Beale Air Force Base


Beale Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base in Yuba County, California. It is outside Linda, about east of the towns of Marysville and Yuba City, and about north of Sacramento.
The host unit at Beale is the 9th Reconnaissance Wing, assigned to the Sixteenth Air Force, Air Combat Command. The Wing collects intelligence essential for presidential and Congressional decisions critical to the national defense. The Wing flies the USAF fleet of Lockheed U-2 "Dragon Ladies" and operates associated ground support equipment. It also maintains a high state of readiness in its combat support and combat service support forces, ready to deploy to carry out military operations.
The 940th Air Refueling Wing is a tenant Air Force Reserve Command wing at Beale AFB flying the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker, operationally gained by Air Mobility Command.
Beale AFB was established in 1942 as Camp Beale and is named for Edward Fitzgerald Beale, a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and a Brigadier General in the California Militia, who was an explorer and frontiersman in California. Camp Beale became a United States Air Force installation on 1 April 1951 and was renamed Beale Air Force Base.

Role and operations

The 9th Reconnaissance Wing is composed of four groups at Beale AFB and various overseas operating locations.
The 940th Air Refueling Wing is composed of three groups, a headquarters element, and a non-group assigned squadron, the 940th Aerospace Medicine Squadron. The 713th Combat Operations Squadron was previously assigned to the 940th Wing and operationally gained by Pacific Air Forces. In April 2016, the 713th COS was realigned from the 940th Wing to the newly established 610th Air Operations Group along with two sister squadrons, the 710th COS and 701st COS, when the 940th Wing regained its KC-135 refueling mission.
Flying and notable non-flying units based at Beale Air Force Base.
Units marked GSU are Geographically Separate Units, which although based at Beale, are subordinate to a parent unit based at another location.

United States Air Force

Air Combat Command
  • Sixteenth Air Force
  • *9th Reconnaissance Wing
  • ** Headquarters 9th Reconnaissance Wing
  • ** 9th Operations Group
  • ***1st Reconnaissance Squadron – U-2S Dragon Lady and T-38A Talon
  • ***74th Reconnaissance Squadron
  • ***99th Reconnaissance Squadron – U-2S Dragon Lady
  • ***427th Reconnaissance Squadron – RQ-180
  • *** 9th Operational Support Squadron
  • ** 9th Maintenance Group
  • *** 9th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron
  • *** 9th Maintenance Squadron
  • *** 9th Munitions Squadron
  • ** 9th Medical Group
  • *** 9th Aerospace Medicine Squadron
  • *** 2nd Dental Squadron
  • *** 9th Medical Operations Squadron
  • *** 9th Medical Support Squadron
  • *** 9th Physiological Support Squadron
  • ** 9th Mission Support Group
  • *** 9th Civil Engineer Squadron
  • *** 9th Communications Squadron
  • *** 9th Comptroller Squadron
  • *** 9th Contracting Squadron
  • *** 9th Force Support Squadron
  • *** 9th Logistics Readiness Squadron
  • *** 9th Security Forces Squadron
  • *319th Reconnaissance Wing
  • **319th Operations Group
  • *** Detachment 2/Operating Location A
  • ***12th Reconnaissance Squadron
  • ***319th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron
  • ****Detachment 1
  • *480th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing
  • **548th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group
  • ***9th Intelligence Squadron
  • ***13th Intelligence Squadron
  • ***48th Intelligence Squadron
  • *** 548th Operations Support Squadron
Air Force Reserve Command
  • Fourth Air Force
  • *940th Air Refueling Wing
  • ** Headquarters 940th Air Refueling Wing
  • ** 940th Operations Group
  • ***314th Air Refueling Squadron – KC-135R Stratotanker
  • *** 940th Operations Support Squadron
  • ** 940th Maintenance Group
  • *** 940th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron
  • *** 940th Maintenance Squadron
  • ** 940th Mission Support Group
  • *** 940th Civil Engineer Squadron
  • *** 940th Communications Flight
  • *** 940th Force Support Squadron
  • *** 940th Logistics Readiness Squadron
  • *** 940th Security Forces Squadron
  • *** 940th Aerospace Medicine Squadron
  • Tenth Air Force
  • * 610th Air Operations Group
  • ** 713th Combat Operations Squadron
  • * 655th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing
  • ** 755th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group
  • *** 38th Intelligence Squadron
  • *** 50th Intelligence Squadron
  • *926th Wing
  • ** 726th Operations Group
  • ***13th Reconnaissance Squadron – RQ-4B Global Hawk
Air National Guard
Space Operations Command
The base is named for Edward Fitzgerald Beale, an American Navy Lieutenant and a Brigadier General in the California Militia who was an explorer and frontiersman in California. Beale Air Force Base covers nearly of rolling hills in northern California. It is a large base in terms of land and has five gates providing access on all sides of the base. Visitors enter the base through a main gate that local merchants, individuals and the Beale Military Liaison Committee donated $100,000 to construct. The base is home for approximately 4,000 military personnel.
The base's natural resources are as rich as its significant culture and history. Native Americans lived on this land; the mortar bowls they carved into the bedrock lie embedded in a shallow stream. German prisoners of war were held captive on the base during World War II; a block of barred prison cells still stands at the base, and the drawings of the POWs remain vivid on the walls of the prison cells. To preserve these and other historic areas, the base proudly maintains 38 Native American sites, 45 homestead sites, and 41 World War II sites.

United States Army

In 1940, the "Camp Beale" area consisted of grassland and rolling hills and the 19th century mining town of Spenceville. Marysville city officials encouraged the Department of War to establish a military facility in the area. The U.S. government purchased in 1942 for a training post for the 13th Armored Division, the only unit of its kind to be entirely trained in California. Camp Beale also held training facilities for the 81st and 96th Infantry Division, and a 1,000-bed hospital. Dredge tailings from the area's abandoned gold mines were used to build streets at the Camp.
As a complete training environment, Camp Beale had tank maneuvers, mortar and rifle ranges, a bombardier-navigator training, and chemical warfare classes. At its peak during World War II, Camp Beale had 60,000 personnel.
Camp Beale also housed a German POW camp, and served as the main camp for a series of satellite POW camps around northern California. Branch camps were established at Arbuckle, in Colusa County ; Chico, in Butte County ; Davis, in Yolo County ; Napa, in Napa County ; and Windsor, in Sonoma County. All of the camps provided agriculture manpower to local farms and ranchers. German POWs at Beale also provided manpower for base support operations.

Air Training Command

In 1948, Camp Beale became Beale AFB, its mission being to train bombardier navigators in radar techniques. Beale AFB established six bombing ranges of each and the U.S. Navy also used Beale for training. From 1951 on, Beale trained Aviation Engineers and ran an Air Base Defense School. These additional activities led to rehabilitation of existing base facilities and construction of rifle, mortar, demolition, and machine gun ranges.
In 1952 Beale AFB was placed in inactive status for conversion to an operational airbase. Headquarters, Aviation Engineer Force administered the base for the next six years while a runway was laid down, and appropriate support facilities was laid out and constructed. The 2275th Air Base Squadron was the coordinating organization during the construction period. Also in 1952, Beale stopped being used as a bombing range and the U.S. Government declared portions of Camp Beale/Beale AFB as excess, eventually transferring out.
Eventually excess land from the former Army Camp was sold off to the public. On 21 December 1959, on the eastern side of the Base were sold at auction. An additional was transferred to the State of California between 1962 and 1964, and now comprise the Spenceville Wildlife and Recreation Area. In 1964–1965, another were sold at auction. In deeds for the former Camp Beale property, the Federal Government recommended that the property have surface use only.

Air Defense Command

In 1959 Air Defense Command established a Semi Automatic Ground Environment Data Center was established at Beale AFB. The SAGE system was a network linking Air Force General Surveillance Radar stations into a centralized center for Air Defense, intended to provide early warning and response for a Soviet nuclear attack. The Ground Air Transmitting Receiving Site for communications was located at, approximately 1.1 miles south-southwest from the SAGE building. Normally the GATR site was connected by a pair of buried telephone cables, with a backup connection of dual telephone cables overhead.
DC-18 was initially under the San Francisco Air Defense Sector, established on 15 February 1959. DC-18 and the SFADS was inactivated on 1 August 1963 as part of an ADC consolidation and reorganization, with its assigned units assigned to other ADC Sectors. The GATR was reassigned to Mill Valley AFS as an annex designated OL-A, 666th Radar Squadron. Today the large SAGE building is now building 2145, housing the 9th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron; the GATR was inactivated in 1980 and the building is now part of a Skeet-shooting range.