Roswell Army Air Field

Roswell Army Air Field

Type	Place
Also known as	Walker Air Force Base, Walker AFB
On the Timeline	8 events, 1947–1999

Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF), known from 1948 as Walker Air Force Base, was a U.S. military air base about three miles (5 km) south of downtown Roswell, New Mexico. It opened in 1941 as a flying school, trained pilots and bombardiers through the Second World War, and afterwards became home to the 509th Bomb Group, which in 1947 was the only unit able to deliver nuclear weapons. In the early Cold War it grew into the largest base of the Strategic Air Command. In July 1947 its press office announced that the base had recovered a "flying disc" from a nearby ranch, which began the Roswell incident. The base closed on 30 June 1967 and is now the Roswell International Air Center, a civil airport.^[1][2]

Names

The Wikipedia account of the base lists four names over its history:^[1]

• Roswell Army Flying School, 1941–1942.
• Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF), 1942–1947.
• Roswell Air Force Base, 1947–1948.
• Walker Air Force Base, 1948–1967.

It was assigned in turn to the West Coast Air Corps Training Center (1941–1943), Western Flying Training Command (1943–1945), Second Air Force (1945–1946) and the Strategic Air Command (1946–1967).^[1]

World War II

The Army Air Forces bought the land in 1941 from rancher David Chesser, intending to build a flying training centre and bombardier school. Because New Mexico's flying weather was so good, the field was planned on a large scale from the start. It had seven concrete runways, all 200 feet wide and between about 5,600 and 7,300 feet long, laid out in pairs running north–south, northeast–southwest and northwest–southeast, plus a single east–west runway. At least nine auxiliary landing fields were set up nearby for overflow traffic and touch-and-go practice. Enough had been built by 20 September 1941 for the base to be activated under the Army Air Corps Training Command.^[1]

The Roswell Army Flying School gave the third and final phase of training to aviation cadets on twin-engine aircraft. It flew Beechcraft AT-11 Kansan trainers in four two-engine flying training squadrons (the 548th to 551st), and a separate bombardier school ran three more squadrons, also on the AT-11. In 1943, as more runways opened, three more flying squadrons and two more bombardier squadrons were added. More than 300 trainers then filled the parking ramp, including Vultee BT-13 and BT-15 Valiants and Cessna AT-17s.^[1]

Until autumn 1944 the Second Air Force handled all transition training for the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. On 12 September 1944 Army Air Forces headquarters told Training Command to set up its own B-29 schools. Few B-29s were available at first, but by January 1945 Roswell had made the change. It activated the 3030th AAF Base Unit, which trained pilots and bombardiers on the four-engine B-29. A bombing target lay next to the runway, but only bags of sand or flour were dropped on it. The practice bombing and gunnery ranges were due south of the field and on Matagorda Island on the Texas Gulf coast.^[1]

The base also had a prisoner-of-war camp for up to 4,800 prisoners, mostly German and Italian soldiers captured in North Africa. They worked on local building projects, and many of Roswell's parks were built by them. They also lined the Spring River through downtown Roswell with concrete and stone, using stones of different colours to form an Iron Cross in the riverbed. Training ended on 1 November 1945. The field was made a permanent Army Air Forces installation under the 238th AAF Base Unit, Second Air Force.^[1]

The 509th Bomb Group

On 6 November 1945 the 509th Composite Group arrived at Roswell from its wartime base on Tinian. It was moved between commands during demobilisation and joined the new Strategic Air Command on 21 March 1946, one of the first eleven organisations assigned to it. The William H. Blanchard account in Wikipedia says Blanchard had planned the Hiroshima atomic mission, which Paul Tibbets of the 509th flew, and had been the backup pilot. Blanchard took command of the 509th from Tibbets on 20 January 1946.^[1][3]

In spring 1946 many of the group's B-29s went to Kwajalein for Operation Crossroads, the atomic tests at Bikini Atoll that July. The aircraft left at Roswell became the core of two new squadrons, the 715th and 830th, which served alongside the 393d. In May 1946 the Army Air Forces made Strategic Air Command responsible for delivering the atomic bomb, and only the 509th was trained and ready for that job. The group was renamed the 509th Bombardment Group (Very Heavy) on 10 July 1946. On 23 August 1946, after Crossroads, Blanchard became commander of Roswell Army Air Field. In September orders arrived to train and equip a very heavy bomber force with nuclear strike capability at Roswell, and it was fully operational by February 1947.^[1][3]

The 468th Bombardment Group also came from Tinian on 12 January 1946. It swapped aircraft and equipment with the 509th, whose most reliable, lowest-hour B-29s were then sent to be modified as atomic-capable "Silverplate" aircraft. The 468th was inactivated on 31 March 1946. The 509th became the combat group of the 509th Bombardment Wing on 17 November 1947, though the wing was not operational until 14 September 1948, under Col. John D. Ryan.^[1]

The 1947 "flying disc" announcement

The Wikipedia account of the Roswell incident says that on 4 June 1947 researchers at Alamogordo Army Air Field launched a long train of top-secret Project Mogul balloons, built to listen for Soviet atomic tests. Contact was lost within 17 miles of the ranch near Corona managed by W. W. "Mac" Brazel. Later that month Brazel found tinfoil, rubber, tape and thin wooden beams spread over several acres. On 6 July he told Chaves County Sheriff George Wilcox, who called the air field. The base sent intelligence officer Maj. Jesse Marcel and Capt. Sheridan Cavitt back to the ranch with him to collect the material, and Blanchard informed the Eighth Air Force commander, Roger M. Ramey.^[2]

On 8 July 1947 the base's public information officer, Walter Haut, issued a press release. It said the 509th's intelligence office had gained possession of a "disc" with the help of a local rancher and the sheriff's office. The Blanchard account describes the release as Blanchard's own, saying the object had been found "sometime last week" and was being flown to "higher headquarters." RAAF flight engineer Robert Porter later said he helped load material he was told was a flying saucer onto a flight to Fort Worth Army Air Field. At Fort Worth, Ramey, his chief of staff Col. Thomas DuBose and weather officer Irving Newton identified the debris as pieces of a weather balloon, and press interest faded. Part of the material went on to Wright Field in Ohio, where it was identified as balloon equipment.^[2][3]

The lead of the Walker AFB article in Wikipedia dates the event to 4 July 1947 and repeats the claim that a "flying disc" crashed during a severe thunderstorm near Corona. The Roswell incident account, by contrast, has Brazel finding the debris in June. Interest returned in 1978, when Marcel told ufologist Stanton Friedman that the weather-balloon story had been a cover. The 1980 book The Roswell Incident then started decades of claims about the base. In the mid-1990s the Air Force, under pressure from Rep. Steven Schiff and the General Accounting Office, said the debris came from a Mogul balloon train.^[1][2]

33rd Fighter Group

The 33rd Fighter Group moved to Roswell on 25 August 1947 from Bad Kissingen in West Germany, after a year of occupation duty. Its 59th and 60th Fighter Squadrons flew F-51s and F-84s. The group was first attached to the 509th to escort its bombers. It became the 33rd Fighter Wing on 15 October 1947 and left for Otis Air Force Base, Massachusetts, on 16 November 1948.^[1]

Walker Air Force Base and the Strategic Air Command

On 13 January 1948 the base was renamed for Brig. Gen. Kenneth Newton Walker. The Walker AFB Museum says he was born in Cerrillos, New Mexico, in 1898, enlisted at Denver in December 1917 and earned his wings in November 1918. Between the wars he taught at the Air Corps Tactical School. In 1934 he and four other instructors testified before the President's Commission on Federal Aviation in favour of a separate air arm. In 1941 he helped draw up the AWPD-1 air war plan. In September 1942 he took command of the 5th Bomber Command of the Fifth Air Force in the Southwest Pacific.^[4]

On 5 January 1943 Walker went missing after a B-17 raid on the Japanese stronghold of Rabaul, on New Britain. His group hit nine Japanese ships, and he was last seen leaving the target with one engine on fire and fighters on his tail. President Roosevelt awarded him the Medal of Honor after his death that year. Walker Hall at Maxwell Air Force Base is also named for him.^[1][4]

The 509th Bombardment Wing pioneered aerial refuelling. On 30 June 1948 the 509th Air Refueling Squadron was activated together with one at Davis-Monthan, the first such units, and its KB-29M tankers let the wing's bombers reach almost anywhere in the world. The wing received the improved Boeing B-50A in June 1950. In January 1954 KC-97 tankers replaced the KB-29Ms. In June 1955 the wing got the first all-jet bomber, the Boeing B-47 Stratojet. It moved to Pease Air Force Base, New Hampshire, on 16 June 1958.^[1]

The 6th Bombardment Wing was activated at Walker on 2 January 1951 with B-29s. Together with the 509th it made up the 47th Air Division until the 509th left in 1958. Its 24th, 39th and 40th squadrons soon switched to the Convair B-36D Peacemaker, which added four jet engines in pods to its six piston engines; the jets were normally used only for takeoff and for dashes over a target. The wing deployed to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, from October 1955 to January 1956. B-52 Stratofortresses began to arrive in 1957, and the last B-36 left Walker in 1958. From September 1959 two of the bomb squadrons trained B-52 and KC-135 crews. The wing was renamed the 6th Strategic Aerospace Wing on 1 May 1962.^[1]

The 6th Air Refueling Squadron flew early KC-135A tankers from Walker from 3 January 1958. On 3 February 1960 a KC-135A crashed on takeoff in strong, gusty crosswinds. The pilot lost directional control and lifted off too early. The aircraft shed two engines, ploughed through the parking area and came to rest in a hangar, destroying three KC-135s and killing eight service members.^[1]

Radar and air defence

A temporary radar station was set up at Walker in 1950, crewed by fewer than 100 federalised Arkansas Air National Guard members of the 120th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron. They guided interceptors toward unidentified intruders seen on their scopes. The 686th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron, about 150 people, replaced them on 1 October 1953. It ran AN/MPS-7 search and AN/MPS-14 height-finder radars, plus gap-filler sites at Santa Rosa, New Mexico, and Sierra Blanca, Texas. The Air Force ordered the site closed in March 1963, and it stopped operating on 1 August 1963. In 1959 Army Nike Hercules anti-aircraft missile sites were built near Roswell and Hagerman, but they were shut down soon after being set up.^[1]

Atlas missiles

Atlas missile silos were built around Roswell in 1960, and the first missile to arrive reportedly got a welcoming parade. The 579th Strategic Missile Squadron was activated at Walker on 2 January 1961, and Governor Edwin L. Mechem spoke when the first site was handed to the Air Force on 31 October 1961. That same month, as construction went on, Roswell residents filed ten permit requests for bomb shelters. The squadron received its first missile on 24 January 1962 and finished installing its missiles about a month before the Cuban Missile Crisis. It ran twelve SM-65F Atlas sites, each holding one missile.^[1]

The sites became notorious for three explosions, all during propellant-loading exercises: at 579-1 on 1 June 1963, at 579-5 on 13 February 1964 and at 579-2 on 9 March 1964. No warheads were fitted at the time. The only injury reported was a crewman who ran into barbed wire as he fled. These accidents, and others at Atlas and Titan I sites elsewhere, sped up the decision to retire those missiles. The 579th was inactivated on 25 March 1965, the missiles were removed, and the sites went back into private hands.^[1]

Closure and today

In 1967 the Air Force announced that Walker would close. The closure was part of a round of base cuts as the Defense Department tried to pay for the Vietnam War within the budget set by Congress. The 6th wing became the 6th Strategic Wing and moved to Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska, and its 310th Air Refueling Squadron went to Plattsburgh in January 1967. The base closed officially on 30 June 1967.^[1]

The site is now the Roswell International Air Center. Many out-of-service aircraft are stored on its ramps and disused runways for refurbishment and sale. Boeing has used it for brake testing, including on the 737-900ER and the 787 Dreamliner. Eastern New Mexico University built a large campus on the west side of the old base. Many hangars, shops, barracks and offices are now used privately, and the former base housing is privately owned, although many buildings have been torn down. In 2005 the Foo Fighters played a secret concert there to mark the band's tenth anniversary.^[1]

UAP accounts linked to the base

Researcher Robert Hastings says he has interviewed more than 150 veterans about UFO incidents at U.S. missile sites, weapons stores and test ranges. He believes UFOs are monitoring nuclear weapons, and in 2010 he held a press conference at the National Press Club where seven Air Force veterans described such incidents.^[5] The UAP timeline published with Michael Shellenberger's 2024 congressional testimony includes these entries about the base and its people:

• Walter Haut's affidavit (8 July 1947). Haut says in an allegedly signed affidavit that Blanchard called him about "flying saucer" debris from "outer space," recovered from a crash northwest of Roswell. See Walter Haut sealed affidavit.^[6]
• Art McQuiddy's affidavit (8 July 1947). The editor of the Roswell Morning Dispatch says Haut brought him the "flying saucer" release and the base later asked him to change it to a weather balloon. See Art McQuiddy and the Roswell press release.^[6]
• Robert Shirkey's affidavit (8 July 1947). 1st Lt. Robert Shirkey says "crashed flying saucer" debris was flown from Roswell to Fort Worth, and that a second flight by Oliver W. Henderson went straight to Wright Field. See Robert Shirkey affidavit on the Roswell debris flights.^[6]
• Jerome Nelson (late 1963). Launch officer Jerome C. Nelson of the 579th says in an affidavit that he saw a fully lit round object hover silently over Atlas Site 9, shining a spotlight on it, before leaving after five minutes. Decades later he learned from a technician that a report had gone to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. See Jerome Nelson's Atlas missile site sighting.^[7]
• Philip Moore (late 1964). On duty at Site 7, Moore and his commander got a call from Site 6 or 8 that an object was hovering, leaving and returning, apparently jumping between the two sites. In 2005 he said he believed "there is something to the UFO-ICBM connection." See Philip Moore's Atlas missile site sighting.^[8]
• Earl Zimmerman (2 November 1993). An Army Air Forces radio operator says in an affidavit that he heard many 1947 flying saucer rumours and saw Ramey with Charles Lindbergh in the officers' club, unpublicised. The timeline entry does not name the base. See Earl Zimmerman affidavit.^[9]
• Andrew Kissner (1994). Former state representative J. Andrew Kissner says sources told him that two to four discs were recovered in 1947 and that the crashes caused deaths among government personnel. See Andrew Kissner and the 1947 crashes.^[10]
• GAO records report (28 July 1995). Rep. Schiff said a GAO audit found that RAAF records, including outgoing messages that would have shown how officers explained events to superiors, were destroyed "without proper authority" in the mid-1950s. See GAO Roswell records report.^[11]
• Homer Rowlette (March 1999). Larry Rowlette says his father, a sergeant of the 603rd Air Engineering Squadron at Roswell, told him on his deathbed of a flying saucer crash and a cleanup detail north of Roswell. See Homer Rowlette deathbed account.^[12]

Notes on the earlier version of this article

• Atomic missions. The earlier version of this article said the 509th had dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Hiroshima mission is covered in the sources read here; the Nagasaki mission is not covered in the sources read here.^[3]
• Atlas dates. The earlier version said the 579th operated Atlas missiles "from 1962." The Wikipedia account says the squadron was activated on 2 January 1961 and received its first missile on 24 January 1962.^[1]
• Effect of the closure. The earlier version called the closure a heavy blow to Roswell's economy. This is not covered in the sources read here.
• Hastings's collection. The earlier version said Hastings collected accounts from Walker's missile officers. His site describes his interviews with missile-site veterans in general. The specific Walker accounts listed above come from the Shellenberger timeline, which cites his site for them.^[5][7][8]

On the UAP Timeline

• Walter Haut sealed affidavit (8 July 1947) — Roswell press officer Walter Haut's affidavit says his commander told him the base had recovered crash debris from a disc.
• Robert Shirkey affidavit on the Roswell debris flights (8 July 1947) — Lt. Robert Shirkey's affidavit says he saw debris loaded for flights from Roswell to Fort Worth and Wright Field.
• Jerome Nelson's Atlas missile site sighting (Late 1963) — An Atlas missile launch officer's affidavit describes a glowing round UAP over his site in New Mexico.
• Philip Moore's Atlas missile site sighting (Late 1964) — An Atlas launch officer reports a UAP near his missile site in New Mexico.
• Earl Zimmerman affidavit (2 November 1993) — A radio operator's affidavit describes 1947 flying saucer rumors at his base.
• Andrew Kissner and the 1947 crashes (1994) — A former New Mexico legislator says sources told him 1947 disc crashes caused deaths.
• GAO Roswell records report (28 July 1995) — Rep. Steven Schiff says Roswell base records were destroyed, per a GAO audit.
• Homer Rowlette deathbed account (March 1999) — A man says his father told him on his deathbed about the Roswell crash.

References

Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Walker Air Force Base”, “Roswell incident”, “William H. Blanchard”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.