216-454: The Roswell incident is a conspiracy theory which alleges that the 1947 United States Army Air Forces balloon debris recovered near Roswell, New Mexico was actually a crashed extraterrestrial spacecraft. Operated from the nearby Alamogordo Army Air Field and part of the top secret Project Mogul , the balloon was intended to detect Soviet nuclear tests . After metallic and rubber debris were recovered by Roswell Army Air Field personnel,
432-429: A London living room. Over twenty million viewers watched the purported autopsy. Fox aired the program immediately before and implicitly connected to the fictional X-Files , which later parodied the film. Alien Autopsy established a template for future pseudo-documentaries built on questioning a presumed government cover-up. Though thoroughly debunked, core UFO believers, many of whom still accepted earlier hoaxes like
648-913: A segregated basis. A flight training center was set up at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama . Despite the handicap—caused by the segregation policy—of not having an experienced training cadre as with other AAF units, the Tuskegee Airmen distinguished themselves in combat with the 332nd Fighter Group . The Tuskegee training program produced 673 black fighter pilots, 253 B-26 Marauder pilots, and 132 navigators. The vast majority of African-American airmen, however, did not fare as well. Mainly draftees , most did not fly or maintain aircraft. Their largely menial duties, indifferent or hostile leadership, and poor morale led to serious dissatisfaction and several violent incidents. Women served more successfully as part of
864-573: A "disturbing failure to follow through on orders". To streamline the AAF in preparation for war, with a goal of centralized planning and decentralized execution of operations, in October 1941 Arnold submitted to the WDGS essentially the same reorganization plan it had rejected a year before, this time crafted by Chief of Air Staff Brig. Gen. Carl A. Spaatz . When this plan was not given any consideration, Arnold reworded
1080-522: A "flying disk". Hundreds of reports had been made during the Fourth of July weekend, newspapers speculated on a possible Soviet origin, and about $ 3,000 was offered for physical proof. The next day Brazel drove to Roswell, New Mexico, and informed Sheriff George Wilcox of the debris he had found. Wilcox called Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF). RAAF was home to the 509th Bomb group of the Eighth Air Force ,
1296-465: A 2000 kilogram (kg), 1000 kg, and 0 kg payload – averaging 1,200.194 miles per hour (mph) in each category. The crew managed an average speed of 1,061.88 mph (1,708.93 km/h) in each of the same payload categories over the 2000 km course. This flight set the pace for the 43rd with the B-58. From then until the close of 1969 the wing served as one of two SAC B-58 wings with
1512-472: A Chief of Air Staff and three deputies. This wartime structure remained essentially unchanged for the remainder of hostilities. In October 1944 Arnold, to begin a process of reorganization for reducing the structure, proposed to eliminate the AC/AS, Training and move his office into OC&R, changing it to Operations, Training and Requirements (OT&R) but the mergers were never effected. On 23 August 1945, after
1728-472: A Naomi Self or Naomi Maria Selff had never worked as a military nurse in 1947, Dennis admitted to fabricating her name. He claimed the nurse's actual name was Naomi Sipes. When no records were found for a Naomi Sipes, Dennis admitted to fabricating that name as well. UFO researcher Karl Pflock observed that Dennis's story "sounds like a B-grade thriller conceived by Oliver Stone ." Scientific skeptic author Brian Dunning said that Dennis cannot be regarded as
1944-527: A Zone of Interior "training and supply agency", but from the start AAF officers viewed this as a "paper" restriction negated by Arnold's place on both the Joint and Combined Chiefs, which gave him strategic planning authority for the AAF, a viewpoint that was formally sanctioned by the War Department in mid-1943 and endorsed by the president. The Circular No. 59 reorganization directed the AAF to operate under
2160-557: A blueprint. After war began, Congress enacted the First War Powers Act on 18 December 1941 endowing President Franklin D. Roosevelt with virtual carte blanche to reorganize the executive branch as he found necessary. Under it, on 28 February 1942, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9082 , based on Marshall's recommendation and the work of McNarney's committee. The EO changed Arnold's title to Commanding General, Army Air Forces effective 9 March 1942, making him co-equal with
2376-466: A change of mood at the War Department, and of dubious legality. By November 1941, on the eve of U.S. entry into the war, the division of authority within the Army as a whole, caused by the activation of Army GHQ a year before, had led to a "battle of memos" between it and the WDGS over administering the AAF, prompting Marshall to state that he had "the poorest command post in the Army" when defense commands showed
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#17328546591722592-607: A claim that Nazi doctor Josef Mengele was recruited by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to produce "grotesque, child-size aviators" to cause hysteria. The book was criticized for extensive errors by scientists from the Federation of American Scientists . Historian Richard Rhodes , writing in The Washington Post , also criticized the book's sensationalistic reporting of "old news" and its "error-ridden" reporting. He wrote: "All of [her main source's] claims appear in one or another of
2808-453: A complex division of administrative control performed by a policy staff, an operating staff, and the support commands (formerly "field activities" of the OCAC). The former field activities operated under a "bureau" structure, with both policy and operating functions vested in staff-type officers who often exercised command and policy authority without responsibility for results, a system held over from
3024-587: A controversial move, the AAF Technical Training Command began leasing resort hotels and apartment buildings for large-scale training sites (accommodation for 90,000 existed in Miami Beach alone). The leases were negotiated for the AAF by the Corps of Engineers, often to the economic detriment of hotel owners in rental rates, wear and tear clauses, and short-notice to terminate leases. In December 1943,
3240-518: A cover-up to prevent mass panic. The Roswell Incident quoted Marcel's later description of the debris as "nothing made on this earth". The book claims that in some photographs, the debris recovered by Marcel had been substituted for the debris from a weather device despite no visible differences in the photographed material. The book's claims of unusual debris were contradicted by the mundane details provided by Captain Sheridan Cavitt, who had gathered
3456-765: A crashed ship being stored in an Air Force morgue at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was mentioned in Scully's Behind the Flying Saucers , expanded in the 1966 book Incident at Exeter , and became the basis for a 1968 science-fiction novel The Fortec Conspiracy . Fortec was about a fictional cover-up by the Air Force unit charged with reverse-engineering other nations' technical advancements. In 1974, science-fiction author and conspiracy theorist Robert Spencer Carr alleged that alien bodies recovered from
3672-581: A dead space alien. First presented at a UFO conference in Mexico, organized by Jaime Maussan and attended by almost 7,000 people, days afterwards it was revealed that the slides were in fact of a mummified Native American child discovered in 1896 and which had been on display at the Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum in Mesa Verde, Colorado, for many decades. In 2020, an Air Force historian revealed
3888-429: A deleterious effect on operational training and threatened to overwhelm the capacity of the old Air Corps groups to provide experienced cadres or to absorb graduates of the expanded training program to replace those transferred. Since 1939 the overall level of experience among the combat groups had fallen to such an extent that when the demand for replacements in combat was factored in, the entire operational training system
4104-531: A few claimed to have seen debris or aliens. According to Pflock, of the 300-plus individuals reportedly interviewed for UFO Crash at Roswell (1991), only 23 could be "reasonably thought to have seen physical evidence, debris". Of these, only seven asserted anything suggestive of otherworldly origins for the debris. The book claimed that General Arthur Exon had been aware of debris and bodies, but Exon disputed his depiction. Glenn Dennis's claims of an alien autopsy and Grady Barnett's "alien body" accounts appeared in
4320-508: A flight of eight B-29s of the 492nd Bomb Squadron deployed from Fort Worth AAF to Yokota AB , Japan. Shortly after this, the detachment received orders to redeploy to Fort Worth AAF via Washington, D.C. The aircraft left Yokota AB on 2 August, flew over the Aleutian Islands , then into Anchorage , Alaska . From Anchorage the flight flew over Edmonton , Alberta, Canada, turned south and flew over Minnesota and Wisconsin . The bombers flew
4536-762: A foreword for a different book. Upon discovering the book's actual contents, Thurmond demanded the publisher remove his name and writing from future printings stating, "I did not, and would not, pen the foreword to a book about, or containing, a suggestion that the success of the United States in the Cold War is attributable to the technology found on a crashed UFO." Roswell has remained the subject of divergent popular works, including those by ufologist Walter Bosley, paranormal author Nick Redfern , and American journalist Annie Jacobsen . In 2011, Jacobsen's Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base featured
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#17328546591724752-694: A general autonomy within the War Department (similar to that of the Marine Corps within the Department of the Navy ) until the end of the war, while its commanders would cease lobbying for independence. Marshall, a strong proponent of airpower, understood that the Air Force would likely achieve its independence following the war. Soon after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, in recognition of importance of
4968-529: A glass coffin. The Day After Roswell contains many factual errors and inconsistencies. For example, Corso says the 1947 debris was "shipped to Fort Bliss , Texas, headquarters of the 8th Army Air Force". Other Roswell books place the 8th Army Air Force headquarters 500 miles away at its actual location, Fort Worth Army Air Field. Corso further claimed that he helped oversee a project to reverse engineer recovered crash debris. Other ufologists expressed doubts about Corso's book. Schmitt openly questioned if Corso
5184-626: A government coverup to prevent public panic – these elements appeared in later versions of the Roswell myth. In retellings, the mundane debris reported at the actual crash site was replaced with the Aztec hoax's fantastical alloys. By the time Roswell returned to media attention, grey aliens had become a part of American culture through the Barney and Betty Hill incident . In a 1997 Roswell report, Air Force investigator James McAndrew wrote that "even with
5400-580: A half weeks. Training officials added a Bomb Approach School in October 1943, which incorporated teamwork between a pilot and bombardier. In addition, the 9000th WAC Company of the Women's Army Corps were used in the control tower as well as in the communications office of the base. In late 1944, the B-24 training was phased out at Fort Worth AAF, being replaced with a B-32 Dominator Flight Crew Conversion Training School. Training Command instructor pilots were flown to
5616-402: A long train of these balloons; they lost contact with the balloons and balloon-borne equipment within 17 miles (27 km) of W.W. "Mac" Brazel's ranch near Corona, New Mexico where a balloon subsequently crashed. Later that month, Brazel discovered tinfoil, rubber, tape, and thin wooden beams scattered across several acres of his ranch. With no phone or radio, Brazel was initially unaware of
5832-593: A low-level flight between The Pentagon and Washington Monument in the Capitol on 3 August. Completing this aerial demonstration, they headed for Fort Worth, landing 31 hours after launch from Japan and covering 7,086 miles. On 12 September, the group deployed 30 B-29s to Giebelstadt Army Airfield , near Würzburg , West Germany . This flight was the largest bomber formation flown from Fort Worth AAF overseas to date, landing in Germany on 13 September. During their ten-day stay,
6048-698: A major reorganization and consolidation on 29 March 1943. The four main directorates and seventeen subordinate directorates (the "operating staff") were abolished as an unnecessary level of authority, and execution of policies was removed from the staffs to be assigned solely to field organizations along functional lines. The policy functions of the directorates were reorganized and consolidated into offices regrouped along conventional military lines under six assistant chiefs of air staff (AC/AS): Personnel; Intelligence; Operations, Commitments, and Requirements (OC&R); Materiel, Maintenance, and Distribution (MM&D); Plans; and Training. Command of Headquarters AAF resided in
6264-555: A multiplicity of branches and organizations, reduced the WDGS greatly in size, and proportionally increased the representation of the air forces members on it to 50%. In addition to dissolving both Army General Headquarters and the chiefs of the combat arms , and assigning their training functions to the Army Ground Forces, War Department Circular 59 reorganized the Army Air Forces, disbanding both Air Force Combat Command and
6480-563: A perception of resistance and even obstruction then by the bureaucracy in the War Department General Staff (WDGS), much of which was attributable to lack of funds, the Air Corps later made great strides in the 1930s, both organizationally and in doctrine. A strategy stressing precision bombing of industrial targets by heavily armed, long-range bombers emerged, formulated by the men who would become its leaders. A major step toward
6696-504: A permanent airfield and in 1946, constructed an 8,200-ft north–south extra heavy-duty runway for future use. The number of completed B-32s at the Consolidated plant had reached 74 production aircraft, along with the TB-32 trainers; many of which were parked at the field. These were ordered flown from Fort Worth directly to storage at Davis-Monthan and Kingman Fields , Arizona for disposal, and
Roswell incident - Misplaced Pages Continue
6912-410: A probable artifact of the government's investigation into Roswell. The purported cameraman Barnett had died in 1967 without ever serving in the military, and visual effects expert Stan Winston told newspapers that Alien Autopsy had misrepresented his conclusion that Santilli's footage was an obvious fake. In a 2006 documentary, Santilli admitted that the footage was fabricated, filmed on a set built in
7128-464: A proposal for creation of an air staff, unification of the air arm under one commander, and equality with the ground and supply forces. Arnold's proposal was immediately opposed by the General Staff in all respects, rehashing its traditional doctrinal argument that, in the event of war, the Air Corps would have no mission independent of support of the ground forces. Marshall implemented a compromise that
7344-435: A recently declassified report of a circa-1951 incident in which two Roswell personnel donned poorly fitting radioactive suits, complete with oxygen masks, while retrieving a weather balloon after an atomic test. On one occasion, they encountered a lone woman in the desert, who fainted when she saw them. One of the personnel suggests they could have appeared to someone unaccustomed to then-modern gear, to be alien. Secrecy around
7560-459: A reliable witness, considering that he had seemingly waited over 40 years before he started recounting a series of unconnected events. Such events, Dunning argues, were then arbitrarily joined to form what has become the most popular narrative of the alleged alien crash. Prominent UFO researchers, including Pflock and Randle, have become convinced that no bodies were recovered from the Roswell crash. A proliferation of competing Roswell accounts led to
7776-520: A schism among ufologists in the early 1990s. The two leading UFO societies disagreed on the scenarios presented by Randle–Schmitt and Friedman–Berliner. One issue was the location of Barnett's account. A 1992 UFO conference attempted to achieve a consensus among the various scenarios portrayed in Crash at Corona and UFO Crash at Roswell . The 1994 publication of The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell addressed
7992-574: A separate air force came in March 1935, when the command of all combat air units within the Continental United States (CONUS) was centralized under a single organization called the "General Headquarters Air Force" . Since 1920, control of aviation units had resided with commanders of the corps areas (a peacetime ground forces administrative echelon), following the model established by commanding General John J. Pershing during World War I. In 1924,
8208-459: A shortage of equipment meant the B-32 training at Fort Worth was never fully realized and after V-J Day , officials eliminated the B-32 training program. In November 1945, the jurisdiction of Fort Worth AAF was transferred to Second Air Force, which established its 17th Bombardment Operational Training Wing at the base, equipped with B-29A Superfortresses. The Air Force had decided to keep Fort Worth as
8424-473: A standard of combat proficiency had barely surpassed the total originally authorized by the first expansion program in 1940. The extant training establishment, in essence a "self-training" system, was inadequate in assets, organization, and pedagogy to train units wholesale. Individual training of freshly minted pilots occupied an inordinate amount of the available time to the detriment of unit proficiency. The ever-increasing numbers of new groups being formed had
8640-443: A strategic bombardment mission. One of the last things the wing did while at Carswell AFB took place on 28 March 1964, the day after a major earthquake devastated Alaska . Headquarters USAF tasked the 43rd to provide it with photographs of the region hit by the quake. Members of the 43rd flew two B-58s the 5,751 miles (9,255 km) to Alaska and back, processed the film, and then delivered the pictures to Washington DC 14.5 hours after
8856-454: A temporary, nonstandard, headquarters in August 1944. This provisional fighter wing was set up to separate control of its P-38 groups from its P-51 groups. This headquarters was referred to as "XV Fighter Command (Provisional)". Eight air divisions served as an additional layer of command and control for the vast organization, capable of acting independently if the need arose. Inclusive within
Roswell incident - Misplaced Pages Continue
9072-408: Is keep my mouth shut. And General Ramey is the one who discussed – told the newspapers, I mean the newsman, what it was, and to forget about it. It is nothing more than a weather observation balloon. Of course, we both knew differently. Ufologists interviewed Major Marcel's son, Jesse A. Marcel Jr. M.D., who said that when he was 10 years old, his father had shown him flying saucer debris recovered from
9288-635: The National Enquirer , and the tabloid brought large-scale attention to the Marcel story the following February. Marcel described a foil that could be crumpled but would uncrumple when released. On September 20, 1980, the TV series In Search of... , hosted by Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy , aired an interview where Marcel described his participation in the 1947 press conference: They wanted some comments from me, but I wasn't at liberty to do that. So, all I could do
9504-462: The Air Transport Command made deliveries of almost 270,000 aircraft worldwide while losing only 1,013 in the process. The operation of the stateside depots was done largely by more than 300,000 civilian maintenance employees, many of them women, freeing a like number of Air Forces mechanics for overseas duty. In all facets of the service, more than 420,000 civilian personnel were employed by
9720-513: The Army Service Forces , but the AAF increasingly exerted influence on the curricula of these courses in anticipation of future independence. African-Americans comprised approximately six per cent of this force (145,242 personnel in June 1944). In 1940, pressured by Eleanor Roosevelt and some Northern members of Congress , General Arnold agreed to accept blacks for pilot training, albeit on
9936-581: The Bermuda Triangle and had collaborated with Moore to write about the Philadelphia Experiment . Crediting Friedman only as an investigator, Moore and Berlitz co-wrote the 1980 book The Roswell Incident . It popularized Marcel's account and added the claimed discovery of alien bodies, found approximately 150 miles west of the original debris site on the Plains of San Agustin . Marcel never mentioned
10152-503: The Dominican Republic during a 1965 crisis . It also participated in numerous humanitarian airlift missions. as well as performed tactical airlift missions within the United States. Beginning in 1972, the 301st Fighter Wing (under various designations) has trained at Carswell as an Air Force Reserve Command unit, training for tactical air missions, including counter-air, interdiction, and close air support. Originally gained by
10368-680: The James Stewart and June Allyson film Strategic Air Command . 11th Bomb Group B-36s appeared with James Stewart who was also attached to the unit in the 1950s as a reserve commander. On 13 June 1955, the Strategic Air Command realigned its three numbered air forces resulting in Headquarters, 8 AF moving from Carswell to Westover AFB , Massachusetts. With that move, Carswell was reassigned under Second Air Force (2 AF), headquartered at Barksdale AFB , Louisiana. On 16 February 1951,
10584-606: The Quartermaster Corps and then by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , because of a lack of familiarity with Air Corps requirements. The outbreak of war in Europe and the resulting need for a wide variety of facilities for both operations and training within the Continental United States necessitated comprehensive changes of policy, first in September 1941 by giving the responsibility for acquisition and development of bases directly to
10800-676: The Twin Falls saucer hoax . Just days after stories of the Roswell "flying disc", a widely reported crashed disc from Twin Falls, Idaho, was found to be a hoax created by four teenagers using parts from a jukebox . Nevertheless, belief in UFO cover-ups by the US government became widespread in this period. Hoaxes, legends, and stories of crashed spaceships and alien bodies in New Mexico emerged that later formed elements of
11016-680: The United States Air Force , James Robinson Risner and Charles E. Yeager . Air crew needs resulted in the successful training of 43,000 bombardiers , 49,000 navigators , and 309,000 flexible gunners, many of whom also specialized in other aspects of air crew duties. 7,800 men qualified as B-29 flight engineers and 1,000 more as radar operators in night fighters , all of whom received commissions. Almost 1.4 million men received technical training as aircraft mechanics, electronics specialists, and other technicians. Non-aircraft related support services were provided by airmen trained by
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#173285465917211232-472: The reverse engineering of extraterrestrial technology, none of which have any factual basis. In the 1990s, the United States Air Force published multiple reports which established that the incident was related to Project Mogul, and not debris from a UFO. Despite this and a general lack of evidence, many UFO proponents claim that the Roswell debris was in fact derived from an alien craft, and accuse
11448-427: The "weather balloon explanation for the material was a cover story to divert the attention of the press." In 1992, Stanton Friedman released Crash at Corona , co-authored with Don Berliner. The book introduced new "witnesses" and added to the narrative by doubling the number of flying saucers to two, and the number of aliens to eight – two of which were said to have survived and been taken into custody by
11664-533: The 11th Bombardment Wing was activated and the group was assigned to it, although all group resources were transferred to the wing until the group was inactivated in June 1952. The wing deployed to Nouasseur AB, French Morocco from 4 May until 2 July 1955. The Wing won the SAC Bombing Competition and the Fairchild Trophy in 1954, 1956 and 1960. 7–11 must have been considered a lucky combination, because
11880-483: The 1947 debris recovery was due to Cold War military programs rather than aliens. Contrary to evidence, UFO believers maintain that a spacecraft crashed near Roswell, and "Roswell" remains synonymous with UFOs. B. D. Gildenberg has called Roswell "the world's most famous, most exhaustively investigated, and most thoroughly debunked UFO claim". Some accounts are likely distorted memories of recoveries of servicemen in plane crashes, or parachute test dummies , as suggested by
12096-415: The 1980 book as "version 1" of the Roswell myth. Berlitz and Moore's narrative was the dominant version of the Roswell conspiracy during the 1980s. The book argues that an extraterrestrial craft was flying over the New Mexico desert to observe nuclear weapons activity when a lightning strike killed the alien crew. It alleges that, after recovering the crashed alien technology, the US government engaged in
12312-693: The 1980s the 7th received several new weapons systems, including modified B-52H aircraft. In 1983, B-52 crews began training with a new weapon system, the SRAM (Short Range Attack Missile), and later, in 1985, the ALCM (Air Launched Cruise Missile ). Also, the wing flew numerous atmospheric sampling missions during 1986 and 1987 in response to the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident; four B-52H aircraft (s/n 60-0024, 60-0033, 60-0051, and 60-0052) were modified to carry atmospheric sampling pods code-named "Giant Fish". These aircraft flew
12528-419: The 1980s. Roswell conspiracy proponents turned on Moore, but not the broader conspiracy theory. The Majestic-12 materials have been heavily scrutinized and discredited. The various purported memos existed only as copies of photographs of documents. Carl Sagan criticized the complete lack of provenance of documents "miraculously dropped on a doorstep like something out of a fairy story, perhaps ' The Elves and
12744-402: The 4123d Strategic Wing took possession of the first Boeing B-52 Stratofortress on Carswell. At the arrival ceremony on base, the bomber was named "The City of Fort Worth". It was subsequently assigned to the 98th Bombardment Squadron of the wing. Shortly following the arrival of B-52 bombers to the 4123rd Strategic Wing, the unit was moved to new facilities at Clinton-Sherman AFB , Oklahoma. With
12960-476: The 492d Bomb Squadron. B-36s continued to roll out from the production plant throughout 1948 and being assigned to the 7th. The group's last B-29 being transferred on 6 December to the 97th Bomb Group at Biggs AFB . For 10 years, the "Peacemaker" cast a large shadow on the Iron Curtain and served as the nation's major deterrent weapons system. In January 1951, the 7th took part in a special training mission to
13176-492: The 7th Air Refueling Squadron and its KC-135As were reassigned to the newly established Air Mobility Command (AMC) and the 19th Air Refueling Wing, Robins AFB , Georgia, but remained as Det. 1 at Carswell AFB until the squadron was disestablished later in 1992. Most of the 7th's KC-135As were retired to AMARG, while 55-3130, the oldest KC-135 then flying retired to the Air Force Museum at March AFB , California. A few of
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#173285465917213392-458: The 7th Bombardment Wing as part of the Tri-Deputate organization plan adopted by the wing. The group inactivated on 16 June 1952. On 1 December 1948, the 11th Bombardment Group was reactivated by SAC at Carswell AFB and was equipped with B-36s. 7th Bomb Group personnel began training the new 11th group people in the new aircraft and the 11th soon began receiving them. In 1947, shortly after
13608-400: The 7th and 11th Bombardment Groups became its operational component. On 16 February 1951 the 11th Bombardment Wing was activated and the group was assigned to it. The 19th Air Division was organized the same day at Carswell. With this move the division assumed responsibility for the 7th and 11th Bomb Wings at Carswell. The wing's mission was to prepare for global strategic bombardment in
13824-784: The 7th's KC-135As were delivered to Boeing-Wichita at McConnell AFB to be converted to the KC-135R configuration. In early 1992, SAC was ordered by AFCOS General McPeak to ground all B-52 Tail Gunners and remove the tail guns from all B-52s that were to remain in the USAF inventory. The 20mm Guns were removed from the Carswell AFB and Minot AFB based B-52Hs, while all B-52Gs kept their quad .50 caliber M-3 BMGs because they were all programmed for retirement to Davis Monthan AFB and its 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (309th AMARG). In January 1959. B-52s from Carswell were constantly in
14040-597: The AAF created a reserve pool that held qualified pilot candidates until they could be called to active duty, rather than losing them in the draft. By 1944, this pool became surplus, and 24,000 were sent to the Army Ground Forces for retraining as infantry , and 6,000 to the Army Service Forces . Pilot standards were changed to reduce the minimum age from 20 to 18, and eliminated the educational requirement of at least two years of college. Two fighter pilot beneficiaries of this change went on to become brigadier generals in
14256-498: The AAF for the first time in its history, and then in April 1942 by delegation of the enormous task by Headquarters AAF to its user field commands and numbered air forces. In addition to the construction of new permanent bases and the building of numerous bombing and gunnery ranges, the AAF utilized civilian pilot schools, training courses conducted at college and factory sites, and officer training detachments at colleges. In early 1942, in
14472-464: The AAF reached a war-time peak of 783 airfields in the Continental United States. At the end of the war, the AAF was using almost 20 million acres of land, an area as large as Massachusetts , Connecticut , Vermont , and New Hampshire combined. By the end of World War II, the USAAF had created 16 numbered air forces ( First through Fifteenth and Twentieth ) distributed worldwide to prosecute
14688-575: The AAF. The huge increases in aircraft inventory resulted in a similar increase in personnel, expanding sixteen-fold in less than three years following its formation, and changed the personnel policies under which the Air Service and Air Corps had operated since the National Defense Act of 1920. No longer could pilots represent 90% of commissioned officers. The need for large numbers of specialists in administration and technical services resulted in
14904-489: The Air Base with questions about body preservation and inquiries about small or hermetically sealed caskets; he further claimed that a local nurse told him she had witnessed an "alien autopsy". Glenn Dennis has been called the "star witness" of the Roswell incident. On September 20, 1989, an episode of Unsolved Mysteries included the second-hand stories of alien bodies captured by the army and transported to Texas. The episode
15120-525: The Air Corps expanded from 15 to 30 groups by the end of the year. On 7 December 1941 the number of activated combat groups had reached 67, with 49 still within the Continental United States. Of the CONUS groups (the "strategic reserve"), 21 were engaged in operational training or still being organized and were unsuitable for deployment. Of the 67 combat groups, 26 were classified as bombardment: 13 Heavy Bomb groups ( B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator ), and
15336-545: The Air Corps found entirely inadequate, naming Arnold as acting "Deputy Chief of Staff for Air" but rejecting all organizational points of his proposal. GHQ Air Force instead was assigned to the control of Army General Headquarters, although the latter was a training and not an operational component, when it was activated in November 1940. A division of the GHQ Air Force into four geographical air defense districts on 19 October 1940
15552-480: The Air Corps in October 1940 saw fifteen new general officer billets created. By the end of World War II, 320 generals were authorized for service within the wartime AAF. The Air Corps operated 156 installations at the beginning of 1941. An airbase expansion program had been underway since 1939, attempting to keep pace with the increase in personnel, units, and aircraft, using existing municipal and private facilities where possible, but it had been mismanaged, first by
15768-485: The Air Corps mission remain tied to that of the land forces. Airpower advocates achieved a centralized control of air units under an air commander, while the WDGS divided authority within the air arm and assured a continuing policy of support of ground operations as its primary role. GHQ Air Force organized combat groups administratively into a strike force of three wings deployed to the Atlantic , Pacific, and Gulf coasts but
15984-584: The Air Corps still had only 800 first-line combat aircraft and 76 bases, including 21 major installations and depots. American fighter aircraft were inferior to the British Spitfire and Hurricane , and German Messerschmitt Bf 110 and 109 . Ralph Ingersoll wrote in late 1940 after visiting Britain that the "best American fighter planes already delivered to the British are used by them either as advanced trainers—or for fighting equally obsolete Italian planes in
16200-489: The Air Corps years. The concept of an "operating staff", or directorates, was modeled on the RAF system that had been much admired by the observer groups sent over in 1941, and resulted from a desire to place experts in various aspects of military aviation into key positions of implementation. However functions often overlapped, communication and coordination between the divisions failed or was ignored, policy prerogatives were usurped by
16416-458: The Air Corps". A lawyer and a banker, Lovett had prior experience with the aviation industry that translated into realistic production goals and harmony in integrating the plans of the AAF with those of the Army as a whole. Lovett initially believed that President Roosevelt's demand following the attack on Pearl Harbor for 60,000 airplanes in 1942 and 125,000 in 1943 was grossly ambitious. However, working closely with General Arnold and engaging
16632-591: The Air Corps, General Headquarters Air Force, and the ground forces' corps area commanders and thus became the first air organization of the U.S. Army to control its own installations and support personnel. The peak size of the AAF during World War II was over 2.4 million men and women in service and nearly 80,000 aircraft by 1944, and 783 domestic bases in December 1943. By " V-E Day ", the Army Air Forces had 1.25 million men stationed overseas and operated from more than 1,600 airfields worldwide. The Army Air Forces
16848-585: The Air Corps, which had been the statutory military aviation branch since 1926 and the GHQ Air Force, which had been activated in 1935 to quiet the demands of airmen for an independent Air Force similar to the Royal Air Force which had already been established in the United Kingdom . Although other nations already had separate air forces independent of their army or navy (such as the Royal Air Force and
17064-501: The Air Corps, while 82 per cent of enlisted members assigned to AAF units and bases had the Air Corps as their combat arm branch. While officially the air arm was the Army Air Forces , the term Air Corps persisted colloquially among the public as well as veteran airmen; in addition, the singular Air Force often crept into popular and even official use, reflected by the designation Air Force Combat Command in 1941–42. This misnomer
17280-405: The Air Force in their 1997 report. Pflock argues that proponents of the crashed-saucer explanation tend to overlook contradictions and absurdities, compiling supporting elements without adequate scrutiny. Kal Korff attributes the poor research standards to financial incentives, "Let's not pull any punches here: The Roswell UFO myth has been very good business for UFO groups, publishers, for Hollywood,
17496-541: The Air Force's procedures for retrieving parachute test dummies in insulation bags, designed to shield temperature-sensitive equipment in the desert. Pseudo-documentaries, most notably Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction , have taken a major role in shaping popular opinion of Roswell. In 1995, British entrepreneur Ray Santilli claimed to have footage of an alien autopsy filmed after the 1947 Roswell crash, purchased from an elderly Army Air Force cameraman. Alien Autopsy centers around Santilli's hoaxed footage, which it presents as
17712-485: The Army General Headquarters had the power to detach units from AFCC at will by creating task forces, the WDGS still controlled the AAF budget and finances, and the AAF had no jurisdiction over units of the Army Service Forces providing "housekeeping services" as support nor of air units, bases, and personnel located outside the continental United States. Arnold and Marshall agreed that the AAF would enjoy
17928-453: The Aztec crash were stored in "Hangar 18" at Wright-Patterson. Carr claimed that his sources had witnessed the alien autopsy, another idea later incorporated into the Roswell narrative. The Air Force explained that no "Hangar 18" existed at the base, noting a similarity between Carr's story and the fictional Fortec Conspiracy . The 1980 film Hangar 18 , which dramatized Carr's claims, was described as "a modern-day dramatization" of Roswell by
18144-405: The Aztec crash, weighed the autopsy footage as additional evidence strengthening the connection between Roswell and extraterrestrials. In 1997, retired army intelligence officer Philip J. Corso released The Day After Roswell . Corso's book combined many existing and conflicting conspiracies with his own claims. Corso alleged that he was shown a purportedly nonhuman body suspended in liquid inside
18360-507: The B-24 Liberator. The school was officially opened on 12 October 1942 and was under the jurisdiction of the 34th Flying Training Wing at San Angelo Army Airfield , Texas. The school was initially equipped with B-24Ds that were assembled across the runway at Consolidated, later it was upgraded to B-24Es that were manufactured at Consolidated's Willow Run Plant in Michigan, then flown to
18576-553: The B-29 had been flown in combat for nearly six months. The Army was quite unhappy about the Dominator and the production problems it was experiencing. Eventually, 40 TB-32 trainers were produced for the training program to get underway. Prospective B-32 pilots underwent 50 hours of training in the TB-32s and co-pilots received 25 hours of flight time and 25 hours of observer training. Ultimately,
18792-679: The B-52D, making them eligible for duty in Southeast Asia. B-52s assigned to combat duty in Vietnam were painted in a modified camouflage scheme with the undersides, lower fuselage, and both sides of the vertical fin being painted in a glossy black. The USAF serial number was painted in black on the fin over a horizontal red stripe across the length of the fin. The B-52 effort was concentrated primarily against suspected Viet Cong targets in South Vietnam, but
19008-550: The Barnett problem by simply ignoring the Barnett story. It proposed a new location for the alien craft recovery and a different group of archaeologists. In 1991, Kevin Randle and Donald Schmitt published UFO Crash at Roswell . It sold 160,000 copies and served as the basis for the 1994 television film Roswell . Randle and Schmitt added testimony from 100 new witnesses. Though hundreds of people were interviewed by various researchers, only
19224-693: The Chamber of Commerce. In August the War Department signed leases with the RFC on 3 sites around Fort Worth. Known as the Flying Triangle, these sites were Hicks Field (#1), Barron Field (#2), and Benbrook (later Carruthers) Field (#3) based on their locations. In April 1918 these airfields were turned over to the Air Service, United States Army as training fields for American pilots. Hundreds of pilots learned their basic and primary flying skills at these airfields in
19440-649: The Consolidated manufacturing plant in San Diego to learn about the Dominator, which was planned as a stablemate of the B-29 Superfortress ; much like the B-17 Flying Fortress was teamed with the B-24 Liberator. The first B-32 arrived at Fort Worth in September 1944, however it was in the modification plant until January before it was released to the training school. By the end of 1944, only five production aircraft had been delivered by Consolidated; by comparison,
19656-491: The Consolidated manufacturing plant. The Army wanted to have the airfield ready quickly before the plant was put into production and construction of the "Lake Worth Bomber Plant Airport" began almost immediately. However, after the Attack on Pearl Harbor , the Army changed its plans and instead of being an operational base, "Tarrant Field", as the facility was called, became a heavy bomber training school. The first unit assigned to
19872-541: The Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce was trying to convince aircraft manufacturers to build an aircraft assembly plant in the area. Consolidated Aircraft , wanting to build in the area, suggested to the Air Corps that they jointly build an airfield adjacent to the heavy bomber plant they wanted to build in Fort Worth. On 16 June 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved $ 1.75 million to construct an airfield next to
20088-585: The Fort Worth area during the war. They were closed in 1919 when the war ended. In 1940 the City of Fort Worth had filed an application with the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), asking for a primary pilot training airfield for the Army Air Corps. In May, General Jacob E. Fickel visited Fort Worth on an inspection visit. Fickel had learned to fly at Carruthers Field in 1918. At the same time,
20304-420: The Fort Worth plant for final modifications. During training, nine-member crews were assigned to each plane, and the crews ate, slept, and trained together 24-hours a day. This allowed the crew to learn both the technical skills needed for aircraft operation as well as the other crew members' minds and reactions. Each day they trained five hours in the air and five hours on the ground. Each class lasted four and
20520-545: The General Staff planned for a wartime activation of an Army general headquarters (GHQ), similar to the American Expeditionary Forces model of World War I , with a GHQ Air Force as a subordinate component. Both were created in 1933 when a small conflict with Cuba seemed possible following a coup d'état but was not activated. The activation of GHQ Air Force represented a compromise between strategic airpower advocates and ground force commanders who demanded that
20736-590: The German Luftwaffe ), the AAF remained a part of the Army until a defense reorganization in the post-war period resulted in the passage by the United States Congress of the National Security Act of 1947 with the creation of an independent United States Air Force in September 1947. In its expansion and conduct of the war, the AAF became more than just an arm of the greater organization. By
20952-527: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and targets in Laos were also hit. During the relief of Khe Sanh, unbroken waves of six aircraft, attacking every three hours, dropped bombs as close as 900 feet (270 m) from friendly lines. Cambodia was increasingly bombed by B-52s from March 1969 onward. Rotational deployments to Guam, and also to U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield , Thailand continued on a reduced scale until 1975. In
21168-503: The Low Countries in May 1940, Roosevelt asked Congress for a supplemental appropriation of nearly a billion dollars, a production program of 50,000 aircraft a year, and a military air force of 50,000 aircraft (of which 36,500 would be Army). Accelerated programs followed in the Air Corps that repeatedly revised expansion goals, resulting in plans for 84 combat groups, 7,799 combat aircraft, and
21384-516: The Middle East. That is all they are good for." RAF crews he interviewed said that by spring 1941 a fighter engaging Germans had to have the capability to reach 400 mph in speed, fight at 30,000–35,000 feet, be simple to take off, provide armor for the pilot, and carry 12 machine guns or six cannons, all attributes lacking in American aircraft. Following the successful German invasion of France and
21600-523: The Mogul team as ways to gather meteorological data, offering a plausible explanation for any unusual aspects of the Roswell debris. The Air Force later described the weather balloon story as "an attempt to deflect attention from the top secret Mogul project." The 1947 debris retrieval remained relatively obscure for three decades. Reporting ceased soon after the government provided a mundane explanation, and broader reporting on flying saucers declined rapidly after
21816-589: The New Mexico Desert supported this with extensive documentation that narrowed the cause of the debris to a specific Mogul balloon train launched on June 4, 1947, and lost near the Roswell debris field. Within the UFO community, the Air Force reports were not accepted, and ufologists noted that the GAO probe found no Roswell documents at the CIA and no information about the alleged Majestic 12 group . Contemporary polls found that
22032-534: The Office of Chief of the Air Corps (OCAC), eliminating all its training and organizational functions, which removed an entire layer of authority. Taking their former functions were eleven numbered air forces (later raised to sixteen) and six support commands (which became eight in January 1943). The circular also restated the mission of the AAF, in theory removing from it responsibility for strategic planning and making it only
22248-454: The Roswell crash site, including, "a small beam with purple-hued hieroglyphics on it". However, the symbols described as alien hieroglyphics matched the symbols on the adhesive tape that Project Mogul sourced from a New York toy manufacturer. To publish his research, Friedman collaborated with childhood friend and author William "Bill" Moore , who reached out to established paranormal author Charles Berlitz . Berlitz had previously written about
22464-487: The Roswell myth. In 1947, many Americans attributed flying saucers to unknown military aircraft. In the decades between the initial debris recovery and the emergence of Roswell theories, flying saucers became synonymous with alien spacecraft . After the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Watergate scandal , trust in the US government declined and acceptance of conspiracy theories became widespread. UFO believers accused
22680-516: The Shoemaker '." Researchers noted the idiosyncratic date format not found in government documents from the time they were purported to originate, but widely used in Moore's personal notes. Some signatures appear to be photocopied from other documents. For example, a signature from President Harry Truman is identical to one from an October 1, 1947 letter to Vannevar Bush. In this variant of the Roswell legend,
22896-443: The UFO community. The earliest known reference to "MJ Twelve" comes from a 1981 document used in disinformation targeting Paul Bennewitz . In 1982, Bob Pratt worked with Doty and Moore on The Aquarius Project , an unpublished science fiction manuscript about the purported organization. Moore had initially planned to do a nonfiction book but lacked evidence. During a phone call about the manuscript, Moore explained to Pratt that his goal
23112-430: The US government of a cover-up. The conspiracy narrative has become a trope in science fiction literature, film, and television. The town of Roswell promotes itself as a destination for UFO-associated tourism. By 1947, the United States had launched thousands of top-secret Project Mogul balloons carrying devices to listen for Soviet atomic tests. On June 4, researchers at Alamogordo Army Air Field in New Mexico launched
23328-415: The USAF announced its intention to activate the first Convair B-58 Hustler Wing. This was to be the 43d Bombardment Wing , (BW) at that time based at Davis-Monthan AFB , Arizona. The 43rd BW would be moved to Carswell starting on 1 March. The 3958th Operational Test and Evaluation Group (then functioning as an integral unit at Carswell) would be transferred to the 43rd BW upon its arrival. On 1 August 1960,
23544-404: The USAF finally formally assumed B-58 operations responsibility and began testing. 59-2436, the first fully operational Hustler equipped with all tactical systems, was delivered to the 43rd. Two weeks later, the first TB-58A was delivered to Carswell. After July 1961, the wing continued further B-58 evaluations until June 1962. One of its first duties of the 43d was to operate a school to evaluate
23760-509: The United Kingdom. The purpose of the mission was to evaluate the B-36D under simulated war plan conditions. Also, to evaluate further the equivalent airspeed and compression tactics for heavy bombardment aircraft. The aircraft, staging through Limestone AFB , Maine, would land at RAF Lakenheath , the United Kingdom, following a night radar bombing attack on Heligoland , West Germany . From there
23976-674: The United States . The AAF was a component of the United States Army , which on 2 March 1942 was divided functionally by executive order into three autonomous forces: the Army Ground Forces , the United States Army Services of Supply (which in 1943 became the Army Service Forces ), and the Army Air Forces. Each of these forces had a commanding general who reported directly to the Army Chief of Staff . The AAF administered all parts of military aviation formerly distributed among
24192-496: The United States Air Force was established as a separate branch of the United States military, the Hobson Wing-Base Organization Plan was implemented. The 7th was selected as one of the "Test Wings" to evaluate the new organization T/O and on 17 November 1947 the 7th Bombardment Wing was established. The test was successful and the wing was made permanent on 1 August 1948. As part of the new organization both
24408-466: The United States Army announced their possession of a "flying disc". This announcement made international headlines, but was retracted within a day. To obscure the purpose and source of the debris, the army reported that it was a conventional weather balloon . In 1978, retired Air Force officer Jesse Marcel revealed that the army's weather balloon claim had been a cover story, and speculated that
24624-578: The United States and abroad. It deployed a Security Police flight to southwest Asia during Operation Desert Storm, January–March 1991, and supported Operation Deny Flight in the Balkans in the mid-1990s. The tail code carried by the present day 457th Fighter Squadron is "TX". Carswell AFB was selected for closure under the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1990 during Round II Base Closure Commission deliberations (BRAC 91). As part of BRAC 91,
24840-541: The WAACs and WACs as AAF personnel, more than 1,000 as Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), and 6,500 as nurses in the Army Air Forces, including 500 flight nurses. 7,601 "Air WACs" served overseas in April 1945, and women performed in more than 200 job categories. The Air Corps Act of July 1926 increased the number of general officers authorized in the Army's air arm from two to four. The activation of GHQAF in March 1935 doubled that number to eight and pre-war expansion of
25056-463: The XB-36 Peacemaker had been under development by Consolidated, and work on it was shifted from its San Diego, California plant to its government-leased plant in Fort Worth. By 1947 the initial production version B-36A was ready and in June 1948 the first Convair B-36A Peacemaker was delivered. The first B-36A was designated the "City of Fort Worth" (AF Serial No. 44-92015), and was assigned to
25272-613: The acquisition of the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, all new B-52 wings would operate with an air refueling squadron to support those bombers. As a result, SAC activated the 7th Air Refueling Squadron at Carswell on 1 April 1958 and assigned it to the wing. The squadron would be equipped with the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker later in the year. With the disestablishment of the Strategic Air Command in 1992,
25488-471: The air and flying to Europe, Asia, and North Africa. On 13 April 1965, the 7 BW deployed its forces to Andersen Air Force Base , Guam to support SAC combat operations in Southeast Asia. Most of the wing's bombers and tankers, along with aircrews and some support personnel, were deployed. At Andersen AFB , the wing flew more than 1,300 missions over Vietnam and returned to Carswell in December 1965. B-52 crews were sent through an intensive two-week course on
25704-430: The air forces and to avoid binding legislation from Congress, the War Department revised the army regulation governing the organization of Army aviation, AR 95–5. Arnold assumed the title of Chief of the Army Air Forces , creating an echelon of command over all military aviation components for the first time and ending the dual status of the Air Corps and GHQ Air Force, which was renamed Air Force Combat Command (AFCC) in
25920-473: The air forces, commands and divisions were administrative headquarters called wings to control groups (operational units; see section below). As the number of groups increased, the number of wings needed to control them multiplied, with 91 ultimately activated, 69 of which were still active at the end of the war. As part of the Air Service and Air Corps, wings had been composite organizations, that is, composed of groups with different types of missions. Most of
26136-521: The alien craft to bury in the desert. The Air Force provided official responses to Roswell conspiracy theories during the mid-1990s under pressure from New Mexico congressman Steven Schiff and the General Accounting Office (GAO). The initial 1994 USAF report admitted that the weather balloon explanation was a cover story for Project Mogul , a military surveillance program. Published the following year, The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in
26352-481: The annual addition to the force of 30,000 new pilots and 100,000 technical personnel. The accelerated expansion programs resulted in a force of 156 airfields and 152,125 personnel at the time of the creation of the Army Air Forces. In its expansion during World War II, the AAF became the world's most powerful air force. From the Air Corps of 1939, with 20,000 men and 2,400 planes, to the nearly autonomous AAF of 1944, with almost 2.4 million personnel and 80,000 aircraft,
26568-570: The area of the crash near Aztec". Mac Brazel died in 1963 before interest in the Roswell debris was revived. Berlitz and Moore interviewed his surviving adult children, William Brazel Jr. and Bessie Brazel Schreiber. Brazel Jr. described how the military arrested his father and "swore him to secrecy". However, during the time that Mac Brazel was alleged to have been in military custody, multiple people reported seeing him in Roswell, and he provided an interview to local radio station KGFL . Schreiber, who had gathered debris material with her father when she
26784-652: The base was the Army Air Forces Training Command Combat Crew School on 1 July 1942. At the same time, the Consolidated plant began assembly of B-24D Liberator aircraft in May, with the first aircraft being assigned to the school in August. On 29 July, the base was again renamed as "Fort Worth Army Airfield". The Army Air Forces Combat Crew School (later re-designated Army Air Forces Pilot School, Specialized 4-Engine) took graduates of Training Command's advanced pilot training schools and experienced 2-engine pilots and trained them on flying
27000-713: The bodies were ejected from the craft shortly before it exploded over the ranch. The propulsion unit is destroyed and the government concludes the ship was a "short range reconnaissance craft". The following week, the bodies are recovered some miles away, decomposing from exposure and scavengers. The initial claims of recovered alien bodies came from the secondhand accounts of "Barney" Barnett and "Pappy" Henderson after their deaths. On August 5, 1989, Friedman interviewed former mortician Glenn Dennis. Dennis provided an account of extraterrestrial corpses endorsed by prominent Roswell ufologists Don Berliner, Friedman, Randle, and Schmitt. Dennis claimed to have received "four or five calls" from
27216-530: The bombers would conduct a simulated bomb run on the Heston Bomb Plot, London, finally landing at RAF Lakenheath. This was the first deployment of wing and SAC B-36 aircraft to England and Europe. For the next four days, the flight flew sorties out of England. The aircraft redeployed to the states on 20 January arriving at Carswell on 21 January. On 16 February 1951 the 7th became a paper organization. With all assigned flying squadrons reassigned directly to
27432-504: The book. However, the dates and locations of Barnett's account in The Roswell Incident were changed without explanation. Brazel was described as leading the army to a second crash site on the ranch, where they were supposedly "horrified to find civilians [including Barnett] there already." Also in 1991, retired US Air Force (USAF) Brigadier General Thomas DuBose , who had posed with debris for press photographs in 1947, acknowledged
27648-513: The capacity of the American automotive industry brought about an effort that produced almost 100,000 aircraft in 1944. The AAF reached its wartime inventory peak of nearly 80,000 aircraft in July 1944, 41% of them first line combat aircraft, before trimming back to 73,000 at the end of the year following a large reduction in the number of trainers needed. The logistical demands of this armada were met by
27864-430: The capitulation of Japan, realignment took place with the complete elimination of OC&R. The now five assistant chiefs of air staff were designated AC/AS-1 through -5 corresponding to Personnel, Intelligence, Operations and Training, Materiel and Supply, and Plans. Most personnel of the Army Air Forces were drawn from the Air Corps. In May 1945, 88 per cent of officers serving in the Army Air Forces were commissioned in
28080-511: The commanders of GHQ Air Force and the Air Corps, Major Generals Frank M. Andrews and Oscar Westover respectively, clashed philosophically over the direction in which the air arm was moving, exacerbating the difficulties. The expected activation of Army General Headquarters prompted Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall to request a reorganization study from Chief of the Air Corps Maj. Gen. Henry H. Arnold resulting on 5 October 1940 in
28296-504: The commanding generals of the new Army Ground Forces and Services of Supply , the other two components of the Army of the United States . The War Department issued Circular No. 59 on 2 March that carried out the executive order, intended (as with the creation of the Air Service in World War I) as a wartime expedient to expire six months after the end of the war. The three components replaced
28512-683: The conduct of all aspects of the air war in every part of the world, determining air policy and issuing orders without transmitting them through the Army Chief of Staff. This "contrast between theory and fact is...fundamental to an understanding of the AAF." The roots of the Army Air Forces arose in the formulation of theories of strategic bombing at the Air Corps Tactical School that gave new impetus to arguments for an independent air force, beginning with those espoused by Brig. Gen. Billy Mitchell that led to his later court-martial . Despite
28728-545: The country. The small number of subsequent news stories offered mundane and prosaic accounts of the crash. On July 9, the Roswell Daily Record highlighted that no engine or metal parts had been found in the wreckage. Brazel told the Record that the debris consisted of rubber strips, "tinfoil, paper, tape, and sticks." Brazel said he paid little attention to it but returned later with his wife and daughter to gather up some of
28944-596: The creation of the Air Service Command on 17 October 1941 to provide service units and maintain 250 depots in the United States; the elevation of the Materiel Division to full command status on 9 March 1942 to develop and procure aircraft, equipment, and parts; and the merger of these commands into the Air Technical Service Command on 31 August 1944. In addition to carrying personnel and cargo,
29160-624: The creation of the Army Air Forces, caused an immediate reassessment of U.S. defense strategy and policy. The need for an offensive strategy to defeat the Axis Powers required further enlargement and modernization of all the military services, including the new AAF. In addition, the invasion produced a new Lend lease partner in Russia, creating even greater demands on an already struggling American aircraft production. An offensive strategy required several types of urgent and sustained effort. In addition to
29376-410: The debris was of extraterrestrial origin. Popularized by the 1980 book The Roswell Incident , this speculation became the basis for long-lasting and increasingly complex and contradictory UFO conspiracy theories , which over time expanded the incident to include governments concealing evidence of extraterrestrial beings, grey aliens , multiple crashed flying saucers , alien corpses and autopsies, and
29592-695: The debris. Despite later claims that he was forced to repeat a cover story, Brazel told newspaper reporters, "I am sure that what I found was not any weather observation balloon." When interviewed in Fort-Worth, Texas, Jesse Marcel described the wreckage as "parts of the weather device" composed of "tinfoil and broken wooden beams". Some portion of the material was flown from Texas to Wright Field in Ohio, where Colonel Marcellus Duffy identified it as balloon equipment. Duffy had previous experience with Project Mogul and contacted Mogul's project officer Albert Trakowski to discuss
29808-405: The debris. Of these, five claimed to have handled it. Some elements of the witness accounts – small alien bodies, indestructible metals, hieroglyphic writing – matched other crashed saucer legends more than the 1947 reports from Roswell. Berlitz and Moore claimed Scully's long-discredited crashed saucer hoax to be an account of the Roswell incident that mistakenly "placed
30024-421: The debris. Unable to disclose details about the project, Duffy identified it as "meteorological equipment". The 1947 official account omitted any connection to Cold War military programs. On July 10, military personnel at Alamogordo gave a demonstration to the press. Four officers provided a false account of mundane weather balloon usage throughout the previous year. They demonstrated balloon configurations used by
30240-572: The decision was made to relocate the 7th Bomb Wing from Carswell AFB to Dyess AFB. During the 1992 Air Force-wide reorganization, SAC was disestablished on 1 June. Carswell and the 7th Bomb Wing were assigned to the newly created Air Combat Command (ACC), and the B-52Hs assigned to the wing were given the ACC tail code "CW". First-stage closure activities were initiated in 1992 and B-52H aircraft were relocated to Barksdale AFB, Louisiana by January 1993. The 7 BW
30456-448: The development and manufacture of aircraft in massive numbers, the Army Air Forces had to establish a global logistics network to supply, maintain, and repair the huge force; recruit and train personnel; and sustain the health, welfare, and morale of its troops. The process was driven by the pace of aircraft production, not the training program, and was ably aided by the direction of Lovett, who for all practical purposes became "Secretary of
30672-469: The direct control of Headquarters Army Air Forces. At the end of 1942 and again in the spring of 1943 the AAF listed nine support commands before it began a process of consolidation that streamlined the number to five at the end of the war. These commands were: "In 1943 the AAF met a new personnel problem, to which it applied an original solution: to interview, rehabilitate, and reassign men returning from overseas. [To do this], an AAF Redistribution Center
30888-620: The directorates, and they became overburdened with detail, all contributing to the diversion of the directorates from their original purpose. The system of directorates in particular handicapped the developing operational training program (see Combat units below), preventing establishment of an OTU command and having a tendency to micromanage because of the lack of centralized control. Four main directorates—Military Requirements, Technical Services, Personnel, and Management Control—were created, each with multiple sub-directorates, and eventually more than thirty offices were authorized to issue orders in
31104-447: The dormant struggle for an independent United States Air Force. Marshall had come to the view that the air forces needed a "simpler system" and a unified command. Working with Arnold and Robert A. Lovett , recently appointed to the long-vacant position of Assistant Secretary of War for Air, he reached a consensus that quasi-autonomy for the air forces was preferable to immediate separation. On 20 June 1941, to grant additional autonomy to
31320-437: The early 1980s. All individuals who received the fake documents were connected to Bill Moore. After the publication of The Roswell Incident , Richard Doty and other individuals presenting themselves as Air Force Intelligence Officers approached Moore. They used the unfulfilled promise of hard evidence of extraterrestrial retrievals to recruit Moore, who kept notes on other ufologists and intentionally spread misinformation within
31536-427: The early 1990s, UFO researchers such as Friedman, Moore, and the team of Kevin D. Randle and Donald R. Schmitt interviewed many people who claimed to have had a connection with the events at Roswell in 1947, generating competing and conflicting accounts. The first Roswell conspiracy book, released in October 1980, was The Roswell Incident by Charles Berlitz and Bill Moore . Anthropologist Charles Ziegler described
31752-552: The end of World War II, the Army Air Forces had become virtually an independent service. By regulation and executive order, it was a subordinate agency of the United States Department of War (as were the Army Ground Forces and the Army Service Forces) tasked only with organizing, training, and equipping combat units and limited in responsibility to the continental United States. In reality, Headquarters AAF controlled
31968-575: The end of the Cold War and the subsequent downsizing of the American military, the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission of 1991 recommended that Carswell AFB be closed by 1994. Today, the facility is known as Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth . It retains an Air Force Reserve presence as well hosting Navy Reserve , Marine Corps Reserve Army Aviation Reserve and Air National Guard flying units which were formerly located at Naval Air Station Dallas . Carswell Air Force Base
32184-542: The establishment of an Officer Candidate School in Miami Beach, Florida , and the direct commissioning of thousands of professionals. Even so, 193,000 new pilots entered the AAF during World War II, while 124,000 other candidates failed at some point during training or were killed in accidents. The requirements for new pilots resulted in a massive expansion of the Aviation Cadet program, which had so many volunteers that
32400-468: The event of hostilities. Under various designations, the 7th Bomb Wing flew a wide variety of aircraft at the base until its inactivation in 1993. A five-ship B-36 formation was flown on 15 January 1949, in an air review over Washington, D.C., commemorating the inauguration of the President of the United States, Harry S. Truman . In 1954, Carswell was prominently featured and used as a filming location in
32616-480: The exposure of this obvious fraud, the Aztec story is still revered by UFO theorists. Elements of this story occasionally reemerge and are thought to be the catalyst for other crashed flying saucer stories, including the Roswell Incident." " Hangar 18 " is a non-existent location that many later conspiracy theories allege housed extraterrestrial craft or bodies recovered from Roswell. The idea of alien corpses from
32832-661: The famous iconic " Why We Fight " series, as an animated map graphic of equal prominence to that of the Army and Navy. The Air Corps at the direction of President Roosevelt began a rapid expansion from the spring of 1939 forward, partly from the Civilian Pilot Training Program created at the end of 1938, with the goal of providing an adequate air force for defense of the Western Hemisphere. An initial "25-group program", announced in April 1939, called for 50,000 men. However, when war broke out in September 1939
33048-504: The film's director James L. Conway , and as "nascent Roswell mythology" by folklorist Thomas Bullard. Decades later, Carr's son recalled that he had often "mortified my mother and me by spinning preposterous stories in front of strangers... [tales of] befriending a giant alligator in the Florida swamps, and sharing complex philosophical ideas with porpoises in the Gulf of Mexico." Interest in Roswell
33264-527: The first anonymous package containing photographs of Majestic-12 documents just after a phone call from Moore. The anonymously-delivered documents detailed the creation of a likely fictitious Majestic 12 group formed to handle Roswell debris. At a 1989 Mutual UFO Network conference, Moore confessed that he had intentionally fed fake evidence of extraterrestrials to UFO researchers, including Bennewitz. Doty later said that he gave fabricated information to UFO researchers while working at Kirtland Air Force Base in
33480-410: The force array. In the first half of 1942 the Army Air Forces expanded rapidly as the necessity of a much larger air force than planned was immediately realized. Authorization for the total number of combat groups required to fight the war nearly doubled in February to 115. In July it jumped to 224, and a month later to 273. When the U.S. entered the war, however, the number of groups actually trained to
33696-459: The former Tactical Air Command (TAC), the unit is now operationally gained by Air Combat Command (ACC). The 301st replaced the Air Force Reserve's 916th Military Airlift Group (916 MAG), which was inactivated. The 301st's 457th Tactical Fighter Squadron flew the F-105 Thunderchief from 1972 to 1982. It transitioned to the F-4 Phantom II in 1981, then to the F-16 Fighting Falcon in 1990. The wing has participated in exercises, both within
33912-534: The government of a "Cosmic Watergate". The 1947 incident was reinterpreted to fit the public's increasingly conspiratorial outlook. The Aztec, New Mexico crashed saucer hoax in 1948 introduced stories of recovered alien bodies that later became associated with Roswell. It achieved broad exposure when the con artists behind it convinced Variety columnist Frank Scully to cover their fictitious crash. The hoax narrative included small grey humanoid bodies, metal stronger than any found on Earth, indecipherable writing, and
34128-588: The government. Friedman interviewed Lydia Sleppy the teletype operator who years earlier had said that she was ordered not to transmit a crashed saucer story. Friedman attributed Sleppy's account to FBI usage of an alleged nationwide surveillance system that he believed was put in place following "an earlier crash". However, no evidence was found that the FBI had ever monitored any transmissions from her radio station. Friedman's description of her typing as "interrupted" by an FBI message and Moore's claim that "the machine suddenly stopped itself" were found to be impossible for
34344-461: The ground forces by March 1942. In the spring of 1941, the success in Europe of air operations conducted under centralized control (as exemplified by the British Royal Air Force and the German Wehrmacht 's military air arm, the Luftwaffe ) made clear that the splintering of authority in the American air forces, characterized as " hydra -headed" by one congressman, had caused a disturbing lack of clear channels of command. Less than five months after
34560-551: The group bombers participated in training operations over Europe, as well as a show-of-force display by the United States in the early part of the Cold War with the Soviet Union . The flight redeployed from Germany on 23 September. In February 1949, a B-50 Superfortress (developed from the famed B-29) and named Lucky Lady II took off from Carswell for the first nonstop flight around the world. She returned to Carswell after mid-air refueling, flying 23,108 miles, and remaining aloft for ninety-four hours and one minute. Since 1942,
34776-416: The intelligence office of the 509th Bomb group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff's office of Chaves County . The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact
34992-488: The known topography of the proposed crashed site. Jim Ragsdale claimed that while driving home along Highway 285 with his girlfriend Trudy Truelove, they watched a craft that was "narrow with a bat-like wing" crash. A later interview with Ragsdale clarified that his alleged crash site was nowhere near either the purported Barnett or Kaufman sites. In further interviews, Ragsdale's story grew to include bizarre details such as Ragsdale and Truelove removing eleven golden helmets from
35208-462: The latest heavy bombers from B-29 Superfortresses ; B-36 Peacemakers and B-52 Stratofortresses . The west side of the airfield was home to United States Air Force Plant 4 , a 602-acre (2.44 km ) industrial complex occupied over the decades by Convair , General Dynamics , and now by Lockheed Martin . The bulk of the Air Force Convair B-36, B-58 Hustler , F-111 Aardvark , EF-111 Raven and F-16 Fighting Falcon fleets were built there. With
35424-460: The majority of Americans doubted the Air Force explanation. News media and skeptical researchers embraced the findings. Project Mogul offered a cohesive explanation for the contemporary accounts of the debris – failing only to explain later conflicting additions. Carl Sagan and Phil Klass noted that aspects of the debris reported as anomalous – including the abstract symbols and lightweight foil – matched
35640-406: The material with Marcel. The Roswell Incident introduced alien bodies – via the second-hand legends of deceased civil engineer Grady "Barney" Barnett – purportedly found by archaeologists on the Plains of San Agustin . The authors claimed to have interviewed over 90 witnesses, though the testimony of only 25 appears in the book. Only seven of them claimed to have seen
35856-534: The materials used by Project Mogul. Mogul also matched the materials of the hypothetical "disc" as described in a 1947 FBI telex from Fort Worth, Texas . The telex said that according to the Eighth Air Force, "The disc is hexagonal in shape and was suspended from a balloon by cable, which balloon was approximately twenty feet (6 m) in diameter." In 1997, the Air Force published a second report, The Roswell Report: Case Closed . It detailed how eyewitness accounts of military personnel loading aliens into "body bags" matched
36072-447: The military had recovered a "flying disc" near Roswell. Robert Porter, an RAAF flight engineer, was part of the crew who loaded what he was "told was a flying saucer" onto the flight bound for Fort Worth Army Air Field in Texas. He described the material – packaged in wrapping paper when he received it – as lightweight and not too large to fit inside the trunk of a car. After station director George Walsh broke
36288-452: The mission into the 1990s from various bases including Carswell. By 1984 Carswell was the largest unit of its kind in the Strategic Air Command. The 7 BW contributed personnel to Operation Desert Storm in the Middle East in 1991. After an overwhelming victory in the Persian Gulf, the wing returned to Carswell. In September 1991 with the end of the Cold War , President Bush ordered a stand-down of all nuclear alert duties. In January 1960,
36504-490: The name of the commanding general. Among the headquarters directorates were Technical Services, Air Defense, Base Services, Ground-Air Support, Management Control, Military Equipment, Military Requirements , and Procurement & Distribution. A "strong and growing dissatisfaction" with the organization led to an attempt by Lovett in September 1942 to make the system work by bringing the Directorate of Management Control and several traditional offices that had been moved to
36720-440: The new group, consisting of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, were transferred to Fort Worth AAF from the 92nd Bombardment Group at Spokane AAF , Washington . On 1 November 1946, the Eighth Air Force moved its headquarters to Fort Worth AAF from MacDill Field , Florida. With its B-29s, the 7th prepared its people for any combat eventuality that might arise, flying simulated bombing missions over various cities. On 5 July 1947,
36936-402: The new organization. The AAF gained the formal "Air Staff" long opposed by the General Staff, and a single air commander, but still did not have equal status with the Army ground forces, and air units continued to report through two chains of command. The commanding general of AFCC gained control of his stations and court martial authority over his personnel, but under the new field manual FM-5
37152-430: The new supersonic jet bomber. On 12 January 1961, Major Henry J. Deutschendorf (the father of singer John Denver ) commanded a B-58 crew from the 43rd that set out to break six flight records; five of which the Soviet Union held. The Hustler flew two laps around a course with Edwards AFB , California, at one end and Yuma, Arizona , at the other. The bomber set three speed records over the 1000 kilometer (km) course with
37368-413: The news over Roswell radio station KSWS and relayed it to the Associated Press , his phone lines were overwhelmed. He later recalled, "All afternoon, I tried to call Sheriff Wilcox for more information, but could never get through to him [...] Media people called me from all over the world." The press release issued by Haut read: The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when
37584-442: The ongoing flying disc craze . Amid the first summer of the Cold War , press nationwide covered Kenneth Arnold 's account of what became known as flying saucers , objects that allegedly performed maneuvers beyond the capabilities of any known aircraft. Coverage of Arnold's report preceded a wave of over 800 similar sightings. When Brazel visited Corona, New Mexico, on July 5, his uncle Hollis Wilson suggested his debris could be from
37800-429: The only unit at the time capable of delivering nuclear weapons. The base assigned Major Jesse Marcel and Captain Sheridan Cavitt to return with Brazel and gather the material from the ranch. RAAF Base commander Colonel William Blanchard notified the Eighth Air Force commanding officer Roger M. Ramey of their findings. On July 8, RAAF public information officer Walter Haut issued a press release stating that
38016-410: The operating staff, including the Air Judge Advocate and Budget Officer, back under the policy staff umbrella. When this adjustment failed to resolve the problems, the system was scrapped and all functions combined into a single restructured air staff. The hierarchical "command" principle, in which a single commander has direct final accountability but delegates authority to staff, was adopted AAF-wide in
38232-625: The operational command was designated by the Roman numeral of its parent numbered air force. For instance, the Eighth Air Force listed the VIII Bomber Command and the VIII Fighter Command as subordinate operational commands. Roman numbered commands within numbered air forces also included "support", "base", and other services commands to support the operational units, such as the VIII Air Force Service and VIII Air Force Composite Commands also part of Eighth Air Force during its history. The Tenth and Fourteenth Air Forces did not field subordinate commands during World War II. Fifteenth Air Force organized
38448-401: The partially assembled B-32 aircraft in the plant were ordered scrapped in place. Fort Worth AAF was assigned to the newly formed Strategic Air Command in March 1946, and on 1 October 1946, the 7th Bombardment Group, Very Heavy was activated. With its activation, the 7th became part of the Fifteenth Air Force (15 AF), headquartered at Colorado Springs , Colorado. Personnel and aircraft of
38664-418: The perception of the weather officer because Mogul balloons were constructed from the same materials. Sheridan W. Cavitt, who accompanied Marcel to the debris field, provided a sworn witness statement for the report . Cavitt stated, "I thought at the time and think so now, that this debris was from a crashed balloon." United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces ( USAAF or AAF )
38880-421: The presence of bodies. Friedman, Berlitz, and Moore also connected Marcel's account to an earlier statement by Lydia Sleppy, a former teletype operator at the KOAT radio station in Albuquerque, New Mexico . Sleppy claimed that she was typing a story about crashed saucer wreckage as dictated by reporter Johnny McBoyle until interrupted by an incoming message, ordering her to end communications. Between 1978 and
39096-400: The proposal the following month which, in the face of Marshall's dissatisfaction with Army GHQ, the War Plans Division accepted. Just before Pearl Harbor, Marshall recalled an Air Corps officer, Brig. Gen. Joseph T. McNarney , from an observer group in England and appointed him to chair a "War Department Reorganization Committee" within the War Plans Division, using Arnold's and Spaatz's plan as
39312-403: The pseudonym "Steve MacKenzie", but Kaufman appeared in the 1995 British television documentary The Roswell Incident using his real name. Kaufman claimed he monitored a UFO's path on radar and recovered debris from a crashed spaceship similar in shape to an F-117 stealth fighter . Kaufmann's statements did not match the personnel at the base, his service record, the radar technology available, or
39528-442: The rejection of Arnold's reorganization proposal, a joint U.S.-British strategic planning agreement ( ABC-1 ) refuted the General Staff's argument that the Air Corps had no wartime mission except to support ground forces. A struggle with the General Staff over control of air defense of the United States had been won by airmen and vested in four command units called "numbered air forces", but the bureaucratic conflict threatened to renew
39744-420: The rest Medium and Light groups ( B-25 Mitchell , B-26 Marauder , and A-20 Havoc ). The balance of the force included 26 Pursuit groups (renamed fighter group in May 1942), 9 Observation (renamed Reconnaissance ) groups, and 6 Transport (renamed Troop Carrier or Combat Cargo ) groups. After the operational deployment of the B-29 Superfortress bomber, Very Heavy Bombardment units were added to
39960-400: The role of the Army Air Forces, Arnold was given a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff , the planning staff that served as the focal point of American strategic planning during the war, in order that the United States would have an air representative in staff talks with their British counterparts on the Combined Chiefs . In effect the head of the AAF gained equality with Marshall. While this step
40176-433: The sheriff's office, who in turn notified Maj. Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office. Media interest in the case dissipated soon after a press conference where General Roger Ramey, his chief of staff Colonel Thomas DuBose , and weather officer Irving Newton identified the material as pieces of a weather balloon. Newton told reporters that similar radar targets were used at about 80 weather stations across
40392-537: The teletype model that Sleppy operated in 1947. In 1994, Randle and Schmitt authored another book, The Truth About the UFO Crash at Roswell which claimed a cargo plane delivered alien bodies to Dwight D. Eisenhower . The book abandoned the Barnett crash site on the Plains of San Agustin as lacking evidence and contradicting its "framework of the Roswell event". Randle and Schmitt proposed a new crash site 35 miles north of Roswell, based on statements from Jim Ragsdale and Frank Kaufman. The book hid Kaufman's identity behind
40608-576: The town of Roswell, the media, and UFOlogy ... [The] number of researchers who employ science and its disciplined methodology is appallingly small." A 1994 USAF report identified the crashed object from the 1947 incident as a Project Mogul device. Mogul – the classified portion of an unclassified New York University atmospheric research project – was a military surveillance program employing high-altitude balloons to monitor nuclear tests . The project launched Flight No. 4 from Alamogordo Army Air Field on June 4. Flight No. 4
40824-424: The two wings continued to share Carswell Air Force base until 13 December 1957, when the 11th moved to Altus AFB , Oklahoma, and began receiving B-52 Stratofortresses . In January 1958, the wing began transferring its B-36 bombers to various SAC wings. On 20 January, the wing transferred all B-52 equipment and property on hand to the 4123rd Strategic Wing in order to facilitate that organization's conversion, which
41040-515: The various publicly available Roswell/UFO/Area 51 books and documents churned out by believers, charlatans and scholars over the past 60 years. In attributing the stories she reports to an unnamed engineer and Manhattan Project veteran while seemingly failing to conduct even minimal research into the man's sources, Jacobsen shows herself at a minimum extraordinarily gullible or journalistically incompetent." In 2017, UK newspaper The Guardian reported on Kodachrome slides which some had claimed showed
41256-420: The war, plus a general air force within the continental United States to support the whole and provide air defense. The latter was formally organized as the Continental Air Forces and activated on 15 December 1944, although it did not formally take jurisdiction of its component air forces until the end of the war in Europe. Half of the numbered air forces were created de novo as the service expanded during
41472-461: The war-time Army Air Forces. The AAF was willing to experiment with its allotment from the unpopular Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAACs) and became an early and determined supporter of full military status for women in the Army ( Women's Army Corps or WACs). WACs serving in the AAF became such an accepted and valuable part of the service they earned the distinction of being commonly (but unofficially) known as "Air WACs". Nearly 40,000 women served in
41688-511: The war. Some grew out of earlier commands as the service expanded in size and hierarchy (for example, the V Air Support Command became the Ninth Air Force in April 1942), and higher echelons such as United States Strategic Air Forces (USSTAF) in Europe and U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific became necessary to control the whole. Within numbered air forces, operational commands were created to divide administrative control of units by function (eg fighters and bombers). The numbering of
41904-410: The wing received the request. Six months later the 43rd Bomb Wing moved to Little Rock AFB , Arkansas. In addition to the SAC units, the United States Air Force Reserve 916th Troop Carrier Group , flew Douglas C-124 Globemaster II aircraft from Carswell. It was activated on 1 April 1963. The group supported missions included military airlift to South Vietnam beginning in 1965 and to U.S. forces in
42120-401: The wing. On 10 December 1957, the 98th Bomb Squadron was detached from the wing and assigned to the newly activated 4123rd Strategic Wing at Carswell. This would become the first Boeing B-52 Stratofortress unit at Carswell. The 7th Bomb Wing officially became a B-52 organization with the adoption of manning documents and equipping authorizations on 1 February 1958. On 19 February 1958,
42336-404: The wings of World War II, however, were composed of groups with like functions (denoted as bombardment , fighter , reconnaissance , training , antisubmarine , troop carrier , and replacement ). The six support commands organized between March 1941 and April 1942 to support and supply the numbered air forces remained on the same chain of command echelon as the numbered air forces, under
42552-412: Was "part of the disinformation" Schmitt believed was working to discredit ufology. Corso's story was criticized for its similarities to science fiction like The X-Files . Lacking evidence, the book relied on weight provided by Corso's past work on the Foreign Technology Division , and a foreword from US Senator and World War II veteran Strom Thurmond . Corso had misled Thurmond to believe he was providing
42768-411: Was 14, offered ufologists a description that matched the materials used by Project Mogul, "There was what appeared to be pieces of heavily waxed paper and a sort of aluminum-like foil. [...] Some of the metal-foil pieces had a sort of tape stuck to them, and when they were held up to the light they showed what looked like pastel flowers [...]". According to the book, "some of the most important testimony"
42984-431: Was a remarkable expansion. Robert A. Lovett, the Assistant Secretary of War for Air, together with Arnold, presided over an increase greater than for either the ground Army or the Navy, while at the same time dispatching combat air forces to the battlefronts. "The Evolution of the Department of the Air Force" – Air Force Historical Studies Office The German invasion of the Soviet Union , occurring only two days after
43200-483: Was also used on official recruiting posters (see image above) and was important in promoting the idea of an "Air Force" as an independent service. Jimmy Stewart , a Hollywood movie star serving as an AAF pilot, used the terms "Air Corps" and "Air Forces" interchangeably in the narration of the 1942 recruiting short " Winning Your Wings " . The term "Air Force" also appeared prominently in Frank Capra 's 1945 War Department indoctrination film " War Comes to America " , of
43416-461: Was concurrent with the creation of air forces to defend Hawaii and the Panama Canal . The air districts were converted in March 1941 into numbered air forces with a subordinate organization of 54 groups. The likelihood of U.S. participation in World War II prompted the most radical reorganization of the aviation branch in its history, developing a structure that both unified command of all air elements and gave it total autonomy and equality with
43632-457: Was created in June 1941 to provide the air arm greater autonomy in which to expand more efficiently, to provide a structure for the additional command echelons required by a vastly increased force, and to end an increasingly divisive administrative battle within the Army over control of aviation doctrine and organization that had been ongoing since the creation of an aviation section within the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1914. The AAF succeeded both
43848-406: Was drifting toward Corona within 17 miles of Brazel's ranch when its tracking equipment failed. Major Jesse Marcel and USAF Brigadier General Thomas DuBose publicly described the claims of a weather balloon as a cover story in 1978 and 1991, respectively. In the USAF report, Richard Weaver states that the weather balloon story may have been intended to "deflect interest from" Mogul, or it may have been
44064-407: Was established on 7 August 1943, and given command status on 1 June 1944. as the AAF Personnel Distribution Command. This organization was ordered discontinued, effective 30 June 1946." The primary combat unit of the Army Air Forces for both administrative and tactical purposes was the group , an organization of three or four flying squadrons and attached or organic ground support elements, which
44280-472: Was given by Marcel, the former intelligence officer who had gathered the debris in 1947 and claimed to have been part of a cover-up. The broader UFO media treated Marcel as a whistleblower . Independent researchers found embellishment in Jesse Marcel's accounts, including false statements about his military career and educational background. Majestic 12 was the purported organization behind faked government documents delivered anonymously to multiple ufologists in
44496-407: Was named after Medal of Honor recipient Major Horace S. Carswell, Jr. (1916–1944). Major Carswell was returning from an attack on Japanese shipping in the South China Sea on 26 October 1944. He attempted to save a crewmember whose parachute had been destroyed by flak. He remained at the controls of his crippled bomber and died while crash-landing the B-24 Liberator near Tungchen, China. The base
44712-434: Was never officially recognized by the United States Navy , and was bitterly disputed behind the scenes at every opportunity, it nevertheless succeeded as a pragmatic foundation for the future separation of the Air Force. Under the revision of AR 95–5, the Army Air Forces consisted of three major components: Headquarters AAF, Air Force Combat Command, and the Air Corps. Yet the reforms were incomplete, subject to reversal with
44928-419: Was rekindled after ufologist Stanton Friedman interviewed Jesse Marcel in 1978. Marcel had accompanied the Roswell debris from the ranch to the Fort Worth press conference. In the 1978 interview, Marcel stated that the "weather balloon" explanation from the press conference was a cover story, and that he now believed the debris was extraterrestrial. On December 19, 1979, Marcel was interviewed by Bob Pratt of
45144-486: Was renamed in his honor on 29 January 1948. Carswell's origins date back to the early years of aviation. After the United States' entry into World War I in April 1917, General John J. "Blackjack" Pershing invited the British Royal Flying Corps (RFC) to establish training fields in the southern United States where the warmer weather would be more conducive for flying year-round. In June, the War Department inspected 6 sites around Fort Worth, Texas which had been offered by
45360-400: Was scheduled several months ahead of the 7th Bomb Wing at Carswell. On 30 May, Memorial Day, the last of the B-36's in the wing were retired with appropriate ceremonies and "Open House". Air Force and civilian personnel of the base, and civilians from surrounding communities were on hand to bid the "Peacemaker" a fond farewell. This last flight of a B-36 phased out completely the B-36 program in
45576-464: Was small in comparison to European air forces. Lines of authority were difficult, at best, since GHQ Air Force controlled only operations of its combat units while the Air Corps was still responsible for doctrine, acquisition of aircraft, and training. Corps area commanders continued to exercise control over airfields and administration of personnel, and in the overseas departments, operational control of units as well. Between March 1935 and September 1938,
45792-404: Was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and de facto aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II (1941–1947). It was created on 20 June 1941 as successor to the previous United States Army Air Corps and is the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force , today one of the six armed forces of
46008-404: Was the rough equivalent of a regiment of the Army Ground Forces . The Army Air Forces fielded a total of 318 combat groups at some point during World War II, with an operational force of 243 combat groups in 1945. The Air Service and its successor the Air Corps had established 15 permanent combat groups between 1919 and 1937. With the buildup of the combat force beginning 1 February 1940,
46224-466: Was threatened. Carswell Air Force Base Carswell Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force (USAF) base, located northwest of Fort Worth, Texas . For most of its operational lifetime, the base's mission was to train and support heavy strategic bombing groups and wings. Carswell was a major Strategic Air Command (SAC) base during the Cold War . It was the headquarters of several SAC intercontinental bombardment wings, equipped with
46440-428: Was to "get as much of the story out with as little fiction as possible." That same year, Moore, Friedman, and Jaime Shandera began work on a KPIX-TV UFO documentary, and Moore shared the original "MJ Twelve" memo mentioning Bennewitz. KPIX-TV contacted the Air Force, who noted many style and formatting errors; Moore admitted that he had typed and stamped the document as a facsimile. On December 11, 1984, Shandera received
46656-439: Was watched by 28 million people. In 1994, Dennis's account was portrayed by Unsolved Mysteries and dramatized in the made-for-TV movie Roswell . Dennis appeared in multiple books and documentaries. In 1991, Dennis co-founded a UFO museum in Roswell along with Max Littell and former RAAF public affairs officer Walter Haut. Dennis provided false names for the nurse who allegedly witnessed the autopsy. Presented with evidence that
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