Trip Report: Trinity Site
First published in 2007. Reformatted 2025. This is a trip I've wanted to take for several years. The timing was finally right: A three-day weekend at work coincided with one of the twice-yearly open houses of Trinity Site, the location of the first atomic explosion back in 1945. As a student of 20th century military history, researcher of military properties, and former SAC airman, this was an important place for me to visit. The first nuclear blast was an important transition point from WWII to the Cold War, even though the latter was only a distant and vague worry without a name at that time. Just a reminder PIN means Permanent Installation Number and ILC means Installation Location Code; I include these for Air Force properties when I know them.Friday, 6 April 2007
Big Spring Gap Filler Annex TX, PIN 7022, 32-13-50, 101-29-31. Driving west from DFW, I paused in Big Spring. I found this gap filler radar on a hilltop in Big Spring State Park, just east of the former Webb AFB.Building
Building
Building
Building Big Spring National Guard Armory TX, 32-13-59, 101-29-43. From the gap filler location, I could see the fighter-interceptor hangars at the nearby Air Force base. Looking down at nearby buildings I noticed the distinctive roof of a Type K National Guard armory. I drove to it and sure enough, it was a former armory built in 1954 and currently vacant.
View from Big Spring Gap Filler Annex
Building
Building
Building
Building Webb Air Force Base TX, 32-14, 101-31. On this ten-year revisit, I noticed the same aircraft maintenance hangar and nearby flightline buildings that I had observed in 1997. The control tower has a unique part-enclosed, part-open structure.
Hangar
Hangar
Hangar
Hangar
Fire station
Parachute and dinghy building
Building
Building
Building
Buildings
Control tower
Control tower
Control tower My main interest was the former ADC fighter-interceptor alert area. I was pleased to find open access to most of the ADC buildings such as the rocket checkout and assembly building that serviced the early air-to-air rockets. It has distinctive firewalls between bays of the building. The ready crew dormitory provided sleeping quarters and administrative offices. A water storage tank and pumphouse provided fire protection water to the area.
ADC rocket checkout and assembly building
ADC rocket checkout and assembly building
ADC rocket checkout and assembly building
ADC rocket checkout and assembly building
ADC rocket checkout and assembly building
ADC rocket checkout and assembly building
ADC rocket checkout and assembly building
ADC ready crew dormitory
ADC ready crew dormitory
ADC ready crew dormitory
ADC ready crew dormitory
ADC ready crew dormitory
Communications building
Communications building
Communications building
Water storage tank
Pumphouse The ADC fighter-interceptor alert hangar is the second-generation type designed by Strobel & Salzman. This was a larger type that could hold the longer F-101 and F-106 aircraft without modifications to the hangar doors. Very few of these larger hangars were built, so I felt lucky to have access from all sides.
ADC alert hanger viewed from Big Spring Gap Filler Annex
ADC alert hanger
ADC alert hanger
ADC alert hanger
ADC alert hanger
ADC alert hanger
Hangar door showing wind bracing
Hangar detail
Fallout shelter sign The ADC maintenance hangar still stands, but behind fences.
ADC maintenance hangar (L) and alert hangar (R)
ADC maintenance hangar
ADC maintenance hangar
ADC maintenance hangar
ADC maintenance hangar Buildings in the ADC munitions storage area are reused for a variety of purposes.
Entrance to munitions storage area
ADC Genie missile multi-cubicle storage magazine
ADC Genie missile multi-cubicle storage magazine
ADC Genie missile multi-cubicle storage magazine
ADC Genie missile multi-cubicle storage magazine
Munitions building
Munitions building
Munitions building
Munitions building
Munitions building
Munitions building
Munitions building
Munitions building
Entry control building Pressing on, I made it to Roswell, New Mexico, for the night. I actually made a repeat stay at a motel, which is rare for me. I drove 596 miles on this day, in 12 hours.
Saturday, 7 April 2007
Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range NM. The Trinity site was on this AAF bombing range in New Mexico. After WWII, the range remained in military use and is now a portion of White Sands Missile Range (WSMR). The folks at WSMR open the Trinity site to the public two days a year, and do a fine job of directing the tourist traffic, greeting visitors, expediting parking, and providing security and safety. Many thanks to the many WSMR folks who give up their Saturdays for these open houses. Before you make a virtual visit to the site, here's an excerpt from a letter that Albert Einstein sent to President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939, six years earlier:"In the course of the last four months it has been made probable--through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in America--that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future.
This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable--though much less certain--that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for transportation by air."
That letter was courtesy of the White Sands Missile Range web site. My photos were taken on a chilly, windy, overcast day. Considering the subject matter, perhaps a gloomy day was more appropriate than a pretty one. Here's a look at the site today.Photo 1
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Photo 40 Fast forward three years after the Trinity test. Here's an excerpt from a letter written by General Hoyt Vandenberg, Chief of Staff of the Air Force, to General Curtis LeMay in late 1948:
"At this moment, when you are taking over the Strategic Air Command, I think it desirable and necessary to indicate to you my views as to your most immediate and most pressing responsibilities. You fully realize that all Air Force plans and programs are built around the primary consideration that we shall at the outset of any future war be required, as a first charge upon our resources, to deliver within the minimum period of time the most crushing atomic offensive we can possibly mount. I personally feel that the successful accomplishment of this task is not only our best hope for early victory but also essential in the long run to avert eventual defeat. I believe it is also generally accepted, at least by our most farsighted statesmen, that our capability to deliver such an offensive is likewise the greatest deterrent to aggression that exists today."
That letter is courtesy of the Air Force Historical Research Agency (For the entire document as a .PDF file, click here.) It was originally classified Top Secret and was declassified in 1979 (when yours truly was an airman first class stationed at a SAC B-52 bomber base). I think the Einstein and Vandenberg letters offer better contextual bookends to the Trinity explosion than anything I could write. Artesia Municipal Airport NM, 32-51-05, 104-28-00. Early in WWII, Artesia, New Mexico, was home to a civilian contract glider school operated for the AAF by Big Spring Flying Service. Later in the war the airfield served as an auxiliary field to Roswell AAFld. It is still an operational airport under the same name.General view Carlsbad Army Air Field NM, 32-21, 104-16. Heading farther south past Carlsbad, New Mexico, I found this former base. Two hangars remain from WWII.
Hangars
Hangar
Hangar Hobbs Auxiliary Field No. 6 NM, 32-41-20, 103-12-50. I was doing good on time and daylight, so I pressed on to the east, hoping to make Hobbs, New Mexico before nightfall. Just west of town, I took a quick look at this former auxiliary field. There is a WWII hangar standing, but author Lou Thole determined it was moved there after the war from Hobbs AAFld (later, AFB).
Hangar Hobbs Air Force Base NM, 32-46-30, 103-11-30. My next stop was another revisit, and there has been much destruction (oops, I mean redevelopment) of this former base. I did see a couple of the same munitions storage igloos that I photographed in 1997. I stopped for the night in Hobbs, having covered 541 miles in 11.5 hours.
Elevated water storage tank
Munitions storage igloo
Munitions storage igloo
Munitions storage igloo
Sunday, 8 April 2007
Plancor 2316 TX, 32-55-35, 102-37-00. I looked for the former WWII carbon black plant near Seagraves. The Defense Plant Corporation structures and buildings are long gone and the land is used for farming.General view After that, I just headed south to intercept I-20, and cruised on home. The day's drive was 487 miles, in 7.75 hours. This trip was a total of 1,624 miles. Updated March 29, 2025
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