Planned for British Overseas Training which was not pursued, World War II construction for a Tularosa Basin USAAF base 6 mi (9.7 km) west of Alamogordo, New Mexico, began on 6 February 1942.

[9] On 25 March 1944, the 231st AAF BU became the base operating unit, and in 1946 the post-war Alamogordo AAF was "manned by a skeleton crew merely as a plane refueling station, [for] emergency landings, etc" (the USACE property division "acquired...exclusive use of all private lands and interests within the Alamogordo Bombing Range until 1967".

[13] The Alamogordo Guided Missile Test Base near Holloman AFB continued to be used for testing in 1948 and later[14] (July 1951 – 31 August 1952), sub-base of the AFMTC in Florida,[2] and the 2754th subsequently developed additional launch support sites at/near the former bombing range (e.g., Four Bits Peak Instrumentation Annex assigned June 1949 "7 mi ESE of Alamogordo, NM").

"AF Mil Dev Test Cen") was designated from HADC on 1 September 1957,[2] the year when a Matador missile from the center crashed in western Colorado[30] (the joint range was renamed White Sands Missile Range on 1 May 1958)[7]: 248  The 6571st Aeromedical Research Laboratory was activated 1 December 1961 as an AFMDC unit,[citation needed] and the center's Twin Buttes Instrumentation Annex "16 mi SSW of Alamogordo, NM" (assigned December 1949) transferred under the WSMR Army headquarters in November 1963.

[7] The AFMDC and the 6571st lab were inactivated on 1 August 1970;[3] more than 450 military and 570 civilian positions were lost;[citation needed] and the AFSWC's 6585th Test Group was established as a tenant of Tactical Air Command, to which Holloman AFB transferred.