EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, RANGE 22 ARMAMENT RESEARCH HABS FL-411-D SHOP HABS FL-411-D (Building 411) Range 22, east end adjacent to Eglin Boulevard Valparaiso vicinity Okaloosa County Florida PHOTOGRAPHS WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior 1849 C Street NW Washington, DC 20240-0001 HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, RANGE 22 ARMAMENT RESEARCH SHOP (Building 411) HABS No. FL-411-D Location: Range 22, east end adjacent to Eglin Boulevard, Eglin Air Force Base, Valparaiso vicinity, Okaloosa County, Florida. The building is located at latitude: 30.476767, longitude: -86.506094, which represents the center of the building. The coordinates were obtained in 2014 by plotting its location in Google Earth. Coordinates are based on WGS84. Eglin Air Force Base location has no restriction on its release to the public. Present Owner/ Occupant: United States Air Force, Eglin Air Force Base. Present Use: This building is currently unoccupied; however, the general area is used for testing. Significance: Building 411 was used primarily to support testing operations at Range 22. Range 22 was developed during the late 1930s as a gunnery range and it evolved in World War II to proof test the following: armament and armament- equipped aircraft; machine gun armament and incendiary bullets; gun turrets; periscope guns; and other military materiel. The gunnery tests were designed to gather information on guns and gun sight installations pertaining to accuracy, field of fire, reliability and durability, and base provisions. Each gunnery test consisted of a ground inspection and ground firing test, as well as an air firing test. These armament tests were for operational suitability. The proving ground was used to test aircraft coming off the production line, not yet tested for tactical suitability, and to make recommendations for possible improvements to equipment in the factory and in the field. The proving ground testing personnel were directed to “place themselves in the position of the combat crews” to ensure the materiel was operational.1 In addition to testing, the range supported the mission of the Air Corps Gunnery School, which was to instruct the students of all the Air Corps Advanced Flying Schools in fixed gunnery skills. 1 Brigadier General Muir S. Fairchild, Director of Military Requirements to Commanding Officer, AAFPG Command, 6 April 1942, Subject: Accelerated Service Tests of United States Aircraft, Exhibit 31; Fairchild to Commanding Officer, AAFPG Command, 9 April 1942, Subject: Directives, Exhibit 32; and Fairchild to Commanding Officer AAFPG Command, 29 June 1942, Subject: Reports on Operational Fitness of Aircraft Types, Exhibit 36 all in Joseph W. Angell, Air Proving Ground Command, History of the Army Air Forces Proving Ground Command, Part I: Historical Outline, 1933–1944 Appendices, reprinted (Eglin Air Force Base: Office of History, Munitions Systems Division, November 1989). EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, RANGE 22 ARMAMENT RESEARCH SHOP HABS No. FL-411-D (page 2) The same mission applied during the Cold War when Building 411 was constructed to support armament research and non-destructive testing. Building 411 housed an armament machine shop, control tower on the roof, non-destructive testing room, and storage for testing equipment. Historian(s): Karen Van Citters, Van Citters: Historic Preservation, LLC (VCHP). The text for the section below called, “Establishing a Military Proving Ground” was adapted from the February 2, 2011 “Eglin Field World War II Historic District” National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, an amendment to an historic district at Eglin Air Force Base completed by Dr. Sarah Payne, previously of VCHP. This current documentation was completed in July 2015. Project Information: This HABS Level II documentation was completed by VCHP for Eglin Air Force Base, Civil Engineering Group, Cultural Resources Management in 2015. Photographic documentation completed by Martin Stupich in September, 2014. It was reviewed for transmittal by Christopher Marston and Mary McPartland of Heritage Documentation Programs in 2015. Part I. Historical Information A. Physical History 1. Date of erection: Between 1951 and 1955 (as evidenced by site plans); control tower added in 1956. 2. Architect: Air Force Armament Center 3. Original and subsequent owners, occupants, uses: The building was originally an armament research shop on Range 22 at Eglin Air Force Base. The shop was constructed for the Air Research and Development Command (ARDC), which was established in 1950. In 1961, the ARDC was redesignated the Air Force Systems Command (AFSC) and AFSC took over the mission at Range 22 and thereby, the armament research shop. By 2002, the Eglin AFB Fire Department was occupying the building. However by 2013, the building was unoccupied. 4. Builder, contractor, suppliers: Unknown. 5. Original plans and construction: The two story building was built on the Fighter Bomber Firing Apron of Range 22. It was constructed of a poured concrete frame with a concrete floor and roof structure, and a concrete masonry unit infill wall. The first story consisted of four bays and the second story consisted of two on the east elevation and two and a half bays on the west elevation; the extra half bay of the second story was an entry room from an exterior metal stair on the west elevation. The building included ribbon windows on both the first and second floors on the EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, RANGE 22 ARMAMENT RESEARCH SHOP HABS No. FL-411-D (page 3) north and east elevations. The second floor window units were taller than the ones on the first floor and were also installed on the south elevation. There were metal personnel doors on the north end of the east and west elevations and an overhead door on the north and south elevations. An exterior clay tile chimney was located on the north elevation to the west of the overhead door. The exterior metal stair ran from the base of the northwest corner up to the second floor, where there were two metal personnel doors at the landing. The first floor had three large rooms with 12’ high bay ceilings and an enclosure for the boiler room in the northwest corner. One room was the width of two bays and the other two rooms were each one bay wide. The second floor was one large room with windows facing downrange for test viewing. 6. Alterations and additions: In March 1956, a degreaser and a monorail were added to the north room on the first floor. The monorail was hung from the concrete beam at the center of the room and supported by new 3” diameter pipe columns on the north and south walls of the room. It was attached to the existing beam and walls with 8” x 8” steel angles. In May 1956, a wood control tower was added to the roof of the concrete building. A steel pedestal was added to the top of the building’s original poured concrete frame to serve as support for an open-web steel truss, which in turn supported a 6’–8” by 6’–8” wood room constructed of 2” x 4” dimensional lumber with fiberboard walls and a 12/4 pitch shed roof. There was a wood door with an L-shaped wood walkway and wood railing that led to the west edge of the roof, where there was a metal ladder that led down to the exterior stair landing. In 1965, the rooms at the south end of the building were altered to provide a radiology laboratory, ultrasonic laboratory, dark room, and photo viewing room. As noted, originally there were three rooms that matched the exterior concrete frame bays of the building, with a smaller boiler room within the northwest corner. The northeast bay/corner became the radiology lab, which was constructed with 1’–3” thick poured concrete walls and a gypsum board ceiling attached to the existing 2” x 4” joist structure, which was then surmounted by 3/8” plywood and a ¼” lead sheathing. The new poured concrete was installed on the interior to create the south and east walls, and a partial north wall, leaving the original opening for the overhead door on the north. The door was replaced by a sliding metal radiation door constructed with steel angles and an interior core of ¾” lead, encased in 20 gauge steel. The east wall was constructed on the exterior of the original concrete masonry unit, infilling the original personnel door. In order to install the new poured concrete wall, the existing concrete floors were saw cut and the new poured concrete wall structure extended one foot below grade. The dark and viewing rooms were constructed with concrete masonry units; both were the same 11’–10” length as the radiology room, but the dark room was 8’–10” wide and the viewing room as 5’–6” wide; they were connected by an open “U” shaped 3’-wide interior hall. The interior height of these and the radiology room was 8’, while the remainder of the first floor rooms were the original 12’ high bay height. The ultrasonic lab was directly across from the two photographic rooms and was the EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, RANGE 22 ARMAMENT RESEARCH SHOP HABS No. FL-411-D (page 4) combined width of both, but only had walls on three sides, leaving the laboratory open to the hallway. The south half of the building was open in its entirety and called the work room. In 1968, a 24’ x 48’ poured concrete frame with concrete masonry unit infill work room was constructed on the south end of the building. There was no fenestration, except the overhead door on the south elevation. The addition was constructed to house the new fluorescent penetrant inspection unit for non-destructive testing.