TD Barnes three volume set on Groom Lake

www.lasvegasnow.com...

I doubt TD Barnes needs an introduction on this forum. But if you don't know who he is, this should do:

area51specialprojects.com...

Looks like volume one will be on the U-2. It isn't clear TD Barnes was at Groom Lake during Arch Angel, but he should have the connections to get good stuff.

One assumes volume 2 will be the A-12.

a reply to: [post=22597697]gariac[/post

Vol 1 is "ANGEL"
Vol 2 is "ARCHANGEL"
Vol 3 is "COMPANY BUSINESS"

TD BARNES BOOKS

a reply to: ajsr71

I see TD writes fiction. Remind me not to offer him some hummus dip at the Groom Lake pot luck.

a reply to: gariac

I don't get the hummus reference but TD once served me some apple butter made from fruit grown at Area 51. True story.

Back on topic, this set of books is generally a good read and helps put a lot of things about Area 51 into historical perspective. That said, all three volumes would have benefitted from some rigorous editing and fact-checking. There are a number of typographical errors, a few misspelled names, and a fair amount of redundancy in the content. The various sections do not always following a logical organization but they are all clearly labeled by section title.

I did not go through page-by-page and catalog every factual error and I am not planning to do so. Here are a few items that jumped out at me:

Vol. 1, page 62
In a section on how the U-2 test location was chosen it says, "Groom Lake was on the grid number 51, a grid number that existed long before it became widely known as the infamous Area 51." This, of course, is not true. No such grid exists. The area designation was derived from Project 51, the 1959 construction project that began the transition from the temporary Watertown Airstrip to the permanent air base we know today. There are several other minor errors in this same section including the identification of Lockheed's Beechcraft as a V-35 model. It was actually a Beech 50 Twin Bonanza.

Vol. 1, page 63
The AEC guards in the 1950s are identified as working for "Federal Protection Services." They actually worked for Federal Services, Inc. (FSI).

Vol. 1, page 85
"The world's best-known secret base didn't become known while the CIA ran Area 51." Actually, news stories published as early as November 1955 described the Groom Lake base as "the super secret 'proving grounds within the proving grounds.'" Articles written in the 1960s described Area 51 as a "super-secret Nevada base" though without revealing the CIA connection.

Vol. 3, p31
A photo caption describes the pictures as, "The HAVE DOUGHNUT MiG-21 w/Israeli markings before delivery to Area 51." This is actually a relatively recent photo of a MiG-21 in an Israeli museum, where it has been painted to look the way the HAVE DOUGHNUT aircraft looked after it had been returned to Israel in 1968 and before it returned to Area 51 in the early 1970s. A former Red Hats pilot said that the original airplane did not return to Israel a second time and that the example in the museum is a different airplane.

Vol. 3, page 148
This section states that project HAVE GLIB "involved testing Soviet tracking and missile control radar systems." OK, this one is my fault. Years ago, I made that assumption based on some compelling but flimsy circumstantial evidence and posted it on the Internet. Now, everyone takes it as gospel, even people who worked at Groom Lake. It's possible that HAVE GLIB did include testing of Soviet threat systems but it was mainly the follow-on effort to the HAVE DOUGHNUT and HAVE DRILL evaluations of MiG-21 and MiG-17 fighters.

a reply to: Shadowhawk

I may be responsible for Have Glib confusion as well, but what I posted about TTR Site 4 was due to something one of the Roadrunners told me.

Regarding the first mention of Area 51 and Groom Lake, I've been searching the OSTI website. While some of those Area 51 TV shows make it sound like the NTS used to nuke Groom Lake without regard for their safety, the NTS radsafe reports paint a different picture. I will eventually cut out the text and upload to my website, but from memory I believe Upshot was the oldest test that mentioned the base. The NTS had to repair roads at Groom Lake. That I find interesting since I assumed the test damage would be more localized. But the NTS reports weren't public at the time.

www.osti.gov...

Regarding 51 being one of those NTS area designations, doesn't the map on the wall in the NTS CP-1 show that? The NTS map on the wall looks exactly like the one they include in documents but with an additional section for Area 51. This is also from memory since photography on the NTS is forbidden. CP-1 itself has a NOFORN designation.

a reply to: gariac

Groom Lake is mentioned in Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) documents from the very beginning of testing in Nevada. A September 1951 map of soil radiation sampling stations shows the lakebed and the old World War II auxiliary airfield. At that time, there was little else in the area except for a windmill and tank to supply water for cattle, some dirt roads, and the Groom Mine.

The block of land that eventually received the designation Area 51 appears on maps made following the establishment of Watertown Airstrip in 1955. That section was not legally withdrawn from public use until June 1958 and received the Area 51 designation in the summer of 1959. I found some AEC documents for radiation measurements taken in the Groom Lake area in 1960. They show the name Watertown crossed out and replaced with Area 51.

Lots of unclassified maps from the 1960s and 1970s (including the big one in CP-1) show Area 51, but sometimes only as an un-numbered block. It's almost more difficult to find maps that show Area 31 to the west of Yucca Mountain.