Travis Air Force Base 80th Anniversary

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE

• Over half a century of service with thousands of satisfied customers.

• Three year interest-free before need planning for all budgets.

• Reception room for use at no additional cost.

Thank you, Travis for the living history

Asword and shield are worthless pieces of metal lying on the ground if they don’t have strong arms to wield them.

That is the way I have always thought about Travis’ airlifters and air refuelers. They are those strong arms that makes America capable of extending its reach as far as it needs to go.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ian Thompson is a native of Oregon and a graduate of the University of Oregon. He is an avid military history buff, wargamer and loves the great outdoors.

Without the global reach of Travis’ transports, America’s military would never get to where it is needed quickly. Without Travis’ air refueling aircraft, all those fighters and bombers would not have the range they need. And without those airfield contingency units, all those airfields would be unable to move those supplies and troops through to where they are needed.

Or to quote Confederate cavalry leader Nathan Bedford Forrest, victory goes to he who “got there first with the most men.”

Travis has been a centerpiece to this county since it opened in 1943 a nd it has been a part of every significant American military and humanitarian operation since then.

I’d like to thank those who made this special section possible.

Mark Wilderman, 60th Air Mobility Wing Historian, was an essential source and the fount of knowledge when it came to what Travis and the 60th accomplished in its long history.

Terry Juran, Travis Heritage Center’s director, and his great volunteers threw open the doors of their Heritage Center to me. The living history walking around that place is as great as the recorded history on its walls.

Jim Spellman, once David Grant’s public affairs officer, gave me access to that hospital’s history.

Gary Leiser’s updated and revised history of Travis, from its origins in 1943 t hrough 1996, was an essential source to this publication and to him I am indebted, as well as Travis Historian Chet Snow, who wrote the first edition a decade before.

The biggest thank you goes to all the Travis service members and civilians I have had the honor to interview during the past three decades, running the gamut from Mary Enos, otherwise known as Mother Travis, to the late airlifter Morrie Wasserman.

Some of their words are enclosed in this special sect ion. Enjoy.

Publishers: Foy S. McNaughton and T. Burt McNaughton

Editor: Sebastian Oñate

Advertising Director: Louis Codone’

Special Project Manager: Nancy Meadows

Distribution: Bob Franks

Photo Editor: Robinson Kuntz

52

55 Gulf, natural disasters and worldwide missions

60 War on Terror, international operations dominate 63 Sept. 11 attacks change lives, policies at Travis

66 2010s see more missions, new aircraft

74 KC-46 joins the roster

78 David Grant Medical Center heals through the decades

80 60th AMW boasts storied history

82 349th AMW’s history includes military, civilian heroics

1940s: From farmland to West Coast’s largest aerial port

If it wasn’t for a persistent cloud of black gnats just outside of Dixon that mercilessly harassed Army Corps of Engineers surveyors, Travis Air Force Base would have been located there.

“They went to a site outside of Dixon and they were sure that would be the site until the gnats arrived,” said Lena Thomas in a 1993 i nterview.

Her husband, Charles Garland Thomas, was one of the men who started the base in 1942 by cutting barbed wire surrounding a farm that the government had purchased.

Emery Yolo, who lived on Grizzly Island and got a job at the base in 1943, said in a 1968 i nterview that the land where the runways are now was a great place for hunting geese that would fly in by the hundreds to root around in the gravel for food.

1943: The runways were completed at Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base on June 1. (USAF photo)

1944: The control tower and a Jeep.

The idea for the base was born in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the fear that the Imperial Japanese Navy could raid San Francisco Bay. It was to be one of a system of air bases to protect the West Coast.

The Fourth Air Force and the Army Corps of Engineers were sent out to find a section of flat, inexpensive land, good flying weather and favorable drainage with access to nearby railroad and water routes.

In April 1942, the government approved spending $998,000 to buy 945 acres and build two runways and a host of temporary buildings on land six miles east of what the government document described as “the twin farming communities of Fairfield and Suisun City.” Not long after, another 1, 312 acres was added and, shortly before the end of the war, another 1,145 was tacked on.

Bulldozers started work on July 6, 1942, plowing under family farms owned by such families as the Calveras family

near the present Eucalyptus Park, the Best family, where the stables now are, the Chelps family, where the Crosswinds Recreation Center is now, and the Capral family, which is now the site of the Travis Herit age Center.

Green Valley rancher and future Travis Air Force Base fire chief Robert Dittmer had the job of weighing gravel at the base’s South Gate during its construction. Rock was hauled from quarries on Nelson Hill and the concrete was made on the spot, according to Dittmer in a 1993 i nterview.

Dittmer was at work when the first aircraft landed on the base’s runway that fall.

It was a small, light, singleengine observation aircraft that flew in from Sacramento. Three officers got out, walked around the field awhile, got back in the aircraft and flew back toward Sacramento, Dittmer said.

Although the 4th Air Force and its bombers never officially

occupied the base, its medium bombers did use it for practice landings.

For a few months in late 1942, the runways even sported the outline of an aircraft carrier deck so Navy pilots could practice takeoffs and landings, because the prevailing winds were similar to those encountered during carrier operations at sea.

Up until mid-1943, Air Transport Command’s running of the new airbase was done from Hamilton Field in Marin County, with Lt. Col. Henry Weltmer, administrative officer for HQ West Coast Sector, and his staff driving to the base as needed.

The civilian construction crews of the

1942: On July 6, the Army Corps of Engineers bulldozers began carving out the base. (USAF photo)

1940s: Travis Base Headquarters. (USAF photo)

Casson and Ball Company worked out of a mess hall and two barracks buildings in a grove of Eucalyptus trees about a mile northeast of the f light line.

It was officially activated on May 17, 1943, as the Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base and started operations on June 1, 1943. Maj. (soon to be Lt. Col.) Arthur Stephensen and a small group of officers arrived on May 29 to stand up the 23rd Ferr ying Group.

Army Air Force officials almost named the new base Ragsdale Field that year at the request of local leaders, who wanted to honor Capt. W. P. Ragsdale Jr., the first Air Transport Command pilot killed in World War II.

On June 3, 1943, Stephenson announced publicly that the base was Ragsdale Field, but a War Department directive squashed that idea, forbidding the naming of bases after war heroes. Supporters did manage to get the base’s first street named after the flier.

In October 1943, Air Transport Command moved in, bringing with it a growing force of C-47, C- 46 a nd C- 87 t ransports.

The civilian contract airline Consairways also set up shop there and flight captain William Beeman remembered the base as a place where the cold wind

never stopped.

“There were just barracks and no streets, just mud, and in the summer, it was dust,” said tailor Phil Zumpano, who set up the first tailor shop at the base across from the NCO Club in 1944 a fter he moved there from McClellan Army Air Base.

Yolo said there were no buildings between the barracks in the senior officer area and the shops and warehouse area near the flight line, which meant it was a long, often muddy wa lk to work.

“Every time we had a little wind, the tar paper would strip off the roofs and the next several days would be spent in putting the roofs back on,” Yolo said.

Within a year of its opening, the base grew to more than 2,000 enlisted men and 17 officers.

The first Women Army Corps arrived in 1944 i n a squadron under command of Lt. Audrey Hollenbeck and were put to work in mainly clerical duties – from keeping stock records to processing passengers through the ai r terminal.

Yolo was repairing the roof to one of the WAC barracks when he met his future wife, then-Sgt. Winnifred Blackwell, who he married in 1947.

The first black soldiers arrived in February 1944 a nd it is believed that they

were the black detachment in the Pacific Wing of Air Transport Command.

“Wartime necessity transformed this sleepy corner of Solano County ranch land into one of the nation’s largest and most important military transshipment points,” wrote author and historian Gary Leiser in his history of the base.

It had become the official embarkation point for the Pacific theater. For the next two years, the base readied more than 2,000 m ilitary aircraft for combat in the Pacific, nearly half of which were B-24 L iberator bombers.

As the base’s use grew during the war, the need for housing grew more acute. Waterman Park in Fairfield and Vaca Valley Acres in Vacaville were built to accommodate the base’s service members, Consairway personnel and thei r families.

By early 1945, even that was not enough and Stephensen put out a published appeal to local homeowners in Fairfield, Suisun City, Vacaville and Dixon to open their homes to service members.

“Residents in Fairfield, Suisun, Vacaville, Dixon and other nearby communities must answer this appeal so that our mission may be fully accomplished,” Stephensen said in local

1943: the U.S. Navy practiced carrier landings at FairfieldSuisun Army Air Base on a carricutersized rectangle painted on a runway.

(USAF photo)

There were just barracks and no streets, just mud, and in the summer, it was dust.

— Phil Zumpano,

a tailor who set up the first tailor shop in 1944.

newspapers. “I am confident that patriotic households will realize the urgency and make available every room that can possibly be spared.”

Greta Magers, who graduated from Vacaville High School in 1944, remembered her class performing its senior play at the base hospital for the wounded, as well as Bob Hope performing in one of the hangars, according to an account she wrote for the Travis Air Museum News.

She went to work in the base finance office for D.J. Camparsi, who, in civilian life, was the president of the Bank of America.

“I was the first civilian and only woman in the finance office. I used to bring farm produce from home to the office, lots of fruit and nuts. From time to

time, my mom would send homemade fruits and jam,” Magers wrote. “This was always appreciated.”

All of the offices on base were covered with tar paper and Magers’ was right on the runway where “I watched the C-54s bring the wounded home and I saw the famed B -29s land.”

The base also had a train, nicknamed the “GI Choo Choo,” which hauled equipment around the base in the early 1940s, according to Clarence Smith, who was the engineer, in a 1968 Daily Republic interview. Travis continued using a train until early 1990.

By March 1945, when Stephensen departed, the base had become the West Coast’s largest aerial port with a workforce that totaled 3, 272 enlisted,

661 officers, 204 civil servants and 829 Consairway workers.

Postwar demobilization meant severe cutbacks for other services, but it meant more business for Air Transport Command and the Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Force Base.

The Pentagon lengthened the runways and built permanent facilities such as the base hospital and several still-existing structures.

Transfer of the transport squadrons to Germany to support the Berlin Airlift combined with the growing importance of Strategic Air Command allowed SAC to use the base for bomber operations in 1949.

1945: USAAF Air Transport Command opened an all-purpose C-54 Skymaster training school at Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base on Jan. 29. (USAF photo)

Wartime necessity transformed this sleepy corner of Solano County ranch land into one of the nation’s largest and most important military transshipment points.

— Gary Leiser, author and historian

Consairway provides non-military support in the Pacific

If the Navy needed to quickly get torpedo warheads to its ships fighting the Japanese in the Solomon Islands, the Navy called Consairway.

When first lady Eleanor Roosevelt wanted to tour the South Pacific to boost the troops’ morale, the White House called Consairway.

From 1943 to 1945, the civilian contract air transport firm flew out of Travis Air Force Base, then called the Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base, to airfields scattered throughout every corner of the south and central Pacific to supply American forces.

“We were the only non-military airline to support American forces in the Pacific,” said Bob Keefer, a former Consairway flight engineer in a March 1993 Daily Republic interview.

Consolidated-VulteeAircraftinSanDiegocreatedConsolidatedAirways–or Consairway – in late 1941 as the company’s air transport division, delivering new aircraft to Army Air Force bases and overseas buyers, according to a history of Consairway.

Its first job was delivering aircraft to Allied nations such as the

Consairways mechanics repair a damaged bomber. (USAF photo)

The maintenance people alone doubled the population of Vacaville and Fairfield. The women had come up a week earlier to size up the two communities.

— Bob Keefer, a former Consairway flight engineer

Netherlands and Great Britain.

Once the war broke out in the Pacific, Consairway provided American troops with a constant flow of war material flown across t he Pacific.

Up to then, other air transport companies crossed the Pacific using flying boats. Consairway was the first one to use landbased aircraft.

Consairway moved from San Diego to two hangars at the Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base in November 1943. Air Transport Command had taken over the base on Feb. 8, 1943, making it a major aerial supply jump-off point for the Pacific War Zone, nine months before Consairway entered the local picture.

Many of the Consairway aircrews flew up to the base, while the ground personnel and families who decided to move with the company had to drive 12 hours to get to thei r new home.

“The maintenance people alone doubled the population of Vacaville and Fairfield,” said Keefer. “The women had come up a week earlier to size up the two communities.”

“Waterman Park in Fairfield and another housing area in Vacaville was built by the government to house the people,” said former Consairway flier Bob Beeman, who later became a Vallejo lawyer.

The Waterman Park homes weren’t painted, although each had an icebox with ice delivered by Fairfield Mayor Bud Huck. Mud was everywhere when it rained. Waterman Park did have a cafeteria, dining hall and a nursing school, according to Consairway veteran Wes Hodgette in a Consairway histor y document.

Employees formed a private club called Hangar Five, based in a former stable near Wil lotta Oaks.

“The building was refurbished and decorated by Consairway personnel. Floors and walls were painted and a bar was built,” Hodgette wrote. “Beer was provided free. Stronger beverages were provided by members and stored behind the bar

with their names on the bottles.”

A band made up of employees provided dance music. The club also offered craps tables and slot machines.

On one Fourth of July, a Consairway LB-30, an early transport version of the B-24 L iberator bomber, thundered low over Fairfield as part of a war bond drive, bombing the city with leaflets and $25 g ift certificates, Hodgette wrote.

When Consairway set up shop at the Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base, the base consisted of little more than hangars and a collection of hastily constructed tar paper buildings. The cold wind seldom stopped blowing, Beeman remembered.

With only 17 a ircraft, Consairway still launched two flights daily. The Consairway work force grew to 1,00o people by 1944 a nd a hectic schedule didn’t allow aircrews much time on the ground, Beeman said.

Constantly busy maintenance shops and work stands were able to service two aircraft at a time.

“There was a line of others waiting outside constantly,” Keefer said. “There were already built-up engines ready to hang to replace the worn-out ones coming in.”

“Work went on night and day,” said the retired Consairway flight engineer in a 1993 Daily Republic interview. “It was amazing how much commitment there was.”

Consairway pilots took a dim view of the military weather forecasters’ skills at predicting conditions, taking off no matter what the conditions were. Consairway veterans proudly stated that none of their airplanes ever turned back due to bad weather, adding that the rugged construction of the LB-30 could take it. It also helped that while Consairway was subject to some military regulations, it was free of others, allowing the crews to fly for longer periods of time and in weather that would ground Army Air Force aircraft.

“They got better weather information from Consairway crews returning from the Pacific because they have to fly through the stuff coming back,” Beeman said.

The Consairway aircrews set several records, such as completing a round trip from Fairfield to Australia and back in three days, 23 hours and 20 m inutes, as well as flying from Hawaii to San Francisco in eight hours and 55 m inutes.

If the cargo could be fitted into an LB-30, Consairway could fly it anywhere the military wanted, even past the guns of Japanese-occupied islands. The LB-30s often got there faster than the military, Consairway veterans said.

Consairway pilots often had more experience than their military counterparts, because the Consairway fliers already had considerable military flying experience under their belts when they signed up for t he airline.

Toward the end of the war, rumors started floating around that Consairway would become a commercial airline once the war ended, but maneuvering by a large international carrier eliminated that idea and it spelled the end of Consairway.

Consairway maintenance workers pose for a photo. (USAF photo)

Travis opens during crucial month World War II in

The Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base’s first unit, the 914th Quartermaster Division from Hamilton Field, moved into its new home the day before

238, 243 German and Italian troops surrendered in Tunisia on May 11, 1943.

It was a sunny day at the 8th Air Force airfield at Bassingbourn, England, on May 19, 1943, when the B-17 Memphis Belle rolled to a stop and its aircrew knelt to kiss the grassy ground after they became the first bomber crew to complete 25 m issions over Nazi-occupied Europe.

Halfway around the world, Air Transport Command activated the Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base, an event that was hardly noticed in the fighting as World War II was proceeding through its fourth year.

The Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base’s birth was part of the Allied tide that was beginning to push back the Axis powers across the globe. The base’s opening was just one of many events in the war during the spring and summer of 1943.

By late spring that year, World War II’s turning points –

Crews load a C-47 during World War II. The contents of the boxes have been censored and are blacked out in the photo. (USAF photo)

Midway, Guadalcanal, Stalingrad, the Battle of the Atlantic and El Alamein – had long passed.

The Allies knew they were going to win, it was a question of how long and what the cost would be.

The Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base’s first unit, the 914th Quartermaster Division from Hamilton Field, moved into its new home the day before 238, 243 G erman and Italian troops surrendered in Tunisia on May 11, 1943, bringing the North African campaign to a close.

It opened the way for the July 10, 1943, invasion of Sicily, the first step in the liberation of Europe.

The 914th set up shop one month after American codebreakers intercepted a message saying when the man who engineered the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor would be flying to inspect Japanese forces in the Solomon Islands.

A flight of P-38 L ighting fighters used the information to ambush and shoot down the bomber carrying Adm. Isoruku Yamamoto over Bougainville on April 13.

American and Australian troops continued their slow push up the New Guinea coast while Marines and Army soldiers took their next step on the road to Tokyo – the invasion of New Georgia on June 30.

In the Northern Pacific, American forces landed on the Aleutian island of Attu on May 12 to kick the Japanese out of their only toehold in North America, finishing the fight on May 28 at the cost of 600 A mericans and 2,50 0 Japanese.

British and American chiefs of staff met in Washington on

May 14 to plan Operation Pointblank, the destruction of the German war industry from the air.

It was to be a year-long, around-the-clock aerial assault. One of those fliers carrying out that assault would be the FairfieldSuisun Army Air Base’s future namesake, Brig. Gen. Robert Travis.

During the night of May 16, the Royal Air Force pulled off the stunning Dambuster Raid, breaking open two dams in the Rhur using specially designed “bouncing” bombs.

The Jewish Warsaw Ghetto revolt, which started April 18, drew to a tragic close on May 16 w ith the destruction of the Warsaw synagogue.

“The Warsaw ghetto is no longer in existence,” reported SS Brigadier Jurgen Stroop to Berlin.

An advance party of the 23rd Ferrying Command, under Lt. Col. selectee Arthur Stephensen Jr., arrived at Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base on May 29 a nd the base was formally opened June 1.

The next day, POW and Royal Army Col. Edward Dunlop recorded the latest death in his camp on the ThailandBur ma railway.

“God knows the angel’s wings must have been over us in view of the terrible mortality in all other camps up and down this line, which seems to be built on bones,” Dunlop wrote in h is memoirs.

There would be two more years of fighting and agony to go before the war ended.

graced base for decades Mother Travis

Living just outside Travis’ North Gate, Mary Enos was often there with a friendly ear to relieve the homesickness of lonely young airmen. For that blessing, they started calling her Mot her Travis.

Born Mary Rose Marcell in 1895 i n Fall River, Massachusetts, she married a young farmer from nearby Somerset named John Enos.

Hard times that hit in 1924, and an invitation from John’s cousin Manuel, convinced the couple to move to California to a tract of farm land between Fairfield and Vacaville, two towns known then for little else other than agriculture.

Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a government agent convinced John Enos to sell 42 acres of his land to build an airfield on to help defend San Francisco Bay, according to a Daily Republic interview with Enos shortly before her death.

John Enos got $50 per acre and the bulldozers arrived on July 6, 1942, to start clearing the land for buildings and the runway.

During the construction, the Army Corps of Engineers made its headquarters near a grove of eucalyptus trees on the Enos Ranch, which was unofficially named Camp Enos. It now comprises Travis’ command housing area.

With the completion of the base, Mary Enos quickly became a central part of its social life and was named an honorary member of the Officers Wives Club.

She was known to call the men and women serving on base as “my boys” and “my girls.” In return, in the mid-1960s, the service members started calling her Mot her Travis.

For a while, the Enos ranch had the only hot water on base “and airmen from the nearby tar paper shacks washed their clothes there and hung them on the fence to dry,” said Frank Mullane, a former provost marshal at Travis in a 1983 i nterview.

The Enoses also hauled servicemen from their barracks to base movies in the back of t heir truck.

“We helped each other,” Mary Enos said. “When they wanted to cross our land with the pipelines and power lines, we let them. Being close, they let us connect on so our place had electricity long before the others around here.”

Airmen also helped with farm duties, such as collecting eggs from the Enoses’ chickens and driving the sheep to market. Mullane remembers getting up more than once at night to drive to the North Gate to open it so the sheep could move through.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Mary Enos also served as an inexpensive, well-loved baby sitter for base families until she retired from that in 1964.

When John Enos fell sick and was sent to Intercommunity

Hospital in the early 1960s, Mary Enos went with him.

While she stayed at her husband’s side in the hospital before he died, the farm was well taken care of by airmen and base families who milked the cows and tended to the chickens.

Even after airman left the military and the base, they would drop by the ranch whenever they were in the area to visit Mother Travis when she became “that spritely old lady with only my dogs,” Mary Enos said.

Every Christmas and Easter created a flood of letters in a large mail sack, which came from people who knew her as far back as World War II.

When Travis’ first C-141 a rrived here in April 1965, Mary Enos was one of the first to be taken up in it and stated afterward that it was the first time she flew.

“They gave me a choice where I wanted to sit, and I said, right behind the pilot,” Mary Enos said in a 1965 news story.

On the morning of June 24, 1982, Enos was found unconscious at her ranch by her caretaker. She was rushed to Intercommunity Hospital, where she slipped into serious condition very quickly due to her history of diabetes and died a week later.

Mother Travis’ funeral service was held at Chapel No. 1. The building was filled to capacity with both active duty and retired Air Force members.

1965: Mary Enos receives the first flight emblem from Daniel Houghton, vice president of the Lockheed Corporation, at a dinner at Travis. (USAF Photo)

1950s: A decade of growth,

large bombers

The

1950s was the decade of Strategic Air Command at the Fairfield-Suisun Air Force Base

with its flight line dominated by the large bombers.

With the base’s airlift squadrons now stationed in West Germany because of the Berlin Airlift, almost all of the West Coast air transport missions were carried out by Navy transports or transferred to civilia n airlines.

In the early 1950s, Moffett Field became the area’s main air terminal and Fairfield-Suisun’s airlift schedule was reduced to a weekly shuttle to Hickam Air Force Base and aeromedical flights flown by C-47s from nearly vaca nt runways.

On May 1, 1949, Strategic Air Command activated the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing under Col. Raymond Winn at Fairfield-Suisun, bringing with it the RB-29 Superfortress reconnaissance bomber, whose prime mission was very-long-range telephoto reconnaissance across t he Pacific.

Winn lasted a little more than a month at the job and, on June 17, he was replaced by Brig. Gen. Robert Falligant Travis.

Six months later, on Nov. 8, 1949, the 5th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing arrived to join the 9th and Travis was put in command of both wings, an unusual setup.

In April 1950, the 9th started replacing its RB-29s with the massive, six-propeller engined B-36 bombers and was renamed the 9th Heavy Bombardment Wing-Heavy.

It was just in time for the outbreak of the Korean

1951: Planes fly overhead during the rededication ceremony of the base on April 20. (USAF photo)

War, which saw the 9th increase its local training flights and practice bombing runs in preparation for partial deployment to Korea. By February 1951, the 14th Air Division was headquartered at Travis Air Force Base.

Family housing at the base tripled with the construction of 980 new Wherry housing units, while the base hospital saw the temporary addition of 500 beds to accommodate wounded from Korea, which averaged 2,000 a month during the war brought in by the 1733rd Air Transport Squadron (Air Evacuation).

What was called the “West River Depot,” and later renamed the Fairfield Air Force Station, was located on the southwest corner of the base and soon acquired the nickname of Secret City because of its high security and its work storing and maintaining nuclear bombs. It stayed in business until 1962.

A Strategic Air Command reorganization in 1953 sent the 9th to Mountain Home Air Force Base, Ida ho, and the 5th phased out the last of its RB-29s for reconnaissance-configured RB-36s by 1952.

F-86D Sabre jet fighters arrived to defend Travis and other regional bases in July 1954 when Air Defense Command activated the 413th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron. The pilots stood on five- to 15-minute alerts to defend the base and its growing fleet of Strategic Air Command and Material Air Transport Service aircraft should the Cold War go hot.

In August 1955, the 413th was replaced by the 82nd FighterInterceptor Squadron, and the F-86Ds were soon replaced in 1957 by the F-102 Delta Dagger fighter, capable of firing air-to-air guided missiles, which could be nuclear tipped. The 82nd and its F-102s left Travis in 1966 for Okinawa.

The Army did its part to defend the base when the 1st Battalion, 61st Artillery, part of the North American Air Defense Command, set up shop in the old base hospital area to oversee the ring of six underground Nike missile bases around

Travis, which started to be built in March 1956.

The missile crews stood on aler t in shifts 24 hours a day until 1971, when changing military technology made the Nike missiles obsolete. The missile crews packed their bags and left without firing a shot. The sites have since been sold off to become everything from storage for a farm to the home of the Fairfield-Suisun School District’s bus yard.

It was also during the mid-1950s that the Royal Air Force set up shop with a small detachment of three dozen men to support British military aircraft flying through the Western United States and the Pacific. By 2000, that presence had shrunk to only a couple of RAF personnel.

Even though Travis was a Strategic Air Command base, the Military Air Transport Service did ship a lot of personnel and equipment out of Travis to t he Pacific.

When the 9th left Travis, three Military Air Transport Service squadrons moved in with their C-54s, which were soon replaced with C-97 Stratofreighters and C-124 Globemasters. They were followed by three more transport squadrons by 1955, which was the same year the 1501st Air Transport Wing was activated at Travis.

Travis formally entered the jet age when the 5th’s first B-52 a rrived at the base on Feb. 13, 1959. Named the Spirit of Solano, the bomber was welcomed with much ceremony and even an appearance by California Gov. Edmund “Pat” Brown Sr.

The base’s bomber squadrons completed their conversion to B-52s in September 1958 w ith Project Adios, the departure of Travis’ last RB-36 w ith members of the same aircrew who flew in the first one to Trav is in 1951.

This was the same time that Strategic Air Command dispersed two of its bomber squadrons to surrounding bases, Mather and Beale Air Force bases, to minimize the wing’s vulnerability to attack. The 14th Air Division also packed its

Two air policemen at Travis monitor a flight line full of 31st Fighter Escort Wing F-84Gs prior to the fighters’ launch for Hickam Air Force Base, Territory of Hawaii, as part of Operation Fox Peter One during the Korean War. (USAF photo)

A patient is loaded into an ambulance in Korea for a trip to Japan. Many wounded troops from the war in Korea came back through Travis. (USAF photo)

The Fairfield-Suisun Air Force Base Hospital was expanded to accommodate thousands of wounded troops from the Korean conflict. (USAF photo)

base – air refueling in the form of the 916th Air Refueling Squadron and its KC-135 Stratotankers, the first of which arrived in December 1959.

Strategic Air Command also handed over the keys of the base to Military Air Transport Service when that command’s 323rd Air Division was activated at Travis, as well as the Western Transport Air Force in July 1958 w ith Maj. Gen. Russell Waldron assuming command of Western Transport Air Force, re-establishing airlift as Travis’ top mission.

Western Transport Air Force had just set up shop at Travis

bases were reassigned, the land between the Mississippi River to Saudi Arabia was still a big chunk of territory.

The first mission by a Travis aircraft to Southeast Asia took place in 1954 when, in the aftermath of the disastrous French defeat at Dien BienPhu, 10 of the base’s C-97s collected 509 French soldiers from what was then called Indochina and flew them to destinations in France and Algeria. In 10 years, Travis would be back, and the place would have a new name –Vietnam.

Happy 80th Anniversary, Travis Air Force Base! We salute all military service members and civilians who at one time called TAFB their home or employer over the past 80 years.

Your contributions have made TAFB an important global hub for America’s peace and security, as well as an integral community partner in Solano County

It was TAFB militar y and civilian workers who founded Travis Credit Union in 1951. Their goal was to provide base workers with a savings and loan alternative to banks.

Today, TCU advocates for all of your nancial wellness Explore how we can help you with your savings, home or auto loan, credit card, business or other goal at traviscu.org.

‘Secret city’ rumors connect to nuclear weapons

It’s nickname was “secret city.”

Many knew the 3083rd Aviation Group was there, but few knew what it did behind closely patrolled perimeter fences.

The sign over the front gate of the Fairfield Air Force Station declared the unit as “Best Damned Outfit in the USAF,” but gave no fu rther clue.

Today, many of the people who knew of the 3083rd believe the unit handled atomic weapons, maintaining them and loading them onto the base’s bombers. But no one who served in the unit, even decades after it closed, will confirm it.

“It’s still a fairly sensitive subject,” said retired Chief Master Sgt. Floyd Park, a nuclear weapons technician with the unit, in a 1990s Daily Republic interview.

a mystery that

Most of the former members are reluctant to talk about what the facility did. Some admit that from 1953 to 1962, it stored, handled, loaded and unloaded what they referred to as “special weapons” at Travis.

All training had to be approved by the Atomic Energy Commission, Park said. To say anything further could have ruffled some feathers, Park added.

The Fairfield Air Force Station covered 512 acres, where the 60th Security Forces headquarters now stands. It was its own separate, self-contained base, which was established on Sept. 8, 1952. It was one of five such groups established between 1951 a nd 1954 to handle nuclear weapons.

“It was part of a plan to have depots at all the different bases,” said retired Chief Master Sgt. Delane Kelly.

1950s: The main gate at Fairfield Air Force Station, also known as the “secret city.” (USAF photo)

The 3083rd’s airmen loaded bombs carried on the Strategic Air Command’s 5th Bombardment Wing’s B-36 Peacemaker and then the B-52 Stratofortresses.

“Whatever SAC wanted, we would go and give it to them,” Park said.

Six hundred military and civilian men and women organized in four squadrons made up the unit. Passing through just the first gate alone required secret clearance. Passing through the four other interior gates required higher clearances.

“There were many people who served at our installation who never got past the first gate,” said retired Lt. Col. Ed Craig.

“We were formed to receive, ship and repair all kinds of munitions,” said retired Lt. Col. Curt Burgan in a 1990s interview. “We had some of the highest trained men in the Air Force.”

“Some of the weapons were so sensitive that you couldn’t open them up unless you had two people in the room who knew what they were doing,” Park said.

Relations with Travis, which was a Strategic Air Command base at the time, were rough at first because during the 1950s, “SAC was looked upon as a God and we weren’t SAC,” Parks said.

“But once they (Travis) got used to it (the station’s existence), we fit like a glove,” Park said.

The 3083rd’s commander had the final word on who got to enter his facility. Burgan remembers refusing one high-ranking base officer access.

“He was not yet briefed on our status and he was mad,” Burgan said.

Another Travis commander, offended by the sign saying the 3083rd was the “Best Damned Outfit in the USAF,” demanded the sign be removed. The 3083rd’s commander refused and the sign stayed up.

Five fences surrounded the base and the third of the five was electrified.

“Security got tired of constantly

picking up dead rabbits,” Burgan said.

Three migrant workers whose car broke down on Highway 12 a lmost became victims, too. The three saw the facility’s lights and mistook it for a small town. Security police caught them as they finished scaling the second fence and were about to scale the third.

The unit had its own sports teams and clubs. It had good community relations, because of the sports activities. Its members turned out in strength for community projects, such as building a Little League park where the Chick-fil-A restaurant now stands.

One of the unit’s more resourceful scroungers convinced the Navy to supply them with boats, which were moored at Bran nan Island.

“We were the only Air Force unit around with its own Navy,” Park said.

The small fleet included a 10,000gallon fuel barge, a 99-foot maintenance barge, a gig, a runabout and a capt ain’s boat.

The 3083rd received at least two E-for-Excellence banners for good work, Burgan said.

Advances in weapon technology and the advent of the missile age made the depots obsolete by the early 1960s.

“Weapons developed to the point that we were no longer needed,” Burgan said. “It was to a point that you could plug in a component and if the light was red, you sent it back, and if the light was green, it was good.”

Burgan commanded the facility when it closed in July 1962. Everything had to be accounted for, down to the pillows, he said.

The only thing left of the base after it closed was a radioactive burial site, which was a backfilled trench that contained cleaning materials from the maintenance of nuclear components at the facility.

Nuclear Weapons Assembly Plant 4, W Street, Armed Forces Special Weapons Project Q Area, Travis Air Force Base. (Library of Congress)

Base namesake was tough, beloved

Gen. Travis

Brig. Gen. Robert Falligant Travis was a leader who didn’t like coming in second in anything, according to one officer who served under him in the skies over Europe during World War II.

Like other exacting commanders, Travis’ ire could take on a form akin to the wrath of God, but his ability to push men to do their best distinguished him and helped get hi m his star.

It made him one of the more successful bomber wing commanders in Europe and brought him to command of what was then the Fairfield-Suisun Air Force Base.

Travis was born Dec. 26, 1904, in Savannah, Ga., with military roots that included 19th century lawyer and soldier William Barrett Travis, who commanded the regulars at the Alamo and died with his men when Mexican leader Santa Ana stormed the mission in 1836.

Travis graduated from West Point in 1928 a nd received a commission as a second lieutenant in the field artillery. His flying career started not long after, when he entered Primary Flying School at Brooks Field, Texas. A year later, he graduated as a pilot from the Air Corps Advanced School at Kelly Field, Texas.

After graduating from the Air Corps engineering school at Wright Field, Ohio, Travis was sent to Seattle to supervise construction at the Boeing Airplane Co. plant for the fledgling B-17 F lying Fortress, according to a fami ly history.

The performance of the first two prototype B-17s did not bode well for the heavy bomber’s production when both crashed in flight tests. Travis was asked to fly a third one from Seattle to the Presidio in San Francisco and he completed the flight.

A procession of commands led him to take command of the 72nd Bombardment Squadron at Hickam Field in Hawaii in July 1939, where he stayed for a year before moving on to serve as material officer for the 5th Bombardment Group. In July 1943, he assumed command of the First Bomber Command at El Paso, Texas.

Travis soon joined the 8th Air Force, head ing up the 41st Combat Bombardment Wing, personally leading his air crews in 35 m issions over Nazi-occupied Europe.

“Gen. Travis distinguished himself by personally choosing to lead bombardment elements on combat missions in which it was known that heavy and extremely hazardous opposition would be met,” his Distinguished Service Cross citation stated. “This officer exhibited great courage, coolness and determination in carrying out operations as planned.”

In England, Travis was considered a hard driver who felt the nature of combat command was to achieve victory. He sacked any squadron commander who didn’t live up to his standards.

Retired Maj. Gen. Dame Smith, a B-17 g roup commander under Travis who later wrote the memoir “Screaming Eagle,” described Travis as a man “who never liked to finish second at anything.”

Few subordinates wanted to cross their exacting commander, but Smith had to do so on an April 1944 m ission over Germany.

Travis made it a point to take the lead formation on missions he flew. Inadequate planning, reinforced by several turns the multi-group formation took to the target, forced Smith’s bomber to cut off Travis’ lead formation as it closed on target, Smith wrote.

Turning off the radio saved Smith from Travis’ irate airborne tirade, which was loud enough to cut through German radio jamming but it could not save Smith from the inevitable showdown after both landed back in England.

“Gen. Travis was steaming with anger when I reported and saluted, but he was compassionate enough to direct me toward a chair,” Smith wrote.

Smith silently endured Travis’ verbal barrage and then took advantage of the silence that followed to explain the reason for his insubordination.

“Bob Travis listened to it all,” Smith wrote. “I have to hand it to him; he was fair and reasonable and didn’t hold a grudge. He evidently decided it wasn’t my fault and I took the only reasonable action.”

Travis’ expression softened “and for a long moment, he regarded the pencil with which he was taking notes,” Smith wrote.

Travis then told Smith to put himself in for a Silver Star.

1950: Flames spring up from the crash that killed Brig. Gen. Robert Travis and the wreckage at Fairfield-Suisun Air Force Base. (USAF photos)

THE BADGES BROKER

Smith replied that was Travis’ responsibility, only to have Travis thunder back, “Do it!”

Smith quietly let the award drop, but not Travis. Shortly after, Smith’s command received a Presidential Unit Citation.

Travis’ sterling combat performance not only earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, the French Croix de Guerre, and the Legion d’honneur, but also a brigadier general’s star in September 1944.

After the war’s end, Travis returned to Hickam Air Force Base as the 7th Air Force chief of staff and then commander. In September 1948, he was appointed commanding general of the Pacific A ir Command.

On June 17, 1949, Travis arrived in Solano County to take command of both the Fairfield-Suisun Air Force Base and Strategic Air Command’s 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, which was activated a month before he arrived.

Tailor Phil Zumpano, who ran a shop at the base altering and repairing uniforms, remembered Travis “as a prince of a guy.”

When the Air Force tried to move Zumpano from his shop in the passenger terminal, Travis stepped in and stopped the move.

“He said since the terminal was built with MATS funds and I did work for MATS, I could stay,” Zu mpano said.

The next year, the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing became the 9th Bombardment Wing. With the start of the Korean War, it undertook increased practice bombing runs to be ready for deployment to Korea.

On the night of Aug. 5, 1950, Travis got on a B-29 Superfortress bomber as an observer to accompany the aircraft on its mission to carry an atomic bomb casing to t he Pacific.

A propeller malfunction after liftoff, combined with the failure of the landing gear to retract, forced the pilot to try to attempt to make a crash landing near the end of the base’s runway. He didn’t make it.

One of those aboard the B-29 at the time was 1st Lt. William Braz, the last known surviving member of the B-29 crew who was interviewed for a 2013 Travis Heritage Center story.

Braz said in the interview that the

B-29 was halfway down the runway when the No. 2 engine propeller started running away. The pilot, Capt. Eugene Steffes, turned the aircraft back toward the base to put it back down. The B-29 lost airspeed and Steffes told the co-pilot to tell everyone to prepare for a crash landing. Braz was almost out of his seat when someone said something was wrong with the No. 3 engine.

“It looked like things were getting difficult,” Braz said in the interview. “I ran toward the back to get into a crash landing position and started to pull down the crash crossbar. Just then, Gen. Travis told me, ‘Get back, get ready. There’s no time for that’.” Travis then pulled Braz down just before the plane hit.

At the base’s bakery, Sgt. Lewis Sequeria and four others heard the aircraft’s agony and looked up to see it pass over, then plow into the ground near the base’s present Main Gate, according to a Solano Republican article.

Sequeria and his men took off after it.

“We saw it coming down, hit and start skidding,” Sequeria said later. “It was skidding and we were actually chasing the plane.”

Sgt. Paul Ramoneda reached the aircraft first, followed by Sequeria and the others. They skirted the rear of the burning B-29 to get to the cockpit. Hearing cries, they helped Steffes out. The co-pilot got stuck, but Braz gave him a push and followed after.

“He (the pilot) told us to get away before the tanks blew. About that time, .50caliber ammo and flares started going off and help started arriving,” Sequeria said.

Travis was still alive when rescuers pulled him from the wreckage, but the general died on the way to the base hospital. Eight of the 18 people on the bomber survived.

Flaming aviation fuel quickly engulfed the aircraft despite the best efforts of base firefighters. Sequeria ordered his men back and all but Ramoneda followed. Ramoneda turned back, yelling that he intended to save more men trapped in the bomber.

“The last time I saw him, he had wrapped his apron around his head and face, and was starting into the airplane,” Sequeria said.

Then the 8,000 gallons of aviation fuel and the explosives in the bomb casing went up “in a blanket of flame,”

the Solano Republican ar ticle said.

It engulfed the base’s firefighting equipment, killing Ramoneda and five other airmen, injuring 60 a irmen and local firefighters, and setting fire to the base trailer park. The death toll would have been higher if not for an unknown lieutenant who cleared out the trailers before the explosion.

Ray Hosley, commander of the 9th Bomb Wing, said in a later statement on the crash that the aircraft “made a kind of crackling sound and that’s when she went.”

“We, old Dan (Smith) and I, we hit the ground, and I remember just seeing lights, the fire and seeing this stuff flying,” said Hosley, who escaped without a scratch but was deaf for six weeks from the blast.

The blast dug a 6-foot-deep, 30-footwide crater, damaged almost every building on base, shattered glass windows as far away as downtown Fairfield, and was heard in Vallejo.

It also destroyed the base fire department and the call went out to nearby fire departments to bring in more men and equipment to put out the burning

wreckage and stop a blaze that fanned out of control into nearby grasslands.

Robert Dittmer, then the base fire chief, said in a later Daily Republic interview that he was the closest person to the blast to survive. It picked him up and threw him through the air.

“I came to lying in a hole and kept trying to crawl out,” Dittmer said.

Fairfield resident Warren Levy said in a 2000 i nterview that his first warning of the disaster was a flicker in his car’s rear view mirror seconds before, “the concus sion shoved me up against the car and it looked like the entire base had gone up.”

The 19 bodies were taken to the McCune Garden Chapel in Vacaville and Travis was later buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Even as cleanup was underway, the combination of Travis’ local popularity and his sudden death prompted base officers and local commu nity leaders to lobby to rename the base in his honor.

Officials at the Pentagon agreed and on Oct. 20, 1950, an Air Force special order renamed the base. A formal dedication ceremony took place on Apri l 20, 1950.

Brig. Gen. Robert Travis, 9th Heavy Bombardment Wing commander, rides his bike to work followed by his dog, Dan, at Fairfield-Suisun Air Force Base. (USAF photo)

Operation Starlift helps troops, inspires film

It started as a morale program to boost the spirits of troops heading to Korea and the wounded coming back from that war. Within a year, it turned Travis Air Force Base into a movie set for the motion picture “Starlift,” with the likes of Doris Day and Gordon McCrea headlining it.

Actress Ruth Roman was the first star to arrive in September 1950 to visit the wounded at the base’s hospital and perform at the Passenger Terminal Building for departing soldiers, sailors a nd Marines.

The list of those who followed soon included Hollywood heavyweights of the 1950s, such as

Actress Elizabeth Taylor greets a wounded soldier as part of Operation Starlift. (USAF photo)

1950: Radio and screen personalities Jack Benny and Constance Moore are shown in a MATS C-97 aircraft wishing a Merry Christmas to home-bound wounded servicemen at Travis Air Force Base.

(Strategic Air Command Archives)

Elizabeth Taylor, Alan Ladd, Andy Williams, Donna Reed, Danny Kaye, Walter Pigeon, Jack Benny, Kennan Wynn, Vic Damone, Bob Hope and Donald O’Conner, as well a sports figures such as Joe Lewis.

Travis commander Brig. Gen. Joe Kelly named the project not long after Roman’s arrival, with an offhand comment to his Public Affairs Office asking, “Who is coming here from Hollywood this week on our Operation Starlift?” according to a May 1952 a rticle in the Global Ranger Supplement.

The name stuck for the flights that collected actors, entertainers and sports figures from Burbank to fly them to Travis every Saturday and return them the next day.

The stars would put on two- to three-hour shows at the passenger terminal, only interrupted by loudspeakers telling the troops their

THANK YOU, TRAVIS!

SUISUN CITY SALUTES YOUR 80 YEARS OF SOARING DEDICATION AND SERVICE.

aircraft were ready to load, according to t he article.

Warner Bros. Studios and the Pentagon knew a good thing when they saw it and started production of the movie “Starlift,” which it plugged as “a starspangled spectacle with 18 big-name guest stars” that overshadowed acting newcomers Janice Rule and Ron Hogarthy, who had the lead roles in the musical drama.

Hogarthy played a Travis flier who was trying to meet a movie star played by Rule, who grew up in his hometown, while her fellow stars performed for injured men on the base.

The movie opened on Dec. 14, 1951, to reviews that were much less stellar than its cameo cast.

A Time magazine review said that the film “now supplies a backdrop for a spotty variety show, loosely glued together by the romance of a Hollywood star and an Air Force corporal from her hometown,” while a New York Times reviewer was even less complimentary, writing the “acts were unspeakably slapdash and the romance is painful beyond words.”

But that did not matter to the Travis airmen or doctors.

Airman 1st Class James Hakes later recounted his memories of being at Travis during the filming to the Travis Air Museum.

“The movie was basically a movie about Hollywood stars coming to the base hospital and the terminal at Travis to entertain the troops coming from and going to Korea,” said Hakes, who later saw the finished product at Travis and again in a theater in his hometown of

Chippewa Falls, Wis.

“Whenever possible, I used to watch the performances. Kennan Wynn seemed to be the group leader most of the time,” Hakes said. “I remember on Christmas Eve 1950, after the main performance, Debbie Reynolds and another pretty blonde lady stayed on and sang to the troops, anything they wanted until 2 a.m. Pretty nice, I thought, of these two you ng ladies.”

One David Grant doctor said in the Global Ranger article that “there is no better medicine for these men.”

“All of them have been to the movies and to them it means the United States when they see the stars that they enjoyed seeing in the motion pictures,” the doctor said in the article. “It means they are home again.”

The movie did have one unusual effect.

Not long after it hit the theaters, the recruiting station at the base got a letter from Ramsey Russell of Memphis, Tenn.

“I am interested in joining the Air Force and would like to work on the base there in California,” Russell wrote. “I like to do the kind of work they do there. I saw a picture where Doris Day and other movie stars made a picture on the base. I don’t know whether I have the right idea, but the picture stated in its own way what you all do there on that base.”

“I have tried many Air Force bases, including the one here, to find work best suited for me and when I saw the picture I knew I would like to know the requirements needed to join out there,” Russell wrote.

Actress Donna Reed entertains wounded troops as part of Operation Starlift. (USAF photo)

1960s: Jet age arrives, along with Vietnam War

The first jet transport to arrive at Travis was the C-135, a military transport version of the Boeing 707 airliner.

Propeller-driven aircraft such as the RB-36 had given way to the jet age in the form of the B-52 Stratofortress and the F-102 Delta Daggers as Travis entered the 1960s – a decade that would see it gear up to become a hive of activity, supporting the growing conflict in Sout heast Asia.

The first major airlift operation for Travis came when its airlifters carried United Nations forces to the Congo between July and September 1960, and continued supporting those troops for several years.

The Berlin Crisis of 1961 saw Travis take part in exercises in Germany during that time. The next year, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Travis’ squadrons were put on alert and some

were sent across the United States to support the deployment of a possible military reply to the crisis.

The first half of the decade saw a shuffle of units with two squadrons inactivated between 1960 a nd 1965 while three others were either activated or assigned to the 1501st Air Transport Wing.

Three new types of air transports were

1960s: A control tower in operation at Travis. (USAF photo)

1965: The Golden Bear, the first Lockheed C-141A Starlifter to be delivered to an operational Military Air Transport Service unit, arrived at Travis on April 23. (USAF photo)

assigned to Travis and two of its older aircraft types were phased out during this time.

The base’s last two C-97 squadrons were deactivated in 1960 a nd their aircraft were sent to National Guard units.

By 1963, the 1501st had six squadrons flying 100 a ircraft made up of C-124s, C-130s, C-133s and C-135s, the most aircraft ever assigned to a wing at Travis.

The first jet transport to arrive at Travis was the C-135, a military transport version of the Boeing 707 a irliner. The first of 17 a rrived in February 1962, was assigned to the recently reactivated 44th Air Transport Squadron and sent on its first mission to Yakota Air Base, Japan.

Less than a month later, one of the C-135s rushed 38 critically ill patients from Yakota to Travis, shaving 10 m inutes off the previous record for a flight from Japan to California set by a 707.

Travis also picked up half of Military Air Transport Service’s most highly visible mission, the Embassy Run, where a Travis C-135 would fly across the Pacific to make stops in Asian capitals such as Saigon, New Delhi and Karachi before going as far as Saudi Arabia, where a transport from Eastern Transport Air Force would take over t he mission.

In April 1963, the first of 16 t urboprop C-130 Hercules joined the Travis fleet while the C-124 Globemasters, known as Old Shakey, continued to be flown at Travis.

It also had the C-133 Cargomaster, whose design allowed it to transport the nation’s intercontinental missiles such as the Titan, Thor, Atlas and Minuteman.

The start of air-drop training allowed Travis to put on its own two-day Computed Air Release Point competition or “rodeo” at the nearby Winters-Davis Municipal Airport in July 1961 for C-124 a ircrews between Travis and McChord Air Force Base. Travis pulled out a narrow win against the McChord aircrews.

When it came to the space program, one of the base’s C-125s carried the first Gemini space capsule to Cape Canaveral in October 1963 so it could be launched into space in Ja nuary 1964.

Travis’ involvement in Vietnam included the transporting of a C-123 t actical aircraft unit from South Carolina to Tan Son Nhut Air Base in South Vietnam in September 1961, the precursor of Travis slowly becoming the major West Coast aerial port for troops and supplies going to Southeast Asia as the American military build-up expanded.

The base’s first C-141 Starlifter, the military jet specifically designed for airlift, arrived at Travis on April 23, 1965. It was nicknamed The Golden Bear and landed with Military Air Transport Service commander Gen. Howell Estes at the controls of the first operational C-141 to be assigned to an air base. Travis was also designated the Lead the Force Joint Task Force, which was responsible for the long-term evaluation of the Air Force’s C-141s.

The arrival of the C-141s meant the departure of the C-135s, which started that same year.

In 1964, Travis got involved in Operation Deep Freeze, America’s Antarctica project run by the National Science Foundation and the Navy. The mission was ha nded to the 86th Air Transport Squadron and its C-130s.

Lt. Col. Don Julin, then a 22nd Air Force lead navigator, said in a later interview that he was ordered in 1964 to go to New Zealand to check out the operation. Julin managed to wrangle his way all the way to the South Pole itself, where he later said he “ran around the pole 10 t imes in a minute so that I can now claim to having gone

1962: A forklift loads cargo onto a C-135 Stratolifter. (USAF photo)

around the world 14 t imes, four by air and 10 by foot.”

The next year, the base’s airlifters helped carry 4,000 A merican soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division and 7,000 tons of cargo to the Dominican Republic on the heels of the Marine Corps’ own landing the day before to occupy that country, put an end to its civil war and forestall what President Lyndon Johnson feared would be the creation of what he called “a second Cuba.”

Strategic Air Command at Travis not only got a new squadron, the 916th Air Refueling Squadron and its KC-135 a ir tankers as the decade opened, but also a new alert facility built on the south side of the runway that allowed the 916th fliers to be ready to fly at a moment’s notice around the clock.

Just like Military Air Transport Service, the Strategic Air Command bomber and air tanker units were put on alert during the Cuban Missile Crisis and its fighter squadron was even shipped out to Siskiyou County Airport to protect that unit in case of attack on Travis. The 82nd Fighter Squadron departed in June 1966 to allow the base to make more flight line room for more C-141s and transient aircraft.

The 916th’s workload increased as the Vietnam War heated up, starting with its first related air refueling mission taking place in 1965, when it refueled the deployment of fighter and B-52 squadrons to the western Pacific.

Aircraft from the 5th Bombardment Wing did deploy to fly missions over Southeast Asia starting in 1965, the same year that Strategic Air Command announced the wing would be inactivated in three-and-a-half years. But instead, the wing was sent to Minot Air Force Base, N.D., while the KC-135 of the 916th Air Refueling Squadron would stay at Travis.

It was the same year that Travis Senior Master Sgt. George Morar of the 84th Air Transport Squadron got a unique distinction – he became the real-life model for fictional “Steve Canyon” comic strip character Senior Master Sgt. George Lakewood, after “Steve Canyon” creator Milton Caniff met Morar at an Air Force Association Convention and was impressed with him.

“How Caniff is going to work me in, I don’t know,” Morar said in a 1965 San Francisco Examiner interview. “He didn’t let me know anything, but the kids are looking forward to it.”

In 1966, Military Air Transport Service became the Military Airlift Command, Western Transport Air Force became

the 22nd Air Force and the 1501st became the 60th Military Airlift Wing. The base’s C-130s and its older C-124s were also being sent elsewhere as they were replaced by more C-141s.

Less than a month after President Johnson promised more aid to South Vietnam in July 1965, the first of the daily 141 channel airlift missions to Tan Son Nhut was flown on Aug. 3, 1965, hauling 44, 315 pounds of priority cargo and making two refueling stops at Wake Island and Clark Air Force Base, in the Philippines, in an 18-hour mission.

In October, a program called “Fast Fly” was started and saw Travis’ flying hours significantly increase in the effort to support the American involvement there. Fast Fly did not meet the needs, so the “Red Ball Express” was started in December and added missions flown by even more aircraft, raising the amount of tonnage flown from Travis to Southeast Asia from 9, 353 tons in 1966 to 19, 318 tons in 1967, not only to Tan Son Nhut, but also to Da Nang and Cam Ranh Bay. In 1967 a nd 1968, the Bien Hoa in South Vietnam, and U Tapao, Korat and U Dorn in Thailand would be added.

“Our primary job was moving cargo from the U.S. to airfields in Vietnam, Da Nang, Cam Ranh Bay and Tan Son Nhut,” wrote 75th Military Airlift Squadron pilot Alan Baker on a website he later created. “C-130s, C-123s and C-7s delivered those loads to their final destinations at smaller airfields.”

Mission orders were pretty open-ended: get the cargo to Vietnam and return home within a month. The aircrews would shuttle between the Philippines, Vietnam and Japan, usually getting back to Travis within six to 10 days.

“Our most rewarding mission type was medevac,” Baker wrote. “We flew injured GIs from Vietnam to hospitals in Japan for treatment and later from Japan to the U.S. for recuperation. The airplane was rigged with airline seats for guys who could walk and cots for those who couldn’t.”

Travis aircrews also took part in deploying large portions of three Army divisions to Vietnam: 2,952 t roops and 4,479 tons of equipment of the 25th Infantry Division from Hawaii to Pleiku in December 1965; 10,024 paratroops and about 5, 357 tons of equipment of the 101st Airborne Division to Bien Hoa in late 1967; and 4,535 soldiers and 480 tons of equipment of the 5th Infantry Division from Fort Carson, Colo., to Bien Hoa in July 1968.

That was nothing compared to the number of personnel and cargo that passed through Travis, starting with 424, 824 people and 82,044 tons of cargo in 1964.

The next year, base officials declared Travis to be the busiest military air terminal in the world, outpacing the Air Force’s three East Coast terminals combined due to mounting military commitments in t he Pacific.

The peak for personnel was 1969, when 1,276,165 people moved through Travis, and peak for cargo was 1967, when 259,462 tons of cargo transited the base.

Travis also became the receiving point for MAC aeromedical evacuation flights that saw thousands of wounded come back from Vietnam, peaking in February 1968, just after the Tet Offensive, when 9, 299 patients ca me through.

The base was also the West Coast terminus for the war dead coming back for burial. During 1968, the Travis Mortuary Affairs Office received 10,523 m ilitary caskets from Vietnam.

1960s: A control tower in operation at Travis. (USAF photo)

Cuban Missile Crisis Travis plays role during

It’s been 60 years since the late Lt. Col. Morrie Wasserman and his fellow Travis airlifters helped move troops and supplies to Florida for a possible invasion of Cuba, in case the crisis over Soviet missiles in that country turned into a war with the United States.

“We were alerted and sent to a base on the East Coast, which was an assembly point for C-124 a ircraft,” Wasserman recalled to the Daily Republic in 2018 of his specific assignment. “It was a classified mission and, to this date, I don’t think it has ever been cleared (for public knowledge). We did have a war plan for that mission.”

Wasserman said that even a half-century after the missile crisis and people and technology change, many war plans don’t.

A lot of odd airstrips around Florida were lit by car headlights at night to allow military aircraft to fly in and position troops for the possible invasion, Wasserman said.

“We had all these paratroopers to put on airplanes,” he said. “The plan was to drop them to take the airports and then air-land more troops. They were pretty serious about Cuba.”

Lt. Col. Morrie Wasserman.

1962: Troops get ready for a possible invasion of Cuba at Travis during the Cuban Missle Crisis. (USAF photo)

That period in October 1962 was the closest that the U.S. and Travis came to war with the Soviet Union – after an Air Force U-2 reconnaissance plane captured photos of Soviet missile bases being built in Cuba on Oct. 14, 1962.

At first, the U.S. considered an invasion. Instead, President John F. Kennedy decided to impose a military blockade with the expectation that it would end up as a military con frontation.

“Anything could have happened. It was a close call,” said 60th Air Mobility Command historian Mark Wilderman.

Wilderman said, “It was a time of one confrontation after another with the Soviets,” with the Cuban Missile Crisis happening only a year after the Berlin Wall’s construction and subsequent crisis.

At the time the Cuban Missile Crisis started, Travis was home to the Military Air Transport Service’s 1501st Air Transport Wing and its three squadrons of C-124 Globemaster IIs, a squadron of C-133 Cargomasters and the then-new C-135B Stratolifter, according to Wilderman.

It was also home to the Strategic Air Command’s 5th Bombardment Wing, with its B-52G Stratofortress bombers, which were equipped the year before with the GAM-77 Hound Dog cruise missiles, and KC-135A Stratotankers.

The base was surrounded by a ring of Nike Hercules surface-to-air missile batteries of the 1st Missile Battalion. The remaining structures of two are now

parts of the Fairfield-Suisun School District’s school bus maintenance facility and the Goodrich Corp. facility in the Pot rero Hills.

It also had a squadron of Delta Dagger jet fighters, which were parked on the northeast part of the base behind the old David Grant Medical Center.

When the crisis started, the 1501st was alerted and tasked to airlift military personnel to Guantanamo Bay and Florida to support the possible invasion of Cuba if the standoff turned into a shooting war. The wing’s official history from that time simply and tersely states, “Many operations were flown by the 1501st as a result of military build-up observed on the island of Cuba.”

It was probably the greatest workload surge in the history of Military Air Transport Service, which the Chief of Naval Operations praised as “an absolutely magnificent performance,” according to the wi ng history.

Wasserman was a C-124 pilot and chief of Travis’ Transport Control Center at the time the missile crisis started.

“The base was under control of the Military Air Transport Service and we still had some B-52s there,” Wasserman said.

While Travis’ Strategic Air Command bombers were not directly involved at the time, the air transport squadrons were alerted and sent out.

Before Wasserman left, he managed to get home long enough to tell his family

1962: President John F. Kennedy meets with members of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council regarding the crisis in Cuba in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, D.C, Oct. 29. (Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)

that something may happen and they would have to be prepared, according to his daughter, Wendy Wasserman, who was a young child at the time and remembered that the schoolchildren were taught to duck-and-cover in case of nuclear attack.

“Our entire garage was filled with provisions, boxes of water and food,” Wendy Wasserman recalled. “He kept it really low-key. We had no fear.”

Wasserman said he likely got the assignment to oversee the C-124s going to Florida because, earlier in the year, he attended a course on ballistic missiles that required him to have security clearance so he could have access to top-secret materials.

“We were very close to war. We were waiting for Kennedy to pull the plug and sink those ships,” Wasserman said of the Soviet freighters and their missile cargo, which were approaching the military embargo line the Americans put around the island.

By Oct. 22, 1962, the base’s Strategic Air Command forces were put on Defense Condition 2, one step below nuclear war. The B-52s were put on alert status, loaded with nuclear weapons from the on-base facility called the Secret City and made ready to launch strikes against the Soviet Union.

The aircrews were on standby at the recently constructed Strategic Air Command alert facility on the south side of Travis’ flight line, which is now home to a Navy strategic communications unit. The base stayed on DEFCON 2 until Nov. 15, 1962.

The base’s Delta Daggers of the 82nd Fighter-Interceptor Squadron were sent to Siskiyou Airport near Mount Shasta

1950s:

move troops and supplies to Florida for a possible invasion of Cuba, in case the crisis over Soviet missiles in that country turned into a war with the U.S.

as a precaution to help ensure their survivability in case of a surprise Soviet attack, according to Wilderman.

This came less than a month after the U.S. Air Force Air Defense Command made a deal with the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors for use of the airfield because it was “ideally suited for use as a dispersal site, because it was well outside any targeted or fallout area,” according to the Siskiyou Historical Society.

Tense public and secret negotiations ended the crisis on Oct. 28, 1962, with a public agreement that the Soviets would dismantle their weapons in Cuba and a secret agreement that the U.S. would dismantle its Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Italy.

“Kennedy was not kidding and we were very pleased when the Soviets backed down,” Wasserman said. He was glad that the country had a president who was willing to do what was necessar y, he said.

Wasserman described the crisis as a good example of Travis’ and the American military’s ability to mobilize to protect t he country.

“The United States was threatened. Everything we do in peacetime is to train for war and we were prepared,” Wasserman said. “It was a tense time. It happened fast and it ended fast.”

Outside of some of the buildings, the only remnants of Travis’ role in the crisis 50 years ago is a C-124 a nd a C-133 now at the Travis Air Museum. They were flown by the 1501st Air Transport Wing during the crisis. The Travis Air Museum also has a B-52D bomber, an F-102 Delta Dagger and a Hound Dog missile on display.

Lt. Col. Morrie Wasserman, right, is pictured at Travis Air Force Base in the 1950s. Wasserman and his fellow Travis airlifters helped

Vietnam conflict Travis the point of departures, arrivals during

For many men sent to Vietnam, the runway at Travis was often the first and last glimpse of the United States, like bookends to their tours of duty in that Southeast Asian war.

“There was an air of finality about the way the Boeing 707 l ifted off the runway at Travis Air Force Base that warm May night,” wrote Army Lt. Col. John Cook in his memoir, “The Advisor,” where he recounted his passage through Travis to Vietnam in 1968.

“The screaming engines severed ties with the only world most of us had ever known, leaving it back there somewhere in the darkness,” Cook wrote.

Passengers on the aircraft carrying intelligence adviser Stuart Herrington back from Vietnam in 1972 cheered when they saw the lights of Travis Air Force Base, Herrington wrote in a letter to h is brother.

Army Lt. Michael Lee Lanning simply noted in his diary – “April 14, 1970, 2345 hours: Arrived Travis Air Force Base, I AM HOME!”

Lanning waited another 18 years to write a more eloquent description in his memoir,

“Vietnam 1969-1970: A Company Commander’s Journal.”

“The screech of tires on the runway and the simultaneous shouts of jubilation jolted me awake,” Lanning wrote. “The midnight darkness shrouded the Travis terminal as the long line of passengers snaked from the plane to the main building. No bands played. No one made speeches. Only one person met t he flight.”

Lanning was lucky. That one person was his wife, who coerced a taxi driver to make the 80-mile drive from San Francisco to pick up her husband.

Army surgeon Byron Holly arrived home at Travis in October 1969 i n the rain.

“As we stepped down on the tarmac, I found a relatively dry spot between the puddles and dropped down on my hands and knees and kissed the grimy surface,” Holly wrote in his memoir, “Vietnam 1968-1969: A Battalion Surgeon’s Journal.”

“I promised myself I would kiss the good old ground if God would just let me return home,” Holly wrote. “I wasn’t going to let a few rain puddles and airplane grease stop me.”

1972: Troops bound for Vietnam cross the runway to board a waiting transport at Travis Air Force Base on July 14. (AP Photo/Robert Klein)

The screaming engines

severed ties with the only world most of us had ever known, leaving it back there somewhere in the darkness.

— Army Lt. Col. John Cook in his memoir, “The Advisor”

1973: Released prisoner of war Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm is greeted by his family at Travis, as he returns home from the Vietnam War on March 17. In the lead is Stirm’s daughter Lorrie, 15; followed by son Robert, 14; daughter Cynthia, 11; wife Loretta and son Roger, 12. (The Associated Press /Sal Veder)

1977: Edward Lamp of Walnut Creek (on stretcher) is greeted by a relative as he and other survivors of a plane accident in the Canary Islands arrive at Travis on March 30. His wife was one of the people killed in the accident. (The Associated Press)

Lorrie Stirm, daughter of POW Lt. Col. Robert Stirm, recounted in a 2005 Smithsonian magazine article what it was like to wait for her father at Travis after he was released from six years of imprisonment in March 1973.

The then-15-year-old waited in a car while her father stood on the Travis flight line and made a brief statement to a crowd cheering for him and the other ex-POWs.

When the car door opened, she sprinted toward him with open arms, saying in the article, “I just wanted to get to Dad as quick as I could. We did not know if he would ever come home. That moment was all our prayers answered, all our wishes come true.”

Twenty-three years later, Army Sgt. 1st Class Claude Rhey experienced the difference between a soldier’s reception after Vietnam and the welcome they got after the Persian Gulf War. He had served in both, flying home through Travis both times.

“This is unbelievable,” Rhey said in a 1992 i nterview at his second return before hugging his son amid a forest of flags and welcome home banners. “The last time, I got spat on.”

1970s: End of Vietnam conflict doesn’t end base’s mission

Vietnam was just beginning to wind down as President Richard Nixon announced his Vietnamization strategy to bring American military forces home and slowly turn the war over to the Vietnamese.

Operations at Travis were beginning to wind down, too.

By 1975, the number of personnel and cargo moving through Travis was dropping back under a million a year to 338,529 personnel and 82, 870 tons of cargo.

Travis not only moved troops to and from Vietnam, it also flew missions carrying Army and Marines to major American cities to be ready to protect government installations from protests against the war in case they got out of hand. This also included transport missions to Chicago, Oakland and Washington in April 1968 a fter the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated; to Chicago in August 1968 during the Democratic National Convention; to Washington in May 1971 during antiwar protests; and to Miami in July 1972 during the Republican National Convention.

By January 1970, the 60th Military Airlift Wing

1972: An aerial view of Travis Air Force Base. (USAF photo)

was sharing the base with a new tenant, the Air Force Reserve’s 349th MAW. It was transferred to Travis from its old home at Hamilton Air Force Base in Marin County on July 25, 1969, to become an associate wing, sharing many of the same resources with Travis, from its aircraft to its facilities.

Travis’ first C-5 G alaxy arrived on Oct. 24, 1970, going to the just reactivated 75th Military Airlift Squadron. It was designed to carry anything in the Army’s inventory and, operating with the C-141, gave Military Airlift Command the capability to deliver men and equipment anywhere in the world.

In early 1971, the C-5s started arriving at about one a month until the base ended up with 33 of the large transports. It also spelled the end of Travis’ C-133 Cargomasters, the last of which left the base for Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona in August 1971.

The arrival of the C-5s also meant a construction boom for the base. Between 1969 a nd 1980, approximately $11 m illion was spent building hangar and maintenance space to support the large airlifter.

Racial problems rose to the surface of the base in May 1971 when a fistfight between two airmen over a noisy party escalated into a night-long riot in the dormitory area that saw cars smashed, 30 i njuries, including a lieutenant colonel beaten when he tried to restore order, and the partial burning of the visiting officer quarters building. At one point, police in riot gear fought an estimated 200 a irmen. This ended in 135 a rrests and 80 detentions. A curfew was imposed and police from the surrounding communities were brought in to reinforce base secur ity police.

The riot shocked the Air Force into

restructuring its programs dealing with equal opportunity, creating a new Social Actions Directorate and ordering mandatory education in race relations to help officers and enlistees improve communications across racial and ethnic barriers.

Travis’ involvement with the nation’s space program continued through this period, flying C-141s and C-130s in support of the Apollo 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 14 a nd 15 m issions. In the case of the Apollo 12 m ission, it flew a mobile quarantine facility, with the three astronauts inside, to Texas. In 1975, it was support of the Apollo-Soyuz mission, and later missions supporting the launch of the shuttles Columbia and Challenger.

In October and November 1973, another military crisis, this time the Yon Kippur War when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel, sent Travis aircraft to Lod International Airport as part of Operation Nickel Grass, carrying armor, artillery, munitions, medical supplies and other assistance to the Israel i military.

Most of the missions to Southeast Asia between 1970 a nd 1973, when the Paris Peace Accords were signed, involved bringing back all those service members from Vietnam.

Part of that was Operation Homecoming, the return of the POWs from North Vietnam, which was planned by the 22nd Air Force as a massive aeromedical evacuation from Hanoi to Clark Air Base. The first three C-141s landed at Gia Lam Airport on Feb. 12, 1973, to pick up the first 116 POWs, who were taken to Clark for medical care and then back to the U.S.

Lt. Col. Richard Brenneman was one of those POWs, describing the C-141 w ith a large red cross painted on its tail parked at the Gia Lam Airport as “the most beautiful aircraft I had ever seen.”

1973: Travis C-141s and C-5s airlifted military aid to Israel during the Yom Kippur War in October.

(USAF photo)

Cheers to 80 years !

After the quiet, subdued walk to the aircraft and the cheering after it took off, Brenneman promised himself, “When I get to be an older pilot, I will be flying one of those.”

A 7th Military Airlift Squadron C-141 brought the first 20 POWs to Travis, landing at 4:30 p.m. on Valentine’s Day. The first POW down the stairs was Navy Capt. Jeremiah Denton, who was greeted by cheers and applause from a crowd of more than 400 family, friends and off-duty Travis service members. He was the first of 280 former POWs who came through Travis from then to March 31.

“As we neared Travis, we asked the aircraft commander for a good look at the Golden Gate Bridge. So many guys had dreamed of the bridge while they were gone,” said former POW Col. James Sehorn in a 2002 i nterview. “The aircraft commander got special permission and did a loop around the bridge. The guys crowded into the cockpit and around every window to get a glimpse. The Golden Gate Bridge was a symbol of being home.”

Two years later, in March 1977, Travis aircrews brought back the first remains of those who were missing in action. Those missions have continued.

As South Vietnam fell apart under a North Vietnamese offensive in 1975, Travis aircraft returned to the country in spring 1975 to evacuate the remaining American personnel and, under President Gerald Ford’s order, Vietnamese orphans in what was soon called Operation Babylift.

Disaster struck the operation on April 4, 1975, when a Travis C-5 carrying 228 orphans and 86 passengers had a rear cargo door break loose shortly after it left Tan Son Nhut, decompressing the aircraft and sending it into a rice paddy two miles southeast of the airfield. It killed 78 orphans and 60 other passengers. The survivors were put on another aircraft and flown to San Francisco.

Travis also took part in Operations New Life and New Arrivals, which flew more than 150,000 people from Southeast Asia to the United States between April and September 1975. Most of the flights went to Hickham Air Force Base, but several landed at Travis after the resettlement centers in Hawaii were filled. The base commander even set up 300 beds in the base gym to handle the newcomers.

Travis went under the budget-cutting knife along with the rest of the federal government in 1976, when President Jimmy Carter started cutting the government employee workforce. Travis lost about 19 percent of its civilian workforce between then and 1980.

In April 1979, Travis again became the destination of contract civilian flights from refugee camps in Asia organized by the State Department. That brought more than 68, 300 refugees through the base until those flights were moved to Oakland in April 1980.

Interspersed between all these military operations were a host of humanitarian missions, such as earthquake relief for Lima, Peru, in May 1970, and for Managua, Nicaragua, in December 1972, as well as for victims of Cyclone Tracy that tore through Darwin, Australia, in December 1974. In the case of Typhoon Pamela that hammered Guam in May 1976, Travis aircraft flew 31 C -5 a nd C-141 m issions to that island to help it rebuild.

1971: From May 21 to 25, Travis experienced rioting resulting from tensions in the Airman dormitory area and the Vietnam War. Onehundred and thirty-five people were arrested, 80 of them detained overnight. The base had to call for police assistance from at least 70 officers from the civilian community. (USAF photo)

Race riot in early 1970s rocks Travis base

Like a storm on the horizon, the first signs of trouble came in the form of a loud stereo in the dorms and a black sergeant known as “Chief” in late May 1971. When the storm broke late on May 22, 1971, resentment over the arrest of Chief erupted into a full-scale race riot that ended with one dead, 89 i mprisoned and a building partially burned on the f irst night.

By the time things died down two days later, 135 m ilitary personnel were arrested – 25 whites and 110 blacks, of whom 89 were first-term airmen, according to a 1981 A ir University Review article by Maj. Alan Osur.

The aftermath changed how the Air Force dealt with discrimination and race relations.

Chief Master Sgt. Cornell “Smokey” Langsford, in a 1997 i nterview with the Tailwind newspaper’s Staff Sgt. Mark Kinkade, remembered what it was like to be part of that mob.

“There had been other incidents, but this was the most severe,” Langsford said. “The books call it a racial incident. Don’t be fooled. It was a full-scale riot.”

Back then, Langsford was a 21-year-old airman 1st class and a C-124 mechanic from Baltimore who enlisted in the Air Force to avoid the draft and to get out of the dead end he saw for himself.

“I was headed for trouble, like a lot of young black men in the

cities. I needed the chance to see the world and grow up a little,” Langsford said.

The 1960s had been a time of racial unrest. The late 1960s also saw race riots in cities from Los Angeles to Chicago.

The Vietnam War became a source of that anger, with some joining the Air Force to avoid ground combat in Vietnam. Langsford said that many were furious at the world and carried that anger and militant stance through basic training. Blacks were also angry that they were being passed over for promotions, leave and assignments.

“There were a lot of leaders coming in then. They just weren’t the type to lead men or supervise maintenance bays. They were leading the fight for change. They were angry and saw violence as that way,” Langsford said.

Talking with blacks coming back from Vietnam also made Langsford and ot hers think.

“You couldn’t get hair products or ethnic foods or decent service in the club, but you could go off to fight and possibly die. That didn’t seem right to us,” Langsford said.

Late on May 22, Langsford and his friends were outside Dormitory 1303 when a group of white airmen nearby turned on a stereo. Langsford remembers Chief walking across the road to tell them to tu rn it down.

“He wasn’t being nice about it. He was being more or less

belligerent and that’s what got him into trouble,” Langsford said.

Chief and one of the airmen started fighting and others joined in. Security police showed up to detain Chief and another airman. Later, word spread that the airman was let out but Chief was still being detained.

“Someone said, ‘Let’s get him out of there,’ and we thought it was a good idea, off we went,” Langsford said.

The group collected more black airmen as it flowed toward the base detention facility. Langsford remembered families on the baseball fields scooping up their children and running off as the growing mob plowed by.

“Nothing was standing in our way,” Langsford said.

Nothing, until they reached the intersection near Irwin Hall. That’s where a line of Air Force security police with bayonets fixed to their rifles were drawn up to stop them. The police charged and the group started running back to the dorms.

“It got ugly real quick. At some point, they got out a hose and started hosing people down. Police were hitting and grabbing people. We were hitting back. It was a riot. A real riot,” Langsford said.

The Air Force had even put out calls for help from surrounding police departments. Solano County Sheriff Al Cardoza called in 74 civilian police, who came from as far away as Napa.

There were clashes at the NCO Club and Crosswinds Community Center. Windows were broken, cars were battered and part of the visiting officers quarters was set on fire. The single fatality happened when a firefighter had a heart attack while fighting the blaze at the visiting officers quarters.

Langsford was one of those grabbed and thrown to the ground as police cleaned out rioters from the dorms. He and others ended up detained in a large open court surrounded by a high fence.

That was when Langsford promised himself two things: Never tell his parents about being in the riot and stop using

violence to change things. It was part of the reason he became superintendent of social services at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., at the time of his Tailwind interview.

“It’s funny,” Langsford said. “In the pen, no one was fighting. We were all mixed in, whites and blacks, and no one fought, no one accused. We were all the same again. We were all airmen i n trouble.”

By the time the troubles sputtered out on May 24, 1971, 30 people were injured, including a lieutenant colonel who was badly beaten when he tried to break up the riot.

By 1973, when Armijo High School graduate Bill Mackie joined the Air Force, he said the Travis riots were a topic of mandatory race-relations classes.

Langsford said that Air Force social actions instructors said the Travis riots were that needed final push to get the Air Force to address the problems of race relations.

“We had the social actions program in place, but no one used it,” Langsford said. “It sat on the shelf, gathering dust. The leaders were interested in the war, not race relations. The riot changed all that.”

At the press conference after the riots, 22nd Air Force commander Maj. Gen. William Moore told reporters, “We know there are black men on base with just grievances and we want to know what those grievances are.”

Within two weeks, Moore set up a Human Relations Council to investigate and take action on the reports of discrimination. On July 1, an action line was established, and a month after that, a social actions officer was added to the wing staff. New policies on race relations and discrimination were not far behind.

1971: A race riot occurred May 21-24 at Travis, resulting in the creation of the Air Force Social Actions Program.(USAF photo)

Operation Babylift crash brings tragedy, hope

Travis co-pilot Capt. Tilford Harp thought his fatally wounded C-5 G alaxy jet transport was going to survive intact as it slid along the South Vietnamese rice paddy.

Capt. Keith Malone, riding between Harp and pilot Capt. Dennis Traynor as an observer, announced over the intercom, “We are going to make it.”

That held true until the transport was slapped back into the air after hitting an 8-foot-high dike and pitched over the Sa igon River.

“We all decided we were dead up front then,” said Harp in a 1995 Daily Republic interview, 20 years after the crash.

Malone and Harp vividly remembered the April 4, 1975, crash that killed 138 people, including 78 Vietnamese orphans.

But through the efforts of Harp, Malone and other crew members, 176 others, including 150 orphans, either walked away or were carried from the wreckage.

“The real bottom line was that we were just plain lucky,” Harp said.

The victorious North Vietnamese Army was closing in on Saigon in April 1975 when President Gerald Ford ordered Military Airlift Command aircraft to one of the last open airports in crumbling South Vietnam to evacuate Americans and friendly South Vietnamese.

Among them were large numbers of Vietnamese and mixed-race orphans, ranging from a few weeks old to teenagers, who were taken out of the country in flights quickly dubbed Operation Babylift.

Babylift took place from April 4 to May 7, 1975, and involved 24 M ilitary Airlift Command flights and a number of aircraft chartered by private charitable organizat ions. About 2,945 orphans flew to the United States, including 1,794 who were flown out in Military Airlift Command or Military Airlift Command-contracted missions.

The C-5 Harp and Malone were on was the first flight out carryi ng orphans.

Harp, a flier with 1, 200 hours in the air, remembered the tense, chaotic vision of Tan Son Nhut Air Base as the South Vietnamese government collapsed before the advancing North Vietnamese Army.

Although official accounts state 138 people died in the crash, Harp said he has never seen an accurate listing of how many were on the aircraft.

With Saigon surrounded, things were falling apart with people trying to get out any way they could. Tan Son Nhut was a mass of ground and a ir traffic.

“Trucks would pull up and we would ask for manifests,” Harp said. “The drivers would tell us that was all

1975: Orphans aboard the first babylift flight crowd the windows of World Airways DC-8 jet as it flies them to the U.S. in April. (The Associated Press)

taken care of.”

The C-5 landed shortly before 3 p.m., unloaded its cargo of howitzers and readied the aircraft for children, also collecting a medical crew that flew in on a C-141 from Clark Air Base in the Philippines to help with the children.

The flight crew and medical personnel formed a human chain, passing Vietnamese children through the door, up the ladder and into the troop compartment.

“The armrests were removed so we could put two in each seat, so there were six across in each set of seats. We tried to put most of the younger children upstairs and the older children downstairs,” said flight nurse Lt. Regina Aune in a later interview.

The C-5 left the ground with 229 orphans and 85 f light and medical personnel – with most of the orphans in the troop compartment and the rest strapped down on the deck of the cargo

compartment.

Malone, a C-141 pilot who just finished training for C-5s, was along for what was called “a dollar ride” to better familiarize himself with C-5 operations, which put him in the seat between Malone a nd Traynor.

“It was what saved my life, otherwise I would have been down in the cargo compartment,” Malone said.

Disaster struck when three locks holding the aircraft ramp in place unlocked, breaking the ramp loose. That tore the pressure door from the C-5 at 23,000 feet.

The first indication that something was wrong was “a loud bang and it misted up in the cockpit,” Malone said.

To make matters worse, the pressure door ripped into the fuselage, severing vital pitch, trim, rudder and elevator controls.

Word came from the cargo compartment that “the whole back of the plane

Broker, Cal DRE #00705450

1975: Remnants of the C-5 cargo plane litter a field while Vietnamese rummage through the debris. U.S. investigators had to buy back some of the plane parts from locals while looking for the cause of the crash.

was gone” and severed cables hung down like spaghetti, Malone said.

“We could only marginally control the airplane,” Harp said.

Traynor wrestled the aircraft into a slow descending turn while Harp collected information on the C-5’s condition.

The aircraft dipped into a wild descent. Pulling back the throttles didn’t do anything. Only pushing the throttles forward saved the aircraft by putting it into a climb.

“We were trying all of the systems. It became obvious that all we had was power. We could only halfway control the airplane,” Harp said.

The aircrew managed to put the aircraft into a shallow descent back toward Ta n Son Nhut.

“We had a floating feeling that we were going to make it,” Harp said.

Drag from the landing gear slowed the C-5 a nd put it into a descent. The pilots realized that they would never reach the runway, so, “We spotted an open field and hoped for the best,” Harp said.

The aircraft rolled into a marsh two miles from the runway in a landing that filled Harp with hope.

“I made worse landings on a runway,” Harp said, but the C-5 slid into a dike “that literally threw us back into the air” and catapulted the plane across the Sa igon River.

The C-5 slammed back to the ground 2,700 feet beyond the dike and broke up into four parts – the tail section, the flight deck, the troop compartment and the wing section – as it skidded for another 1, 200 feet before stopping in a rice paddy.

“We lost all power. It was really dark on the flight deck because mud covered the windshield and we could feel ourselves sliding,” Harp said.

Harp didn’t realize that the cockpit section had rolled upside down until he unbuckled his seatbelt and fell out. The flight deck’s survivors stepped out into the paddy through the pilot side window, “which was normally 30 feet up i n the air.”

“I had a couple of sprained ankles that I didn’t notice until

later,” Harp said. “I had trouble walking, but I assumed it was the terrain.”

Malone looked to the right and saw little but burning wreckage. He walked around the C-5’s nose and, to his amazement, spotted the troop compartment st ill intact.

The fliers then went to work tending survivors scattered around the wreckage.

Nurses such as Aune, who had broken her leg, staggered out of the still-intact troop compartment and started handing out babies. Aune handed out babies until she nearly collapsed while flight nurse 1st Lt. Harriet Goffinett, one arm immobile due to a broken collar bone, carried children on her other hip.

Loadmaster Sgt. Howard Perkins splinted his own broken leg with a crutch and six seat belts before joining the line passing babies out of the troop compartment to helicopters that arrived within five minutes.

“I think I have a broken back. I would like to be relieved,” said Aune, just before collapsing.

Despite the crash, the Air Force continued with Babylift. The crew and the nurses were cited for heroism, both in bringing the aircraft down and rescuing the survivors.

For years afterward, the C-5 was restricted from carrying passengers on the cargo deck. The locations of flight controls and hydraulic lines were changed.

A lot of changes in procedures also came out. So did 37 medals, including Air Force Crosses for Traynor and Harp.

Both Harp and Malone went back to flying. Malone retired in 1993 from Travis as a lieutenant colonel. Harp retired at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas as vice wing commander of a KC-135 t anker wing.

We lost all power. It was really dark on the flight deck because mud covered the windshield and we could feel ourselves sliding.

— Capt. Tilford Harp

1980s: Still busy in lull between Vietnam, Gulf War

The 1980s at Travis were like a lull between two storms.

The base spent the previous five years winding down its operations tempo from the years of the Vietnam War. The leap in air mobility operations to support American forces in the Gulf War was yet to be.

Travis was already becoming involved in Southwest Asia after the Islamic Revolution in Iran in January 1979 a nd the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that December, which prompted the United States to increase its interest in that region. One result was regular missions flown by the 60th Military Airlift Wing to the British possession of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean that started in 1980 to support the U.S. Navy port there.

Travis C-141s also supported the Marines in Beirut, Lebanon, after they landed there in October 1983, with three C-141 m issions, one of which landed at the Beir ut airport.

1980: Military dogs attack an “assailant” during a demonstration at Travis. (USAF photo)

1980s: Travis Air Force Base.

(USAF photo)

One of the larger unit changes at Travis occurred when the last Strategic Air Command unit at Travis packed its bags and left in 1983. The 916th Air Refueling Squadron was inactivated in October and the last of the KC-135s was flown out Oct. 6.

By 1982, Travis had become the largest base in Military Airlift Command, with property worth $136 m illion along with aircraft, equipment and other assets valued at more than $2.5 billion. The combined civilian and military payroll topped more than $200 m illion, while the total economic impact on both Solano and Napa counties was estimated at nearly a half-billion dollars.

Travis got a new $7.1 m illion commissary in November 1985 a nd the old commissary was turned into the Travis Air Museum.

The biggest project of the 1980s, the construction of a new $206.2 m illion David Grant Medical Center, was kicked off in August 1984 a nd was opened for business on Dec. 19, 1988, with Joseph Mox the first child born there.

The old David Grant was slated to be converted into the Consolidated Mission Support Center, but funds were not appropriated for that until the 1990 f iscal year.

Travis opened its noncommissioned officers leadership school in December 1983 to teach subjects that included leadership, communications, military history and bearing, and management. The first class graduated in Sep -

tember 1984.

In 1987, C-5 pilots acquired another way to sharpen their skills and save the Air Force money when two C-5B flight simulators were set up.

The thaw in American-Soviet relations made itself felt at Travis after the Intermediate Range Nuclear Treaty was signed in December 1987 t hat called for the elimination of intermediate-range nuclea r missiles.

A month later, Travis was designated an entry point for Soviet inspection teams and soon Travis airmen saw a Russian Aeroflot AN-124, the world’s largest aircraft, arrive on the runway. Travis aircraft also flew American inspection teams to the Soviet Union.

The old Strategic Air Command alert facility got a new tenant in April 1988 when the U.S. Navy Take Charge and Move Out detachment from Strategic Communications Wing 1 based at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., with 100 sailors and three ED-130 a ircraft, arrived to provide communications with the Navy’s nuclear submarine fleet and the Pentagon. The EC-130s were later replaced by modified Boeing 707s.

Particularly proud of their new home, the detachment painted the main hallway of the facility to look like the deck of an aircra ft carrier.

Travis continued its support of Operation Deep Freeze with its C-141s, but it made aviation history in October 1989 when an aircrew from the 22nd Military Airlift Squadron landed a

1981: Crews prepare bundles of food onboard a C-141 for Operation Deep Freeze. (USAF photo)

1980s

Sales Parts Service

C-5 on an ice runway in MacMurdo Sound, overcoming fears about the ability of the sea ice to carry the weight of the heavy airlifter.

The aircraft commander, Lt. Col. Oakly Risser, later said it was like landing on a snow-covered runway in Alaska.

Wherever the president went, so did Travis aircraft – carrying whatever he needed, from staff to bulletproof limousines.

In 1985, four Travis aircraft accompanied President Ronald Reagan to China and, in 1988, a C-5 went with Reagan to Moscow for the summit with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. The next year, it was with a new president, George H.W. Bush, when he went to China and later to Malta to meet Gorbachev.

In a somber epilogue to the Vietnam War, the Unknown Soldier of the Vietnam War arrived at Travis in May 1984 to be kept at the base chapel overnight after a ceremony, and then on to Washington, D.C., aboard a C-141 from the 7th Military Airlif t Squadron.

The 1980s had a series of international crises and Travis was involved in ma ny of them.

When Libya attacked Chad in 1983, Travis sent a C-141 to that region in July while Travis personnel were deployed to several locations throughout West Africa.

The American invasion of Grenada in late October 1983 i nvolved Travis airlifters, as well as the base’s security police, who were sent to the island to help transfer POWs to Barbados.

When Ferdinand Marcos was forced to resign as leader in the Philippines in February 1986, it was a Travis aircraft that collected Marcos’ entourage and followed the aircraft carrying Marcos to Guam. It then carried Marcos into exile in Hawaii.

After a Kuwaiti tanker struck a mine in 1987 as the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq

Operation Ernest Will, the deployment of mine-sweeping equipment and people to the Persian Gulf.

The latter half of the 1980s saw a series of natural disasters that Travis responded to, starting with the base’s C-5s and C-141s flying 190 tons of aid to Mexico City in September 1985 a fter it was hammered by a massive earthquake.

Three years later, in September 1988, Travis C-5s collected members of the 3rd Marine Division from Camp Pendleton and carried them to Yellowstone National Park to help battle the wildf ires there.

When the Exxon Valdez struck rocks in Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989, spilling its oil into the sea, Travis C-5 t ransported landing craft, helicopters, chemicals and cleaning equipment to Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, to start t he cleanup.

Only a few months later, extensive damage caused by Hurricane Hugo in the Carolinas, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands saw Travis aircraft winging their way to that region with relief supplies and personnel.

The base’s biggest military operation of the decade came when U.S. forces invaded Panama in December 1989 to oust Manuel Noriega.

Travis had already airlifted 2,000 7th Infantry Division troops and their equipment to Panama in May to bolster American forces there.

Poor weather on Dec. 20, 1989, did not stop Travis from launching everything it had to collect and transport more soldiers of the 7th Infantry Division to knock Noriega from power. By the end of the year, Travis had flown 50 C -5 a nd 46 C -141 m issions.

Operation Just Cause was the biggest American military operation since the Vietnam War, but an even bigger one was just around the corner. Travis would play an invaluable role in it.

1980s: An aerial view of the single airmen’s barracks. (USAF photo)

1990s: Gulf, natural disasters and worldwide missions

The 1948 Berlin airlift had long been considered the yardstick of successful air mobility operations.

That was until Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, throwing aside the tiny Kuwaiti army and declaring its annexation six days later.

President George H.W. Bush responded on Aug. 7 by ordering American troops to Saudi Arabia to keep the Iraqis from pushing into that country if they decided to.

Military Airlift Command went on alert and started creating a massive air bridge to the region with every available aircraft, emptying the Travis f light line.

Between Aug. 9, 1990, and Feb. 28, 1991, when Operation Desert Storm concluded, the 60th Military Airlift Wing launched 669 C -5 m issions, 445 C -141 m issions and deployed 1,132 personnel from Travis to the Persian Gulf region.

“One day, we had 111 planes at Dhahran doing resupply,” said

1990s: A control tower in operation at Travis.

1990s: A mechanic works on a C-5B, on the line at Travis.

(USAF photo)

60th Aerial Port Squadron commander Col. Bill Taylor in a 1991 Daily Republic interview. “Nobody has ever done an airlift of this size.”

“I am glad that our airplane is a machine. If not, it could have died a long time ago,” C-5 pilot Maj. David Petzel said in a 1991 i nterview of the long, grueling hours aircrews put in that saw aircraft land on everything from international airports to Saudi sites “that were an airstrip and little else.”

It was just as grueling for ground crews who loaded, unloaded and maintained the aircraft.

“They are out there with so many planes going in and out. It becomes a rhythmic monotony,” said Petzel, who brought in bags of candy for maintainers and loadmasters who would

1990s: KC-10s on the ramp at Travis. (USAF photo)

come up to the aircraft, grab a handful of candy and head back to work.

A David Grant Medical Center contingent was sent to Nocton Hall, England, to set up a contingency hospital to handle an expected flood of casualties from when Operation Desert Storm kicked off. As he was leaving for England in January 1991, DGMC contingent commander Col. Robert Gilmore voiced the hope the hospital would not be needed, a wish that came true when the Iraqi army simply collapsed under the coalition assault.

It was a Travis pilot who landed the first C-5 i n Kuwait City on March 15, 1991, after the Iraqis were kicked back out. Lt. Col. Larry Prose’s aircraft unloaded firefighting equipment to put out the oil well fires that the Iraqi army lit during their retreat.

Kuwait fell so fast that Air Force troops slated to restore and run the airport there were still in the United States, so Taylor had to collect some of his people from Dhahran to clean up the debris the Iraqis left behind.

Travis involvement did not end with the Gulf War. Travis would continue ongoing support of American forces in the Gulf as part of Operation Southern Watch, the imposition of a no-fly zone over Iraq.

As part of an Air Force-wide reorganization, Military Airlift Command became Air Mobility Command and the 60th Military Airlift Wing became the 60th Airlift Wing in November 1991.

Eighteen months later, in July 1993, the 22nd Air Force furled its flag and left Travis to be replaced by the 15th Air Force from March Air Force Base in Southern California as part of Air Force plans to move air tankers back to Travis to become part of the 60th Airlift Wing, truly making it a complete air mobility wing.

Along with the 15th Air Force came the 615th Air Mobility Group, which was activated at Travis in July 1993 to provide the Air Force the ability to quickly open up and operate airfields anywhere in the world in austere locations that were to range from war-torn Afghanistan to tsunami-ravaged Indonesia.

In September 1994, the 9th Air Refueling Squadron arrived at Travis with 10 KC-10 Extender air tankers and, as a result, the 60th Airlift Wing was renamed the 60th Air Mobility Wing in October. The 6th Air Refueling Squadron showed up in August 1995 w ith 17 more KC-10s.

There was no let-up in natural disasters for Travis and its airlifters.

The steady procession of humanitarian missions, mixed with international commitments, prompted Travis airlifters to come up with the joke that AMC didn’t really mean Air Mobility Command, but Another Missed Christmas.

help the count ry recover.

Two months later, Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines exploded, covering the surrounding area in ash, including Clark Air Base, which had been evacuated when the mountain started rumbling. Travis aircraft help haul evacuees to the United States, including 6,500 people who were brought to Travis.

When the Soviet Union finally collapsed, the Pentagon put Travis commander Brig. Gen. John Sams in charge of the airlift that brought in food and medicine to the new republics of the former Soviet Union, with Travis aircraft flying to locations in Russia, Armenia, Ukraine, Kyrgystan, Modavia a nd Georgia.

1997: The 32-year C-141 Starlifter era ended at Travis on Dec. 16. (USAF photo)

In August 1992, a Travis C-141 carried off the first of several missions to Mombasa, Kenya, to support relief operations in war-torn and famine-ravaged Somalia. It wasn’t long before Travis aircraft were flying into Mogadishu, Somalia, to support American and U.N. troops there who were trying to keep the peace.

During the same year, the Travis airlifters also provided relief missions to Florida and Louisiana, which had been hit by Hurricane Andrew in August; to Guam after Typhoon Omar hammered that island later in August; and to Hawaii in September when Hurricane Iniki vented its wrat h on Kauai.

As icing on the cake, Travis aircraft were also tasked with flying food and medicine to victims of the fighting in Bosnia in November after Yugoslavia collapsed. Bosnia would remain a Travis destination through 1993 a nd 1994.

Tech. Sgt. Thomas Senters was on one of those missions to Sarajevo, which was under siege, relating in a Tailwind interview that, “As soon as the loadmaster lowered the ramp, the forklifts would pull up, and then the French and Norwegian troops would help us push pallets off and load more on.”

“After the paperwork is exchanged, we are off again,” Senters said. “We don’t have much time to think, ‘Is anyone going to shoot at us?’ ”

Not only did Travis air tankers and transports support the imposition of a no-fly zone over Bosnia that started in 1993, but a David Grant medical detachment was sent to Zagreb in February 1995 to provide medical support for U.N. forces there.

Travis air tankers supported the NATO air offensive against the Bosnian Serbs that kicked off in August, while Travis transports and the members of the 615th Air Mobility Operations Group were sent to the region to help airlift about 30,000 U.S. soldiers to keep the peace once the offensive forced the Serbs into peace talks.

Between July and September 1994, Travis commander Brig. Gen. Howard Ingersoll directed the large airlift to send relief supplies to the refugees of the Rwandan genocide, which saw Air Mobility Command fly in almost 25,000 tons of supplies and equipment.

If that was not enough, Travis air transports helped fly 15,000 A merican troops into Haiti in September to help get the Port-au-Price airport running again when the United States intervened in that country to remove the military junta there.

Haiti was Travis Tech. Sgt. Fred Alfke’s fourth deployment after Beirut, Somalia and Rwanda, setting up a medical aid station in the Port-Au-Prince ai r terminal.

“This is a better situation and we are pretty happy with what the negotiating team did. We are here to help the people and it leaves me with a pretty good feeling that we didn’t have to tear up a lot of Haiti,” Alfke said in a 1994 i nterview.

In April 1996, it was civil war-wracked Liberia that saw a contingent from the 60th Air Mobility Wing deployed to nearby Sierra Leone to help in a joint special operations effort that evacuated 2, 200 people from Monrovia, Liberia.

The military underwent several rounds of base realignments

and closures that spelled the end of Mare Island Naval Shipyard, but meant new construction at Travis as KC-10 Extender air tankers were being assigned to the base. Those projects included a KC-10 simulator, a hangar, three operations and maintenance buildings and an underground fuel supply system to service the aircraft.

The biggest of the projects was the total renovation of the old, now-vacant David Grant hospital to turn it into the Consolidated Mission Support Center, which was completed in June 1995 at a cost of $23.5 m illion.

Travis’ base exchange got a new home in 1995 a fter outgrowing its old facility and being forced to scatter its services to wherever it could find room around base. The new $35 m illion, 190,00-square-foot building was the biggest in the Army and Air Force Exchange Service system when it opened on April 5.

One of the oldest military aircraft made a stop at Travis in August 1994 when a World War I Vickers Vimy bomber landed at Travis to be dismantled and packed aboard a C-5 for transport to Royal Air Force Station Mildenhall in England. The bomber then flew from England to Australia to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the first Australia-to-England flight by another Vimy.

Five years later, another unusual visitor arrived at the base, the KC-97 Super Guppy, a large, bulbous transport used by NASA to haul outsized cargo for the international space station. It was at Travis to test the base’s 40K and 60K loaders.

On Dec. 16, 1997, the last of the C-141 Starlifters based at Travis left the base, ending 32 years of that jet transport’s presence at Travis. They would be eventually replaced at Travis by the C-17 Globemaster III a decade later.

“From Antarctica to Zaire, from Australia to Zimbabwe, we traversed all sorts of gantlets,” said 20th Airlift Squadron commander Lt. Col. Floyd Badsky in a 1997 i nterview about the C-141s that his squadron flew. “We challenge any other squadron to exceed our record.”

“Just as the C-141 replaced the C-121, you see the C-141 retiring to be replaced by the C-17,” Col. Thomas Sayers said in a 1997 i nterview. “It’s like losing an old friend. It hurts.”

Travis wrapped up the decade welcoming a new tenant, the United States Army, in the form of the 91st Training Division’s 3rd Brigade, which moved to the base from the Oakland Army Depot, which was closed by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission.

1990s: A control tower in operation at Travis. (USAF photo)

2000s: War on Terror, international operations illustrate shifting landscape

The first 18 months of the new millennium’s first decade could be considered almost pastoral for Travis, given the war that the base was plunged into on Sept. 11, 2001.

Travis started replacing its 31-year-old tower in 2000 w ith a much more stable one with more room at the top. It opened for operations the next year.

“No one is more excited than I am,” said Senior Master Sgt. Lee Fiekens, who worked in the old tower. “When the wind blew, it rocked.”

Travis airlifters flew search-and-rescue equipment south to help find an airliner that crashed off the Southern California coast in February 2000 while another Travis ai rcraft flew 105,000 pounds of relief supplies to flood-ravaged Mozambique and South Africa in March.

2009: Members of the Travis Air Force Base honor guard prepare to present the colors during a 60th Air Mobility Wing change-of-command ceremony. (Daily Republic file)

We used to be concerned about security, but we didn’t always consider the base much of a significant target. We have to check our backs everywhere we go now.

’’

The biggest news in the month prior to Sept. 11 was the opening of the $12.1 m illion renovated base commissary that boosted the size of the store to 55,112 square feet.

Travis commander Col. David Lefforge was on his way to take command at Travis on Sept. 11, 2001, when the terrorists attacked the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. He watched the attack on a TV in the Minneapolis airport before driving back to Scott Air Force Base, Ill., because all air traffic was grounded.

“I had a pretty good idea that things were going to get

tough,” Lefforge said in a 2002 i nterview.

Travis, like every other base, went into its highest security posture since Desert Storm in the early 1990s. A Travis C-5 collected three Army helicopters from Arizona, another picked up a Sacramento-based search-and-rescue team and a C-9 Nightingale loaded three critical care transport teams from David Grant Medical Center. All headed to the East Coast.

The next day, 34 reservists from the 349th Memorial Affairs Squadron volunteered to head to Dover Air Force Base, Del., to help the efforts to identify the casualties of the attack on the Pentagon.

Shortly after the attacks, two F-16s from the 421st Fighter Squadron from Hill Air Force Base were stationed at Travis to fly random combat air patrols over Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area. The fighters stayed for eight months until they were relieved by aircraft from the Air National Guard’s 120th Fighter Wing from Great Falls, Mont.

One of the pilots, an East Bay native, said in a 2002 i nterview that he found it unsettling to be flying combat air patrols over his own parents’ house.

“We used to be concerned about security, but we didn’t always consider the base much of a significant target,” Lefforge said. “We have to check our backs everywhere we go now.”

When the campaign began to unseat the Taliban from Afghanistan because of their support of the terrorists, Travis was involved.

Forward-deployed Travis KC-10s refueled the first combat

2009: Capt. John Tucker with the 15th Airlift Wing co-pilots a C-17 en route from Scoonover Field near San Luis Obispo to Salinas Municipal Airport as part of Exercise Hydra. (Daily Republic file)

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aircraft to strike Taliban targets on Oct. 7, 2001, and went on to pass more than 22 m illion pounds of fuel to Coalition aircraft over A fghanistan.

On one mission early in the bombing of Afghanistan, a Travis C-5 carried in munitions to an undisclosed base, where supplies for the American bombers were quickly dwindling due to the high tempo of attacks. The C-5 a rrived to offload the bombs just in time to allow the scheduled missions to continue.

Travis medical personnel responded to the Afghan war’s first casualty on Oct. 10: Master Sgt. Evander Anderson, who was killed in a forklift accident at a forward deployed location.

Two days later, a 349th Air Mobility Wing KC-10 crew and two aeromedical evacuation specialists helped locate and rescue the crew of a B-1 t hat crashed into the Indian Ocean.

One 2001 Travis deployment indicative of the support was when the 21st Airlift Squadron spent four months in Southwest Asia, flying 4,000 sorties and 11,000 combat hours while moving 142 m illion pounds of cargo and 197,000 m ilitary personnel.

Deployments were to locations in southwest and central Asia that looked like lunar landscapes, one of which was turned into a fully functioning 1,300-person airfield by a 25-man team from the 60th Civil Engineer Flight.

“The initial deployment of B-1s and B-52s put iron on the ramp, but their aircraft flew no missions for the first two weeks

of their arrival,” said Maj. Michael Novotny, 60th Component Repair Squadron and deployed logistics commander for the 60th Air Expeditionary Group in a 2002 Tailwind article. “Meanwhile, the C-5 operations were flying around the clock to haul all the personnel and equipment that enabled the warfighters to execute thei r mission.”

With Travis security forces heavily tasked with providing security at Travis and overseas, 111 A rmy National Guardsmen from a Southern California field artillery unit arrived in February 2003 to reinforce base security forces. The Army soldiers departed in November 2004.

In one example of Travis’ support to keep aerial supply lines open, for the first time since C-5s were assigned to Travis 30 years ago, the base’s maintenance crews had every C-5 operational on April 15, 2003. Prior to that day, there had always been one C-5 left on the ground, used for cannibalization.

Travis personnel supported all aspects of the operations throughout the campaign. By 2002, 25 percent of Travis’ personnel had been deployed at one time or another, including nearly all the aircrews and large numbers of maintainers, security forces and civil engineers.

A good number of Travis personnel served in the line of fire and some were wounded.

Sept. 11 attacks change lives, policies at Travis

airman, was trying to get on base after she heard the news, only to run into traffic at Peabody and Leisure Town roads, which she described as

2018: Children from Travis and Scandia Elementary schools participate in the annual Freedom Walk at Travis Air Force Base on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. (Robinson Kuntz/Daily Republic)

“gridlocked” after the base’s security posture was boosted to Threatcon Delta, signifying the possibility of imminent attack.

In that gridlock were veterans attempting to get to appointments at David Grant, as well as parents trying to get their children to on-base schools. They waited in long lines outside the base and were eventually told to go away.

Once Chavez reached the gate, it was a full identification check and a very thorough search of her car. That was only for the people security forces let on base.

Fairfield Police Lt. Tony Shipp, in a 2011 i nterview, described the Travis security forces guarding the base’s front gate as “having some serious weaponry” to ensure no one got onto their air base in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

It was Tech. Sgt. Danielle Holbert’s first day at Travis and she drove to her office only to find the building locked down and no one answering the door. Once she did get in, Holbert was put to work packing chemical protective gear bags for aircrew for the next 18 hours straight to make sure the aircrews were ready to go at a moment’s notice.

“I didn’t see my family for four days,” Holbert said.

Staff Sgt. Joel Narvaza, then a senior airman, managed to get to his post at David Grant Medical Center before the base boosted its security, but many of his fellow workers were unable to get in unless they were considered essential personnel.

“We called all of our patients to cancel their appointments until later in the week,” Narvaza said of his job that day.

Back at Nitta’s squadron, “People were trickling in a little bit at a time, telling us that it was just all backed up (on Air Base Parkway),” Nitta said.

Soon, a call went out for an aircrew to take a KC-10 to refuel a pair of F-16s flying combat air patrol over Los Angeles International Airport. Nitta was one of those who stepped up.

“We were ready to go to do whatever was necessary,” Nitta said.

When the KC-10 contacted San Francisco, the air traffic controller told them simply to fly directly to Los Angeles because all other aircraft, except some military missions like Nitta’s, had

been ordered to land i mmediately.

“Normally, you hear radio traffic continuously, but there was none,” Nitta said. “It was just us and the air traffic controller. It was very eerie, very quiet, a very somber feeling. You knew that something big had just happened.”

The KC-10 l inked up with the F-16s and refueled them. Looking down at the ramp at Los Angeles International, Nitta saw it was full of the aircraft that were ordered out of the sky.

“Another airplane took our position and we came back,” Nitta said. “I never flew another combat air patrol because there were so many others who wanted to fly it.”

Another Travis KC-10 got involved even before American Airlines Flight 77 struck the west side of the Pentagon at 9:38 a.m. on Sept. 11.

“We had one crew headed across the Atlantic when the attacks occurred, and right away they were air-diverted to Boston, where F-15s were looking for the other hijacked planes,” said Lt. Col. Bruce VanSkiver, 9th Air Refueling Squadron commander in a 2002 Tailwind interview.

During the following days, the 9th Air Refueling Squadron would fly seven missions to pass 350,000 pounds of fuel to fighters flying combat air patrols over major American cities, VanSkiver said.

Dalton got to Travis without any problem at 7:30 a.m., but not long after, she got a call from her very frustrated supervisor saying he couldn’t get on base because he was turned away by the increased security. Undeterred, he finally got to work at 10:30 a.m.

The rest of her office’s day was “trying to get people to the right places where they needed to be” and working with guidance that changed often with the developing situation.

“There were late hours and lots of learning,” Dalton said. “It was a learning experience. It has been that way ever since because of the nature of the work. Our people are traveling more and going places where they did not go before.”

“At the end of the day, hearing all of the lives that were lost, it just broke my heart thinking all those families whose members went to work, thinking it was a regular day,” Dalton said.

Narvaza volunteered to be sent east to help out the attacks’ victims, but he

found out they would not let him go because he was needed at David Grant and because so many others had volunteered, too.

“There was nothing we could say,” Nitta said of watching the news. “There was just a feeling of helplessness, that these people were dying and there was nothing we could do.”

Security was tight for some time. Dalton remembers an armored vehicle stationed inside of the gate. She made sure to leave her house early to make it through the traffic jam in time for work.

“They shut down the South Gate shortly after and tightened security, made it harder to even get food (for cafeterias and restaurants) on base for a while,” Dalton said.

Fighter aircraft from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, were quietly stationed on the south side of Travis’ runway to fly combat air patrols over the San Francisco Bay Area. California Highway Patrol officers stopped anyone from taking pictures of the F-16s.

At the first change of command after the attacks on Sept. 21, security forces were stationed on the roof of the passenger terminal and other high locations overlooking the ceremony.

The base and its security forces started the long process of hardening Travis against the possibility of attack.

“Several of our tactics, techniques and procedures have been changed to deceive and counter unauthorized attempts to gain access to the installation as well as incorporating new technologies such as barrier systems and explosive detection devices,” said Chief Master Sgt. Mike Yoakum, 60th Security Forces manager, in a 2011 i nterview.

The Main Gate at Travis was redesigned not long after Sept. 11, 2001, to

make it harder for someone to get onto the base by simply speeding through. Air Base Parkway was looped around the rebuilt visitor center, forcing vehicles to slow down and keep them from building up momentum.

Spike strips and solid barriers that can be raised and lowered and capable of stopping heavy trucks have been installed in the gate roadways. More barriers are noticeable on the base itself, and parking areas once located close to important buildings were moved away.

“The biggest change in force protection involves all airmen at all levels to be vigilant and to report suspicious activity. Every airman is a sensor,” Yoakum said. “In the past, this responsibility was strictly a police effort. Reports of suspicious activity not only occur on base, but span outside the base perimeter and gates, which is the goal of our integrated base defense plan to see first and act first.”

It has changed how some on-base entities deal with the off-base public.

Before Sept. 11, 2001, an estimated 67,000 people a year visited the museum. After the terrorist attacks, heightened security cut attendance down to a trickle of less than 5,000 people. In the 10 years since, those numbers haven’t significantly improved.

Twelve years after the terrorist attacks, the work to harden Travis continued.

Early in 2011, Travis completed security improvements to its Hospital Gate and then it upgraded security on the South Gate, where Travis takes in all of its heavy truck traffic, that includes a truck pull-out area next to the road and an inspection pit to allow security forces to better examine the undersides of the vehicles.

2010s: See more missions, new aircraft

Travis Air Force Base spent the 2010 decade balancing missions between two major military campaigns, a host of natural disasters both at home and abroad, and continuing improvements to the base’s infrastructure that soon included preparations for a new aircraft, the KC- 46 Pegasus air tanker.

Travis continued to fly missions supporting Iraq and Afghanistan when the decade opened, which included a February 2010 f light that had Travis land the first C-5 at the German-run base at Camp Marmal in Mazar-i-Sharif with its just-completed longer runway.

Deployments to Iraq continued, such as one that involved about 150 a irmen from the 21st Airlift Squadron, who returned in July 2010 from locations in Iraq and southwest Asia. Their work there involved flying more than 4,000 sorties and more

2012: A C-17 gets ready to deliver disaster relief supplies to areas affected by Hurricane Sandy at Travis Air Force Base in 2012. (Daily Republic file)

2017: U.S. Airmen from the 60th Aerial Port Squadron load buses onto a C-5M Super Galaxy at Travis Air Force Base, Nov. 20.

than 11,000 hours carrying 142 m illion pounds of cargo and 197,000 personnel.

The Air Force Reserve’s 349th Air Mobility Wing continued to be a vital part of Travis’ mission. For example, the activation of more than 1,600 reservists in April 2010 to support the Afghanistan surge, which involved moving 30,000 t roops to that country ordered by President Obama.

Travis also again proved it could carry any load when a Travis C-5 loaded an F/A 18 Super Hornet at Kandahar, Afghanistan, on Aug. 18, 2011.

“Having it transported back to the States and repaired will most likely cost a third of what a new aircraft would cost,” said Charles Miller, F/A 18 deputy program manager, in a base news item. “Since this transportation task had never been attempted before, the plan to load the aircraft was not taken lightly.”

The personal cost of such deployments was highlighted when the base awarded the Purple Heart medal to

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three Travis airmen: Tech. Sgt. Ronnie Brickey, Staff Sgt. David Adkins and Staff Sgt. Brian Buhrer, all from the 60th Civil Engineer Squadron explosive ordnance disposal flight, at the base theater in January 2012. The three were injured during improvised explosive device attacks during combat missions in A fghanistan.

As part of the 466th Operating Location Bravo EOD Team 8, Adkins and Brickey responded to cries for help on their radios after hearing a detonation which killed one person and injured four others, Brickey said in Travis news item. Brickey began clearing a path to the dead and injured while Adkins began clearing an entire dirt road to provide a safe evacuation route for casualties.

Adkins and Brickey met up near an uncovered IED to formalize a plan when a soldier stepped outside the cleared area, setting off a large IED within 10 feet of them, fatally wounding the soldier and injuring seven others, including Adkins and Brickey.

2010: An Airman from Travis looks at an X-ray as she treats earthquake survivors at an expeditionary medical facility located along the harbor of Port-auPrince, Haiti, Feb. 3. (USAF photo)

Brickey was transported by medical evacuation while Adkins stayed behind to finish the render-safe procedures on the remaining IED, conduct the full post-blast investigation and evacuate remaining personnel.

Buhrer was part of the 466th Operating Location Alpha EOD Team 7 stationed in Afghanistan when he was injured. While conducting a ground combat mission route-clearance patrol, Buhrer’s mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle was hit by a large IED explosion. Buhrer was knocked unconscious from the blast and woke up to neck, back and elbow injuries.

“Technical Sgt. Brickey, Staff Sgt. Adkins and Staff Sgt. Buhrer risked their lives to minimize the risk to others,” said Col. Dwight Sones, then-60th Air Mobility Wing commander.

Senior Airman Jeffrey Rivera, 60th Aerial Port

2012: Team Travis brought relief to the Northeastern U.S. after Superstorm Sandy, Oct. 29. (USAF photo)

Squadron air transportation specialist, was also awarded a Purple Heart on July 17, 2012, for wounds suffered when he was deployed to Forward Operating Base Salerno, Afghanistan, as part of a 10-person team of porters providing aerial port services to the FOB. Rivera was walking inside the confines of the base and was injured in an explosion when insurgents attacked the base. He sustained injuries to the ear and neck in the explosion.

A decade after Travis had sent some of the first aircraft into Iraq, they were among the last out.

A Travis 21st Airlift Squadron C-17 departed Iraq on Dec. 17, 2010, with approximately 129 service members and media for Kuwait as Operation New Dawn came to a close.

“It was an honor,” Capt. Aaron Jones said in a Travis news item. “Lots of time, effort and sacrifices were put into the war. It was incredibly humbling to be the last people there. It was a high priority mission. We received a call from the tower and they let us know that the air traffic controller was getting on the jet and that he was the last guy.”

Three weeks earlier, on Nov. 29, 2011, a Travis C-17 w ith a 21st AS crew flew then-Vice President Joe Biden into Baghdad for the last time before the troop withdrawal.

As they entered Baghdad airspace, the pilots observed multiple muzzle flashes from small arms, as well as a ground explosion in front of the aircraft. Maj. Brandon Tellez, the aircraft commander, maintained a high rate of speed to escape the weapons engagement zone.

The crew spotted the airport, slowed the aircraft and landed the C-17 safely on Baghdad’s runway. Before leaving, Biden

walked to the cockpit and thanked the crew for flying him. Hansen handed the vice president a 21st AS Beeliners hat. Biden walked off the plane into the awaiting press pool proudly wearing his 21st Airlift Squadron hat.

Following his meetings with the president of Iraq and the prime minister – and after a dedication at Camp Victory, the crew picked up Biden and flew the vice president to Irbil Airfield, where the Kurdish regional president was waiting to meet him.

Travis’ part in the War on Terror unexpectedly moved to France in August 2015 when Travis Airman 1st Class Spencer Stone, a Sacramento native, gained international fame. While on a train to Paris, Stone, two friends and three other passengers subdued a heavily armed Moroccan terrorist. Honored by French president with the Legion of Honor, promoted to Staff Sgt., Stone was awarded the Airman’s Medal here, and played himself in Clint Eastwood’s movie, “The 15:17 to Paris.”

The Air Force’s Lance P. Sijan Leadership Award was awarded t 0 21 A irlift Squadron pilot Capt. David Plachno in April 2017 for his leadership as a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft commander and deployed United Nations military observer from July 1, 2014, to June 30, 2015, in South Sudan. During that time, his leadership led to the survival and relocation of 100,000 d isplaced refugees during the African nation’s civil war and emergency.

Plachno led a team of 14 i nternational field-grade officers, enabling the employment of $1.1 billion in aviation assets from nine countries to supply 14 m illion pounds of supplies to U.N. staff members and refugees.

Coldwell

CA 01860298

Stacey.Sandoe@kappelgateway.com

Travis provided airlift air refueling support for the campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant since the beginning of ISIL’s offensive in 2014. The base played an even more pivotal role in May 2016 during the coalition forces’ offensive to retake Mosul, Iraq, when 60th Aerial Port Squadron aerial porters loaded U.S. Army Bridge Erection Boats and bridges onto C-5M Super Galaxies to assist in rebuilding damaged bridges in Mosul.

“During the bridge movement, (U.S. Transportation Command) looked at Travis and made the decision to completely move everything out of Northern California because of the base’s capabilities,” said Lt. Col. Brian Tavernier, 60th Operations Group deputy commander in a news item. “Travis had a capable port, the aircraft to move the cargo and the crews available to get it where it needed to go.”

Airmen from the 60th Operations Support Squadron and the 22nd Airlift Squadron delivered the boats and bridges, which totaled more than 750,000 pounds. The 60th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron assisted the 60th APS around the clock to plan outbound cargo loads and preload spare

aircraft in case of delays. They also airlifted more than 250,000 pounds of ammunition and riot gear.

Travis-based members of the 621st Contingency Response Wing spent late 2016 at the Qayyarah West Airfield, just 30 m iles southwest of Mosul, where they enabled and sustained air operations at the Coalition airfield. During that time, the air traffic control team coordinated with and controlled anywhere from 40 to 50 a ircraft a day.

“This is unique because we did not have an established air traffic control tower to operate out of,” said Capt. Jacob Becker, 921st Contingency Response Squadron airfield operations officer. “We were not only coordinating with our sister services, but other countries as well to ensure the airspace was safe.”

Afghanistan was still part of Travis’ mission mix throughout the decade with missions such as a June 2017 m ission that saw a Travis aircrew fly a C-17 i nto Bagram Airfield to medevac five U.S. Army special operators who were wounded in an insider attack at Camp Shaheen, in the northern city of Maza r-i-Sharif.

Two Travis KC-10 Extenders from the 9th Air Refueling Squadron and

2019: Airmen, soldiers and personnel prepare to load Apache Helicopters into a C-5 at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, Feb. 20. Troops must work together to ensure the Apache will ‘clear’ the C-5 during the loading process. (USAF photo)

79th ARS participated in an En-route Support Trailing Aircraft mission that followed the Coronet East mission in October 2017.

The mission involved escorting F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft from Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., to Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. The mission required the KC-10s to carry the support equipment and personnel for the deployment of the fighter aircraft as opposed to only escorting aircraft in a standard Coronet mission.

“We delivered 61,000 pounds of cargo and nine passengers to Bagram in support of the 20th Fighter Wing’s deployment,” said Capt. Ross Jardis, 60th Operations Group executive officer and aircraft commander for the mission. “This mission is not typically performed by KC-10s, so it had a bit of a different feel to it.”

Travis’ airlifters opened the decade with flying humanitarian relief to Haiti after its recent earthquake, flying the first C-17 Globemaster there, carrying cargo that included an urban search-and-rescue team that the aircraft picked up at March AFB.

“The first few hours are the most critical to find survivors,” said Capt. Chris Ross, a C-17 pilot with the 21st Airlift Squadron in a Travis new items. “Without immediate response the survivor rate would decrease vastly. Our combat controllers secured the airfield and controlled the airspace making it possible to provide support.”

The base’s humanitarian global reach also covered the Pacific with its involvement in Operation Pacific Passage in

March 2011, when Travis airlifters flew military members and their families as well as men, women and children, and 150 family pets from Japan to Travis after that country was struck by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake on March 11, 2011.

A September 2017 earthquake in Mexico City saw a Travis C-17 deliver 67 U.S. Agency for International Development elite disaster team members and five canines along with equipment and medica l supplies.

“The men and women of the USAR needed to get to Mexico to support the search and rescue operations after the earthquake,” said Capt. Kyle Brackett, 21st Airlift Squadron. “Helping our allies when they are in need is one of the most important things we do as a nation.”

That same month, a C-17 departed Travis to deliver a team of search and rescue personnel assigned to Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Texas Task Force 1 to Puerto Rico in support of Hurricane Irma relief efforts.

Two months later in November, the 60th Aerial Port Squadron loaded buses onto a C-5M Super Galaxy to be flown to Port Au Prince, Haiti, through the Denton Program and as part of a humanitarian effort by Those Angels, Inc. founder and Haitian Claude Joseph.

That same month, the base shipped equipment and personnel to aid the government of Argentina in its search for the ARA San Juan, an Argentine navy submarine that went missing in the Sout h Atlantic.

In March 2019, Cyclone Idai – the worst storm to hit Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi in three decades – left

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hundreds dead, thousands displaced and many homes destroyed. Within a few days, two C-17 Globemaster III crews assigned to the 21st Airlift Squadron spent a week in Africa operating out of Djibouti, supporting relief efforts.

“We delivered 206,000 pounds of food, equipment and supplies,” said Airman 1st Class Doug Gerrity, 21st AS C-17 loadmaster, who was responsible for the safe loading and offloading of cargo onto the aircraft. “I take a lot of pride in supporting missions like this. It’s an incredibly good feeling to help people. Seeing all the damage on the ground and just how little people had when we flew in, that was pret ty moving.”

Not all the humanistarian missions were international. In May 2010, the 349th AMW worked with Coast Guard’s Pacific Strike Team to fly their equipment that included inflatable booms to oil-ravaged waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

In November 2012, Travis deployed airmen, equipment and supplies to assist relief efforts on the east coast following devastation of Hurricane Sandy. It included FEMA generators and almost 70 Southern California Edison Utility Company utility vehicles to New York state and New Jersey.

A C-5M from Travis departed May 2018 to deliver a double recirculating cement mixer trailer to the island of Hawaii to be used in support of Kilauea volcano relief efforts.

Tenants on base continued to change. Travis lost its Army artillery unit, the 402nd Field Artillery Brigade, in 2010, when that unit left for Fort Bliss, Texas, ending a 12 -year stay.

Two years later, the 615th Contingency Response Wing ceased its operations on May 29, 2012, ending seven years at Travis. The wing’s two contingency response groups would stay at Travis but would now be commanded by 621st CRW at Joint Base McGuireDix-Lakehurst, N.J.

The first infrastructure-improvement project for the decade wrapped up

on Jan. 15, 2010, a new two-bay C-17 hangar that started construction in 2008, opened for operations. It was one of 22 projects the base undertook to make a home for the C-17, which had replaced the base’s C-141 Starlifter transports.

Early 2010 a lso saw Travis continue demolishing and replacing its older housing to make way for newer housing, such as tearing out and replacing officers’ housing that had been around since 1947.

David Grant Medical Center’s improvements continued with a new $1.6 m illion upgrade to its hemodialysis center in July 2010. March saw a $5.7 m illion upgrade to its Joint Radiation Oncology Center.

Ground was broken on a 16,000-square-foot second Fisher House next to David Grant in November 2013 a nd was opened in June 2014. Its smaller companion had been fully booked for four years, hosting more than 3,500 g uests.

One unusual base improvement was Air Mobility Command’s opening of the first human-powered gym with two

elliptical machines at the Fitness Center being connected to the base’s power grid, converting human energy to elect ric energy.

The modernization of the C-5’s systems continued as the decade opened as the last of 38 C -5 A /B aircraft underwent modification as part of the Avionics Modernization Program at Travis. Once the engines and avionics were updated, it would become the C-5M.

In August 2014, the second fully modified C-5 a rrived at Travis, flown in by the base’s 60th operations group commander. The improvements on the C-5 i ncluded newer, quieter engines with more thrust, allowing for shorter takeoffs, faster climbs, heavier cargo loads and longer range of flights. The avionics also were upgraded to be more user and maintenance friendly, making the craft more reliable overall.

Turnover on Travis’ ever-changing roster of aircraft continued when, in

June 2016, Travis was announced as one of five candidate bases to receive the Boeing KC-46, which will replace the base’s KC-10s and revitalize Air Mobility Command’s air ta nker fleet.

In December 2018, base and community leaders broke ground on a three-bay hangar for the much-anticipated arrival of the KC-46A Pegasus tanker aircraft.

The three-bay hangar is the first and largest of several construction projects set to begin over the next few years in preparation for the arrival of the KC-46. The 174,300-square foot facility will be used for maintaining the new aerial refueling platform.

“In total, Travis is scheduled to receive 24 KC-46s through the middle of the next decade,” said Maj. Gen. Sam Barrett, 18th Air Force commander. “Those aircraft will play a vital role in providing flexibility to U.S. and Coalition forces around the world.”

2021: A construction crewman raises the last beam for the KC-46A 3-bay hangar during a topping out ceremony at Travis Air Force Base, Nov. 16. Topping out is a builder’s tradition where the last beam is placed at the peak of the structure being built.

KC-46 joins the roster

When Travis Air Force Base gets its first KC- 46 Pegasus air tanker later this year, it will be the latest in a long line of tankers, transports, bombers and fighters stretching back to World War II that have called the base home.

Basing the KC- 46 at Travis, according to Rep. John Garamendi when Travis was announced as a future home of the air tanker, “demonstrates that Travis will continue to play a crucial role in our national defense for many decades to come, cementing its well-deserved status as the Gateway to the Pacific.”

Bringing the KC- 46 to Travis was a much-lobbied for outcome by the Travis Community Consortium, and its member local governments, as a way to make up for the coming departure of the KC-10 Extender air tanker fleet from Travis and active-duty service.

The Boing KC- 46 started development in February 2011 as a next-generation aerial refueling aircraft, designed to boost the air power and mobility operations of the Air Force around the globe, improving the service’s ability to respond rapidly to crises and contingency operations. It would displace the KC-10 Extender, which had been in service since 1981, and replace the KC-135 Stratotanker, which had been in service since 1957.

Along with next-generation aircraft systems and design, it has a radical

2020: A KC-46A Pegasus assigned to McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas, sits on the flight line at Travis Air Force Base.

change for how to handle refueling. Rather than using a boom operator seated near the tail of the refueler looking out a window, the KC- 46 has two operators at a video station near the front of the aircraft. They view the refueling through a series of multi-spectral cameras located around the aircraft.

Local base supporters started lobbying the minute after the Air Force started planning for where to put the KC-46. In 2014, the Air Force announced McConnell AFB, Kansas, would the first base to get the KC-46. That only spurred local leaders to lobby harder. McConnell got its first KC- 46 i n January 2019, after several delays in production and cost increases.

“The 60th and 349th Air Mobility Wings at Travis have maintained a superior refueling mission for decades,” then-Fairfield Mayor Price wrote in a September 2016 city council-approved letter to then-Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James, “and our hope is that Travis maintains this critical capability as the Air Force works to modernize its fleet.”

“Its proximity to the Asia-Pacific region for future defense needs, its existing mission capability and success for refueling missions, and its valued community support for our Air Force personnel make it the most attractive candidate,” then-Suisun City Mayor Pete Sanchez wrote in his city’s own letter to James.

In January 2017, Travis, along with Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, were the two installations named by Air Force officials as the preferred locations for the next two active-duty homes for the KC-46.

Local leaders’ lobbying work paid off in June 2017, when the secretary of the Air Force announced that Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst would get 24 KC-46s, starting in 2021, and Travis would get 27.

Col. John Klein, then 60th Air Mobility Wing commander, called the decision “great news for our installation.”

“We are excited for this enhanced refueling capability that will allow us to continue to ‘rapidly project American power any time ... anywhere,’ “ Klein said in a prepared statement that called the decision “a testament to the

2022: Construction crewmen work at the KC-46A Pegasus 3-bay maintenance hangar construction site at Travis Air Force Base, Dec. 5. The facility will be utilized for the maintenance and upkeep of Travis AFB’s future KC-46 tanker jet inventory upon the hangar’s completion in 2023.

(USAF photo)

unprecedented support from our community who understands Travis’ critical role in enabling worldwide military operations.”

Local leaders were pleased with the announcement, too.

“It is just great, and it is great news for Travis, the Air Force, Fairfield and all of Solano County,” Price said after he heard the news, going on to praise lobbying efforts at all levels from recent Travis Community Consortium trips to Washington, D.C., to efforts by Garamendi, whom Price described as a tireless supporter of the base.

Garamendi said Travis’ community support, infrastructure, personnel and geographic location “make it the ideal choice to base the KC-46A tanker.” Garamendi added that the history of local community support for Travis has been “extremely important” in the Air Force’s decision.

“They have a reputation as being the most supportive,” Gara mendi said.

Garamendi said that bringing KC-46s to Travis was part of an ongoing effort to ensure that Travis got the most advanced technology and modern infrastructure possible.

“This decision demonstrates the Air Force’s commitment to Travis as a base that will continue to play a crucial role in our national defense for many decades to come,” Garamendi said. “The future of Travis today is more secure than ever.”

Sandy Person, then chairwoman of the Travis Community Consortium, called the announcement “fantastic news.”

“Solano County worked hard so that Travis would be well-positioned to receive this vital new mission capability,” Person said.

Secretary of the Air Force James said in the initial announcement that Travis was chosen as one of the next two bases for the KC- 46 because it “met all operational mission requirements at the best value for the Air Force and the American taxpayer and support our tanker recapitalization strategy.”

“It is absolutely essential that we continue investing in the next generation of tanker aircraft so we have the aircraft necessary to maintain the nation’s global reach for years to come,” James said.

Work to prepare the Travis for the KC-46s started with the 2018 A ir Force budget that included more than $120 m illion in military construction funds for three new hangers.

In December 2018, ground was broken for a $137-million, 174,300-square-foot three-bay hanger for the expected KC-46s. It was the biggest of 22 projects costing an estimated $188 m illion being undertaken to renovate existing facility space or construct new facilities. Construction of the hanger was delayed in 2020 by the Covid-19 pandemic.

At the time of the groundbreaking, the first KC- 46 was expected to arrive in January 2023. That date has since been pushed back to August 2023.

This decision demonstrates the Air Force’s commitment to Travis as a base that will continue to play a crucial role in our national defense for many decades to come. The future of Travis today is more secure than ever.

— Rep. John Garamendi

‘‘

David Grant Medical Center heals through the decades

David Grant Medical Center started life as the Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base Hospital, or, more informally, as the Station Hospital.

1966: On July 1, David Grant Medical Center was named after Maj. Gen. David Grant, the first air surgeon in the Army Air Force in 1941.

Among the base’s first buildings in 1943 was a seven-ward, 125-bed base hospital whose site was located in a eucalyptus grove to provide some concealment in case of a Japanese air attack. The first doctors arrived at the hospital in May 1943, including the first base surgeon, Lt. Col. Archibald Laird.

Up until July 1943, when the base and the hospital opened, all surgery was done at Hamilton Field. On Aug. 6, 1943, the first major operation was performed at the local air base hospital. It was acute appendicitis and the operation was successful.

During its first year, the base’s medical care was in the hands of 30 officers, 130 enlisted personnel and 15 civilians, who also provided medical processing for anyone shipping out for the Pacific theater. By the end of the war, the hospital was also moving about 800 patients a month through the base after they were brought in on C-54 t ransports from Pacific battlefields.

The wartime staff even included some African American

(USAF photo)

1988: The new David Grant USAF Medical Center opened on Oct. 31. (USAF photo)

doctors, according to the Travis Heritage Center’s exhibit on the hospital, something that was unusual since most American units were still segregated.

January 1945 saw a name change to the 4167th U.S. Air Force Hospital, with C-54 Skymasters assigned to bring patients from overseas. Among those were 23 recently liberated and emaciated POWs from Bilibid Prison Camp in the Philippines, survivors of Bataan and Corregidor.

June 1945 saw work start on the construction of a 670-bed aerial debarkation hospital facility and the reconstruction of the original 150-bed hospital in anticipation of the invasion of Japan, but the end of the war prompted the military to stop construction of bot h projects.

The Pentagon changed its mind a year later and work started on a revised plan that called for bui lding a new $4.5 m illion hospital on the hill overlooking the 60th Airlift Wing headquarters to be called U.S. Air Force Hospital Travis in 1958 a fter the base changed its name to Travis Air Force Base.

The four-story structure was opened in May 1949 a nd subsequent additions gave the hospital a 470-bed capacity to handle not only thousands of casualties from the Korean War, but also some French casualties from the Indochina War.

Third Division infantryman William Strowbridge, who was wounded in the leg in April 1951, remembered arriving at Travis, being carried on a bus filled with litters to the hospital and his treatment there in his account preserved by the Travis Herit age Center.

“When they carried me off the plane, I saw nothing but brown hills and I asked if we were in the desert. Somebody explained we were at Travis,” Strowbridge wrote. “A kind lady placed a tray of real food by my bed. A volunteer appeared and asked of I’d like to telephone or telegraph my parents. Everybody was real nice.”

Between 1950 a nd 1951, an average of 5,000 patients per month arrived at the hospital via aeromedical evacuation.

By the end of 1961, when another wave of building engulfed the hospital, its staff had expanded to about 1,000 people. In 1966-67, a

$700,000 addition was made to the hospital, which included a dental clinic and 100 more beds for the casualty staging unit, making it the largest in the Military Airlift Command and one of the most modern in the Air Force.

The hospital got its present name on July 1, 1966, when it was named after Maj. Gen. David Grant, the first air surgeon in the Army Air Force in 1941. He is considered the father of the modern Air Force medica l services.

David Grant took its next quantum leap forward when ground was broken for a $193 m illion new hospital south of Air Base Parkway in 1983. Patients and medical staff moved into their new home in December 1988 a nd on Dec. 15, 1988 – only hours after patients were moved in, 9½-pound Steven Joseph Mox entered the world at 5:30 p.m. to become its f irst birth.

The present four-story hospital was three times the size of its predecessor, encompassing 808,475 square feet with 3,662 rooms, approximately 300 i npatient and 75 aeromedical staging flight beds and 53 dental treatment rooms. Its design included the capacity to withstand major earthquakes and operate for up to a week using only internal utility capabilities.

David Grant is now the second-largest readiness platform in the Air Force and the largest in Air Mobility Command, sending its doctors and medical professionals to deployed hospitals throughout the world. It is also a major medical training facility with training programs that include internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, family practice and dentistry.

David Grant is still changing to keep up with the Air Force’s needs. It is in the second phase of a massive, three-phase modernizat ion effort.

It started a facility-wide modernization a decade ago that saw $54 m illion spent on Phase I work alone, that included a new cardiovascular operating room and a new ophthalmology clinic. It was followed by the $61 m illion second phase of its threephase multimillion-dollar modernization, which included a facelift for the entire emergency department as well as renovation and reorganization of a half-dozen clinics, completed in 2014.

60th AMW boasts storied history

The 60th Air Mobility Wing’s predecessor, the 60th Troop Carrier Group, has the unique distinction of making the first American combat paratroop drop in the history of the Army.

It was activated in November 1940 as the 60th Transport Group, outfitted with C-47s and shipped to England, where it was re-designated the 60th Troop Car rier Group.

Its first combat mission was part of Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa, on Nov. 8, 1942. The 60th’s part of the plan was to drop the 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment near Oran and capture two airfields. Bad weather and the extreme range of the flight

2006: Col. Steve Arquiette, 60th Air Mobility Wing commander, and Col. Robert Millman, 349th AMW acting commander, unveil the “Spirit of Solano” on Travis Air Force Base’s first C-17 Globemaster III as part of the arrival ceremony. (USAF photo)

scattered the aircraft and forced most of them to land on a dry lake, but the airfields were captured.

The 60th stayed in the Mediterranean, supporting the invasion of Sicily in July 1943 a nd an airdrop over Greece in October 1944. When the Italians surrendered in September 1943, it dropped supplies to POWs who escaped from camps.

2014: An Air Force Reserve aircrew closes in for a refueling maneuver with a KC-10 Extender during the 349th Air Mobility Wing’s Focus on the Family event, Oct. 25. The event included an orientation flight for spouses on either the KC-10, C-5 Galaxy, or C-17 Globemaster III, briefings and informative sessions on the benefits of being an Air Force Reserve spouse and a barbecue lunch to bring together all as part of the “349th Family.”

Its aircraft were extensively involved in supporting Yugoslavian partisans in 1944, flying everything from jeeps and ammunition to medical supplies and mules to small, poorly built airfields behind German lines.

Inactivated in July 1945, after the war, the 60th returned to active duty at Kauferbeuren Air Base, West G ermany, in July 1948, and flew missions for Operation Vittles, more famously known as the Berlin Airlift. This summer marks the 75th anniversary of that reactivation.

Initially flying the C-47, and later the C-54, the 60th was shifted to Fassburg Royal Air Force Station, where it primarily carried coal into the besieged city. During January 1949 a lone, the 60th flew 39,459 tons of coal and 29 tons of food into Berlin, with aircraft taking off from Fassburg every 17 m inutes.

After the blockade ended, the 60th provided aerial logistic support of the Allies in West Germany before it was moved to France in 1955 a nd was inactivated in 1958.

On Jan. 6, 1966, it was activated as the 60th Military Airlift Wing as part of a major reorganization of the Military Air Transport Services, which later became Military Airlift Command. The 60th took command of all the active duty flying and support units on Travis to mainly support American forces in the Pacific and Asia.

It was redesignated as the 60th Air Mobility Wing in October 1994 a nd has since been involved in nearly every U.S. military and humanitarian operation around the globe.

2016: A concrete taxiway repair is completed by airmen assigned to the 60th Air Mobility Wing, Aug. 19. Using similar techniques on a much larger scale in 2016, members of the 1st Expeditionary Civil Engineer Group repaired runway damage caused by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant at Qayyarah West Airbase in northern Iraq’s Ninawa province. (USAF photo)

349th AMW’s history includes military, civilian heroics

The 349th Air Mobility Wing accumulated some truly unusual accomplishments before it arrived at Travis.

It holds a United States Postal Service citation for getting the mail through to Eureka in Humboldt County, during the “1,000-year flood” of December 1964.

With the possible exception of David Grant Medical Center, the 349th is the oldest continuously existing unit stationed at Travis Air Force Base.

For this, and for flying through blizzards to kick out bails of hay from C-119

Flying Boxcars to starving cattle in Montana that same winter, the wing became the first Air Force Reserve wing to win the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award.

During the early 1950s, the 349th was turned into a fighter-bomber wing, a change that lasted only five years.

The 349th was activated in November 1943 at Sedalia Army Air Field in Missouri as the 349th Troop Carrier Group – with five troop carrier squadrons under its command. One of those was the 312th Airlift Squadron, which is still part of the wing.

It arrived in Europe in March 1944, equipped with C- 46 Commandos. It spent the war flying combat cargo missions, flying in everything from vehicles to gas and ammunition while flying out wounded.

It participated in the Normandy Invasion in June 1944, Operation Market-Garden in September 1944, the Battle of the Bulge and the airborne assault across the Rhine River in March 1945.

When the war ended, the 349th flew British units to Norway and evacuated French POWs from Austria before being sent back to the U.S. to prepare for the invasion of Japan. Its last assignment before being inactivated was training Chinese aircrews to fly the C-46s at Bergstrom Air Force Base in Texas.

The wing was reactivated at Hamilton Air Force Base on

June 27, 1949, where it acquired the nickname of The Golden Gate Wing. Hamilton dates back to the 1920s, where it was first known as Marin County Air Field. It was named Hamilton Army Airfield in 1932.

The 349th did not go to Korea, but some of its members were shipped out to other wings to bring them up to strength.

When the Air Force Reserves were reorganized in May 1952, the 349th became a fighter-bomber wing, armed with the P-51 Mustang and the F- 80 Shooting Star, which were replaced with the F-8e4 T hunderstreak. That life only lasted until 1957, when it returned to being a troop carrier wing outfitted with the C-119 Boxcar.

The Cuban Missile Crisis saw the 349th called to active duty and it was tasked with flying men and supplies to Florida. Between 1962 a nd 1965, 349th aircraft carried weapons to Los Angeles during the Watts riots and carried Marines to the Dominican Republic during the civil war there in 1965.

It was recalled to active duty on Jan. 28, 1968, as part of the response to the Tet Offensive in Vietnam.

In 1969, the 349th was moved to Travis, where it is stationed now as an associate unit to the active-duty 60th Air Mobility Wing. The Air Force curtailed its activities at Hamilton Air Force Base in October 1973.

2012: Members of the 349th Air Mobility Wing walk off the plane as they return to Travis Air Force Base from a six-month deployment to an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia. (Daily Republic file)

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