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 comréends the Base. The 4935th Air Base Squadron is the service unit stationed at the Base, Technical Areas Within NTS The fcrward, 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, copsen 008 4 LANL RC - 30-