Creech Air Force Base marks 67th year

  • Published
  • By Theodore J. Turner
  • 432d Wing Historian
CREECH AFB, Nev. (ACCNS) --  On Jan. 14, 2009, Creech Air Force Base reflects on 67 years of proud service to the nation.

Today Creech is home to the 432d Wing and 432d Air Expeditionary Wing, 99th Ground Combat Training Squadron, 98th Southern Ranges Support Squadron and the Joint UAS Center of Excellence. 

Creech AFB was first used as a military training camp on Jan. 14, 1942. The base rose quickly in the wake of the devastating Dec. 7, 1941, aerial attack on Pearl Harbor, a horrific event that thrust America and a nascent U.S. Army Air Forces into World War II.

Built about 45 miles northwest of the city of Las Vegas, Nev., the camp was named the Indian Springs Airport after the nearby community. By February 1943 the camp was being used as a divert field and as a base for air-to-air gunnery training, later supporting B-17s and T-6s. The airfield entered stand-by status in March 1946 during a post-war drawdown. Indian Springs Airport and Las Vegas Army Air Field (now Nellis Air Force Base) both inactivated in January 1947.

Both airfields reopened in January 1948 following the birth of an Independent Air Force in late 1947. Redesignated Indian Springs AFB, the base gained its first permanently assigned Air Force unit in 1950. Shortly after the 3600th Air Demonstration Team "Thunderbirds" moved to then Nellis AFB in June 1953, the airfield at Indian Springs became their primary air demonstration practice site.

A succession of host and tenant organizations, ranging from groups to detachments, provided support to on- and off-base missions. This included serving as a staging base for the delivery of testing materials for joint verification tests to the Soviet Union. The base's location and airfield brought the arrival of its most distinguished visitor on Dec. 8, 1962, as President John F. Kennedy arrived at Indian Springs AFB before proceeding to the Nevada Test Site for an inspection.

During this era the base had two enduring and well known roles. It was a provider of range maintenance for sections of the huge Nellis Range Complex, and it served as a recurring host base for deployments by Airmen and aviators from all the services in search of realistic, less constrained field training. In the 1970s and 1980s a detachment of UH-1N helicopters were constituted the first aircraft unit assigned to the base, and the base was officially redesignated from Indian Springs AFB to Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field.

In a defining moment in history, a MQ-1B Predator unmanned aircraft system conducted the first successful firing of a Hellfire missile on the Nellis Air Force Range in February 2001. This transformation of a reconnaissance platform into an offensive weapon transformed Indian Springs AFAF from a center of support to a center of operations with a reach far beyond the horizons of the vast Nevada desert.

On June 20, 2005, the U.S. Air Force redesignated Indian Springs AFAF as Creech Air Force Base in honor of General Wilbur L. Creech. General Creech, Commander of Tactical Air Command from 1978 to 1984, and a veteran of more than 275 combat missions in Korea and Vietnam, and was also known as the "father of the Thunderbirds." A fearless pioneer, the commander of the Skyblazers Aerial Demonstration team that preceded the Thunderbirds, General Creech was both a Thunderbird pilot and senior mentor.

Changes in recent years have strengthened the unmanned combat aviation mission at Creech AFB with an eye to the future. On Nov. 9, 2006, the 42d Attack Squadron activated at Creech to operate the next stage in unmanned aircraft development, the MQ-9 Reaper. The Air Force also provided additional leadership to these missions on May 1, 2007, with the activation of the 432d Wing, and on May 15, 2008, with the activation of the 432d Air Expeditionary Wing.