It was here that the United States first performed test launches of German V-2 rockets captured toward the end of World War II.

These tests were the first step in both military advances in rocketry, and in the development of the United States space exploration programs.

[3][4] The Nazi German V-2 rocket was one of the most advanced weapons produced in World War II, and hundreds of them were launched at Allied targets in the last two years of the war.

In the aftermath of the war, the United States launched Operation Paperclip, a secret program that successfully recruited German scientists and engineers (most prominently Wernher von Braun) to work for the American military, and transported 100 captured V-2 rockets to the recently established White Sands Missile Range.

[4] Launch Complex 33 is located near the far southern end of the White Sands Missile Range, east of Las Cruces, New Mexico.