Recent Photos of Sweetwater AFS, TX

Main Site - Looking North

Main Site - Looking East

Main Site - Looking South

Main Site - Looking West

Ops & MPR - Looking East

Ops & MPR - Looking West

Housing Area - Looking North

Housing Area - Looking East

Housing Area - Looking South

Housing Area - Looking West

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June 2001 photos & notes contributed by Tom Page

Avenger Field was the location of Sweetwater AFS. Earlier, it was a training base in World War II for women pilots (i.e., WASP`s).

The old Recreation Building (appears to be still in use). [looking NW]

Only remaining barracks. [looking WNW]

Old buildings at Avenger Field, across the road from the barracks; [looking N]

Note from Sweetwater vet Sidney Marshall:

The green building ontained a prototype pre-SAGE computer. I was in there with an officer scrounging an office desk and chair for the MARS shack. There were two solid rows of equipment bay running almost the length of the building. The officer explain ed that Sweetwater as originally planned was not to have the manual plotting board but everything would have been remoted through this computer. Nobody could figure out how to make it work. I didn`t see banks of 12AU7 flip-flops. He said something about "magnetic memory" which I thought meant some kind of sealed magnetic latching relays. At that time I didn`t know about magnetic core memory.

Airmen`s Dining Hall (right) and the Recreation Building (distant center). [looking E]

Another view of the Airmen`s Dining Hall (far right) and the Recreation Building (left). [looking SSW]

View across Avenger Field, looking at the old family-housing area for Sweetwater AFS (distant, right-center). [looking E]

Entrance to the old family-housing area. [looking ENE]

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This undated photo must have been made not too long after Sweetwater AFS ceased operations