had tested the first U.S. jet aircraft three
years earlier), with its subcontractors, Douglas Aircraft and Aerojet

Engineering and Aberdeen’s Ballistic Research Laboratory,
produced the first successful Nike. Meanwhile, the Navy Bureau of

Ordnance, concerned with the potential threat of kamikaze suicide
attack, directed the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics

Laboratory (APL, established in 1942) to initiate the Bumblebee
guided-missile and antiaircraft program, which led to the 3T missile

family: Talos, Terrier, and Tartar.

Eidenbach

White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

The new WSPG site in the Tularosa Basin incorporated the

Alamogordo Bombing Range, ORDCIT, and portions of the Fort
Bliss Artillery Range. The site was approved by the Secretary of War

on February 20, the day after the last V–2 was fired in Europe.
Initially, the northern portion was under the jurisdiction of the

Army Air Force (which became the Air Force in 1947); the central
portion was under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Army,

OCO; and the extreme southern portion, including the Fort Bliss
Antiaircraft Firing Range, remained part of Fort Bliss. This split in

jurisdiction lasted until Army consolidation in 1950. Beginning on
April 1, the first of 17 JPL Private F missiles was fired from Hueco

Range on Fort Bliss, Texas.

One month later, on May 2, Wernher von Braun and his rocket team
fled the advancing Soviet Army and surrendered to American forces

at Oberjoch, Germany. They had evacuated their Peenemünde
rocket-research site and hidden their research documents in an old

mine shaft near Dorten. U.S. Army Ordnance Technical Intelligence
Special Mission V–2 captured the V–2 hardware at the underground

Mittelwerk factory in Nordhausen, Germany. The 144th Ordnance
Company secretly marshalled the Dorten documents, nearly 100 of

some 400 Peenemünde personnel, and large quantities of V–2
hardware for transport to the United States.

By May 22, 1945, the first captured V–2 rocket components were

being transported to Antwerp for shipment to the new Proving
Ground. By June 30, evacuation of Peenemünde personnel to the

United States was approved. Actual construction at WSPG began on
June 25, with water-well drilling. Camp construction began on June

29, with the re-erection of three barracks buildings (referred to as
CCC buildings in the 1959 WSMR history) moved from Sandia Air

Base near Albuquerque or Camp Luna near Las Vegas, NM. These
buildings had been sawn in half and transported to the new site

with house-moving wheel sets. A relocated hangar, Dallas-type
hutments, a missile-assembly building, and a building for the Fire

Department were added. In correspondence to Starkweather, Col. E.
W. Bradshaw, one of the three OCO officers who helped choose the

WSPG site, recalls that (then) Lt. Col. Harold Turner, the first WSPG
Commanding Officer, with the help of C Battery, 69th Antiaircraft

Artillery Battalion, selected base camp and launch site locations,
erected wood-floor squad tents, established generator and line

power, drilled the first wells, and re-erected the three relocated
barracks.

Eidenbach

White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

The Proving Ground was officially authorized by ASF Circular 269,

July 13, effective July 9, 1945. Construction of the Army blockhouse
at Army Launch Area 1 (the first at WSPG, now Launch Complex

33) commenced on July 10. By late July, 300 freight-car loads of V–2
(and probably other) missile parts were enroute to WSPG.

Operation Overcast, a program to exploit German civilian scientific
personnel, was established on July 19 and assumed responsibility

for the captured Peenemünde staff.

Meanwhile, the Manhattan Project, operating in secret at Site Y (Los
Alamos, NM) under the command of Maj. Gen. Leslie Groves, had

successfully designed the world’s first atomic device. Unbeknownst
to Col. Turner, WSMR’s first commander, the Commander of the

Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, Col. Roscoe Wilson, had
reluctantly transferred control of the 432 square-mile Trinity Site to

the Manhattan Project. Construction at Trinity was underway by
November 1944, and the Trinity test was ignited July 16, 1945, at

5:29:45 a.m., Mountain War Time. Less than one month later, atomic
weapons were first used against Japan, just as the captured German

V–2 materiel began to arrive at WSPG.

On August 6, 1945, the first atom bomb was dropped at Hiroshima,
Japan, followed by another at Nagasaki on August 9. The following

day, C Battery, 69th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion, was officially
assigned to WSPG, and 163 officers and enlisted troops from the

9393rd Technical Service Unit, OCO, arrived, followed later by
elements of the 4119th Area Service Unit (formerly 4845th), 8th

Service Command, 4th Army. Robert H. Goddard, the father of
American rocketry, died the same day.

OST

-W

ORLD

AND

THE

ARLY

OLD

In September 1945, von Braun and the first group of German

scientists arrived in Paris. They were flown to Newcastle AFB in
Wilmington, Delaware, transferred to Fort Strong near Boston, and

then to Fort Bliss, Texas. The remainder of the 118 Paperclippers
arrived aboard the transport liner

Argentina

in November and

reached Fort Bliss by January 1946.

The Army Blockhouse at Launch Area 1 (LC-33) was completed in
September 1945. On September 26, a modified Navy Tiny Tim rocket

(configured as a booster for WAC Corporal) became the first missile
launched by the Army at the new Proving Ground. The first full

WAC Corporal A was fired less than one month later, on October 11,
reaching an altitude of 44 miles. That same day, the 1st Guided

Eidenbach

White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

Missile Battalion was constituted and stationed at the Proving

Ground. Later that month, a contract was awarded to construct the
first (100,000 pound thrust; 100-K) static test stand, and the Chief of

Ordnance invited the Navy to participate in the WSPG’s new
guided-missile program. The Air Force had initiated a guided-

missile program of its own at Wendover AFB, Utah, and had begun
construction of its first high-speed test tracks: K–2 at China Lake

and the 2,000-foot track at Edwards AFB. By November 1945,
troopers from the 1st Guided Missile Battalion were guarding

captured German materiel at railway sidings near Las Cruces, and
at WSPG, General Electric employees had begun to identify, sort,

and reassemble V–2 components in the re-erected hangar (Building
1538), designated as Assembly Building 1.

1946

The Hermes project was assigned the task of assembling captured
V–2 rockets (and, by 1947, supervising Bumper). (Between 1947 and
1954, Hermes utilized four modified German V–2 missiles

[redesignated Hermes B–1], five Hermes A–1s [based on the
German

Wasserfall

antiaircraft rocket], and 13 Hermes A–3s.) As the

Project Hermes V–2 program neared readiness at the close of 1945,
its scientific potential began to eclipse its original, purely military

purpose. In December 1945 (or January 1946), the Naval Research
Laboratory (NRL) had established a Rocket-Sonde Research Branch.

In early January 1946, after OCO offered the NRL use of captured

V–2s for research, NRL invited other military and university
programs to join the V–2 Upper Atmosphere Research Panel

(originally the V–2 Panel; later the Rocket and Satellite Research
Panel), chaired by Dr. James A. VanAllen, APL (who later directed

the Aerobee program). The panel membership included Ernest H.
Krause, NRL; W. G. Dow, University of Michigan; M. H. Nichols,

Princeton; Fred Whipple, Harvard; Col. James G. Bain, OCO; Col.
Holger N. Toftoy, the Army Ground Forces; and representatives of

the Air Materiel Command, the Army Signal Corps, Cal Tech’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and General Electric.

In April, the Army Air Corps contracted with Consolidated Vultee

(later General Dynamics) to study a long-range ballistic missile
(known as MX–774) as a back-up program for the Navaho I missile,

which was to succeed the Hermes B–1. The program was canceled
the following year, but three launches of the MX–774 Hi-Roc took

place in 1948 at LC–33.

Eidenbach

White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

The V–2 program began in earnest with the full onset of the Cold

War, an era that actually started at Trinity, but is usually marked by
Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech on March 5, 1946.

Assembly Building II (Building 1558; a

Mills

building, later known

as “The Mill”) was erected in 1946. On March 15, the first V–2 was

static-test fired on the new 100-K Test Stand, which had been
designed by the German rocket team, based on earlier examples in

Germany. The following day, Operation Overcast was officially
renamed Operation Paperclip. The Strategic Air Command (SAC)

was created on March 21, and the Air Materiel Command began
developing the XB–63 Rascal, a subsonic air-to-ground pilotless

parasite bomber, under contract with Bell Aircraft. Rascal was used
in the first off-range firing at WSPG 10 years later. Aberdeen

Proving Ground’s Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL) organized a
permanent White Sands Annex the same month. On April 2, the

Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories (SCEL) in Fort Monmouth,
New Jersey, dispatched personnel to establish Field Station No. 1 at

WSPG. Alamogordo Army Air Field, temporarily deactivated since
February, was reactivated in April to support the increased missile-

firing schedule. OCO established the Ordnance Research and
Development Division Suboffice (Rocket) at Fort Bliss to provide

facilities for a select group of German scientists who were engaged
in the new Hermes II project to develop a two-stage missile based

on a modified V–2.

After one unsuccessful launch attempt on April 16, the first
successful V–2 firing took place on May 10, 1946, reaching an

altitude of 70 miles. On May 17, the Naval Bureau of Ordnance,
already envisioning the need to replace its small supply of V–2s,

contracted through the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns
Hopkins University with Aerojet for 20 XASR–1 Aerobee sounding

rockets (originally called Venus) and established the U.S. Naval
Ordnance Missile Test Facility at WSPG. In July, the USN Bureau of

Ordnance began constructing the Navy Cantonment Area at the
Proving Ground.

Dr. George Gardiner, head of the Physics Department at New

Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (NMAMA, later
New Mexico State University) had met with Col. J. G. Bain, OCO, in

January 1946 to discuss the possibility of providing student labor for
data reduction of ballistic Askania films. The resulting contract with

the Army’s Ballistics Research Laboratory, effective in May, led to
the Regents of the College to found the Physical Science Laboratory

(PSL, originally the Laboratory of Applied Science) in September. A

Eidenbach

White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

second contract for similar services with the Johns Hopkins Applied

Sciences Laboratory, acting for the Navy Bureau of Ordnance, was
negotiated that fall. After a historic meeting in early 1947, between

Lewis Del Sasso and NMAMA’s Harold Brown at the Amador Hotel
in Las Cruces, a third contract was undertaken, this time with the

Naval Research Laboratory. PSL has continued to supply support,
research, data reduction, and a wide range of other services to

WSMR and its tenant organizations.

During the summer and fall of 1946, PSL student crews began
surveying baseline instrumentation stations A through Z to provide

position data for missile test firings. On September 17, Bell
engineers static-test fired the first Nike SAM at LC-33. By October,

the Bell Nike no. 1 was successfully fired to an altitude of 28 miles.
The same month, von Braun’s German rocket team had arrived at

WSPG to assist General Electric engineers with V–2 testing. Several
sources indicate that 39 scientists led by von Braun spent six months

as WSPG, billeted in Building H (which may have been the H-
shaped, single-story Officer’s Quarters fronting B Street, shown on

the June 1945 cantonment map). Starkweather notes that members
of the team used Army buses for weekend trips to Ruidoso and

Cloudcroft in the Sacramento Mountains. The German team
apparently numbered approximately 200 before mid-year 1947.

The first motion pictures of the earth from space were taken from V–

2 no. 13, which reached an altitude of 65 miles on October 24, 1946.
Construction at LC-33 continued, and the gantry tower was

completed in November. On December 17, V–2 no. 17 made the first
American night rocket flight.

1947

By 1947, the need for an accurate, three-dimensional coordinate
system became apparent. The requirements for measuring vertical
angles were unprecedented, and eventually a modified transverse-

mercator projection was developed and anchored to the U.S. Coast
and Geodetic Survey Texas-California Arc at Kent Peak in the San

Andres Mountains and Elephant Mountain near Orogrande.
Because no suitable survey equipment was then available, local

personnel cannibalized three damaged Zeiss theodolites, shipped to
WSPG with the loads of V–2 missile parts, and built two usable

instruments .

The original ORDCIT WAC Corporal program was nearly complete
by early 1947. On February 24, WAC Corporal B no. 17 reached a

record altitude of 45.5 miles. The final WAC launch took place on

Eidenbach

White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

June 12. Blossom, another V–2 program, began firing in February

under the auspices of the Air Force Cambridge Research Center.
Blossom’s mission was to study ionospheric conditions and develop

an instrument-package parachute-recovery system. The Blossom
program continued through 1951. Five Blossom experiments,

carrying four rhesus monkeys all named Albert and a mouse, were
conducted for the Wright-Patterson AFB Aero-Medical Laboratory.

However, only the first of a total of 11 Blossom launches was fully
successful. Blossom I (V–2 no. 20), fired February 20, carried a

canister containing fruit flies and various seeds to an altitude of 68
miles and returned safely to Earth by parachute.

In February, shortly after the first Blossom flight, AAAF was

transferred to the Air Materiel Command in return for transfer of
Wendover AFB to the new Strategic Air Command. In March, the

Air Force guided-missile program—including Boeing’s GAPA
(Ground to Air Pilotless Aircraft), North American’s NATIV (North

American Test Instrument Vehicle), and the Tarzon Vertical Bomb—
was moved from Wendover to AAAF, which was rechristened

Holloman AFB the following year. On July 26, the National Security
Act created the Department of Defense with three separate

departments, and the U.S. Air Force was established as an
independent service. The Act also set up the National Security

Council (NSC), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. The following day, Lt. Col. Turner, WSPG, and Col.

Paul F. Helmick, AAAF, executed a cooperative-use agreement
locally integrating the

New Mexico Guided Missiles Range

. The new

Air Force missile program at AAAF expanded rapidly—in its first
year, AAAF fired the first GAPA, three early Falcon AAMs, and the

first Firebird AAM; launched the first OQ–19 drones; began the first
high-altitude balloon operations; and started the first dummy

missile drop tests for the Snark ICBM.

The Navy guided-missile program began construction of two
tiltable, 140-foot Aerobee launch towers and the Navy Blockhouse at

Launch Complex 35 in May. On November 24, the Navy launched
the first fully configured Aerobee sounding rocket (no. A–4), which

carried cosmic-ray instruments to an altitude of 36.7 miles. Earlier in
May, Douglas Aircraft launched a Corporal E, the first American-

designed, engineered, and fabricated SSM, and the first ORDCIT
test vehicle with command guidance. This first Corporal E reached

an altitude of 24.4 miles, impacting 62.5 miles downrange within 2
miles of its target, after receiving and executing a radar course-

correction signal. In September, the Navy tested the V–2 at sea

Eidenbach

White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

during Project Sandy, successfully launching from the

Midway’s

carrier deck in the Atlantic Ocean. At WSPG, in Operation
Pushover, the Navy intentionally toppled and exploded a fully

fueled V–2 on a segment of carrier flight deck.

The OCO approved the Bumper V–2 program in June 1947. Under
the direction of JPL, Bumper was the first multistage rocket system,

wedding a WAC Corporal to a V–2, an idea originally suggested
prior to July 1946 by Col. Holger Toftoy, who had organized Special

Mission V–2 to acquire captured missiles for testing at the Proving
Ground. (The first Bumper flight took place in May 1948. Less than

one year later, Bumper no. 5 penetrated outer space.)

Following two near-mishaps with off-course missile impacts, steps
were taken to increase range safety. On May 15, steering trouble

developed in V–2 no. 26, causing an off-range impact near
Alamogordo. Two weeks later, on May 29, the first Hermes B–1

(Hermes II) impacted outside Juarez, Mexico.

In October, Air Force Cpt. Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in
the Bell X–1. Two months later, Maj. John Stapp made the first two

rocket-sled runs at the Edwards AFB Test Track.

In August, efforts to secure a more permanent test range had
resulted in 52 co-use and full-use agreements with local landowners.

In November, the Army Corps of Engineers, Albuquerque District,
prepared the first feasibility study for a northern Range expansion.

In December, plans were approved for a new Loki antiaircraft free-
flight rocket (based on the German

Taifun

). Bendix Aviation and JPL

contracted for Loki to after initial feasibility studies were completed
in 1948–1949. Loki was first test fired at WSPG in June 1951.

1948

The AAAF was redesignated Holloman Air Force Base in January,
effective the following month, with a formal dedication in
September. Missile programs continued to expand at both WSPG

and HAFB. Between 1946 and 1950, the Army and Navy launched
235 missiles and the Air Force launched 329, in addition to 604

drone flights, 111 parachute-recovery drop tests, 157 bomb drops,
and 52 miscellaneous missions.

On February 6, GE launched the first successful, electronically

controlled missile, V–2 no. 36. On June 11, USAF Blossom III (V–2
no. 37) carried the first rhesus monkey, Albert I, to a height of 39

miles, but failed to reach recovery altitude.

Eidenbach

White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

By the end of 1948, the Air Force at Holloman had initiated 11 new

missile and drone test programs, in addition to the three original
Wendover programs (GAPA, JB–2, and Tarzon) transferred in 1947.

The first of four NATIV flights was launched in May. In July, USAF
Project MX–774 commenced with the first Consolidated Vultee Hi–

Roc launch from LC-33. Project MX-774 led to the Atlas rocket, the
first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). By December, the first

fully powered Ryan Firebird air-to-air missile, which used plastic in
the nose, fore-, and aft fins, was launched.

Bumper, designed to demonstrate the feasibility of multistage

rockets, began the first of six WSPG test firings on May 13.
Bumper’s WAC Corporal/V–2 stood 58 feet in height. The first

successful flight demonstrated stage separation and reached an
altitude of 70 miles. The WAC Corporals for this and the second test

(where the V–2 booster failed), contained only a separation charge.
Bumper no. 3 achieved 93 miles with its first stage, but its WAC

exploded before separation. A fully successful multistage flight was
not achieved until the following year.

EVELOPMENT

THE

NTEGRATED

ANGE

At Holloman, planning for the High Speed Test Track was initiated

with Northrup and Hughes Aircraft in October, and by December,
HAFB had been reorganized under the Air Materiel Command. All

three services now had successful missile programs in place—the
Army and Navy at WSPG and the Air Force at HAFB. In September,

WSPG was “declared a Class II activity under the control of the
Chief of Ordnance at Fort Bliss, Texas” (Dept. of Army, General

Order 59, 8 September 1948).

Late in the year, two developments occurred that would greatly
expand the WSPG mission. During August and September, the two

Koreas were established, setting the stage for the conflict that would
begin in less than two years. On December 29, 1948, Secretary of

Defense James Forrestal announced the establishment of the U.S.
earth satellite vehicle program, which would launch the first U.S.

satellite, Explorer 1, into space less than a decade later.

1949

On January 4, 1949, Army General Order 2.II designated the Signal
Corps Engineering Laboratory at WSPG (which had been temporary

since April 1946) as the 9577th Technical Service Unit, SCEL Field
Station No. 1, at Fort Bliss. On October 26, an additional Signal

Corps unit was added to the WSPG complement with the arrival of

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White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

six officers and 210 enlisted men from the 169th Signal Construction

Company at Camp Gordon, Georgia. In March, USAF control of
WSPG’s local support airfield, Condron Field, was transferred from

Biggs Army Air Field at Fort Bliss to Holloman.

Brig. Gen. Phillip Blackmore, WSPG’s second Commanding Officer,
established a Joint Range Coordination Committee on January 7,

composed of the WSPG Commanding General, the HAFB
Commanding Officer, and the WSPG Naval Officer-in-Charge, to

resolve problems of cooperation and jurisdiction at a local level. The
Committee’s authority was challenged within a month by the

Commanding General at Fort Bliss, who asserted his command
authority over WSPG, based on the General Order establishing the

Proving Ground as a permanent Class II activity under his
command. The Air Force and Navy vehemently opposed this action

—more than three years of negotiations took place before the
Secretary of Defense’s final decision, on July 18, 1952, resolved the

dispute by centralizing range operational authority under the
Commander, WSPG. The decision recognized advise by deputies

from both the Air Force and Navy and denied the authority of the
Commander, Fort Bliss. The new chain of command led directly

from the WSPG Commander to the Department of the Army
through the Ordnance Department. The Air Force retained title and

command of HAFB, while the Navy retained administrative control
and title over all Navy facilities. The final integration plan was

issued on August 19, 1952, and took effect September 1. The dispute
concerning use of the range for training purposes continued at the

departmental level, which had a detrimental effect on the Air Force
guided-missile program at HAFB by creating a belief that the

program was to be taken over by the Army. This belief led, in turn,
to the cancellation of plans and monies, seriously jeopardizing the

guided-missile program.

In early January, the Hermes II (or B-1) program resumed test firing
after more than a year’s delay following the loss of course control

and the impact of test vehicle no. 0 near Juarez in 1947. Hermes II
used a modified V–2 to carry a smaller, second-stage ramjet missile,

known officially as RAM and nicknamed Organ. The second
Hermes II B–1 was successfully launched from LC-33 on January 3,

followed by two additional tests in October 1949 and November
1950.

The GE Bumper no. 5, fired at WSPG on February 24, was the first

with a fully fueled second stage and the first to be completely

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White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

successful. After 30 seconds, the first-stage V–2 had attained a speed

of 3,600 miles per hour. The WAC separated and continued upward
to a distance of 250 miles into outer space, reaching a speed of 5,150

miles per hour, achieving a new altitude record. This was the first
time radio equipment had ever been operated at such extreme

altitudes. On July 29, Bumper no. 7, fired at the Long Range Proving
Ground, Florida (as was no. 8), attained Mach 9, reaching 2,039

miles per hour, a new record for sustained speed in the earth’s
atmosphere.

On May 3, 1949, the Navy’s new American-designed Martin Viking

research rocket (originally called Neptune) was first launched from
LC-33, reaching an altitude of 50 miles. At Holloman, the Hughes

Falcon (the world’s first operational, guided air-to-air missile, or
AAM), the first Martin Matador surface-to-surface pilotless bomber,

and the first USAF X–8 Aerobee had been launched. Preliminary
development testing for the Bell Rascal program, the world’s first

supersonic strategic ASM, had begun with dummy drops of the
Shrike re-entry vehicle.

Meanwhile, the range co-use and full-use agreements with

landowners were found to be unworkable and were terminated in
March 1949. In May 1952, Public Land Order 833 withdrew range

lands for exclusive military use. In August 1952, 168,000 acres were
transferred from Fort Bliss to WSPG.

On May 11, 1949, President Harry S. Truman signed legislation

authorizing development of a 3,000-mile guided missile test range.
That July, the public and press were first allowed to visit Trinity Site.

The following month, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic
bomb.

OREAN

1950

International events taking place in 1950 had a major impact on the
U.S. military establishment and operations at WSPG. In January,
President Truman approved development of the hydrogen bomb. By

April, the National Security Council had prepared NSC 68, which
redefined the Cold War in military terms, calling for the buildup of

a nuclear arsenal and expansion of conventional weapons to counter
the Soviet threat. The nuclear arms race had begun.

On June 25, North Korean troops crossed into South Korea and

President Truman committed U.S. forces to its defense. Late in the
year, the United States and South Vietnam signed a Mutual Defense

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White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

Assistance Agreement. Together, these events dramatically spurred

guided-missile development programs in the defense agencies.

In February, the Navy announced the tests of Mighty Mouse, the
first successful air-to-air rocket. The Air Force established nearby

Sacramento Peak Observatory to study solar radiation. The first
HAFB 3,550-foot High Speed Test Track was completed on June 15,

and the first unloaded Snark launch-sled test took place on June 23,
reaching a top speed of 101 miles per hour. The new Army

Ordnance Missile Center was established at the Redstone Arsenal in
Huntsville, and von Braun’s scientific team, composed of more than

100 captured German scientists stationed at Fort Bliss and WSPG
since 1946, was transferred in November.

On May 19, 1950, the Army unsuccessfully launched the first

Hermes A–1 antiaircraft missile (based on the German

Wasserfall

). In

August, attention shifted to the Air Force high-altitude balloon

program. On August 8, Capt. Vincent Mazza set a new altitude
record of 42,176 feet, parachuting from a balloon. This record was

surpassed three weeks later by Capt. Richard Wheeler, who
parachuted from 42,449 feet above Holloman. That same day, HAFB

personnel launched the first Wright Field Aero-Medical Laboratory
high-altitude cosmic radiation balloon from WSNM. On November

21, the Navy Viking V was launched from LC-33 and set a new
single-stage altitude record of 107 miles. The first flight-test of Snark

on December 21 proved unsuccessful when the missile disengaged
from its sled below flight separation speed and was destroyed.

1951

During 1951, the interservice debate about the Proving Ground
chain of command continued. WSPG completed construction of its
new headquarters, the Post Administration Building No. 100, in

January. The Air Force reorganized its missile program, including
Holloman, under an independent command, the Air Research and

Development Command (ARDC). On March 29, an Aerobee launch
from HAFB was broadcast on nationwide radio. Run no. 15 at the

Test Track produced the first successful Snark launch and uprange
test flight on April 16. Two days later, the first Aerobee flight

carrying a monkey took place.

Meanwhile, in March and June, the final two Air Force Cambridge
Research Center Blossom tests, IV–E and IV–F, suffered tail

explosions shortly after launch. Another American redesign of a
German antiaircraft concept, Loki (based on

Taifun

), was launched

from the new Small Missile Range. The Douglas Honest John SSM,

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White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

which became the first post-war operational American missile, was

also test fired at the Proving Ground. In August, the Navy’s Viking
set another single-stage altitude and speed record of 135 miles at

4,100 miles per hour. On September 20, Aerobee carried a monkey
and 11 mice (the first living creatures to survive outer space) to an

altitude of 236,000 feet. This flight provided the first successful
recovery of animals from a rocket flight. In November, a Nike–Ajax

achieved the free world’s first successful anti-aircraft interception by
destroying a B-17 drone over WSPG.

The Navy Talos program, an outgrowth of the original 1945

Bumblebee Project’s experiments in ramjet propulsion, had
progressed at the Naval Ordnance Test Station in China Lake, CA, to

the point that it needed an extended range. Talos was transferred to
the Navy Launch Area at LC-35 on WSPG.

1952

The year 1952 marked a continued expansion of test programs and
further integration of the range. Another phase of the Cold War
began with the first hydrogen bomb test on November 1, at

Enewetok Island in the Pacific, and President Truman officially lay
the keel of the world’s first atomic-powered naval vessel,

U.S.S.

Nautilus

. In February, the Aberdeen BRL transferred range

instrumentation responsibilities to the new WSPG Flight

Determination Laboratory. In May, Public Land Order 833 withdrew
on-range public lands from the public domain, and additional Fort

Bliss acreage was transferred. On August 19, the Secretary of
Defense established WSPG as a permanent Class IV activity under

the command of the Chief of Ordnance. On September 1, HAFB and
WSPG ranges were consolidated by order of the Secretary of

Defense. On September 22, the WSPG Commanding General issued
General Order 30,

Plan for the Operation of the Integrated Range

, just

three days after the 73rd and final V–2 was fired at the range.

In July 1952, WSPG Commander, Brig. Gen. G. G. Eddy, and Dr. J.
W. Branson, NMAMA, initiated the College Student Cooperative

Program. The first launch of the Type 1 tactical version of Corporal
took place in August, and the first Navy Talos at WSPG was fired in

October. At Holloman, the 33rd and final Snark Test Track flight
took place on March 28. Snark was immediately succeeded at the

Test Track by Sandia Corporation’s Project Sleighride, which tested
the effects of impact, deceleration, and rainfall on a “free rocket

special warhead” for the Atomic Energy Commission on behalf of
the Ordnance Corps, U.S. Army. On September 20, the first Rascal

ASM was launched at Holloman. In late October, the newly

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White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

integrated range broadened its mission to an international scale

with the announcement that the Swiss Oerlikon missile was to be
tested from Tularosa Range Camp.

FTER

OREA

AND

THE

EATH

TALIN

1953

On August 14, five months after the death of Josef Stalin and less
than one month after the Korean Armistice was signed, the Soviet
Union tested its first hydrogen bomb. Local research and logistic

support for the WSPG expanded. Texas Western College (later the
University of Texas at El Paso) founded the Schellenger Research

Laboratories (SRL) and gradually began to undertake research and
development contracts for the Army Signal Corps, OCO, and other

military organizations. Sometime during the late 1950s, SRL
developed the SOTIM (Sonic Observation of Trajectories and

Impacts of Missiles) System for WSPG, an array of sensitive,
ground-positioned microphones capable of precisely triangulating

impact sites to supplement radar-tracking systems.

In April, Lt. Col. John Paul Stapp was reassigned to Holloman from
Edwards AFB to undertake a new test program on the Biophysics of

Abrupt Deceleration, the first of several innovative AeroMedical
programs concerned with the problems of aircraft escape and

bailout from high-speed aircraft, which provided the basis for the
new field of space medicine.

The Desert Navy at WSPG completed the

L.L.S.–1 U.S.S. Desert Ship

in June. The

Desert Ship’s

concrete-blockhouse complex provided

assembly and launch facilities simulating shipboard conditions.

On June 13, the Hermes A–3 series, larger and more powerful than

the

Wasserfall-

based A–1 (a modified V–2 Hermes B–1), reached the

testing stage with the first successful Hermes A–3A launch. The

following month, WSPG officially assumed maintenance and
operation responsibility for all instrumentation within the

integrated range. In October, the Office of the Adjutant General,
Fourth Army, finally clarified the WSPG-Fort Bliss boundary by.

In December, the Nike-Ajax was deployed around Washington D.C.,

becoming the first guided SAM defense system in the world. Within
four years, more than 16,000 rounds had been produced. By 1957,

Ajax had been deployed throughout the United States and in
Europe and Asia.

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White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

1954

In 1954, WSPG began a survey of potential range extensions that
finally led to the addition of the FIX (Firing-in-Extension) in 1960, to
the north of the existing range. It also investigated test-flight

corridors for Matador and Redstone, from WSPG into British
Columbia and Alaska, with ranges of 1,500 and 2,000 nautical miles,

respectively. In May, the Navy Viking no. 11, launched from the new

Desert Ship

facilities, set another single-stage altitude record of 158

miles, and the Army Hermes A–3B flew for the first time under
radar guidance. Testing at White Sands had grown from a total of 14

launches in 1945 to 656 in 1954, supporting 11 separate programs,
including Aerobee, Corporal, Dart, Hermes, Honest John, Lacrosse,

Nike, Papa John, Pogo–Hi, Talos, and Viking. The nearby Air Force
Aero-Medical Laboratory High Speed Test Track programs also

expanded and, on March 19, Lt. Col. Stapp rode the first human
rocket-sled test into history, reaching a top speed of 615 feet per

second and enduring a peak deceleration of 22 G (gravities).

OST

-S

TALIN

OLD

XPANDED

ONFLICT

AND

RONTIERS

During 1954-1955, the Cold War began to escalate. In 1954, the

French suffered a catastrophic defeat at Dienbienphu, and Vietnam
was divided along the 17th parallel into North and South. On May

1, the Soviets revealed the M–4, their first jet-propelled, long-range
bomber. At the end of May, the first Nike-Ajax battery became

operational at Fort Meade, Maryland. In August, President Dwight
D. Eisenhower signed the Communist Control Act, and the

Communist party was outlawed in the United States.

1955

In 1955, the Warsaw Pact was signed, calling for mutual defense
among the Communist Bloc. In June, the United States held its first

nationwide civil-defense exercise, and the first SAC nuclear B–52
bombers were deployed. On July 29, Eisenhower’s press secretary

announced the U.S. artificial-satellite program, and the United
States officially entered the space race. Exaggerated reaction to

Soviet air-show bomber displays raised the specter of a “bomber
gap,” adding fuel to the missile race.

During September 1954, Wernher von Braun, in a secret report

entitled

The Minimum Satellite Vehicle Based Upon Components

Available from Missile Development of the Army Ordnance Corps

, had

predicted that other countries in addition to the United States
already had the capability to assemble and launch an earth satellite

within a few years. He concluded, “it would be a blow to U.S.

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White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

prestige if we did not do it first

” In the spring of 1955, the CIA

informed President Eisenhower that the Soviets were already
engaged in such a satellite program. At the President’s direction,

DoD convened the Ad Hoc Committee on Special Capabilities to
consider proposals for a satellite system from the three services, for

a launch coinciding with the International Geophysical Year (IGY),
1957–1958. The Army, under von Braun’s direction, proposed

launching a 15-pound payload by 1956, using Redstone as the first
stage topped by a cluster of 37 Loki rockets as upper stages. The

Navy, in

A Scientific Satellite Programme

dated July 5, 1955, proposed

a 40-pound satellite using a three-stage system based on Viking and

Aerobee. The Air Force promised it could launch an even heavier
payload using the proposed Atlas ICBM, whose development had

just been contracted to Convair that January. The committee chose
the Navy’s proposal, naming the project Vanguard. In July,

Eisenhower announced the intention to launch the first earth-
orbiting satellite during the IGY.

In March 1955, the first on-range firing of a USAF Matador took

place. Shortly thereafter, Matador became the Air Force’s first
operational missile. Similar in size and shape to a jet fighter and

loosely based on the German V–1, Matador could carry a 3,000-
pound nuclear or conventional warhead while flying up to 35,000

feet over a range of 500-650 miles. This and other advanced long-
range tactical missiles demanded longer test ranges. Despite their

test advantages, especially the ease of payload and vehicle recovery,
overland ranges were limited in size. Numerous plans for a variety

of possible WSPG range extension firing corridors of 100, 140, and
200 miles were proposed. In December, the WSPG Acting

Commander proposed the acquisition of 216 square miles for a
northern range extension.

1956

In 1956, war broke out in the Middle East following Egyptian
nationalization of the Suez Canal. Hungary revolted, and Nikita
Khrushchev promised “We will bury you.” WSPG and Holloman

Air Development Center (HADC) had finalized their Joint-Use
Tenancy Agreement, completing the process of range integration. In

February, the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency (BMA) was
established at Huntsville Arsenal to develop the Jupiter IRBM and

assume the lead role in Army long-range missile weaponry,
including the Redstone. By June, detailed plans for WSPG’s long-

range flight corridors and impact areas had been prepared for
distances of 250, 500, 750, 925, and 1,500 miles. However, in

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White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

November, a directive from the Secretary of Defense curtailed the

original BMA mission, limiting Army missiles to a range of less than
200 miles. Longer-range programs became the purview of the Air

Force. That same month, a Rascal fired from Orogrande marked the
beginning of off-range testing at WSPG. Toward the end of the year,

the Navy (on behalf of the Air Force) had contracted with RCA for a
land-based Talos Defense Unit, which was successfully tested one

year later at WSPG. By December, the Navy/Martin team had
successfully launched the first modified Viking Vanguard test

vehicle, with inert second and third stages.

1957

Holloman’s Capt. Joseph Kittenger, Jr., and Lt. Col. David Simons
made record-breaking Man-High I and II balloon ascents to 96,000

and 102,000 feet (respectively, in June and August). These were
eclipsed on October 4, 1957, when the Russians achieved the first

satellite earth orbit with Sputnik I, followed in November by the
1,120-pound Sputnik II, carrying the dog, Laika. Both Sputniks were

launched aboard the massive Soviet 32-engine SS–6 Sapwood, the
first Soviet ICBM, initially tested just months before in August.

The competing Vanguard program, based on the Navy’s Viking and

Aerobee, successfully launched the second modified Viking test
vehicle from Cape Canaveral in May, but the results still trailed

behind. Then in December, under mounting pressure following
Sputnik I and II, a third test vehicle using a new first stage was

hurriedly readied to launch a 4-pound satellite. Faulty ignition in
the new first stage caused the Vanguard to explode, and the launch

failed.

In early November, von Braun’s Army Redstone team at Huntsville
was directed to undertake satellite-launch attempts. In just under

three months, on January 29, 1958, they succeeded with America’s
Explorer I, boosted by a massive Jupiter C, modified from the older

Redstone.

The Navy at WSPG continued to set new single-stage, high-altitude
records with Aerobee–Hi, which reached an altitude of 190 miles in

April. The Deckhouse was added to

Desert Ship

at LC-35, and

missile assembly was relocated from the Navy Headquarters area.

The first land-based TDU (Talos Defense Unit) just west of Desert
Ship was completed in September, and the first launch of a TDU-

directed Talos scored a direct hit on a drone in December. APL
began formulating the basic concepts for the first radar-guided

integrated missile weapon system for the Navy, named Typhon. In

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White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

September, the first long-range Air Force Matador flight from WSPG

impacted at the inactive Wendover Bombing Range, Utah, and the
first underground nuclear test took place near Las Vegas, Nevada.

In August 1957, Russia announced its first successful ICBM launch,

followed in December by the first U.S. Atlas ICBM. Although Atlas
was only four months behind the Soviet program and represented

the largest and one of the fastest missile development programs, the
apparent lag led to a broad perception of a missile gap between the

two countries. That December, the Gaither Report to the National
Security Council concluded that the Soviets had achieved

superiority in long-range ballistic missiles. Late that year, a
Columbia graduate student first conceived of an idea that would

revolutionize both military and civilian technology as the
millennium closed—the laser.

1958

In 1958, Khrushchev became the Soviet Premier as well as First
Secretary of the Communist Party. Both the United States and the
Soviets now had parallel ICBM and space programs. First the Soviet

Union, and then the United States and Britain, suspended
atmospheric nuclear testing. Later in the year, Khrushchev

demanded talks about German reunification. In January, the Army’s
Anti-ICBM Nike-Zeus had been chosen over its Air Force

competitor, the Wizard, as the basis for ballistic missile defense
(BMD). (The first Zeus was successfully fired on December 16, 1959,

at WSMR and tested against Atlas at Ascension Island, a British
Colony in the South Atlantic, in 1960.) The November 1956 Wilson

Memorandum prohibition on long-range Army missile programs
was rescinded, and the Army contracted with Martin Company for

Missile D, which became known as Pershing, a two-stage, surface-
to-surface tactical nuclear missile with a range of 100-460 miles.

On March 17, the Vanguard program finally succeeded with its fifth

test vehicle (TV–4), which became the first multistage launch
platform, delivering a 5-pound payload, including a 4-pound

satellite, into an elliptical 406-mile orbit. This Vanguard’s orbit was
used to demonstrate the true, pear-shaped, bulged form of Earth.

The first Vanguard success was followed the next year by six more
failures and two successes (SLV–4, SLV–7), completing the original

program.

The Navy constructed Army Launch Area 3 (LC-36), and the WSMR
Flight Determination Laboratory was renamed the Integrated Range

Mission, reflecting implementation of the formal joint-use

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White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

agreements developed during the previous six years. A USAF Mace

(successor to Matador) was launched along the Wendover corridor
in February, becoming the first inertially guided missile flown over

a populated area in the United States. In May, WSPG was officially
renamed White Sands Missile Range. In June, WSMR launched its

first Redstone ICBM from the new Launch Area 3 (LC-36). In July,
President Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and

Space Administration (NASA) to consolidate and direct American
efforts in the newly established space race, transferring the

remaining Paperclip personnel who would become the nucleus of
the Marshall Space Flight Center. In December, the new agency

established Project Mercury, the first human space program.

The original 3,550-foot High Speed Test Track at HAFB, operational
since 1950, began its last year of testing before being extended to

35,000 feet. A Horizontal Test Stand designed for Atlas engine tests
was approved as part of the new track’s instrumentation, but was

never fully equipped or used for Atlas. On March 21, a world-record
monorail sled run on the old track achieved a speed of 2,704 miles

per hour. At the companion Daisy Track, Capt. E. I. Beeding Jr.,
became the first human to absorb 83 G. In October, Lt. Clinton

McClure III reached 99,900 feet aboard the Man-High III balloon
gondola. The 400th successful Firebee launch took place in

November.

1959

The year 1959 opened explosively with the Cuban Revolution on
New Year’s Day. In May, President Eisenhower decided against

deploying the Nike-Zeus, still in the testing stage. In July, Vice
President Richard Nixon visited Khrushchev in the Soviet Union.

September was eventful: the Atlas D became operational, a Soviet
Lunik II spacecraft crashed on the moon, and Khrushchev visited

the United States to meet with President Eisenhower at Camp
David. In October, Lunik III passed around the far side of the Moon,

returning the first photographs of the Moon’s hidden surface.

In April, WSMR received the OCO Legislative Liaison and Public
Relations Plans of its proposed Northern Extension. The Acting

Secretary of the Army approved the Northern Extension Plan in
August, and WSMR also assumed operational control of the Fort

Churchill, Manitoba, Rocket Research Facility. At Holloman, the
new, longer High Speed Test Track became operational, the 100th

Aerobee–Hi reached 140 miles as the program closed down at
HAFB, and testing was completed on the Sidewinder AAM. In

November, Capt. Joseph Kittenger, Jr., parachuted from an open

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White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

balloon gondola at 76,400 feet. The same year, APL began

developing the Typhon Weapons System for testing at

Desert Ship

(Typhon was first fired in March 1961. After 10 successful test

flights, the Typhon System was terminated in 1963, because of its
high cost.)

1960

By January 1, 1960, all co-use agreements for the Northern Extension
had been completed. Six weeks later, France joined the nuclear
group with the explosion of her first atomic bomb. Weightlessness

training for Project Mercury astronauts began over HAFB in March,
using a modified C–131.

Nike-Hercules, successor to Ajax since 1958, acquired enhanced

guidance. Early in the year, Hercules, equipped with the new High-
Power Acquisition Radar, successfully intercepted an oncoming

Corporal over WSMR. But by 1960, the concept of a Ballistic Missile
Defense system had become problematic and both the USAF and

the Navy had abandoned their BMD programs. Nike-Zeus, the first
anti-ICBM, was already outdated and would shortly be replaced by

the Nike X (later Safeguard) program starting in 1963.

In 1960, the U.S. satellite program began in earnest. In April, balloon
drops began to test the re-entry system of the Discoverer satellite. In

May, the United States launched the Midas II military
reconnaissance satellite; Tiros I, the first weather satellite; and Echo,

the first passive communications satellite.

In May, just over two weeks after Gary Powers was shot down in a
U–2 spy plane, the Commander of Army Ordnance Missile

Command officially requested WSMR’s support for an off-range
launch of Redstone, proposing Fort Wingate as a launch site.

On July 20, the 1,000th rocket sled reached a speed of 2,660 miles per

hour at the HAFB High Speed Test Track. In August, Capt. Joseph
Kittenger, Jr., again broke records with a balloon flight and

parachute jump from 102,800 feet, free-falling 82,300 feet and
reaching a speed of 614 miles per hour.

That November, John F. Kennedy was elected President of the

United States.

1961

On January 31, after Kennedy’s inauguration, HAM became the first
Holloman Aero-Medical chimpanzee to go into space on a 16-

minute suborbital flight. On February 1, the first Ballistic Missile
Early Warning System (BMEWS) became operational. By midmonth,

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White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

the Army Ordnance Missile Command’s earlier request for a

Redstone launch from Fort Wingate to WSMR was denied. In
March, the Navy conducted the first test launch of the Typhon

integrated weapon system.

Once again, the Soviet Union preempted the United States in the
space race with the successful Vostok I mission on April 12, which

placed the first human being, Yuri Gargarin, in orbit around the
Earth. Five days later, the ill-fated, U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion

of Cuba escalated existing tensions, already heated by the January
break in diplomatic relations with Fidel Castro’s government.

Russia also launched its first Venus mission that year, but lost
contact with the probe.

On May 5, less than one month after Gargarin’s historic orbital

flight, Alan B. Shepard, Jr., became the first U.S. astronaut in space.
Shepard, aboard the Mercury Freedom 7 boosted by the Army’s

Redstone, completed a 15-minute suborbital flight. Virgil Grissom
followed on July 21, aboard Liberty Bell 7, for a 16-minute

suborbital flight. Then, on August 6, Soviet cosmonaut G. Titov
dwarfed all previous efforts, achieving a 17-orbit, 25.6-hour flight.

Meanwhile, the Cold War heated up on several fronts. On May 11,

just two weeks before his pledge to put a human on the moon in the
next decade, Kennedy committed U.S. advisors to Vietnam. In June,

Khrushchev repeated his ongoing demands for German
reunification talks within six months. Kennedy responded with a

rapid military buildup and another civil-defense program. By
August, East Germany had closed the Brandenburg Gate, sealing

the border in preparation for constructing the Berlin Wall. By
September, both the Soviet Union and the United States had

resumed underground nuclear testing.

Late in 1961, Gen. Schriever, Commander of the Air Force Systems
Command, commissioned a white paper on the concept of re-entry

systems for ballistic missiles. The clear practicality of ballistic
missile-defense systems such as Nike-Zeus indicated that the

deployment of BMD systems created an actual defensive combat
zone and that the offensive-delivery system, exclusive of the re-

entry vehicle, constituted a logistic and not a weapons element. This
study resulted in the ABRES, or Advanced Ballistic Re-Entry

Systems program, to study ways of increasing the penetrability of
offensive re-entry systems. In July, WSMR had installed an

integrated real-time data system, primarily for the ARPAT program,

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White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

to provide ground guidance for hyper-velocity targets. WSMR was

chosen for subscale tests of ABRES in a program called Athena,
which further upgraded range instrumentation.

1962

At the end of January, nuclear test-ban talks in Geneva finally broke
down. The U.S. Mercury space program began to achieve
impressive results, orbiting three astronauts during the year: John

Glenn in February, Scott Carpenter in June, and Wally Shirra in
October. The U.S. Mariner 2 became the first man-made object to

reach another planet, Venus. Telstar, launched in July, became the
first active communications satellite. Meanwhile, the Soviet Mars

probe failed when contact was lost. In April, the United States
resumed atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. By October, the

same time the first flight of 10 silo-protected Minuteman I ICBMs
became operational, Soviet missile bases under construction in Cuba

were detected, precipitating a U.S. blockade.

In May 1962, the U.S. Army discontinued the OCO, parent
organization for America’s earliest space and missile efforts. The

WSMR Integrated Range Mission, which had started as the BRL
White Sands Annex, became the Range Operation Directorate, and

WSMR was transferred to the Army Materiel Command.

During 1962, WSMR also tested the Lockheed Pegasus, fired from
the original Redstone pad at LC-36, for launching the SAMOS spy

satellite. In September, the Air Force’s Green River, Utah, launch site
for the Athena subscale tests of ABRES was approved, and land

acquisition was initiated by the Sacramento District Corps of
Engineers in late December. Pershing, which had been in the test

phase at the Atlantic Missile Range since 1960, became operational
in July and was widely deployed during the next two years in both

the United States and West Germany.

The first successful firing of the North American Aviation/Air Force
Hound Dog, a forerunner of the modern cruise missile based on the

canceled Navaho, took place on October 11. The Hound Dog air-to-
surface missile was designed for launch from a B-52 bomber,

carrying a 1-megaton nuclear warhead. The first off-range test
firing of Hound Dog was launched from Del Rio, Texas, but failed to

reach the range and impacted into Guadalupe Peak.

Eidenbach

White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

1963

The U. S. and Soviet space programs continued to compete as L.
Gordon Cooper completed 22 orbits in May, followed by Valentina
Tereshkova-Nikolayeva, first woman in space, who reached 48

orbits in June. The Soviets also achieved two vehicles in
simultaneous orbital flight. In February, Syncom 2 became the first

artificial satellite placed in geosynchronous orbit.

The U.S.S.R. and the United States began exploring ways to
moderate tensions. In a June 10 speech, Kennedy questioned the

wisdom of the so-called holy war that had developed and suggested
a mutual interest on both sides in peace and a halt to the arms race.

Ten days later, the White House-Kremlin Hot Line was established.
The first Minuteman ICBM wing, consisting of three 50-missile

squadrons, became operational during the same period that IRBM
Thor and Jupiter missiles in Britain, Italy, and Turkey were being

removed from service.

In July, Cuba seized the American Embassy in Havana. By October,
Kennedy had signed the trilateral Limited Test Ban Treaty.

Unfortunately, other tensions continued to escalate in the Caribbean,
Southeast Asia, and at home. Civil-rights demonstrations in

Birmingham and the arrest of Martin Luther King required the
intervention of federal troops under Presidential order, and 200,000

Freedom Marchers demonstrated in Washington. In November,
South Vietnamese President Diem was assassinated. Three weeks

later, John Kennedy suffered the same fate in Dallas.

Earlier in the year, the new Nike X BMD program was authorized,
and Martin Marietta was chosen to develop the high-acceleration

Sprint SAM. At WSMR, the fully operational Pershing began off-
range test firings from Fort Wingate, NM.

1964

In February, the U.S. Ranger VI space probe took the first good
closeup pictures of the Moon. President Johnson announced the War
on Poverty and signed the Civil Rights Act, while urban riots

continued to erupt. In August, Johnson ordered immediate
retaliation against the North Vietnamese after the attack on the U.S.

destroyers

Maddox

and

C.Turner Joy.

Congress immediately passed

the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, marking the official beginning of the

Vietnam War, granting the president power to take “all necessary
measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United

States.” China detonated its first atomic bomb October 16, the day
after Khrushchev was ousted as Prime Minister and Secretary of the

Communist Party, replaced by Kosygin and Brezhnev, respectively.

Eidenbach

White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965

At WSMR, the Athena program began firing and the Multi-function

Array Radar (MAR) developed for the Nike X program began
testing. The General Dynamics’ Nike-Hercules continued with 12

firings of various tactical and scientific configurations.

1965

In March, the first U.S. Marines waded ashore at Da Nang, Vietnam.
By May, U.S. troops had been sent to the Dominican Republic to

defeat the emergence of a new Communist state in the Western
Hemisphere. In November, U.S. forces engaged the North

Vietnamese at Ia Drang Valley. On the home front, civil rights
conflicts in the south continued to escalate, culminating with Ku

Klux Klan murders in Selma, Alabama. Student demonstrations
against the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam began, and during the

summer, Watts, in Los Angeles, exploded in race riots that left 35
dead.

The competing Soviet and U.S. space programs continued to achieve

new milestones. On March 18, A. Leonov conducted the first space
walk, spending 20 minutes outside his spacecraft. On March 23,

America’s first two-person space crew, Virgil Grissom and John
Young, orbited three times in a Gemini spacecraft. They were

followed in early June by McDivitt and White, who completed 62
orbits, including extravehicular activity. On July 15, the Mariner IV

passed within 7,500 miles of Mars. In August, Cooper and Conrad
achieved a 120-orbit Gemini flight, demonstrating the feasibility of a

lunar mission. In December, Schirra and Stafford, in Gemini 6,
successfully rendezvoused in space with Gemini 7, manned by

Borman and Lovell.

The year 1965 marked the end of an era in the missile race. Lance
missile firings began at WSMR in March. The Vought Lance SSM, a

45-75 mile tactical fire-support system, eventually replaced Honest
John and Sergeant. SAC had deactivated all its first-generation

ICBMs—including 18 Atlas Ds, 27 Atlas Es, 68 Atlas Fs, 54 Titan Is,
and 54 Titan IIs—all of which had been superseded by 600

Minuteman missiles carrying 1.3 megaton nuclear warheads with a
range of over 6,000 miles.

Eidenbach

White Sands Proving Ground 1941–1965