Sandia Base
Sandia Base was the principal nuclear weapons installation of the United States Department of Defense from 1946 to 1971.
The base played a key role in the United States nuclear deterrence capability during the Cold War.
Leslie Groves and Robert Oppenheimer faced the challenges of turning a war-driven, short-term bomb design effort into a stable peacetime operation in charge of producing and maintaining a nuclear stockpile for the nation.
A serious short-term problem was retaining personnel, particularly at Los Alamos where many scientists and technicians were eager to return to civilian pursuits.
[2] The solutions to the challenges led directly to the transformation of Albuquerque's old Oxnard Field into the nation's principal nuclear weapons installation.
Atomic Bomb engineering was carried out by the Z Division, named for its director, Dr. Jerrold R. Zacharias from Los Alamos.
Concerned about the postwar status of the nation's nuclear stockpile, Groves had already dispatched Col. Gilbert M. Dorland to Sandia Base to evaluate the engineering efforts being made there.
Dorland eventually assembled a group of about sixty young Army officers, later nicknamed the "Sandia Pioneers," to oversee the bomb fabrication efforts.
[6] The Pioneers learned and practiced how to assemble atomic bombs and how to load them onto aircraft for long range missions.
In 1948, the Pioneers supported Operation Sandstone, the atmospheric test series at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
In 1950, AFSWP concluded that a site on the Air Force's Las Vegas Bombing and Gunnery Range in Nevada was the right place.
A weapon assembled at Sandia Base was dropped from a Boeing B-50 Superfortress ("D" model) bomber in the successful "Able" shot.
Before the NWEF ceased flight test operations in September 1992, nuclear compatibility and safety certification had been completed for 76 versions of 32 different Navy nuclear-capable fighter and attack aircraft.
Following accidents aboard USS Oriskany in 1966 and Forrestal in 1967, NWEF applied nuclear safety protocols to develop procedures to safely stow, handle, transport, assemble, disassemble, preload, load, unload, arm, dearm, rearm, and deliver non-nuclear aviation ordnance including bombs, torpedoes, naval mines, missiles and conventional stores from sonobuoys to Air-Delivered Seismic Intrusion Detectors (ADSID).
Sandia Base personnel were dispatched to assist in two major incidents involving the loss and recovery of nuclear weapons in the 1960s.
Always on the itinerary of key political figures, Sandia Base hosted President John F. Kennedy on December 7, 1962.
DSWA was abolished, effective October 1, 1998, with functions transferred to the newly established Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).
[citation needed] The University of California, long-time manager of Los Alamos, indicated that it no longer desired to be involved in the engineering part of nuclear weapons development.
In August, 1947, the Denver Post ran a story that claimed the military was building a secret base consisting of huge caverns for atomic weapons defense purposes.
[12] On February 22, 1952, the now-completed Site Able was renamed Manzano Base and turned over to the operational control of the Air Force.
What appeared to be secure bunkers were visible to people (mostly military personnel) who went to a recreational camping area nearby known as Coyote Canyon.
On March 8, 1950, a fire of undetermined origin swept through the stockade at Sandia Base, killing fourteen prisoners.
[15] Because of the presence of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project and its successors, Sandia Base had military personnel of all of the services, as well as Department of Defense civilian employees.
By the 1950s, there were places for several thousand military family members to live, shop, attend school, recreate, and worship.
