Chris Pocock on Origin of Area 51
From: "Chris Pocock" <UKdragon@aol.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 13:41:29 -0800
|
[Moderator Note: Pocock is the author of "Dragon Lady," a history
of the U-2 spyplane. -- GC]
I thought you might enjoy this historical footnote. You may have read
about the U-2 conference in Washington DC on 17th September, organized
the US gummint. I was one of the speakers, and below is an extract
from my ramblings, relating to the origin of Groom Lake...
Chris Pocock
----- Transcript Follows. Reformatted by moderator -----
The decision to seek a remote base for secret flight testing has had a
significant impact on subsequent US military and intelligence
programs. The credit for choosing the location has invariably been
ascribed to Kelly Johnson and his chief test pilot, Tony LeVier.
Indeed, dear old Tony dined out for years on the story of how he
searched thousands of miles of Western desert terrain in the Skunk
Works' lightplane, before making his inspired choice.
However, I would like to offer you another perspective, that of the
then- Colonel Ozzie Ritland. He would later play an important part in
CORONA and other early US space programs, but in 1955 he was Richard
Bissell's military deputy as the U-2 program took shape.
Equally important to this story, though, is what Ritland had been.
Before coming to Washington, he had been the commander of a special
flying unit based at Albuquerque, which conducted nuclear bomb tests
over the Nevada range using B-29s.
I want to quote from a US Air Force Oral History Interview conducted
in 1972, when Oz Ritland described some of his contributions to the
U-2 program. Apart from giving a new perspective on how the base was
chosen, I do think his words illustrate the
"can-do-and-let's-get-on-with-it" attitude which typified the early
U-2 days.
QUOTE
Old Kelly had Tony Levier search the western part of the US and make a
survey of 50 different airports. Dick Bissell and I reviewed them one
day, and none of them looked very good. I told both of them, I said,
"I know where the place is, and I'll take you up to it." So we got in
a Beech Bonanza and old Tony Levier took Kelly and myself and Dick
Bissell up to the area. We didn't even get an AEC clearance - we went
in low, and I went to this little X-shaped field that I'd flown over
and over and over again on the bomb run where we'd dropped these
weapons, and I'd spent enough time over there! It was an old, old
World War II field. We flew over it and within 30 seconds, you knew
that was the place because it was a stretched-out thing in the sand
which, over the years, had got hummocks and sagebrush that wouldn't
quit, but it was right by a lake. Man alive, we looked at that lake,
and we all looked at each other. It was another Edwards, so we wheeled
around, landed on that lake, taxied up to one end of it, and Kelly
Johnson said, "We'll put it right here, that's the hangar!"
END QUOTE
(1. USAF Oral History Interview K239.0512-722, Maj Gen Osmond Ritland,
19-21 March 1974, vol 1, p143)
That place has, of course, changed out of all recognition since then.
Incidentally, the early name of this location has caused some
confusion. With considerable irony, Kelly Johnson called it Paradise
Ranch, and this was soon shortened to The Ranch by his flight test
crews. Officially, though, the base was named Watertown Strip, causing
some to believe that this too was an ironic reference to the arid,
dusty terrain which stretched for miles around. In fact, the name
Watertown derived from the town in upstate New York, and the
birthplace of Allen Dulles, Director of the CIA when the U-2 program
was launched, and therefore its main sponsor.
----- End Transcript -----
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RELEVANCE OF THIS MESSAGE: Area 51
Index: Base History (#14)
Created: Sep 28, 1998
