slightly less than 2,500 men who made up the station complement for
housekeeping and similar duties, and to about 3,500 other men at
any one time,
Camp Desert Rock housed about 9,000 men from the
military services during the 1955 series. Some saw a single shot
and departed for their home stations, and others stayed throughout
the series,
‘
The Camp Commander is the Deputy Director of Exercise Desert
Rock, Brigadier General Walter A. Jensen, Commanding General of
Camp Irwin, California,
The camp is an installation of the Sixth U. S. Army which has
its headquarters at The Presidio, San Francisco, California, and is
commanded by Lieutenant General Robert N. Young. General Young is
Director of Exercise Desert Rock.
Indian Springs Air Force Base is located about 41 miles northwest of Las Vegas and 24 miles southeast of Mercury, on about 1,400
acres of land formerly within the Las Vegas Bombing and Gunnery
Range.
.
The base formerly was a satellite field for Nellis Air Force
Base at Las Vegas, In July 1952 the base was transferred from the
Air Training Command to the Air Research and Development Command
to be operated by the Air Force Special Weapons Center which is
headquartered at Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque.
Indian Springs is the base of operations from which many
specially-instrumented aircraft are sent aloft preceding and
following each nuclear detonation to collect scientific data,
Major Harry Elmendorf comrands the Base.
The 4935th Air Base
Squadron is the service unit stationed at the Base,
Technical Areas Within NTS
The forward, or technical, area of the Nevada Test Site is
divided generally into the Control Point area, the Yucca Basin
area, and the Frenchman Flat area.
The Control Point is a complex of permanent facilities approximately 20 miles north of Mercury. It is on the crest of Yucca Pass
which conrects Frenchman Flat and Yucca Basin, permitting vision into
both general areas.
Frenchman Flat is in the next dry lake basin north of Mercury,
with a pass in between, All the shots in the first series were
fired there, It has been used only occasionally since, usually for
the more extensive military effects tests,
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