-

.

XXII

Fackler started with a basic jet fighter squadron organization,

He

retained the operational personnel and the aircraft portions of the
standard squadron, then added a rad-safe, later called the nuclear
applications section,

The Air Force Special Weapons Center approved the plan for a sampling
squadron and, late im 1952, a number of meetings were held to work out a
:

:

roe

%2

formal proposal foFthe Air Research and Development Command,

A special

staff, meeting at the Center, completed a study by 12 December 1952,
and on 15 December staffofficials determined to include supporting
documents for additional emphasis,

They drew up a proposed table of

distribution, a tentative time-phasing, and a study of future aircraft
requirements .4

Colonel Daniel E, Hooks, Chief of Staff, forwarded the

proposal to the Air Research and Development Command on 21 January 1953."
The proposal opened with a statement by Dr, Alvin C, Graves, Test

Director of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, to the effect that cloud
samples were the primary method of determining yield and efficiency of a
nuclear blast and were extremely important,

The Special Weapons Center

assumed that at least two atomic test series would be fired each year;
either two continental tests, or a continental test and overseas test,

For Operation BUSTER/JANGLE and TUMBLER/SNAPPER, the sampling pilots had
been active for approximately four months,

This indicated that pilots of

*on 1 April 1952, about the time Colonel Fackler was working up his plan

for General Mills, the Special Weapons Command was abolished and became
the Air Force Special Weapons Center under the Air Research and

Development Command,

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263

AFWUHO

SWEH -2 -003h

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