Natural Defense

U.S. Air Force Origins of the Department of Defense

Natural Resources Conservation Program

Historical Studies

Air Force

Jean A. Mansavage
Cover

A moose crosses in front of an F–16C Fighting Falcon at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, during an 

exercise on May 13, 2003. Photo by TSgt. Robert Jensen. USAF.

Natural Defense

U.S. Air Force Origins of the

Department of Defense

Natural Resources Conservation Program

Jean A. Mansavage

Washington, D.C.

2014
This work relates the story of why the U.S. Air Force took the 

lead among the military services in developing a comprehensive 

conservation program and how efforts by the Air Force laid the 

groundwork for the Department of Defense natural resources 

program that followed. The book also situates USAF/DOD 

conservation efforts within the context of U.S. military 

environmental engagement across the decades, and within the 

broader scope of the emerging conservation/environmental 

movement in the post-World War II United States.

Natural Defense

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of 

the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Air Force, the Department 

of Defense, or the U.S. government. Cleared for public release.
Contents

Prologue 1

Introduction 5

One

 The U.S. Military and Natural Resource Awareness

 through World War II 13

Two

 The Newly Independent Air Force, Its Culture, and

 Post-World War II Conservation Efforts 31

Three

 Natural Resources Conservation, the Military Land Use

 Controversy, and Congressional Challenges 47

Four

 The Air Force Response to Conservation Concerns 71

Five

 The Air Force and Department of Defense Launch

 Conservation Programs 87

Conclusion and Epilogue 99

Notes 113
Images courtesy of the family of

the photographer, Frank A. Tinker.
1

Prologue

In January 1955, the Arizona Game and Fish Commission acquiesced to 

U.S. Army demands, rounded up 220 bison that had pastured since the 

end of World War II on idle rangeland at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and 

corralled them into pens near the main post.1

 Wranglers released the 

bison, grouped in tens, down a narrow runway of parallel barbed-wire 

fences into a small clearing 200 yards away. They trotted into a field, past 

shooters with high-powered rifles concealed by several small oak trees. 

There civilian hunters, who had been selected by lottery and paid a $25 

fee to take part in the hunt, fired at will at the great beasts. If they missed, 

horse-mounted game managers turned the animal back within shooting 

range until the bison was dead, or “nearly enough so that its throat can be 

cut.” The average shooting distance from man to animal was about twenty 

yards. It was “like shooting fish in a barrel,” according to the author of 

a Nature Magazine article who witnessed the event. After each group of 

animals was dead, the firing paused to allow the huntsmen to haul the 

carcasses to the skinning racks and claim the animal’s head, hide, and a 

quarter of its meat. Since the shoot occurred just before birthing season, all 

unborn calves were discarded in a nearby ravine.2

How did this “exhibition of brutal indifference and ignorance too 

gross for tolerance” occur at Fort Huachuca?3

 When the Army post, 

located about twenty miles north of the Mexican border, became surplus 

property after World War II, the state of Arizona gained deed to the land in 

September 1947 and assigned administration of 35,000 of the total 76,000 

acres to the state game and fish commission. The open, uninhabited Fort 

Huachuca rangelands were ideal for wildlife purposes and were used 

to reestablish native wildlife and study other species. In May 1949, the 

commission turned the land it had received from the state into a permanent 

game preserve and established a herd of 114 bison for scientific study 

and rangeland research. There was still a limited military presence as the 

National Guard trained two weeks a year on 12,000 nearby acres.4

To assist with the Korean War military buildup, in January 1951, the 

secretary of the U.S. Air Force wrote the governor of Arizona and reversed 
2

Arizona’s deed to Fort Huachuca and briefly converted it into an Air Force 

base. In May 1951, the Army regained jurisdiction over the installation, 

although the Air Force controlled the engineer aviation training center 

on the post, where it conducted basic training for airmen and provided 

experience for aviation engineers. The Air Force encountered minimal 

conflict with the bison because the engineers never used the ranges.5

On May 1, 1953, the Department of Defense again inactivated the post, 

but that closure proved short-lived. In February 1954, the Army relocated 

its electronic proving ground from Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, to Fort 

Huachuca, which offered vast open space to fly drones and minimal 

electromagnetic interference for tests of new electronic warfare equipment. 

The proving ground grew rapidly under Brig. Gen. Emil Lenzner’s command, 

leading him to order the Arizona Game and Fish Commission to move the 

bison herd to unused portions of the installation to make room for training 

and new housing areas.6

Demands concerning the bison intensified after the state of Arizona 

issued a warrant for Lenzner’s arrest for authorizing an illegal deer hunt in 

November 1954 that killed fifty-eight deer. This hunt, by shooters lacking 

Brig. Gen. Emil Lenzner, USA (standing, in jeep), is shown reviewing the troops at 

Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Despite the bison controversy, Lenzner was promoted to 

major general in August 1955. He remained an influential figure in the area and is 

buried at the fort. U.S. Army.
3

Arizona hunting licenses, occurred two weeks after the state’s deer season 

closed. The game commission had denied the commander’s request to allow 

his men to kill wildlife on the installation without licenses, but Lenzner 

justified the shoot by claiming that the deer were “damaging the shrubbery 

and were a danger to children playing in the housing area, and were damaging 

the golf course.” Lenzner could have been liable for a fine of not less than 

$100 for each deer slain or six months’ imprisonment on each count.7

Although law enforcement officials later suspended the arrest warrant, 

influential members of the Arizona Game Protective Association and the 

Prescott Sportsmen’s Club decried Lenzner’s actions, and the association’s 

executive secretary, Max T. Layton, called on the commander of the U.S. 

Sixth Army, Lt. Gen. Willard G. Wyman, to deliver Lenzner to Arizona 

civil authorities for criminal prosecution for violating a pact between the 

governor of Arizona and state game officials and representatives of the 

Sixth Army. These parties had signed a written agreement authorizing the 

Arizona Game and Fish Commission to manage all game on the post after 

the Army regained jurisdiction over Fort Huachuca in 1954.8

In another letter from the Arizona Game Protective Association, written 

by executive board member William H. Beers to U.S. Senator Barry M. 

Goldwater (R-AZ), with copies to U.S. Army leaders and state and federal 

officials, the association charged that the “arrogant flouting of the laws” 

An aerial view of Fort Huachuca, Arizona, in 1950. After World War II, the facility was 

deeded to the state, which established a bison herd on a portion of the camp’s rangeland. 

The herd thrived and became one of the largest in the United States. Library of Congress.
4

by Lenzner “must be vigorously protested to assure the people of Arizona 

that their rights will be protected. An example must be made at this time 

to prohibit future incidents of this type.” Beers added, “A very unhealthy 

situation has developed, due to one man’s arrogance and egotism, and unless 

halted could well be used as a precedent by other military bases throughout 

the country to freely kill all game on these posts.” State game officials 

anticipated repercussions for their demands that charges be filed against 

Lenzner and ominously predicted the bison’s doom, asserting that “because 

of the general’s show of contempt for the laws and officials of Arizona there 

exists a fear that until action from higher up has been taken, criminal charges 

might precipitate a killing of the most valuable buffalo herd.” 9

In apparent retaliation, Lenzner ordered intensified harassment of the 

herd in the final months of 1954. The commander made the commission 

move the herd on the installation forty-nine times in five months, claiming 

that the bison interfered with the electronic proving ground’s mission and 

his ability to use the rangeland. Lenzner’s demands made maintenance 

of the herd costly and physically hazardous for game managers, and as 

political pressure mounted on the game and fish commission, its leaders 

decided to rid themselves of the matter entirely.10

In the end, General Lenzner and the U.S. Army forced the Arizona Game 

and Fish Commission’s hand and provoked one of the worst depredations of 

wildlife on military lands. The illegal deer hunt and the bison liquidation 

demonstrated the blurred jurisdiction over control of wildlife on military 

installations among state and local law-enforcement officials and local 

military leaders. State and local conservation officials across the country 

came to view incidents like the hunting violations at Fort Huachuca as 

demonstrations of federal agencies’ encroachment on state wildlife 

management prerogatives, which had become what one historian described 

as a long-standing “simmering pot of contention between the states and 

federal government on jurisdiction over resident wildlife.”11

This episode, along with several concurrent high-profile cases of 

game law violations by military personnel elsewhere, embittered many 

conservationists and game management professionals against the military 

and created a storm of protest among local sportsmen. These incidents 

prompted Congress to expand a land-use investigation to include hunting 

and fishing activities on Defense Department lands.12 The Air Force’s 

proactive response to the congressional probe included the establishment 

of an institution-wide conservation program, which Congress would 

eventually mandate that the rest of the services emulate.
5

Introduction

This study examines the origins of the U.S. Air Force Fish and Wildlife 

Conservation Program and the Department of Defense natural resource 

management efforts that followed. It considers why the U.S. Air Force took 

the lead among the military services in developing a program to protect 

natural resources on Defense Department lands and tells how the service’s 

top officers, who had long associations with notables in conservation 

and sportsman circles, shaped these conservation efforts. In addition 

to detailing the legislative hearings and laws that prodded the military 

into action, this work describes the interaction among military leaders, 

conservation advocates, members of Congress, and American citizens 

who, fueled by the broader natural resources conservation movement that 

was gaining traction in the country in the 1940s and 1950s, created an 

atmosphere conducive to substantive improvements in fish and wildlife 

programs on military lands.

As detailed in the first chapter, from its earliest days, the U.S. military 

played a significant role in exploring and documenting the country’s 

vast natural resources and biological wealth. U.S. Army officers led the 

Lewis and Clark expedition and the Pacific railroad surveys, among other 

endeavors. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the Army protected 

and helped shape the earliest national parks. With the advent of the U.S. 

Forest Service and National Park Service, the Army and its new Air 

Service found other nature-related duties during World War I and the 

interwar years, culminating with involvement in supervision of camps of 

the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Military leaders in authority after World War II had a keen understanding 

of the natural world. As discussed in chapter 1, these men were born at the 

end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries and raised in 

an era when men found respite and recreation in the outdoors, but also in a 

time when natural resources diminished dramatically. By the time they were 

established military officers in the 1930s, the ad hoc conservation efforts of 

their youth had evolved into a more organized national program to restore 
6

American forests, rivers, and prairies. As products of a largely rural, often 

middle-class upbringing, these officers reflected the social standards of the 

period. Yet their military education and training instilled in them an advanced 

sense of ethics and behavior that also aligned them with the upper-class 

sportsmen conservationists who emerged in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

The U.S. Air Force established its comprehensive natural resources 

conservation program nearly a decade before the other services and the 

Department of Defense began similar initiatives. This Air Force program 

emerged largely because of a distinctive service culture that fostered 

Thomas D. White, shown in an undated photo likely prior to World War II, was an avid 

outdoorsman. As vice chief of staff and subsequently chief of staff of the Air Force in the 

1950s, he oversaw the development and implementation of the service’s conservation 

program. Courtesy of the White family.
7

innovative methods of problem solving. As covered in chapter 2, Air Force 

culture developed during its formative years under the influence of leaders 

who emphasized unconventional, nonconformist approaches to problemsolving, sensitivity to public and political influences, and the power of the 

media and publicity. Equally important, early aviators, specifically, had a 

different perspective of the natural world, and military leaders, generally, 

had absorbed the previous generation’s evolving awareness of conservation 

values. Those first pilots who later emerged as Air Force leaders experienced 

an intimate relationship with nature. Reliant on fair weather for safety and 

physical landmarks for navigation, these men sensed they were a part of their 

environment, not apart from it. Air Force generals Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, 

Carl A. “Tooey” Spaatz, Nathan F. Twining, and Thomas D. White—all 

Col. Robert J. Pavelko (left), 45th Space Wing vice commander, and Lt. Col. James Sayres, 

45th Space Wing Detachment 1 commander, released rehabilitated sea turtles back into 

their native habitat at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on November 29, 2012. 

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Sea World coordinated the 

turtles’ recovery. USAF.
8

enthusiastic outdoorsmen with friends in conservation and sportsman 

organizations—were some of the first military officers to acknowledge the 

relationship between natural resources and national security. They shaped a 

service-wide atmosphere that promoted a respect for the environment years 

before the concept became widely fashionable.

A significant segment of this story explains how three key pieces of 

legislation induced all of the military services to remedy their inconsistent, 

and in many cases unlawful, fish and wildlife management policies: the 

Sikes Act of 1949 (Public Law 81–345), the Engle Act of 1958 (Public 

Law 85–337), and the Sikes Act of 1960 (Public Law 86–797). These 

laws raised political and public awareness of conservation problems on 

military installations, compelled the Defense Department to overhaul its 

land stewardship practices, and initiated the first wave of natural resources 

management on military lands.

The Sikes Act of 1949, “An Act to promote effectual planning, 

development, maintenance, and coordination of wildlife, fish, and game 

conservation and rehabilitation in the Eglin Field Reservation,” allowed 

the commander at Eglin, a 650-square-mile air installation on the Florida 

Panhandle near Fort Walton Beach, to reinvest fees for hunting and fishing 

Steve and Erica Laine of the 96th Civil Engineer Group on a kayak tour of the range at 

Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, in April 2010. The Sikes Act of 1949 formally established 

Eglin’s fish and wildlife conservation program, which served as the foundation for a later 

service-wide effort. Photo by Samuel King Jr. USAF.
9

Peter Howorth, director of the Santa Barbara Marine Mammal Center, returns a 

rehabilitated baby Northern California Elephant Seal to the ocean on a beach at 

Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, in April 2012. The Air Force works with state 

and local wildlife officials across the country to help perserve animals in their native 

environments. Photo by Jennifer Green-Lanchoney. USAF.
10

licenses into conservation activities on the base. During consideration of 

the initial Sikes Act, the fledgling U.S. Air Force served as the executive 

agent for the Department of Defense on fish and wildlife conservation 

matters, which established a precedent for the Pentagon to rely on the Air 

Force when dealing with later environmental issues. 

Throughout this post-World War II period, traditional concepts of natural 

resource conservation began transforming into modern environmental 

principles, a process that reflected significant U.S. social and economic 

changes. As increasing numbers of Americans participated in outdoor 

recreational activities, they also became aware that ecological problems 

that existed before the war had not disappeared and in many cases had 

worsened. At the same time, mounting Cold War requirements and 

evolving weapons technology required the Defense Department to expand 

its physical footprint, often onto public domain lands. That growth soon 

collided with intensified human use of limited land resources and led 

Americans and their elected officials to question the military’s need for 

such large swaths of public land. The resulting discord developed into 

an official congressional inquiry about Department of Defense land 

acquisition and natural resource management practices.

During 1956–57 congressional hearings on military landholdings, 

testimony from civilian natural resource professionals revealed that the 

Defense Department’s fish and wildlife management policies were outdated, 

grossly inconsistent, and often violated state and local laws. Information 

presented during these hearings led Congress in 1958 to pass the Engle 

Act, “The Withdrawal and Utilization of Public Lands of the U.S. Defense 

Agencies Act,” which required congressional approval for the military to 

withdraw more than 5,000 acres from the public domain. Further, it mandated 

that the military services overhaul their fish and wildlife regulations, 

standardize them across all installations, and require full compliance with 

local and state fish and wildlife and conservation laws.

While the 1956–57 hearings were ongoing, Air Force leaders responded 

proactively to congressional criticism by ordering a revision of the 

service’s natural resource regulations; establishing a formal conservation 

program in Air Force headquarters; and cooperating closely with the U.S. 

Fish and Wildlife Service to create effective fish and game measures on 

Air Force bases. The Air Force took these actions largely because of its 

previous institutional success with conservation programs on individual 

installations, notably in the Alaskan Command, starting in 1948, and at 

Eglin Air Force Base. By the time the Engle Act became law, the Air 

Force had a decade of experience with these localized fish and wildlife 

conservation programs. 
11

Congress expanded the 1949 Sikes Act with the 1960 Sikes Act, which 

stipulated that the Defense Department create a centralized natural resource 

conservation program and required that all the military services fully 

implement the provisions of the Engle Act. Because the Army, Navy, and 

Marines had little practical experience with comprehensive natural resource 

management, the Air Force conservation program served as the model for 

all the services, and for the umbrella Department of Defense plan. 

While congressional mandates like the Engle and Sikes Acts induced 

the Department of Defense to institute natural resource management 

plans on its military installations, it was a handful of environmentally 

conscious Air Force leaders who devised natural resource initiatives 

that established the blueprint for enduring Defense Department natural 

resource management policies. First within the Air Force, and later among 

the other services, this confluence of influential, environmentally aware 

men and new natural resource laws brought forth an extensive fish and 

wildlife program at a pivotal time in American conservation history when 

public concerns about environmental quality and ecology began taking 

shape in the environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

Efforts to reduce the number of bird strikes have been a point of emphasis with the Air 

Force Fish and Wildlife Conservation Program since its founding. The photo shows the 

program’s first civilian advisor, Elwood A. “Woody” Seaman, manning an exhibit on this 

subject at a conference in the 1960s. USAF photo, courtesy of Rusty DeGroat.
12

NatureServe, 2004.
13

One

The U.S. Military and 

National Resource Awareness

through World War II

The U.S. military played a significant role in exploring and protecting the 

American frontier and its natural resources during the nineteenth century. 

After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the U.S. Army was the only American 

institution large enough to establish federal authority over this vast expanse 

of land that stretched from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. During 

this period, the Army was charged with reconnoitering the new territory. 

While many Americans recognize the names of Lewis and Clark, not all are 

aware that it was Captain Meriwether Lewis and Second Lieutenant William 

Clark of the U.S. Army who led the Corps of Discovery on its mission of 

exploration. Soon thereafter, Lt. Zebulon Pike Jr. took an expedition into the 

Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. Exploration continued into the 1840s 

with Lt. John C. Frémont’s four western expeditions. These various Armyled efforts laid out the nation’s boundaries, aided western settlement by 

constructing wagon roads, and improved rivers and harbors to develop U.S. 

trade.1

 Soldier-explorers scientifically surveyed and mapped the western 

United States while leading teams of botanists, geologists, astronomers, 

and meteorologists who systematically collected data and catalogued the 

nation’s natural resources.2

The Army, which created the Corps of Topographical Engineers in 

1838 to oversee these functions, also led three separate Pacific Railroad 

Explorations and Surveys during the 1850s to determine which of the 

northern, middle, or southern routes would be most efficient for a 

transcontinental railroad line. In the process, the Pacific surveys produced 

thirteen written volumes, 147 lithographs, and uncounted specimens that 

provided a scientific inventory of natural features and phenomena in the 

American West.3

 The Old Army, the small U.S. frontier constabulary 

that existed between the Revolution and Spanish-American Wars before 

Army modernization at the cusp of the twentieth century, also helped 

delineate and protect the country’s fledgling national parks, Yellowstone 

and Yosemite, from illegal timber cutting, unauthorized sheep and cattle 

grazing, mining, and criminal trespassing.4

 These assignments established 

the first precedents for military involvement in the natural world.
14

Young topographical engineering officers who led many of the early 

expeditions made up a small component of the U.S. Army, no more than 

thirty-six officers at any one time. Yet in the years when the Corps of 

Topographical Engineers existed as an independent unit equal to the 

regular Corps of Engineers, between 1838 and 1863, more than 85 

percent of Topographical Corps officers were trained at the U.S. Military 

Academy at West Point. As such, they had absorbed the West Point values 

that associated the country’s land and natural resources with the strength of 

its democracy. According to historian William H. Goetzman, the Corps of 

Topographical Engineers was a “central institution of Manifest Destiny.” 5

The core of the West Point curriculum—mathematics—provided the 

foundation for engineering and secondary physical science subjects such 

as geology, astronomy, chemistry, mineralogy, and botany, disciplines 

that would have direct application in the future topographers’ western 

exploration.6

 According to historian Harvey Meyerson, this curriculum 

had a significant influence on the “Old Army’s character, including army 

attitudes toward the natural environment. . . . [I]t made army officers 

skilled and knowledgeable scientific observers of nature.” By the time 

West Point graduates began their Army careers, they already understood 

“their country’s geography, meteorology, and geological composition. 

They could prepare detailed topographical maps of its mountains and 

valleys. They had learned to identify and sketch its flora and fauna. And 

they had been trained to write about the natural environment with scientific 

clarity and precision.” Academy men “stood out for merging scientific and 

aesthetic perspectives on nature” and were christened “earthy patriots.” 7

Meyerson also described a socioeconomic aspect of nineteenth-century 

West Point graduates. Because the young country’s citizens feared that the 

U.S. Military Academy could become a source for an undemocratic officer 

corps, university administrators purposely avoided an “aristocratical” 

selection process. The congressional district nomination system created 

a student body that closely resembled the national population. Each West 

Point cadet also learned that “he belongs no longer to section or party, 

but, in his life and all his faculties, to his country,” and was instilled with 

a strong sense of public service. Through these principles, the U.S. Army 

became an “embodiment of ideas, of national community” and officers 

“patriotic defenders of another equally American civic value system.” 8

Capt. William Ludlow, a West Point-trained topographer, demonstrated 

the values and skills he learned at the academy in 1875 while leading 

the third Army expedition to the Yellowstone area of western Wyoming, 

which had become a national park in 1872. In addition to charting routes 

to existing Army forts, Ludlow sought to examine more thoroughly 
15

Yellowstone’s zoology, geology, and paleontology and recruited respected 

scientists George Bird Grinnell and Edward S. Dana to join the expedition.9

In his official report of the reconnaissance mission, Ludlow provided 

maps of their routes, personal field notes and sketches, astronomical 

observations, and separate reports from Dana and Grinnell. Ludlow’s 

report is best known for his recommendation to transfer the park “to the 

control of the War Department” to protect natural artifacts from tourists’ 

hammers and wildlife from local poachers’ rifles. He agreed with earlier 

Army Yellowstone explorers’ efforts to restrain concessional development 

within the new national park by the national railroads and wealthy business 

entrepreneurs and to keep miners and land developers at a safe distance 

from the park’s wildlife.10

Ludlow fully supported Grinnell’s zoological report, which called 

attention to the “terrible destruction of large game, for their hides alone. . . . 

Buffalo, elk, mule-deer, and antelope are being slaughtered by thousands 

each year, without regard to age or sex, and at all seasons.” Grinnell feared 

the ultimate extermination of these animals, especially buffalo, unless the 

Army stepped in to drive off the skin hunters. He differentiated between the 

Company F, 6th Cavalry, posed with the Fallen Monarch, circa 1900. The giant sequoia 

fell centuries earlier in Mariposa Grove, California, in an area that became part of 

Yosemite National Park. The U.S. Army maintained authority over Yosemite and other 

park areas until 1916, when the National Park Service was founded. Library of Congress.
16

“better class of frontiersman, guides, hunters, and settlers” who practiced 

early sportsmanship behavior, in contrast to the market hunters engaged in 

“wholesale and short-sighted slaughter” of wildlife.11

As a result of Ludlow’s report and other early conservationists’ calls 

to defend the park, Congress, in a series of moves in the early 1880s, 

granted the U.S. Army authority over Yellowstone National Park, which 

continued until 1916 when Congress established the National Park Service. 

Under Army leadership, all wood gathering and livestock grazing within 

Yellowstone’s boundaries became illegal; the transport of dead game, even 

if killed legally outside Yellowstone, across park borders was forbidden; 

and after 1897, all park visitors were required to surrender their weapons 

at the park’s entrances.12 In 1890, the Army also assumed command of 

Yosemite National Park and responsibility for protection of its land and 

wildlife resources.13

During this same era, in 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner 

declared that the American frontier, which had forged the country’s 

character, had ceased to exist.14 It was also the period in which Americans 

first awakened to the looming scarcity of natural resources.15 A century 

later, historian William Cronon observed that it was “no accident that the 

movement to set aside national parks and wilderness areas began to gain 

real momentum at precisely the time that laments [like Turner’s] about 

The heads of poached bison, seized by the U.S. Army at Yellowstone National Park. 

They may have been taken from Ed Howell, a notorious poacher who was captured in 

1894 with ten hides in his possession. Yellowstone National Park.
17

the passing of the frontier reached their peak.” He believed that “in the 

myth of the vanishing frontier lay the seeds of wilderness preservation in 

the United States, for if wild land had been so crucial in the making of the 

nation, then surely one must save its last remnants as monuments to the 

American past—and as an insurance policy to protect its future.” 16

The Sportsman’s Ethic and Officers’ Noblesse Oblige

Historian John F. Reiger has asserted that beginning in the 1870s 

and through the end of the century, sportsmen—hunters and fishermen—

were the first group of Americans to recognize the severe depletion of 

fish and game and led early U.S. conservation efforts.17 In American 

Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation, he argued that the American 

patrician class fashioned an American sportsman’s code of conduct that 

laid the groundwork for a formal conservation movement.18 This “code 

of the sportsman” had Old World aristocratic roots that emphasized that 

a gentleman hunted or fished for recreation rather than commerce or 

necessity. This self-imposed protocol required that “game should not be 

killed in the breeding season or sold for profit; that it should be taken only 

in reasonable numbers, without waste; and that it should be pursued only 

by means of sporting methods. The individual fish, bird, or mammal was 

to have a ‘fair chance’ of escape.” Reiger added that a “‘true sportsman’ 

of the upper classes came to see himself as superior to the great majority 

of hunters and fishermen at least partly because of the generous spirit 

he supposedly manifested toward the game” and decried the actions 

of poachers and the wastefulness of market hunters and commercial 

fishing companies. The gentleman sportsman also mastered naturalist 

skills because “the best hunters are those who ‘know’ the game and its 

habits.” Further, these gentlemen sportsmen shared the patricians’ sense 

of noblesse oblige that engendered an innate right to set policies to protect 

the American peoples’ wildlife assets.19

The Boone and Crockett Club, the exclusive sportsmen’s group and 

wildlife lobbying organization founded by Theodore Roosevelt and other 

patrician outsdoorsmen in 1887, embodied the gentleman sportsmen’s view 

that conservation was a means of protecting America’s frontier heritage 

and fostered a culture of masculinity during that period of rapid American 

industrialization. The club’s mission focused on “conservation and 

management of wildlife, especially big game, and its habitat, to preserve 

and encourage hunting and to maintain the highest ethical standards of 

fair chase and sportsmanship in America.” 20 In its early years, the club 

also supported founding member George Grinnell’s desire to expand and 
18

protect Yellowstone National Park; lobbied to end commercial market 

hunting; and promoted the creation of the National Park, National Forest, 

and National Wildlife Refuge systems.21

The views of gentleman sportsmen were widely expressed in popular 

outdoors weekly and monthly publications that began appearing in the 

late 1800s. Through these magazines, sportsmen learned of new fish 

and game laws and the reasoning behind other conservation programs. 

Magazines like The American Sportsman (founded 1871), Forest and 

Stream (1873), and American Angler (1881) were available to anyone 

interested in hunting and fishing.22

Readers of these publications may have included the boys who were 

raised in this early era of conservation awareness and would grow up to 

become military leaders in the 1950s. As young men, these future military 

leaders hunted and fished in small towns across the country. According to 

sociologist Morris Janowitz’s empirical research on high-ranking military 

leaders in the 1950s, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political 

Portrait, almost 70 percent of Army and Air Force leaders came from rural 

towns of less than 2,500 people. That “out-of-doors existence, the concern 

with nature, sport, and weapons which is part of rural culture,” influenced 

many men from these areas to join the military.23

Several of the young men born in the late 1800s and early 1900s who 

grew up in this milieu and later led the Air Force received West Point 

educations and were instilled with the academy’s appreciation for the 

nation’s natural resources. These cadets included Henry H. Arnold, class of 

1907; Carl A. Spaatz, class of 1914; Nathan F. Twining, class of 1918; and 

Thomas D. White, class of 1920. All were enthusiastic outsdoorsmen.24

Military leaders of the middle twentieth century displayed many 

of the same social traits of previous generations’ gentlemen sportsmen. 

Like earlier sport fishermen and hunters, military elites’ code of honor, 

which specifies how officers ought to behave, led them to assume that 

they were standard-bearers who embodied the superior virtues of men 

and transcended the commercialism of the business classes. According 

to Janowitz, professional soldiers believed that toughness and tenacity 

were moral virtues of military officers and that urbanization weakened 

these natural traits in men. Officers of the period felt they were best 

“equipped to counteract these effete tendencies.” The professional soldier 

was expected to be “‘above politics’ in domestic affairs” to ensure the 

military’s partisan neutrality. Janowitz explained that four basic elements 

comprised the components of professional officers’ honor code—

gentlemanly conduct, personal fealty, self-regulating brotherhood, and 

the pursuit of glory—the most significant being gentlemenly conduct. 
19

According to traditional concepts, gentlemen upheld social manners 

and considered “enforced rejection of monetary pursuits as the highest 

personal value.” 25

Even without great personal wealth, young officers who became senior 

leaders in the 1950s developed strong ties to the civilian upper social 

classes and exhibited etiquette comparable to “upper crust” American 

families. Certain military customs and protocol were “carry-overs from 

old-fashioned ‘high society,’ after which the military sought to model 

itself.” For example, a man “should be able to tell a good story, but he 

should not be a notorious braggart; a man should be able to drink a lot, 

but he should not be an alcoholic; it is good to be well educated, but not to 

show off your education.” 26

According to Janowitz, members of the military elite were “energetic 

socializers, and they work[ed] hard at their ceremonial obligations. 

No other occupation, with the exception of professional diplomacy, is 

so concerned with courtesy and protocol. ‘Old fashioned’ politeness 

and formal manners survive, although they have been adapted to the 

realities of modern organizational life.” Senior naval officers, most of 

President Theodore Roosevelt and naturalist John Muir in 1903 at Glacier Point 

overlooking Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park, California. Roosevelt, one of 

the founders of the Boone and Crockett Club, was seen as the epitome of the turn-ofthe-century gentleman sportsman. Library of Congress.
20

whom were U.S. Naval Academy graduates, had received training in 

proper social behavior—poise, formal ballroom etiquette, formal dinner 

manners, after-dinner conversation. Army officers also displayed “old 

fashioned” politeness.27

Of all the services, Janowitz viewed the Air Force, established as an 

independent service in 1947, as the most sensitive about military protocol. 

He found that the Air Force, the newest service, “displays all the concern 

and rigidity of the newly arrived.” As such, the Air Force operated by its 

own standards of behavior and sought to impose stricter military protocol 

on its members.28

Each of the services sought different paths to establish social contact 

with the upper classes. Naval officers engaged in yachting and boating with 

local elites, and Army officers played bridge and polo and rode horseback 

with them. Although the Air Force often relied on the other services and 

their traditional activities for entrée to traditional upper-class circles, it also 

actively engaged with entertainers and members of the mass communications 

industry to broaden its access to higher-prestige social groups.29

While military elites became accepted members of American power 

cliques, sometimes marrying into families with inherited wealth, in general 

they were as Janowitz described, “like ‘second cousins’ to established 

upper-class socialite families.” Even though military leaders had increased 

power and influence after World War II, they did not integrate into the 

upper classes because “in the United States upper-class gentility is based 

on inherited wealth and not on public service alone, and the military 

profession is no road to wealth.” 30 Sociologist C. Wright Mills had 

presaged Janowitz’s findings when he wrote in The Power Elite that senior 

military officers have been “men of the upper-middle classes rather than 

truly higher or definitely lower classes” and that the military honor code 

served as their source of prestige, their “pay-off” for renouncing political 

power and excessive monetary remuneration.31

Elite military leaders’ social origins, their strict adherence to custom 

and protocol, and their penchant for recreational fishing and hunting linked 

them with the social circles of the previous generations of sportsmen who 

had fostered the early conservation movement.32 These factors, combined 

obliquely, suggest that elite military leaders were predisposed to recognize 

natural resource problems in the first half of the twentieth century. Later, 

their friendships with civilian sportsmen-conservationists expanded their 

knowledge of emerging ecological concepts and of the critical need for 

environmental restoration. As a result, when military leaders who were 

enlightened about natural resource challenges were presented with an 

opportunity to help implement fish and wildlife conservation programs 
21

on lands under their control in the 1950s, they did so willingly. As a 

nascent service, the Air Force in the 1950s patterned much of its military 

etiquette and ceremony on the older Army and Navy, yet it also sought to 

establish distinct standards of behavior and methods of social integration. 

It would also apply this inventive approach to managing natural resources 

conservation on military lands.

The Military and Natural Resources in the Early

Twentieth Century

The twentieth-century Army into which these young officers were 

commissioned extended the conservation engagement of its smaller 

nineteenth-century predecessor. As described above, its stewardship of 

several national parks continued until the eve of U.S. involvement in 

World War I. In a notable conservation effort during the war, the U.S. 

Army Air Service instituted a selective logging program to preserve 

The mixing of society and the young elite of the U.S. Army Air Corps, circa 1930. 

Seated at right is Maj. Carl A. “Tooey” Spaatz, next to Amelia Earhart. At left on the 

front is Maj. Gen. James E. Fechet, chief of the Air Corps. The servicemen standing 

are (left to right) Sgt. Roy G. Hooe, Capt. Ira C. Eaker, and 1st Lt. Elwood R. “Pete” 

Quesada, the men of Spaatz’s Question Mark crew. The other civilians are unknown. 

Spaatz, Eaker, and Quesada all rose to become general officers. Library of Congress.
22

Pacific Northwest spruce forests for airplane lumber.*

 In the infancy of 

flight, aircraft production required perfectly straight-grained lumber from 

logs at least twenty-two feet in length. Only certain spruce trees could 

meet those specifications. The Sitka spruce available to the military 

grew in relative isolation, and typically only one spruce per acre proved 

suitable for aircraft. To access the most board feet of usable spruce in 

the compressed schedule of the wartime emergency, the commander of 

the Spruce Production Division of the Bureau of Aircraft Production, 

Col. Brice P. Disque, opted to employ selective logging techniques that 

were unpopular and uneconomical at the time. He sent timber cruisers 

to mark the “fugitive spruce” that met the high standards, and only those 

trees were logged. If selective cutting had not been used, more than an 

estimated 16 billion feet of lumber would have been taken for which there 

was no immediate use. More significantly, the process staved off depletion 

of forests for ten to twenty years. This selective logging was, according 

to the Spruce Production Division historian, a “conservation measure of 

large proportions.” 33

After World War I, the Army Air Service sought new missions to 

maintain its relevancy and its flyers’ competency. In early 1919, U.S. 

Army Lt. Col. Coert duBois, still in uniform after his recent discharge 

from the Corps of Engineers and soon to assume responsibility as the 

U.S. Forest Service district forester for the Western District, based in San 

Francisco, walked into a Bay-area bar and struck up a conversation with 

another man in uniform. That officer turned out to be Maj. Henry “Hap” 

Arnold, who was transitioning between assignments from supervisor of 

the Air Service at Coronado, California, to air officer of the 9th Corps Area 

at the Presidio, in San Francisco, in charge of the U.S. Army Air Service in 

California. Arnold lamented to duBois that demobilization cutbacks were 

undermining his flyers’ proficiency and observed that even civilian-related 

assignments “would keep them pepped up and maybe let the public know 

they used to have an Air Force.” 34

* The lineage of the U.S. Air Force includes several different designations as its mission 

evolved. For the purposes of this work, the name modifications and the timing of those 

changes are as follows: the Aeronautical Division, U.S. Army Signal Corps, August 1, 

1907–July 17, 1914; Aviation Section, U.S. Army Signal Corps, July 18, 1914–May 23, 

1918; the U.S. Army Air Service (USAAS), May 24, 1918–July 2, 1926; the U.S. Army 

Air Corps (USAAC), July 2, 1926–September 18, 1947; the USAAC was concurrently a 

subordinate element of the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) from June 20, 1941–September 

18, 1947; and the U.S. Air Force (USAF), as an independent military service, September 

18, 1947–present. U.S. Air Force Historical Studies Office, “Fact Sheet: 1907–1947,” 

http://www.afhso.af.mil/topics/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=15235; U.S. Air Force, “Air 

Force History Overview,” http://www.airforcehistory.af.mil/overview/index.asp.
23

That evening over dinner, Arnold and duBois conceived the idea of 

using Air Service pilots to search for fires. This chance encounter led to 

the first large-scale use of aircraft for aerial forest patrols for detection, 

suppression, and prevention of wildfires.35 Air Service pilots operated 

aerial reconnaissance patrols out of March and Rockwell Fields in Southern 

California and Mather Field in the north over national forests. Airmen also 

parachuted supplies to fire camps and made the first water “bomb” test 

drops. Arnold sponsored a joint airman/forester training conference in 

1920 at March Field where pilots and foresters exchanged professional 

expertise, with the former providing courses on flying, map reading, and 

radio communication and the latter teaching forestry basics, Forest Service 

organization and mission, and methods of safeguarding timber.36

To maintain the morale of pilots and fire observers who flew long, 

hazardous missions over mountainous and vast forested expanses of land, 

the Air and Forest Services established a recreational camp where the 

flyers could relax. The camp allowed the forest patrolmen a chance to get 

“away from the continuous roar of his motor; from the constant vibration 

of the plane; from the strain and worry of flying over a country which 

affords no safe landing fields.” Once at the camp in Gold Lake, California, 

Loggers with the Spruce Production Division of the Bureau of Aircraft Production in 

Washington state during World War I with a twenty-two-ton section of a spruce tree. 

Selective logging during the conflict saved an estimated 16 billion feet of lumber for 

which there would have been no immediate use. USAF.
24

From 1919 to 1924, pilots of the U.S. Army Air Service flew fire patrol missions 

across California. Maj. Henry A. “Hap” Arnold conceived the idea for the patrols in 

conjunction with the district forester for the U.S. Forest Service. Arnold believed the 

patrols helped pilots maintain proficiency, while the program generated goodwill for 

the Air Service and provided invaluable support for the Forest Service. USAF.
25

in the Sierra Nevada northwest of Lake Tahoe, flyers were required to “do 

nothing but read, hunt, fish, and rest.” 37

The fire patrol experience forged a strong relationship between Arnold 

and Forest Service leaders, including Fred P. Cronemiller and DeWitt 

“Swede” Nelson, who became Arnold’s lifelong friends and regular 

fishing partners.38 Arnold later wrote that “the finest people anywhere are 

the people who live their lives in the forests and mountains. I mean the 

trained men who run our forest services, our park people, and our fish 

and game workers.” 39 Although the Air Service played a prominent role 

in conserving timber resources and established a precedent for aerial fire 

patrols, its involvement in the forest fire patrol program ended in 1924 

when Congress failed to appropriate funds for the program.40

The U.S. military renewed its contact with conservation activities 

during the Great Depression when Army and Army Air Corps officers 

administered Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) districts and worked 

closely with natural resource professionals to restore the country’s depleted 

lands. Beginning in May 1933, Lt. Col. Arnold, while commander at March 

Field east of Los Angeles, supervised a district of thirty CCC camps, 

composed of more than 7,000 men who fought fires and planted trees across 

the western United States.41 Throughout that time, Arnold enjoyed visiting 

the many CCC camps among the sequoias and across the High Sierras, 

not only to evaluate the work at those camps, but because, as historian 

DeWitt S. Copp wrote, he “loved the out-of-doors, the mountains and the 

trout-laden streams that coursed through them.” 42After his retirement in 

The Civil Conservation Corps conditioning camp at March Field, California, where Lt. 

Col. Henry “Hap” Arnold served as CCC district commander, overseeing thirty camps. 

The photo is from May 1933. USAF.
26

1946, Arnold’s interest in conservation issues continued as he served on 

the California Fish and Game Commission until heart problems forced his 

resignation in 1948.43 While on the commission, Arnold sought to increase 

public conservation education and corresponded on the topic with R. Aldo 

Leopold, the renowned ecology and wildlife expert and author of the 

seminal environmental book A Sand County Almanac.

44

Several other mid-career officers with similar CCC assignments also 

rose to the heights of military leadership. Future Army generals George C. 

Marshall and Mark W. Clark both directed several Civilian Conservation 

Corps districts, and future Air Force general Bernard A. Schriever was 

employed as a civilian CCC administrator between stints with the Army 

Air Corps.45 This work put them in direct contact with the efforts of the 

Forest Service, Biological Survey, the Soil Conservation Service, and the 

National Park Service and introduced these rising military leaders to the 

importance of habitat restoration and natural resource conservation. The 

On a fishing respite near Fairbanks during the celebrated B–10B flight he led to Alaska 

in 1934, Lt. Col. Henry “Hap” Arnold (holding fish) met and befriended writers Corey 

H. Ford (far left) and Alastair MacBain (second from right). Arnold used Ford and 

MacBain, who became commissioned officers, to write a series of articles on the Army 

Air Forces during World War II, and Ford and MacBain later mined their extensive 

contacts to help with the establishment of the Air Force’s conservation program in 

the late 1950s. Corey Ford Papers, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.
27

massive effort the military expended to run the CCC camps was repaid by 

CCC enrollees as roughly 90 percent of the three million young men who 

labored in the Corps later served in the armed forces during World War II. 

In addition to improving the health and developing the work skills of these 

men who later became soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen, in 1940, the 

CCC began redirecting its conservation efforts toward national defenserelated projects such as building airplane landing fields and troop barracks 

and training recruits for military service.46

Soon after his CCC experience, in August 1934, Hap Arnold’s love 

of fly fishing brought him into contact with two nationally published 

outdoors writers, author and humorist Corey H. Ford and his writing 

partner, Alastair MacBain, who would later direct the U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service’s public affairs division. The three men met and fished 

in Alaska during a respite Arnold took from his highly touted roundtrip flight of ten Martin B–10B bombers 4,000 miles from Washington, 

D.C., to Fairbanks, Alaska.47 Ford and MacBain’s concurrent Alaska trip 

was part of field research for a series of conservation-related articles on 

the status of American wildlife that George H. Lorimer, editor of the 

Saturday Evening Post, had commissioned earlier in 1934. The writers 

hoped their articles would heighten public awareness about the impact 

of deforestation, erosion, and overgrazing on wildlife habitat and gain 

support for environmental restoration efforts demonstrated by the CCC.

At this time, concerns about the country’s “vanishing wild-life” *

had risen to the highest political levels, with President Franklin D. 

Roosevelt creating the Committee on Wild-Life Restoration to develop 

and supervise a nationwide plan for promoting and protecting wildlife, 

an idea that had been proposed by Thomas H. Beck, editorial director of 

Collier’s magazine and chairman of the Connecticut Board of Fisheries 

and Game.48 Beck chaired Roosevelt’s wild-life committee with members 

Jay N. “Ding” Darling, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist who 

*

 The contemporary spelling of the word “wildlife” has evolved from the late-nineteenth 

century/early-twentieth century use of two words, “wild life,” and the mid-twentieth century 

use of the hyphenated form, “wild-life.” The use of two words or the hyphenated form quoted 

in this work accurately reflects the use in the original source. According to conservationist 

Howard Zahnizer, in the late 1930s, the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) ruled that 

“wildlife” was one word, conforming to the GPO compounding rules that the word conveys 

“a unit idea that is not conveyed by the component words in unconnected succession.” This 

change in expression reflects frequent use or reader recognition of the word units as a unique 

idea. Zahnizer noted that the change of terminology also reflected a change of attitude toward 

and awareness of wildlife as a conservation issue. Howard Zahnizer, “Nation Celebrated 

Wildlife Week; Interest Aroused by Artist, Government Printing Office Recognizes Word as 

One Concept,” Washington Post, March 19, 1939, T11.
28

served as chief of the Bureau of Biological Survey (later the U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service) from 1934 to 1935, and Aldo Leopold, the prominent 

conservationist.49 In its final report to the president, the committee wrote, 

“The destruction of our once abundant wild-life resources, though waste 

and neglect, constitutes one of the sorriest chapters in our national history. 

The knowledge, the facilities, and the funds necessary for restoration are 

available if we will put them to work. Extensive restoration of our wild 

life will re-create a national resource of incalculable value, which will add 

Corey Ford Papers, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.
29

measurably to the health, happiness, and prosperity of the people of the 

United States.” 50

After months of field work in Alaska and across the United States for 

their conservation articles, Ford and MacBain consulted on environmental 

science and policy issues with Darling and Leopold before publishing their 

stories. They also sought advice from other conservation professionals, 

including Ira N. Gabrielson, chief of the Bureau of Biological Survey (1935–

46) and president of the Wildlife Management Institute (1947–70); and Seth 

E. Gordon, president of the American Game Protective Association (later 

the Wildlife Management Institute), two-term member of the Pennsylvania 

Game Commission, conservation director of the Izaak Walton League, and 

California Fish and Game Commission consultant.51 With these professionals’ 

input, Ford and MacBain fashioned numerous articles about the conservation 

problems that existed in the 1930s and their possible solutions that were 

published in mainstream periodicals, including the Saturday Evening Post and

Collier’s. These articles reached a broad audience and served to educate the 

American public about the gloomy status of the country’s fish and wildlife.52

During World War II, in early 1942, Lt. Gen. Arnold, by then chief 

of the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF), recruited his fishing companions, 

Ford and MacBain, to write stories about the young men fighting the war 

in the USAAF. The writers did just that, publishing more than fifty articles 

in popular magazines and several book-length features.53 Initially, the 

journalists embedded as civilians, but after MacBain was drafted, Arnold 

commissioned Ford as a major and MacBain as a captain on February 

25, 1944, to keep them under his command.54 Ford and MacBain’s stories 

Among the leading conservationists whom Corey Ford and Alastair MacBain consulted 

were Aldo Leopold (left, Aldo Leopold Foundation) and Ira Gabrielson (right, Library 

of Congress). When Hap Arnold served on the California Fish and Game Commission 

after his retirement, he also corresponded with Leopold.
30

provided Arnold a voice to citizens across the United States; explained the 

role of the USAAF in the war effort; generated favorable publicity for the 

aviators; and helped set the stage for Air Force independence following 

the war. The articles ranged from a series on the Alaskan Air Patrol to 

the Hump55 pilots flying dangerous routes in the Himalayan Mountains 

of China, Burma, and India. While researching these reports, Ford and 

MacBain received letters of introduction from Arnold that helped them 

establish or renew relationships with Generals Spaatz, Twining, Curtis 

E. LeMay, George E. Stratemeyer, and the director of the Office of 

Strategic Services (precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA), 

Maj. Gen. William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan—friendships and working 

associations that would endure.56 In turn, Ford and MacBain’s personal 

and professional association with the first commanders of the U.S. Air 

Force afforded the writers opportunities to convey their understanding of 

evolving environmental concepts to the generals and helped foster military 

leaders’ sense of responsibility toward the land and its wild inhabitants.57

Corey Ford (left) and Alastair MacBain with Maj. Gen. George E. Stratemeyer, likely 

during the period when Stratemeyer was in Washington as Arnold’s chief of staff, 

mid-1942 to mid-1943. Ford and MacBain later visited Stratemeyer in the field when 

he commanded the Army Air Forces in the China-Burma-India Theater. Corey Ford 

Papers, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.
31

Two

The Newly Independent Air Force, 

Its Culture, and Post-World War II 

Conservation Efforts

The U.S. Air Force traces its origins to the start of the twentieth century 

with the invention of the airplane and later to 1947 when it became an 

independent service. The newness of the service allowed for innovative 

thinking in the post-World War II era, while the backgrounds of Air Force 

leaders, dating to the days of the open cockpit, gave them a connection 

with nature and a willingness to act to preserve it when opportunities arose 

to do so.

Although the Air Service was initially a part of the Signal Corps 

of the U.S. Army, because airmen acquired different skills and used 

different machines, they formed a subculture distinct from that of the 

infantry-dominated Army culture. “The air-going people have a spirit, 

language, and customs of their own,” Brig. Gen. William L. “Billy” 

Mitchell observed in 1925. “These are just as different from those on the 

ground as those of seamen are from those of land men. In fact, they are 

much more so because our sea-going and land-going communities have 

been with us from the inception of time and everybody knows something 

about them, whereas the air-going people form such a new class that 

only those engaged in its actual development and the younger generation 

appreciate what it means.” 1

The experiences of early aviators who sensed both the wonder and the 

terror of flight created a brotherhood among fliers. As Mitchell eloquently 

explained, “Few people outside of the air fraternity itself know or understand 

the dangers that these men face, the lives that they lead and how they 

actually act when in the air, how they find their way across the continent 

with unerring exactness—over mountains, forests, rivers and deserts; what 

they actually do in improving the science and art of flying and how they 

feel when engaged in combat with enemy aircraft. No one can explain these 

things except the airmen themselves.” 2

Scholars have theorized that, as with all large organizations, each of 

the military services has an identity, a set of underlying beliefs and values 

that comprise a corporate character. More precisely, each service has a 
32

distinct personality that is shaped by its historical origins, the personalities 

of its founders, and the means by which it executes its defense roles and 

mission. The military services are also products of American society and 

reflect changing norms, beliefs, and values.3

The emergence of an Air Force culture predates the service’s 

independence in 1947. Early airpower advocates such as Mitchell, Henry 

H. “Hap” Arnold, and Carl A. “Tooey” Spaatz challenged the Army’s 

limited use of air power and vociferously supported strategic bombing as 

a new way of waging and winning wars. When these airmen broke with 

the military tradition of operating apolitically and presented their airpower 

theories to Congress, the press, and the American public, Army leadership 

court-martialed Mitchell and spurned Arnold and Spaatz for supporting 

him. The Army exiled Arnold from Washington, D.C., to Fort Riley, 

Kansas, and Spaatz endured a seventeen-year wait between promotions.4

This experience reinforced Arnold and Spaatz’s nonconformist tendencies 

and helped establish the individualistic tone of the Air Service. Later, 

during its efforts to achieve independence after World War II, the Air 

Force waged political battles with the Navy and the Army that further 

buttressed the service’s distinct set of underlying beliefs and values. This 

early imprinting on its maverick founders’ behavior and values created a 

culture that encouraged Air Force leaders to preemptively act on political 

undercurrents and public perception to maintain budgetary and civic 

support for its air mission.5

Morris Janowitz’s research led him to conclude that Air Force leaders, 

and the distinct service character they cultivated, created an atmosphere 

that fostered innovative thinking. The sociologist’s data demonstrated that 

there were some clear sociological differences among the military elites 

who led the Army, Navy,* and newly independent Air Force. For example, 

the average age of Army Air Forces general officers in 1945, at the end of 

World War II, was 46.9 years, with the youngest being 28. Admirals in the 

Navy averaged 56.4 years, and its youngest was 42. In the Army, general 

officers averaged 51.4 years of age, with the youngest being 34.6

 Air Force 

leaders also differed from the Army and Navy in respect to social origin. 

Air Force elites were almost twice as likely as Army and Navy officers 

to hail from north central states, and air officers were also the least likely 

to have come from southern states. While most military leadership at the 

time had rural backgrounds, the highest percentage from small towns 

with populations less than 2,500 occurred in the Air Force. As of 1950, 

the Air Force also had the lowest percentage of general officers who had 

* Janowitz did not differentiate between members of the Navy and Marines; both the U.S. 

Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy are components of the U.S. Department of the Navy.
33

graduated from the service academies. Of note, 100 percent of Navy and 

Army four-star general or full-admiral grade officers had attended either 

Annapolis or West Point, while only 50 percent of Air Force four-stars had 

been academy graduates.7

Because Air Force generals were younger and had different social 

origins from Army and Navy officers, they likely were more receptive 

to nontraditional ideas, including newly emerging ecological concepts. 

Indeed, biographers of several early Air Force leaders concluded that 

their subjects exhibited individualist tendencies that allowed the fledgling 

service to seek unconventional solutions to the challenges it faced.8

Aviators’ Boundless View of the Land

The proactive approach the Air Force took concerning fish and wildlife 

conservation existed largely because of leaders like Arnold, Spaatz, 

Nathan F. Twining, and Thomas D. White, men who appreciated the 

natural world and who provided high-level authorization and patronage 

for natural resource initiatives in the service. Those leaders were some of 

Early aviation leaders sought publicity for the Air Corps in many ways. Here Lt. 

Col. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold escorted actress Bebe Daniels, soon to star in the movie 

musical 42nd Street, at the air field in Long Beach, California, in October 1932. When 

a devastating earthquake struck Southern California the following spring, Arnold 

coordinated aerial support for relief efforts. USAF.
34

the first men to fly and demonstrated a deep respect for nature’s forces. 

Early aviators in open-air cockpits interacted directly with the earth as 

they deciphered the clouds and winds for clues to turbulence and updrafts 

and observed the trees and grass to determine wind direction and speed. 

Their observations of the earth from above provided an awareness of 

intricate relationships among mountains and prairies, oceans and rivers, 

and forests and fields. As these men found respite from the anxieties 

associated with early flight and wartime pressures in the outdoors—

fishing, hunting, and camping—their intimate knowledge of the natural 

world instilled in them immense deference and appreciation for the earth 

and its inhabitants.9

Aviators’ view from the cockpit afforded them an unparalleled 

perspective of the landscape below. Early airmen marveled at their new 

perceptions of the land. Mitchell illuminated, “The airmen fly over the 

country in all directions constantly, winter and summer they go, as well as 

by night and by day. . . . The pilots of these planes, from vantage points 

on high, see more of the country, know more about it, and appreciate more 

what the country means to them than any other class of persons.” 10 Much 

later in the century, aerial photographer David T. Hanson suggested that 

fliers’ perspectives allowed them a more integrated view of the land, one 

that framed relationships between fragments of the landscape that may 

otherwise seem unrelated on the ground. Aerial observation permits 

viewers from above to analyze ecosystems and recognize how humans 

have altered their landscape.11 Charles A. Lindbergh, the first aviator to 

complete a solo transatlantic flight, articulated the harmony between flight 

and the land: 

I realized that to a flyer’s senses the earth’s size is inversely 

proportional to speed. With a swoop of my wings I could land at a 

town or on a farm below me. With a glance from my cockpit I could 

encompass a desert, a valley, or a mountain range. Flying put me 

in closer contact with the earth through distance, a comprehension 

devolved from a spatial viewpoint. I could experience the ocean’s 

squalls and the hill’s air currents as well as altitude’s distant 

contours and horizons. For me, the airplane shaped the near and 

the far into a single form of gigantic intimacy.” 12

Lindbergh’s flying career corresponded with an era of increasing 

industrialization and urbanization of the United States, and he witnessed 

the resulting profound alteration of the landscape. He wrote later in 

life that “in the decades I spent flying civil and military aircraft, I saw 
35

tremendous changes take place on the earth’s surface. Trees disappeared 

from mountains and valleys. Erosion turned clear rivers yellow. Power 

lines and highways stretched out beyond horizons.” Aviators not only saw 

the land differently, they also distinguished gradual changes occurring on 

the surface of the earth. Lindbergh recognized the relationship between 

the changes in the land and the diminished nature of wildlife, adding that 

“almost everywhere I landed, I heard stories of disappearing wilderness, 

wildlife, and natural resources. Many species of animals that had taken 

epochs to evolve were, within decades, on the verge of extinction.” 13

Lindbergh’s conservation consciousness sprang not only from his 

observations in flight, but also from stories his father told him as a child 

about the senior Lindbergh’s boyhood in Minnesota. As the younger 

Lindbergh recalled to a group of conservationists, when his father hunted 

wildlife, “The woods were full of game, and the sky black with ducks. 

His stories fascinated me. But one generation afterwards, there was no 

big game. I envied my Dad for this.” 14 During the last two decades of his 

life, Lindbergh evolved into a passionate and articulate spokesperson for 

Twenty-one-year-old Charles A. Lindbergh in an open cockpit at Lambert Field in St. 

Louis, Missouri, in 1923. Lindbergh fondly recalled his connection to the earth when 

he flew and became an ardent conservationist later in life. He remained close to the 

aviation operations of the U.S. military and, as a civilian contractor, reportedly flew 

as many as fifty combat missions during World War II. Library of Congress.
36

environmental conservation. He served on the board of directors of the 

World Wildlife Fund, worked on behalf of the International Union for 

the Conservation of Nature, and the Nature Conservancy, and President 

Richard M. Nixon appointed him to the President’s Citizens Committee 

on Environmental Quality.15

Lindbergh’s increasing awareness of the degradation of the environment 

through aerial observation presumably was experienced by other early 

aviators who emerged to lead the Air Force. Because Air Force senior 

officers emanated from rural origins more predominately than their Army 

or Navy counterparts, as boys they too heard their fathers’ stories of the 

past generation’s wildlife abundance and observed its depletion.16 Later, as 

adults, many military leaders of the period found respite in the outdoors, 

where they fished for trout in uncharted rivers and scouted the backcountry 

for elk. Their experiences in the natural world from boyhood into 

adulthood raised their awareness that wildlife could not flourish without 

expansive forests and clear streams. As ecologist and wildlife expert R. 

Aldo Leopold wrote, if an individual saw and felt, loved and admired, 

understood and respected the land, it would have greater significance to 

him. Thus the individual who had a personal relationship with the land and 

its inhabitants would value it more and seek to conserve and protect it.17

Airmen had that close connection to the natural world.

Germination of the Air Force Conservation

Program

At the end of World War II, what conservation efforts that existed on 

U.S. military bases were informal and often centered on the activities of 

rod and gun clubs on the installations. Base commanders set local hunting 

and fishing policies, rarely in conjunction with federal, state, and local 

wildlife officials. The newly independent U.S. Air Force was the first 

service to take steps toward a more cohesive policy. In 1948, as commander 

of all military forces in Alaska, Air Force Lt. Gen. Nathan Twining, an 

enthusiastic sportsman and conservationist, met with the Alaska regional 

director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Clarence J. Rhode, 

to discuss issues the USFWS had with service members violating hunting 

regulations and problems the USFWS encountered patrolling its large, 

mostly unpopulated region to enforce fish and game laws. As a result of the 

meeting, each large Air Force installation within the command appointed 

military game wardens to investigate alleged violations committed by 

military personnel. Also in response to Twining’s initiative, Maj. Gen. 

Joseph H. Atkinson, the concurrent head of the Alaskan Air Command, 
37

established the Alaskan Command Wildlife Conservation Program that his 

successors vigorously carried out.18

Prior to these actions, U.S. military service personnel stationed in large 

numbers in Alaska during World War II had earned a negative reputation 

with local citizens for their wanton destruction of wildlife. Under wartime 

conditions, the only real recreation for off-duty personnel at these remote 

military installations was in the surrounding countryside. Every serviceman 

had his own firearm and plenty of ammunition. As a result, local wildlife 

populations experienced greatly intensified hunting and fishing pressures. 

After the war ended in 1945, local citizens grew weary of servicemen 

who often violated local fish and game laws. Between 1945 and 1947, 

numerous court cases against military men for game law breaches caused 

the U.S. Army and Army Air Forces great embarrassment and strained 

public relations with the local population. When General Twining took 

over the Alaskan Command in late 1947, he sought a constructive solution 

to the problem and found a willing partner in Rhode, a licensed pilot who 

trained his wildlife biologists to fly so they could conduct aerial game 

surveys and provide supplies for their field camps.19

A moose outside the headquarters of Alaskan Command at Elmendorf Air Force Base. In 

1948, as the head of the command, Lt. Gen. Nathan B. Twining worked with the U.S. Fish 

and Wildlife Service to establish a command-wide wildlife conservation program. Photo 

(2005) by TSgt. Keith Brown. USAF.
38

As part of the program initiated in 1948, the commander of each 

large Alaska Air Force installation appointed a military game warden to 

assist local agents’ investigations of hunting and fishing law violations 

committed by military personnel. The bases established rod and gun clubs 

to indoctrinate newcomers to the principles of proper game conservation. 

According to the Alaskan Air Command Wildlife Conservation Program 

manual, circa 1953, “The commander desires that all military personnel 

be afforded every opportunity to enjoy the natural resources of Alaska, 

. . . utilize them as you would your personal resources. Wisely—without 

Clarence J. Rhode, the Alaska regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 

worked with Maj. Gen. Nathan Twining to develop a wildlife conservation program 

for Alaskan Command. U.S. Biological Survey, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
39

waste—leave something for tomorrow.” Successive Alaskan Air Command 

leaders continued Twining’s conservation agenda during the early Cold 

War years, adhering to the belief that “wildlife conservation is a component 

part of National Defense. Without natural resources, of all types, in general 

abundance, there can be little national security.” 20

Alaskan Air Command’s Wildlife Conservation Program proved an 

exception to most military land management strategies of the time and 

established a new precedent for military natural resource programs. While 

the Air Force needed large land tracts for overflight and bomb testing 

purposes, it did not have a physical footprint over its entire acreage and 

as a result could be more flexible in conserving the habitat for fish and 

wildlife resources.21 In contrast, the U.S. Army’s natural resource program 

had focused largely on erosion and pest control during World War II. The 

Army prioritized erosion control because poor soil conditions hampered 

troop training and tank activities on the ground. It also worked on 

eradicating disease-carrying insects and vermin to keep its troops healthy. 

After the war, the Army’s natural resource program concentrated on timber 

production, fire control, agricultural leasing, and pest control. However, a 

lack of command support and limited budgets impeded development of a 

comprehensive conservation program, which the Army did not establish 

until the mid-1960s.22

The Navy’s World War II-era natural resource policies emphasized 

runoff control and soil stabilization projects to protect naval facility lands 

U.S. Army troops water an air installation in 1945 to reduce dust and erosion. They followed 

the water application with a layer of oil. U.S. War Department Technical Manual TM 5-630.
40

and engineering improvements to guard against wind and water damage. 

In 1960, the Navy consolidated control over its forest, soil, and wildlife 

conservation programs in the Natural Resources Management Branch, 

under the Bureau of Yards and Docks.23 By the time the Navy and Army 

formalized their conservation policies, the Air Force had more than a 

decade of experience with effective natural resource management projects.

The Air Force’s fish and wildlife conservation efforts received 

grounding in statute on October 11, 1949, when President Harry Truman 

signed into law H.R. 2418, “Eglin Field Reservation—Wildlife, Fish, and 

Game Conservation Act,” the original Sikes Act, Public Law 91–345.24

This act directed the secretary of the Air Force to create a program at 

Eglin Field, Florida,*

 for “planning, development, maintenance, and 

coordination of wildlife, fish, and game conservation and rehabilitation” 

in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The law also 

authorized the Air Force to issue hunting and fishing licenses for a fee, 

funds that in turn could be used to support wildlife conservation activities 

at Eglin, and exempted the Air Force from having to transfer those funds 

into the U.S. Treasury.25

Prior to the bill’s passage, the Air Force had no authority to reinvest 

the money accrued from license fees in its conservation program. In 

October 1947, the U.S. comptroller general had asserted that officials at 

Eglin could not legally administer fees collected for permits to hunt and 

fish on the installation. Instead, permit funds had to be deposited with the 

treasurer of the United States. In response, Brig. Gen. Carl A. Brandt, the 

commander at Eglin, wrote the Air Force chief of staff, General Spaatz, 

and requested that Air Force headquarters seek “Congressional or other 

required action” to allow hunting fees to be used for wildlife conservation 

and restocking on his base.26

When the issue first surfaced, Congressman Robert L. F. “Bob” Sikes, 

who represented the Florida district in which Eglin was located, was at his 

home near the air field. After gathering information from Brandt, Sikes 

quickly engaged his staff. On October 15, 1947, the congressman wrote 

the senior secretary in his Washington office, Merrill Y. Winslett, asking 

him to contact the Air Force chief of staff’s office and urge General Spaatz 

* The Army used the term “air field” to refer to its installations prior to the creation of the 

U.S. Air Force as an independent military service in September 1947. The Air Force designed 

its installations as bases and capitalized them when used with a named base; for example, 

Eglin Field became Eglin Air Force Base after independence. Because the timeline of this 

subject matter is on both sides of the 1947 transition, the correct term relative to the date 

is used in reference to air installations. An Air Force reservation is the land reserved for 

bombing or gunnery practice. Woodford A. Heflin, The United States Air Force Dictionary

(Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand, 1956), 20, 26, 201, 327.
41

to authorize Eglin’s commander to collect the hunting and fish permit fees. 

Sikes added that it was likely that a new law would have to be passed 

to allow permanent collection of the monies and wrote, “I am willing to 

undertake passage of such legislation. . . . This is very important to me and 

I want it expedited in every way possible.” 27

Sikes’s telegrams and telephone calls elicited quick responses from 

Air Force leaders. Secretary of the Air Force W. Stuart Symington 

informed the congressman on October 23 that he was looking into the 

matter, and General Spaatz’s office replied to Sikes on October 27 that Air 

Force headquarters had no objection to the Eglin commander continuing 

the practice of collecting hunting and fishing fees for use in conservation 

practices.28 However, the Air Force comptroller and inspector general’s 

offices overruled Symington and Spaatz and dictated that funds could not 

be collected without congressional authority. Fully aware of the hindrance 

this created for his sportsmen constituents who hunted and fished at Eglin, 

and for the Air Force tenants on the Florida Panhandle, Sikes initiated the 

legislative process to redress the issue.29

An undated photo shows a pier on Weekly Bayou at Eglin Air Force Base. This 

installation, on the Florida Panhandle just northeast of Fort Walton Beach, became 

the center of a debate in 1947 over the collection of fishing and hunting fees. The 

U.S. congressman from the district, Robert L. F. “Bob” Sikes, sponsored legislation 

to codify the practice. The Sikes Act, passed in 1949, established benchmarks for 

military environmental policies. Library of Congress.
42

The 1949 Sikes Act for Eglin Air Field

Bob Sikes was born in Georgia in 1906 and settled in Florida in 1928. 

After a stint as a newspaper owner and publisher, the Democrat won a 

congressional election in 1940 and represented the Florida Panhandle 

in the U.S. House of Representatives for thirty-eight years, from 1941 

to 1979. During his time in office, Sikes, who rose to chairmanship of 

the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, built 

his district into an arsenal, with fourteen military bases at the height of 

his career in the mid-1960s.30 Sikes is also credited with creating the 

Gulf Islands National Seashore and shepherding numerous conservation 

and forestry bills through Congress that helped the once-barren Florida 

Panhandle recover from years of destructive farming and logging 

practices.31 Recognized as a proponent of safeguarding the panhandle’s 

natural resources and an avid hunter and fisherman, Sikes loved the Florida 

natural environment and used his position of power to protect it. According 

to one U.S. Forest Service forester in Florida, Sikes was to “forestry what 

Edison was to electricity—he brings the light. Bob fits the description of a 

great conservationist.” Sikes also understood how the military functioned 

based on his own military service, and he maintained strong relationships 

with uniformed leaders. In 1944, Sikes temporarily left Congress to join 

the U.S. Army at the rank of major and served under Maj. Gen. William 

L. Donovan. Sikes remained a U.S. Army Reserve officer after the war, 

reaching the rank of major general at the time of his retirement in 1967.32

When the opportunity arose to assist his state’s military landholders and 

local sportsmen, Sikes proposed the necessary legislation. In February 1948, 

he introduced H.R. 5506, “A bill to authorize restocking, propagation, and 

conservation of game in the Eglin Field Reservation,” designed to authorize 

all of the funds collected through the sale of hunting and fishing permits 

at Eglin to be expended to improve fish and game populations at the base. 

When the bill did not progress through congressional channels during that 

session, Sikes reintroduced identical legislation on February 7, 1949.33

The most strident opponent of the Sikes bill was Lindsay G. Warren, 

the comptroller general of the United States, who asserted that this type of 

special legislation, allowing public monies to be accepted without lawful 

accounting requirements, would establish an undesirable precedent. He 

expressed an additional objection to the bill, echoed by other detractors: 

that “propagation, distribution, and conservation of game appear[ed] 

clearly to be outside the scope of the normal functions of the Department 

of the Air Force . . . [and such legislation was] inconsistent with the efforts 

now being made to eliminate overlapping of activities and to prevent 
43

the expansion of departments . . . into fields which are foreign” to their 

purpose. If Congress did pass the bill, Warren asked that all funds for the 

program be accountable to the comptroller.34

Robert L. F. “Bob” Sikes (D-FL), with the self-proclaimed nickname of “He Coon,” 

served thirty-eight years in Congress. The photo shows him during a tour of Fort 

Richardson, Alaska, in 1964 with Maj. Gen. Ned D. Moore (USA). University of West 

Florida Archives and West Florida History Center.
44

In response to this opposition, Sikes provided Warren details about 

the scope of the fish and wildlife program at Eglin. Sikes explained that 

allowing the Air Force to manage conservation programs on its own lands 

would avoid duplication of effort required by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service, a point on which the Department of the Interior concurred. Sikes 

acquiesced to Warren’s desire for a provision that required the Air Force to 

Gen. Thomas D. White (front) is shown collecting fish in Panama in March 1956 when 

he was vice chief of staff of the Air Force. White had a serious interest in ichthyology, 

and he and his wife had two previously unidentified species of tropical fish named after 

them. Four months after this photo was taken, he began overseeing the establishment of 

the Air Force’s conservation program. Courtesy of the White family.
45

submit an accounting of Eglin’s fish and wildlife conservation funds to the 

comptroller’s office. He successfully converted Warren to his side, and in 

July 1949, the comptroller’s office reported favorably on the bill when it 

came to the Senate floor. Sikes secured passage of the Eglin bill with little 

debate, and H.R. 2418 was signed into law in October.35

Secretary of the Air Force Symington provided crucial support for 

the Eglin conservation program. He wrote the chairman of the House 

Committee on Armed Services, Carl Vinson (D-GA), in May 1949 to 

express the Department of Defense’s, and the Air Force’s, full support 

of Sikes’s resolution: “The Department of the Air Force is of the opinion 

that legislation which has as its design the conservation and propagation 

of fish and wildlife on any Government owned lands, whether they be 

Army, Navy, or Air Force, is worthy of favorable consideration by the 

Congress.” Further, Symington stated that the “Secretary of Defense has 

delegated to this Department [of the Air Force] the responsibility for 

expressing the views of the National Military Establishment” with regard 

to the game conservation bill. This designation, colloquially known as 

“executive agent,” established the Air Force as the proxy for the Pentagon 

on issues related to the Sikes bill and engaged the service in future Defense 

Department natural resource conservation concerns.36

While Sikes frequently communicated directly with the secretary and 

chief of staff of the Air Force as he sought passage of H.R. 2418, he also 

maintained a working rapport with the Air Force Office of Legislative 

Liaison (AFL&L) regarding details of the bill’s language to ensure that 

the service fully backed the legislation. When initially inquiring about 

the conservation funding issue at Eglin, Sikes worked with Brig. Gen. 

John K. Gerhart, director of AFL&L from January 1947 to August 1948. 

Later when the bill was before Congress, Sikes kept Maj. Gen. Thomas 

White, the director of AFL&L from October 1948 to April 1950, “fully 

informed;” in turn, White assured Sikes of his cooperation and supported 

Sikes’s efforts on the legislation.37 This initial involvement with the Sikes 

bill introduced White to natural resource legislation and helped shape his 

outlook on Air Force fish and wildlife conservation programs and policies.

White’s awareness and knowledge of the natural world began long 

before his experience with the Sikes Act. Born in Minnesota in 1901 and 

reared in Illinois, he was the son of an Episcopal bishop who taught him to 

fish at an early age. His sister recalled that White preferred fishing “better 

than anything else in the world,” particularly at their family’s northern 

Michigan cottage.38 He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 

1920, instilled with many of the West Point values that produced the 

nation’s earliest explorer/engineers.39 As an attaché in the Army Air Corps, 
46

fluent in Chinese, Russian, Italian, Greek, Spanish, and Portuguese, White 

traveled the world on numerous assignments. Wherever he went, he 

packed his fishing tackle. In 1940, on duty in Brazil, the keen outdoorsman 

transformed his fly-fishing hobby into a more serious off-duty pursuit. 

While gathering rare tropical fish for his personal aquarium, White, with 

his wife, Constance, began collecting and preserving specimens for Dr. 

George S. Myers, a renowned ichthyologist at Stanford University. This 

effort led to the discovery of two previously unidentified species of tropical 

fish later named for the general and his wife, “Cynolebias Constanceiae” 

and “Cynolebias Whitei.” 40

Demobilization after World War II caused White to seriously consider 

a career outside the military. Regularly between 1946 and 1949, he queried 

Myers about the “low-down on the ichthyological field” and the admission 

requirements for Stanford’s doctoral program in biology before the Air 

Force promoted him and settled his career path.41 By the time he became 

vice chief of staff of the Air Force in 1953 and chief of staff in 1957, 

General White had a firm grasp of conservation issues in the Air Force. 

His experience with the Sikes legislative process and personal interest in 

safeguarding fish and wildlife would lead White to champion his service’s 

conservation endeavors.

Overall, the legislative activity preceding the Sikes Act’s passage 

served as a valuable experience that educated Air Force leaders about 

the increasing political and social significance of natural resource 

conservation issues. Notably, legislative activity surrounding the bill 

established the Air Force as the executive agent for the Department of 

Defense on such matters. Further, the 1949 law created the framework for 

the more encompassing Sikes Act of 1960, which strengthened cooperation 

between the Defense Department and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on a 

national level. As discussed in chapter 5, subsequent revisions to the Sikes 

Act would resonate for decades to follow in the realm of wildlife and 

habitat conservation, first on military lands, and later on other federally 

managed properties. After 1974, Sikes Act amendments even included 

appropriations for the Departments of Agriculture and Interior to carry out 

conservation and rehabilitation programs on military and other specified 

federally owned lands.42
47

Three

Natural Resources Conservation, the 

Military Land Use Controversy,

and Congressional Challenges

In the decades following World War II, the conservation movement began 

its transformation into the modern environmental movement, although it 

would be many years before it was labeled as such. An effort that once 

emphasized efficient use of forests, water, soil, and wildlife as commodities 

began evolving into an endeavor concerned with environmental protection, 

species preservation, quality of life, population growth, and the impact of 

technology on the natural world.

According to environmental historian Samuel P. Hays, new postwar 

environmental and ecological values reflected increasing standards of 

living and changing attitudes among Americans about what constituted a 

better life. After World War II, technology advanced at an unprecedented 

pace, revolutionizing production methods and fueling postwar economic 

expansion. As incomes rose, more people obtained the necessities of life 

and sought discretionary consumer goods. These expanding economic and 

personal opportunities intensified the depletion of natural resources and 

degraded the environment. At the same time, more Americans gained an 

appreciation of the outdoors and took an interest in protecting nature.1

The increase in financial security coupled with a postwar population 

boom accelerated housing development across the country and transformed 

rural farm and wild lands into suburbs. Heavy industry, radically expanded 

to support the war effort, flourished during the Cold War era and spread 

nationwide, often polluting the country’s rivers and air. Concurrently, 

the first unified theories of ecology emerged and helped educate postwar 

scientists and the general public about environmental problems facing 

the country and the world.2

 Historian Donald Worster asserted that soon 

after the war, Americans began discovering that “the earth was sick, and 

the sickness was our doing.”3

 While it would take more than a decade 

before the conservation movement would begin fully responding to the 

ecological challenges presented by vast postwar social and economic 

changes, a “protoenvironmental consciousness” emerged in the late 1940s 

and 1950s and arguably encouraged the military’s conservation efforts.4
48

Conservation professionals experienced firsthand this shift in public 

attitude toward the environment before and immediately after World 

War II. In 1940, the International Association of Game, Fish, and 

Wildlife Conservation Commissioners noted in its annual convention 

proceedings the successes their profession had achieved in restoring 

North American wildlife during the 1930s. However, with the impending 

war, the organization feared that wildlife resources would be exploited in 

the name of patriotism. When the United States entered the conflict, this 

concern manifested itself as the federal government gave the military large 

segments of National Wildlife Refuge land for training and operations. 

After the war, wildlife professionals redoubled their restoration efforts 

by developing reliable water supplies for waterfowl, replanting cutover 

forests and deserted farmland with trees and shrubs, and restocking 

animal populations in regions where they had been extirpated.5

 While they 

achieved significant tangible success in reviving their earlier conservation 

efforts, most wildlife experts eschewed natural resource politics, allowing 

politicians to assume leadership in the arena of government policy.6

In the 1950s, natural resource professionals confronted a fresh challenge 

to their labors as the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration consigned its 

conservation efforts to politicos. Conservation historian James Trefethen 

opined that the result of Eisenhower’s conservation agenda “for most of 

the federal conservation programs was near disaster.” 7 The new secretary 

of the interior, J. Douglas McKay (1953–56), former Oregon governor and 

Chevrolet dealership owner, introduced the spoils system to the U.S. Fish 

and Wildlife Service and catered to private oil, gas, and timber companies 

that actively sought access to National Wildlife Refuge System lands for 

development. He was dubbed the “Giveaway King” by the Democratic 

National Committee and “Generous Doug” by journalist Drew Pearson. In 

three years under McKay, the Department of the Interior issued sixty-four 

oil and gas exploration permits on wildlife refuges; in the previous eleven 

years, it had issued only twenty-two such permits. McKay also granted 

private mining, timber, and grazing interests large parcels of land from the 

public domain.8

In 1955, McKay endorsed the Bureau of Reclamation’s bid to build the 

massive Echo Park Dam in Colorado within Dinosaur National Monument, 

a part of the National Park system, which conservationists vehemently 

opposed. When the final bill authorizing the dam reached Congress in 

April 1955, anti-dam protestors organized more than 300 state and national 

sporting and wildlife groups to demonstrate against the perceived invasion 

of the National Parks.9

 By the time activists successfully lobbied members 

of Congress to remove the Echo Park Dam from the larger Colorado River 
49

Storage Project in July, national conservation policies had emerged as a 

significant political issue. Historian Hal K. Rothman contended that the 

political endeavor to defeat this dam project politically revolutionized 

conservation in the United States into a complex social movement, and 

ultimately, “conservation was reborn as environmentalism.” Professional 

conservationists developed strategies to defend their ground, and citizens 

awoke to the impending threats to their public spaces.10 The Department 

of Defense (DOD) and the U.S. Air Force would soon feel the force of this 

energized movement.

Growing Public Outdoor Participation

Postwar social change and population growth intensified human 

pressures on limited recreational resources and spawned public frustration 

over ineffective federal land policies, particularly in respect to how much 

land the military was acquiring. In the 1950s through the early 1960s, 

personal income, leisure time, and mobility increased, and the United States 

grew increasingly suburban.11 At the same time, use of outdoor recreation 

areas soared, while available outdoor resources remained stagnant. For 

Had the Echo Park Dam been built in Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado, in the 

1950s, much of the area in the foreground along the Green River, including 800-foot-tall 

Steamboat Rock (center), would have been submerged. National Park Service.
50

example, the number of visits to the National Park system rose from 6 

million in 1942 to 33 million in 1950 and 72 million in 1960, though park 

facilities remained essentially the same until the mid-1950s. During the 

immediate postwar years, attendance rose 10 percent at National Forests; 12 

percent at National Wildlife Refuges; and 28 percent at Corps of Engineers 

reservoirs.12 The number of hunting and fishing licenses purchased during 

this time demonstrates the dramatic rise in participation in those activities. 

In 1940, fishing licenses in the United States totaled 7.93 million. By 

1956, those numbers had rocketed to 18.7 million, a 136 percent increase. 

Hunting licenses rose 89 percent in the same period, from 7.65 million to 

14.46 million. Both increases were significantly greater than the 28 percent 

increase in population, from 132.12 million in 1940 to 168.90 million in 

1956.13 By 1955, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that one 

in every three households in the United States—17 million homes—had 

one or more outdoor sportspersons. Overall, 25 million men, women, and 

children over age twelve—one in every five persons—fished or hunted in 

1955. Of that number, one in six households in cities with populations over 

500,000 had hunters or fishermen; one in three households in small cities 

and suburbs; one in three households in towns with populations greater 

than 2,500 outside urban areas; and one in two households in rural areas 

with populations less than 2,500.14 More Americans also sought enjoyment 

The crowded Fishing Bridge on Yellowstone Lake at Yellowstone National Park during 

the summer of 1962. Public participation in outdoor recreational activities such as 

fishing increased exponentially in the years following World War II, as did visitation at 

the country’s national parks. National Park Service.
51

from observing wildlife, and by 1964, wildlife watchers numbered 50 

million. Organizations like the National Wildlife Federation and National 

Audubon Society expanded their efforts to protect migratory birds and 

mammals and their habitat and also helped educate Americans about the 

need to preserve the quality of the environment.15

Military Land Acquisition

When the United States entered World War II, the War and Navy 

Departments procured land for training and operational needs through 

several avenues: purchasing from private owners; leasing from individuals, 

municipalities, and state governments; and transferring and leasing from 

the public domain—that is, land belonging to the U.S. federal government 

not reserved for any particular public purpose, primarily forest or grazing 

property. The outright purchase of land for military purposes differed 

from typical property sales with a willing seller and willing buyer. When 

the military sought land from multiple owners in a large area, often some 

owners did not want to sell their property. In the absence of a voluntary sale, 

the federal government could employ the General Condemnation Statute, 

the Declaration of Taking Act, or the War Powers Act to take immediate 

possession of the property while negotiations over payment concluded.16

During the war, when the military acquired land for varied purposes, 

the quality of the land needed for each function differed widely. In 

general, ordnance plants required some of the best agricultural land in a 

community—level, deep soil in which explosive shocks settled quickly 

and on which heavy foundations could be laid. These plants needed 

established rail and highway transportation, adequate water availability, 

and a nearby labor supply, all of which often already existed in thriving farm 

communities. Like ordnance plants, air fields also required high-quality 

land—level, cleared parcels at least 160 acres in area. Military camps and 

maneuver areas were located on lands not well adapted to agriculture but 

commonly near a sizeable city with railroad and recreational facilities for 

large numbers of men. The military placed bombing and artillery ranges 

on the poorest land available, primarily inferior grazing acreage in the 

western states and woodlands of the east.17

After the war, different federal agencies dispersed excess military 

properties. The Department of Agriculture was responsible for disposing 

of surplus agricultural and forest land; the Interior Department for 

grazing and mineral areas; the Federal Works Agency for nonindustrial 

real estate; and the National Housing Agency for housing property. The 

military could also transfer unneeded land to another government agency; 
52

however, public lands almost automatically reverted to the former tenant 

agency. Surplus land that had been privately owned could be returned to 

former owners and tenants at a fair market price.18 Significantly, however, 

while some wartime military property was restored to its original owners, 

defense agencies’ overall acreage increased from its prewar level.19

The Defense Department elected to retain much of its wartime land 

gains instead of returning the property to its previous owners largely 

because of evolving weapons systems. Technological advances like 

guided missiles and high-speed, high-altitude jet aircraft able to break 

the sound barrier needed more space to maneuver safely. Expanding 

support facilities—increasingly needed to sustain bombing, gunnery, 

rocketry, missile-test, and survival range operations—also required more 

land.20 Expressed more tangibly by George S. Robinson, deputy special 

assistant for installations, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, in 

January 1956, “The high speed and altitude requirements of our modern 

weapons systems generate requirements for training and test areas of large 

dimensions, dimensions which can be more readily visualized when one 

pictures an aircraft moving at 6 miles or more per minute at 40,000 feet, 

using weapons with fallout trajectories which are measured in miles, with 

many additional miles required for maneuvering and assurance of the 

U.S. Army efforts in 1955 to take title to 10,700 acres in the Wichita Mountains National 

Wildlife Refuge (above), near Fort Sill, Oklahoma, prompted a public backlash and was 

one of a series of high-profile military “landgrabs” that led to congressional hearings 

the following year. Photo by Robert A. Karges. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
53

safety of the general public.” 21 Consequently, the military argued that it 

needed not only the land it already possessed, but also more territory to 

maintain readiness with its new, state-of-the-art weapons.

Defense Department property acquisition considerations were based 

not only on existing needs, but also on projected requirements. Army Brig. 

Gen. Alfred D. Starbird, director of the Division of Military Application, 

Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), testified before the Congress in May 

1956 that his agency and the Department of Defense “have an immediate 

need for ballistic test range facilities to test bomb shapes now under 

development.” According to Starbird, it became apparent in 1955 that the 

existing Defense ranges would not be suitable for impending supersonic 

aircraft weapons testing and that more land was required for “permanent 

and exclusive AEC use for classified projects for which the present 

Nevada test site is inadequate and for which this additional land is urgently 

needed.” 22 Thus, even with World War II over, new Cold War exigencies 

for retaining existing properties and obtaining new lands persisted within 

the military establishment.

The Military Land Controversy

Regardless of the military’s emerging land requirements, state and 

local politicians, particularly those in the West, sought to regain control 

of public domain lands that the military had appropriated for wartime 

purposes. Many political leaders supported big river irrigation, power, and 

drinking-water projects for their burgeoning populations. Prior to 1955, 

few citizens challenged the military’s need to restrict access to and control 

over activities taking place on those lands. By that time, however, and 

concurrent with the rise in environmental awareness generated by the 

Echo Park Dam fight, numerous overreaches by each military service to 

acquire public domain land, and a growing concern about the military’s 

poor wildlife stewardship, generated a public and political backlash. 

Three incidents in particular spurred Congress to investigate military 

land-use practices. In 1955, buried in a massive military construction 

bill, the U.S. Army sought title to 10,700 acres of the Wichita Mountains 

National Wildlife Refuge near Fort Sill Military Reservation, Oklahoma, 

in addition to purchasing outright 20,000 adjacent acres to use as a firing 

range for atomic cannons and rockets. Before wildlife conservationists 

and local land owners could mount opposition to the bill, both the House 

and Senate Armed Services Committees approved the land transfer in 

June 1955. The following month, a coalition of conservationists appeared 

before the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to protest the 
54

handover. Army officials asserted that the refuge land they wanted was 

of no value to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. But Fish and Wildlife 

Service leaders and professional conservationists, led by the Wildlife 

Management Institute and the National Parks Association, maintained that 

this particular sector was “in the heart of the area used for recreation,” 

enjoyed by 850,000 people in 1954, and comprised the most significant 

watershed in the refuge.23

The Army’s bid for the Wichita refuge through backdoor congressional 

deals was what New York Times reporter Raymond R. Camp labeled 

“legislative predation, one of the most persistent enemies of wildlife, [and] 

is more difficult to control than such natural predators as wolves, mountain 

lions, foxes, wildcats, and skunks.”24 His Times colleague, distinguished 

outdoors writer and editorial page editor John B. Oakes, added that the 

“stubborn attitude of the Army in this matter is unfortunately characteristic 

of the approach the armed forces have frequently shown when it comes to 

acquiring desirable land. . . . If this were vital to the national defense, there 

could be no serious resistance by conservationists or any one [sic] else 

to taking of the land; but the Army has yet to prove that the safety of the 

country depends on the destruction of this 10,700 acres.”25

In October 1955, Interior secretary McKay vetoed the land transfer 

from the refuge to the Army. While the Army ultimately conceded that 

it had other operational facilities where it could fire its big weapons 

and did not require the Wichita refuge land, it continued to agitate, 

unsuccessfully, in 1956 and 1957 for congressional action to transfer 

the land. This push occurred even though the Interior Department had 

set aside an area of the Wichita refuge as a buffer zone when the Army 

tested weapons and had issued the Army a land-use permit to establish 

firing sites from within the refuge onto Fort Sill to obviate the need of 

firing from the fort into the refuge.26

In another land acquisition case, in March 1955, the U.S. Navy sought 

exponentially more property than the Army—nearly two million acres of 

land in northwest Nevada in addition to 602,880 acres recently taken for the 

Sahwave Gunnery Range and another 54,974 acres that had been leased—a 

total claim of 2,629,760 acres. The Navy told Congress it needed the expanse 

for air-to-air gunnery exercises that involved aviators firing their weapons 

at targets towed by other aircraft at high altitudes. The bigger parcel of 

1,372,160 was more than five times larger than the existing Black Rock 

Desert Bombing Range for which it would have served as an extension. 

The second one, of 654,720 acres, was slightly larger than the neighboring 

Sahwave range.27 This withdrawal request led to nearly 250 individual 

protests from Nevada residents seeking recourse through Congress, from 
55

grazing, mining, and wildlife interests and from politicians who viewed this 

“landgrab” as an unnecessary and unjust encroachment by the military.28

The Navy’s proposed property gain would have imposed a great 

human cost of disrupted lives and thwarted plans of many Nevadans 

making a living from the land. Ruth and Vern Parman owned a ranch they 

had managed to retain though the Great Depression. In an article about the 

Navy’s proposed acquisition, Ruth Parman remarked:

Our long years of work are beginning to pay off. But if the Navy takes 

our place—what then? Where will we go? We’re too old to start again 

from scratch—clearing sagebrush and drilling wells, and building 

barns, and fencing. We can’t do it at our age . . . and even if we were 

young enough to start over and build up another ranch, what assurance 

would we have that in 10 or 20 years the Navy . . . wouldn’t come and 

take that ranch, too? Where is it all going to end?29

The U.S. Navy’s Black Rock Desert Bombing Range (1) 

and proposed extension (2) and Sahwave Gunnery Range 

(3) and proposed extension (4). Map by Norton Allen.

Desert Magazine, October 1956.
56

While the Navy paid prices that it had negotiated with individual land 

owners, under court jurisdiction, for the private property it confiscated, 

local governments received no compensation for removing large numbers 

of people from their tax rolls and shrinking the tax base, which often 

closed schools and reduced government services. State and local elected 

officials took note of the lost revenue and chose to fight the Navy over the 

land issue.30

During 1956 and 1957, the Navy’s attempted acquisition of the Black 

Rock-Sahwave land was the primary political issue in Nevada. In response 

to public inquiries about the service’s requirement for additional land, 

the Navy asserted that its new high-performance jet aircraft required 

larger training areas. However, the Navy could not convince the public 

why it needed so much more land, particularly after the Air Force offered 

its two-million-acre Nellis Range for joint service use. In the face of 

public resistance and negative publicity, by March 1957, the Navy 

revised its request. It reduced the land it sought to 1.3 million acres, 

eliminated the additional Black Rock Range extension, and reached an 

understanding with the Air Force to share the Nellis Range. The Navy 

also consented to purchase mining claims outright from their owners 

and to halt its operations for five months of the year to allow livestock 

ranchers and hunters access to the area. The final agreement in May 

1958 gave the Navy 272,000 acres of the Black Rock Range, for which 

it had previously negotiated a five-year renewable lease in 1949 with 

the Bureau of Land Management and local livestock owners; and an 

additional 519,000 acres of the Sahwave Range. The Navy operated 

these ranges until the first lease ended in 1963, by which time newer, 

faster aircraft had made them obsolete.31

Another controversy in 1955 involved the Air Force Strategic Air 

Command’s proposed expansion of its photoflash bombing range to 

within a mile of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, on the Texas 

Gulf Coast, where the only surviving flock of an estimated twenty-six 

Whooping Cranes wintered. This proposal generated significant public 

and professional protest as it would likely have resulted in the demise 

of the remaining cranes. J. Clark Salyer II, chief of the Wildlife Refuge 

Branch of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, argued that it was just one 

more instance of the armed services “trying to take over” lands originally 

set aside for conservation.32 On September 20, 1955, the Canadian 

government delivered a formal protest to the United States by way of the 

Department of State in an effort to protect the cranes, which summer in 

Canada. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service joined the dissent, along with 

the Natural Resources Council of America, the National Audubon Society, 
57

the National Wildlife Federation, the American Nature Association, and 

the National Parks Association, and coerced the Air Force to abandon its 

plan to expand the range within a month of the formal protest.33 The Air 

Force did not refer to the cranes when it announced on October 14, 1955, 

that “there had been a conflict of interest ‘between military requirements 

and private interests’” and dropped its request for the new bombing range, 

but the press made the wildlife connection. As a Washington Post and 

Times Herald headline put it, “AF Yields to Whoopers after Sally by Bird 

Lovers.” 34

These controversies concerning military land withdrawals prompted 

many politicians and citizens to question the military’s right and need to 

acquire additional property. Within three years of the outbreak of World 

War II, military land holdings had increased 800 percent, and postwar, 

the Defense Department sought to keep that property and increase its 

holdings for future needs.35 In 1937, defense agencies owned or controlled 

3.1 million acres of land in the continental United States (CONUS). By 

June 1945, they held 25.1 million acres. That number rose to 27.6 million 

acres in CONUS by June 1956, with an additional 3.1 million acres in 

the Alaska territory. Of those 30.7 million acres, 16.9 million acres had 

Whooping Cranes take flight at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas Gulf 

Coast. As of 1955, the only surviving flock of cranes wintered at this reserve in an area 

endangered by a proposed expansion of a U.S. Air Force bombing range. Photo by Steve 

Hillebrand. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
58

been transferred from public domain lands. More tangibly expressed by 

the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs in its final report in 

1957 on military land withdrawals from the public domain, in CONUS, 

the Defense Department occupied a “strip of land 14.34 miles in width 

from New York to San Francisco.” 36

To halt the rapid expansion of military reservations onto public 

domain lands, on October 29, 1955, Representative Clair W. Engle (DCA), chairman of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 

requested that the Department of the Interior, which had authority to 

dispose of public domain property, withhold approval of any further land 

withdrawals until Congress could fully consider the matter. On November 

4, Wesley A. D’Ewart, assistant secretary of the interior, agreed to withhold 

approval of pending requests.37

Engle’s first awareness of the military land issue had been prompted 

by previous Navy efforts to secure land in the Saline Valley of his home 

district and acreage across the border in Nevada that was owned in large 

part by his California constituents. Almost 100 individuals and families—

ranchers grazing their cattle and sheep, prospectors mining strategic 

minerals, and conservationists concerned about local wildlife—filed formal 

protests against the proposed Navy land withdrawal beginning in 1951, and 

Engle took up their cause.38 After the series of events in 1955, particularly 

the Navy’s threat to the Nevada land near the Black Rock-Sahwave Desert 

Based on information from the 1957 edition of the Statistical Abstract of the United States. 

Clair Engle Papers, Special Collections, Meriam Library, California State University, Chico. 
59

Range that was owned in part by some of his California constituents, Engle 

initiated a congressional investigation.

In his opening statement of the House Committee on Interior and Insular 

Affairs hearings on military land withdrawals, which began in January 

1956, Engle called for the return of full congressional authority regarding 

stewardship over public domain lands, powers that had in practice, through 

inertia over the years, been effectively ceded to the executive branch. At 

issue was the constitutional obligation to manage public lands as noted 

in article 4, section 3, clause 2 of the Constitution: “The Congress shall 

have the power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations 

respecting the Territory or other property belonging to the United States.” 39

The committee hearings, and the legislation that the investigation ultimately 

prompted, also sought to establish clear statutory requirements for multipleuse management and fish and game conservation on military installations, 

opening these public lands for mineral, grazing, timber, and water uses along 

with conservation, scenic, and recreational purposes.40

Clair Engle and the House Committee Hearings on

Military Land Withdrawals

Congressman Engle’s concern for northern and eastern California 

and the western United States guided his politics. Born in Bakersfield in 

1911 and reared near Red Bluff, 120 miles north of Sacramento on the 

Shingletown Plateau, Clair Engle grew up in the saddle, riding and roping 

calves almost before he could read and write. He spent many afternoons 

fishing in local streams and hunting squirrels and mountain quail in nearby 

thickets. His grandfather had arrived in California during the Gold Rush 

and worked in the mines for several years before establishing a successful 

cattle ranch. Engle’s father carried on the family ranching tradition, 

which experienced recurrent setbacks due to drought. Engle’s hometown 

relied on agriculture, lumbering, mining, and hydroelectric development. 

However, broader state and urban interests often challenged Tehama 

and Shasta County ranchers and farmers over control of local natural 

resources. As a child, Engle saw water rights issues pit his neighbors and 

family in armed confrontation with large western power company officials 

over access to water. The ensuing protracted legal battles impoverished the 

Engle family and community members. These formative years strongly 

influenced Engle’s political bearings, with one of Engle’s cousins recalling 

that he “never forgave PG&E [Pacific Gas and Electric Company] for 

interfering with their home and [thereafter] lined up [with] the common 

people against big business.” 41
60

Engle was elected district attorney of Tehama County at age twentythree; California state senator at thirty-one; U.S. congressman at thirtytwo; and U.S. senator at forty-five. He was best known politically for 

sponsoring legislation authorizing the Central Valley Project, a system that 

protected the California Central Valley from water shortages and floods; 

restraining the role of the federal government in his home district; and 

fostering domestic mining and local reclamation ventures. Biographer 

Stephen P. Sayles wrote that Engle’s congressional colleagues dubbed him 

“Congressman Fireball” for his enthusiasm and energy, his ability to steer 

more than 100 bills into law, and the cloud of cigar smoke that typically 

trailed him through the halls of Congress.42

A private licensed pilot, Engle once served in the National Guard and 

reached the rank of colonel with the Air Force Reserve. In the summer of 

1952, he finessed an active-duty assignment to investigate the impact of 

the new military justice code in Korea for the Air Force Judge Advocate 

branch. While there he “flew north of the thirty-eighth parallel on jet 

reconnaissance missions, peered down into the front lines from a rescue 

helicopter, fired a .50-caliber machine gun at the Chinese trenches from 

Congressman Clair W. Engle (D-CA) in the cockpit of a new F–104B Starfighter at 

Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, in March 1958. Engle was a private licensed pilot and 

rose to the rank of colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. During his youth, his hometown 

of Red Bluff, California, was a base for U.S. Army Air Service fire patrol flights. Clair Engle 

Papers, Special Collections, Meriam Library, California State University, Chico.
61

a tank, drank beer with dive-bomber pilots, and in general succeeded in 

living dangerously,” according to a Saturday Evening Post article titled 

“Wildcat in Washington.” 43 Engle is most remembered for his final vote 

on June 10, 1964. While Engle was dying from a brain tumor, a Navy 

corpsman wheeled him onto the Senate floor to vote to end the filibuster 

against the 1964 Civil Rights bill. As the Red Bluff, California, newspaper 

recounted, the “senator was visibly trying to speak. He could not. Finally 

he raised his left arm . . . as though trying to point toward his eyes.” The 

Senate clerk declared that Senator Engle voted aye.44

Other powerful members of the House Committee on Interior and 

Insular Affairs as of 1956 included Stewart L. Udall (D-AZ), who had 

served as a B–24 enlisted gunner in the Army Air Forces during World War 

II and flew fifty missions over Europe. Later an icon in the environmental 

movement as secretary of the interior from 1961 to 1969 under presidents 

John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Udall directed the addition of 

four parks, six national monuments, eight seashores and lakeshores, nine 

recreation areas, and twenty historic sites to the National Park system 

and fifty-six wildlife refuges to the National Wildlife Refuge system. He 

also ushered the Wilderness Act, the Water Quality Act, and the Wild and 

Scenic Rivers Act into law. His best-selling book, The Quiet Crisis (1963), 

helped awaken the environmental awareness of millions of Americans.45

Another key committee member, John P. Saylor (R-PA), christened 

“St. John” by environmental advocates and called the “congressional 

Theodore Roosevelt” by Gerald R. Ford, consistently prioritized 

environmental issues ahead of economic development. The former U.S. 

Navy enlistee served in the World War II Pacific Theater and became a 

representative from Pennsylvania in 1949. Saylor often fought the U.S. 

Bureau of Reclamation over dam development and vigorously supported 

the Wilderness Act and the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.46

Another prominent committee member, Wayne N. Aspinall (D-CO), 

promoted natural resources development in the West and often drew fire 

from the increasingly powerful conservation lobby. Aspinall considered 

Floyd E. Dominy, the Bureau of Reclamation commissioner, a close 

friend and strongly supported the Colorado River Storage Project, which 

included the controversial Echo Park Dam.47 Also serving on Engle’s 

committee was Lee W. Metcalf (D-MT), who enlisted in the Army during 

World War II and participated in the Normandy invasion and the Battle 

of the Bulge. He served his state as both a congressman and senator. His 

successor, Senator John Melcher (D-MT), called Metcalf a “pioneer of 

the conservation movement” for his legislative efforts to preserve natural 

resources and regulate utilities.48 Another notable member, Clarence 
62

C. Young (R-NV), later became president of the National Wildlife 

Federation, from 1981 to 1983.49 Several additional committee members 

represented the interests of western states and, typical of the time, many 

congressmen had served in the military during either World War II or the 

Korean conflict.

The first round of House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs 

hearings on military land withdrawals lasted for twelve days spaced over 

five months, from January to May 1956; the second round for six more 

days, from June to July 1956; and a third round for six days, from January 

to February 1957. Very broadly, the first round of hearings covered 

controversial issues related to military land withdrawals and usage, with 

Defense officials describing general property policies and procedures and 

offering a statistical picture of Defense Department land holdings. During 

the second round of hearings, representatives from national, regional, and 

local conservation groups testified about wildlife and land management 

practices on military installations. The third round of hearings provided 

committee members updates on information military officials submitted 

the previous year, and Department of Defense representatives also presented 

their final comments on pending legislation.50

During the initial round of hearings, the committee learned that the 

Pentagon did not begin effective property control procedures until August 

1955.51 Until then, the Defense Department had not required any service 

branch to conduct an inventory of its land holdings or to justify needs 

for additional lands. Although Franklin G. Floete, assistant secretary of 

defense for properties and installations, had ordered all services to conduct 

reviews before the land-withdrawal hearings began, Secretary of Defense 

Charles E. Wilson did not require submission of those reports until August 

1957.52 The U.S. Air Force, however, moved forward quickly with this 

task when, in November 1955, Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Thomas D. White 

recommended creating a high-level board to study existing and projected 

range requirements. Consequently, Gen. Nathan F. Twining, the chief of 

staff, established the Air Force Weapons Range Board on January 11, 1956, 

to determine if Air Force lands were fully utilized.53 Records collected 

prior to the newly ordered inventories showed that, on January 1, 1955, 

the Air Force controlled about 12.1 million acres, compared to the Army’s 

approximately 8.3 million acres and the Navy’s roughly 3.8 million acres 

(including Marine Corps lands).54

The Engle committee hearings also created a graver public relations 

issue for the Pentagon. Testimony during the second round of hearings 

from conservation experts exposed open wounds of public resentment 

regarding fish and game management on military lands, constituting 
63

what the House committee deemed an “almost wholesale indictment” 

of Defense Department wildlife management policies and procedures. 

Committee members concluded that “in light of the abuses of sound 

conservation practices that have unquestionably been permitted to prevail 

at a number of military reservations, and the inability or unwillingness 

of the respective military departments and the Department of Defense to 

remedy the situation, action by Congress is a must.”55

Although each of the services permitted civilians to hunt on military lands 

in the years following World War II, commanders of each installation had 

final authority to issue hunting and fishing permits. These commanders could 

restrict civilian sportsmen from using their installations based on security and 

safety requirements or the impact on their ability to efficiently accomplish 

the units’ missions. Further, commanders often set rules for their facilities, 

including hunting seasons, bag limits, and licensing requirements.56 In 

August 1949, Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson (1949–50) recognized 

that many commanders were not requiring their members to heed state 

hunting and fishing laws on military installations, leading to highly visible 

Members of a subcommittee of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 

shown in August 1956 at the time of the miliary land hearings: (front) John P. Saylor 

(R-PA), Edward A. Edmondson (D-OK), Wayne N. Aspinall (D-CO); (standing) J. 

Edgar Chenoweth (R-CO), William A. Dawson (R-UT), Stewart L. Udall (D-AZ), Clair 

W. Engle (D-CA), Lee W. Metcalf (D-MT). Clair Engle Papers, Special Collections, Meriam 

Library, California State University, Chico.
64

public conflicts with conservation officials. As a result, Johnson issued a 

memorandum to the secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force: 

It has been recently brought to my attention that members of the 

armed services are, in certain instances, allowed to hunt or fish on 

military and naval installations without strict compliance with State 

laws, particularly those laws with respect to seasons and bag limits.

I wish you would notify your respective commanding officers of 

your installations of the prudence of abiding by State regulations 

designed to conserve fish and wildlife. In my opinion, the State 

regulations applicable to a resident property owner on his own land 

should be abided by at military installations wherever this course 

is possible. This will bring about greater conservation of fish and 

wildlife and result in better relations with local sportsmen who, in 

a large measure, provide the funds for improving the hunting and 

fishing within the area.57

At the second round of hearings in 1956, Clinton Raymond “C. R.” 

Gutermuth, vice president of the Wildlife Management Institute and 

former Indiana fish and game commissioner, criticized Johnson’s memo 

as an early effort to forestall congressional action on the issue and stated 

that “conservation organizations and sportsmen have no faith in any 

such order. That was tried before, and failed.” 58 This accusation had 

credibility: even though the services had issued several new fish and game 

regulations between 1949 and 1951, some installation commanders still 

deliberately ignored the orders. These breaches of military discipline 

resulted in publicized cases of wildlife law violations that those officers 

had condoned. At Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, during the 1955 deer season, 

military personnel illegally killed in large numbers both does and fawns 

when only forked bucks were allowed to be hunted. These hunters also 

shot deer by “shining” them, using bright lights to temporarily blind the 

deer and hinder any attempt of escape, and shot the animals from cars 

and trucks, both state-prohibited methods of hunting. Additional hunting 

violations were reported to have occurred since the 1930s at Fort Bliss, 

which straddles the Texas-New Mexico border near El Paso. There the 

commanding general permitted the carcasses of deer killed by members of 

the military without licenses in New Mexico to be transferred to Texas, in 

violation of New Mexico fish and game laws, by military aircraft that could 

not be searched by civilian fish and game wardens. At Fort Bragg, North 

Carolina, between 1951 and 1956, deer were live-trapped and transported 
65

by military aircraft across state lines to Fort Benning, Georgia, defying 

state statutes. Military personnel at Fort Bragg also hunted both sexes of 

deer of any age, and on Sundays, not keeping with state laws.59

While citizens in general and conservationists alike willingly 

sacrificed their land-use interests for military land requirements in the 

name of national defense during the Cold War, they disapproved of what 

committee chairman Engle deemed “monkeyshines” and land grabbing 

by the services and were further incensed by service personnel violating 

local and state game laws.60 David R. Brower, the first executive director 

of the Sierra Club and a retired major in the U.S. Army Reserve who had 

been an officer in the 10th Mountain Division and trained soldiers in 

mountaineering and cross-country skiing during World War II, testified 

that “this military yen for Federal lands is not an easy thing to oppose. After 

all, these men are single-minded and aggressive in their pursuit of national 

defense, as they ought to be. Nobody wants to hamstring them. But on 

the other hand they should be prevented from unnecessarily damaging the 

Nation they are pledged to protect.” 61

Significant controversy surrounded the subject of Defense Department 

land and wildlife management practices during the second round of 

hearings. In reference to federal military reservations that held fish, 

game, and wildlife resources, the Engle committee concluded in its 1957 

final report that “in too many instances such areas have taken on all the 

aspects of exclusive military hunting preserves, closed to the public at 

large, closed to the Federal and State officials charged with responsibility 

for fish and game law enforcement.” The unethical conduct of some 

officers and enlisted service members led to strident objections from local 

conservation officials regarding military officers and enlisted personnel 

ignoring fixed seasons for taking game, bag limits, and methods and times 

“Of course you can have some—if there’s any left.” San Francisco Chronicle, June 9, 1957, 

from Clair Engle Papers, Special Collections, Meriam Library, California State University, Chico.
66

of capture. Additional friction between the military and conservation 

officials involved fishing and hunting on military reservations by visiting 

or training personnel during periods that coincided with hunting and 

fishing seasons.62 The Washington Post and New York Times publicized 

violations that conservationists highlighted in the hearings, reporting that 

the “committee had heard charges that military ‘stinkers’ were staging 

mass slaughters of game animals in defiance of state laws” and that at Fort 

Huachuca, Arizona, the “commanding officer virtually compeled [sic] 

state officials to consent to a special hunt to kill off” the resident bison 

herd (the episode described in the prologue of this book).63

Leading conservationists testified during the second round of hearings 

about natural resource abuses on Defense Department lands. Clark Salyer 

of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service described earlier incidents of hunting 

excesses by service members: “I could tell you a lot about what happened 

in Alaska during the war—the walruses being machine-gunned from B–29s, 

sea otters and brown bears being machine-gunned, and so forth.” Salyer, 

employing Winston S. Churchill’s Cold War “iron curtain” imagery, then 

described a more current situation at the Desert National Wildlife Refuge, 

Nevada, “in which our sheep are mysteriously disappearing from the ranges 

on which we cannot get in to examine the situation. I have no doubt where 

those sheep are going, but at the present it is a surmise [sic]. An impenetrable 

khaki curtain stands between us and the proper control of those lands.” 64

Other fish and wildlife experts criticized the military’s natural resource 

stewardship practices, including J. W. Penfold, conservation director for the 

Izaak Walton League, one of the nation’s oldest conservation organizations, 

formed in 1922, which sought to protect the natural environment through 

public policy.65 Penfold observed that “the military seems to have shown 

a bland disregard of the multiple natural resource values pertaining to the 

lands they seek for their own single purposes,” adding that “millions of 

sportsmen, and the public generally, are getting a bit irked at the attitude 

of some military personnel, who apparently under the guise of national 

defense, flaunt State laws pertaining to the protection, management, and 

harvest of fish and wildlife.” 66

Michael Hoduba, Washington editor of Sports Afield magazine, noted: “It 

seems peculiar that in so many of these cases of withdrawal the lands desired 

and requested happen to contain choice and prime areas with fish and wildlife 

facilities.” He stated that “we are concerned [about] . . . the general policy 

which permits the commanding officer of an installation wholly owned by 

the military to make his own rules. They bring our youngsters into the armed 

services, and if the youngsters see or come across some type of violations that 

have been alleged to occur, we are concerned over their future citizenship as 
67

sportsmen.” Charles Callison, conservation director for the National Wildlife 

Federation, added, “Certainly the military forces recognize their responsibility 

to set an example of obedience to and respect for civil laws in peacetime as 

well as in time of war. Certainly they do not wish to have the flouting of State 

conservation law by their own personnel serve as an example to invite and 

encourage similar violations by the civilian population.” 67

Several witnesses stated their philosophical beliefs about the military’s 

responsibility to properly manage its lands. Callison submitted an article 

in which Ernest F. Swift, executive director of the National Wildlife 

Federation and former assistant director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service, argued that the issue went deeper than violations of game laws. 

Noting that natural resources built the military’s strength, “making it 

possible for them to be the best paid, the best dressed, and the best fed 

army in the world,” Swift added that “patriotism takes on many forms, in 

peace as well as war, and frugality and wise management of resources is a 

form of patriotism that gives the necessary strength to the stresses of war.” 

Congressman Clair W. Engle, who represented California’s 

vast Second District in Congress from 1943 until he was 

elected to the Senate in 1958. Clair Engle Papers, Special 

Collections, Meriam Library, California State University, Chico.
68

He concluded, “Our structure of government, our social philosophies, and 

the husbandry of our national resources are one and inseparable. All three 

are elements basic to the perpetuity of an enlightened civilization. The 

Armed Forces are a part of this structure. When there is peace, they should 

at least respect the will of the people regarding fish, game, and fire laws.” 68

In the same vein, Penfold wrote to the committee, “Obviously, none 

of our national values will be worth much if we are not prepared to defend 

them successfully against any eventuality from the outside.” Penfold cited 

Olaus J. Murie, a highly respected wildlife biologist and president of the 

Wilderness Society, who asserted that “the defense of our country should 

not be destructive of what we have to defend.” 69 Engle committee members 

considered these comments, and those made during previous testimony, as 

they crafted their concluding statement: “The program for the defense of 

our Nation’s human and natural resources should not—and must not—be 

so conducted as to destroy the very resources it is aimed at preserving.” 70

Military officials reacted strongly to conservationists’ blanket accusations 

of wildlife abuse on their installations. When given the opportunity to respond 

to these claims during the third round of hearings in January 1957, George S. 

Robinson, deputy special assistant for installations, Office of the Secretary 

of the Air Force, formally representing the views of the Defense Department, 

stated that the “fish and wildlife conservation practices on military reservations 

in the United States have been exemplary in an overwhelming number of cases. 

. . . The contribution of the military toward preservation of fish and wildlife 

resources throughout the Nation has gone unnoticed. Generalizations have 

been made from isolated cases of violations and controversies.” Robinson 

believed that a thorough review of the military’s conservation record would 

reveal overall excellent relations between state conservation agencies and the 

military installations within their borders.71

Evidence presented to the Engle committee supported Robinson’s 

assertion. In late 1956, Air Force Fish and Wildlife Conservation Program 

officers sent a questionnaire to conservation agencies in all states with Air 

Force installations within their boundaries. One of the questions asked, “Is 

your agency encountering any problems in fish and game management or 

enforcement of fishing or hunting laws at Air Force installations in your 

State? If so, give details.” Thirty-five states replied “no” to that question. 

Eight states—Colorado, Maine, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, 

Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming—reported some problems, but 

they were issues the Air Force believed it could work out with state 

officials. The Air Force also provided the Engle committee the responses 

to the survey, including remarks from conservation officials in the states 

reporting hunting or fishing complaints.72
69

During the second round of hearings, the House committee also sought 

agreement on a bill introduced on April 10, 1956, by chairman Engle that was 

based on tentative conclusions reached during the first round of hearings. The 

bill stipulated the requirement of congressional approval for the military to 

withdraw tracts of more than 5,000 acres from the public domain. This size 

restriction for land withdrawals drew little debate and formed the foundation 

of the Engle Act of 1958. Without objection and with bipartisan support, 

during that round of hearings the committee reported Engle’s version of the 

bill, with a dozen identical or similar bills also introduced concurrently by 

other representatives, including eight Democrats and four Republicans.73

In response to Engle’s bill, George Robinson stated on June 12 that 

the Defense Department supported enactment of the proposed legislation, 

excluding the section that required hunting, trapping, and fishing on 

military installations to be conducted according to the law of the state 

or territory in which the installation was located. Defense representatives 

believed that existing Army, Air Force, and Navy conservation regulations 

adequately complied with local fish and game laws and that this section of 

Engle’s bill was superfluous.74 However, on June 28, Secretary of Defense 

Wilson, the former president of General Motors, rendered this objection 

moot by acknowledging the persistent problems that the conservation 

professionals had illuminated and pledging to the committee that the 

Defense Department would “take vigorous action to eliminate any abuses 

to the regulations on hunting and fishing which are in effect for all military 

personnel on military reservations.”75

The committee incorporated minor amendments to the original bill, 

reported the clean document as H.R. 12185, and passed the revision on 

July 26, 1956, “without a dissenting vote and after receiving unprecedented 

support—from official State agencies of 39 States, from all major 

national conservation groups, from numerous regional and local groups, 

organizations, and individuals—and in very large measure the support of 

the Department of the Interior and the Department of Defense.” The revised 

bill arrived too late for Senate consideration in the 84th Congress, and the 

Engle committee unanimously reported it again as H.R. 5538 on March 

21, 1957.76 Senators, after determining that Engle’s House committee had 

conducted a thorough examination of the issues, held only limited hearings 

on the subject. On August 13, 1957, the Senate Committee on Interior and 

Insular Affairs unanimously recommended enactment of H.R. 5538. After 

the full Senate passed it, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill 

into law on February 28, 1958.77

The Engle Act required congressional approval for any military land 

withdrawals of more than 5,000 acres of public lands; compelled the 
70

military services to follow federal, state, and local fish and game laws; 

and precluded high-ranking officers and “week-end sportsmen” from 

exploiting prime military hunting and fishing locations by requiring 

servicemen to be stationed on a base for thirty days before becoming 

eligible for state licenses.78 It also directed the secretary of defense to 

require that installation commanders grant full access to state and local 

fish and game managers to military reservations to ensure that their laws 

were followed.79

This law was the congressional response to increasing constituent 

demands to preserve public domain lands from military encroachment. 

The public outcry that drove the legislation also alerted the services that 

they needed to do more to protect the areas already under their stewardship.
71

Four

The Air Force Response to

Conservation Concerns

The Engle committee hearings proved a public relations fiasco for the 

Department of Defense, and for the Air Force, which held the largest 

amount of public land of all the services. The testimony highlighted 

significant deficiencies in the Pentagon’s land management practices and 

called for swift resolution. In response to these disclosures, and prior to 

the passage of the Engle Act, the Air Force began rewriting regulations 

covering fishing and hunting on military reservations to impose greater 

uniformity in rules to help remedy military-civilian misunderstandings 

and to assuage congressional and public reactions to the revelations of 

wildlife abuse.1

With defense policy and spending in flux during the 1950s, the Air Force 

could not afford negative publicity. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 

“New Look” defense strategy sought to balance military security with 

budgetary solvency and cut spending drastically on the armed forces. 

While building the capacity to deliver “massive retaliation” in response 

to an attack by the Soviet Union, Eisenhower de-emphasized conventional 

land and sea forces in favor of nuclear weapons, a policy that initially 

favored the Air Force. It received the largest percentage of the defense 

budget between fiscal years 1955 and 1961, averaging 44 percent of the 

overall defense allotment. However, America’s faith in the supremacy 

of U.S. air power began fading by 1957. The Soviet Union launched its 

Sputnik satellite and created a new, unknown threat that caused citizens to 

question if aircraft alone could protect the United States. New technologies 

such as television, spaceflight, and computers diminished the marvel of 

aircraft. As the Cold War intensified, Americans expressed fears of nuclear 

weapons in antinuclear literature and film.2

During the 1950s, the Air Force shouldered primary responsibility 

for developing and preparing for the delivery of nuclear weapons. “The 

bomb” defined the Air Force in the minds of many American citizens, 

tarnishing the service’s public image.3

 The destructive nature of nuclear 

weapons was not lost on air leaders. Gen. Henry H. Arnold, leader of the 
72

Army Air Forces during World War II, expressed profound concern about 

the use of air power in the atomic age. He believed that destruction via air 

power had become too cheap and easy and that the “consequence of this 

cheapness of destruction—especially as it has been multiplied manifold by 

the sudden, extensive, pulverizing force of the atomic bomb—is to make 

the existence of civilization subject to the goodwill and good sense of the 

men who control the employment of airpower.” 4 Nuclear weapons also 

disturbed aviation hero Charles A. Lindbergh, who flew with World War II 

combat squadrons as a civilian contractor and after the war consulted with 

the Air Force. During Strategic Air Command briefings, when Lindbergh 

learned of the lethal effects of nuclear fallout and the vast destruction 

atomic bombs could yield, he recognized “how vulnerable our planet was” 

and questioned the utility of the new weapons.5

These misgivings by aviation leaders coincided with public fears 

during the 1950s about radioactive fallout and its impact on human health. 

Respected atomic scientists and medical professionals debated the efficacy 

of atomic weapons and bomb shelters, and new research during the 1940s 

and 1950s demonstrated the relationship between radioactive fallout and 

environmental degradation.6

 Rachel L. Carson, whose book Silent Spring

(1962) helped launch the modern environmental movement, inextricably 

linked radiation and chemical environmental toxins when she wrote that 

“in this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are 

the sinister and little-recognized partners of radiation in changing the very 

nature of the world—the very nature of its life.” 7 In the 1950s, ordinary 

citizens grew increasingly fearful of the effects of nuclear fallout and of the 

catastrophic impact of a possible nuclear attack. Since American bombers 

were the only way to deliver nuclear weapons, people often associated that 

anxiety with the Air Force.8

Ever attentive to its public perception and under threat of reduced 

military budgets, the Air Force sought to bolster the service’s image, 

especially in communities near large installations where concerns about 

military activities were greatest.9

 Some Air Force bases held open houses 

so local citizens could to get to know their military neighbors and invited 

civilians to hunt on Air Force lands. Articles in popular magazines 

explained what caused sonic booms from jets, deeming the noise the sound 

of democracy that was “defending our homeland.”10 Sociologist Morris 

Janowitz wrote that the Air Force sought to enhance its reputation by 

disseminating information “by all proper means to merit public esteem.” 

He judged the Air Force the most public-relations oriented of the services, 

noting that as of 1950, the Air Force employed 650 officers in public 

affairs, more than any other service.11
73

The Air Service/Air Force had excelled in public affairs since the 

1920s, when Brig. Gen. William L. “Billy” Mitchell publicly demonstrated 

that an airplane could sink a battleship as a means of garnering public and 

political support for air power. Gen. Henry Arnold also adeptly influenced 

American’s perception of early air power. When only a major, he held 

monthly air shows in California that attracted Hollywood personalities and 

much publicity for the Air Corps. Arnold responded quickly and publicly 

to assist Southern California victims after the Long Beach earthquake on 

March 10, 1933. For July and August 1934, he organized a flight of ten 

B–10B bombers from Washington, D.C., to Fairbanks, Alaska, to renew 

citizens’ confidence in the U.S. Army Air Corps after the ill-fated mailflying episode earlier that year. As described in chapter 1, Arnold recruited 

writers Corey H. Ford and Alastair MacBain during World War II to keep 

the public apprised of the accomplishments of airmen during that conflict.12

A decade later, when the Engle committee hearings in 1956–57 exposed 

deficient Defense Department land and wildlife stewardship practices, the 

Air Force activated its public affairs capabilities to quickly and proactively 

respond to citizens’ land-use concerns. More tangibly, it also established 

the first military service-wide natural resource conservation program.

In addition to carrying the load of strategic bombing capability, the Air Force was also 

charged with coordinating missile defense. This image shows the construction of missile 

site connections across the open prairie in the early 1960s in the 12th Missile Squadron 

flight area at Malmstrom Air Force Base north of Great Falls, Montana. USAF.
74

USAF Weapons Range Board and Air Force Property

In November 1955, Gen. Thomas D. White, the vice chief of staff, 

recommended that the Air Force form a board to examine existing and 

projected bombing, gunnery, rocketry, and missile range requirements for 

training, testing, proficiency, and development purposes. In January 1956, 

Gen. Nathan F. Twining, the chief of staff, established the Weapons Range 

Board. Concurrent to the board’s establishment, the Engle committee 

expressed concern about military land management practices, and in response, 

the Weapons Range Board added fish and wildlife issues to its agenda.13

During the Weapons Range Board’s first meeting on February 2, 1956, 

Lt. Col. David F. MacGhee of the Directorate of Real Property, positioned 

under White, acquainted the board with details of the Engle committee’s 

first round of hearings on military use of public domain lands. MacGhee 

provided board members with background information on the problems 

of allowing civilians access to bases for recreational purposes, game law 

violations, and efforts by wildlife conservation proponents to restrict 

military activities in the vicinity of National Wildlife Refuges.14

After seven monthly meetings, the Weapons Range Board presented 

its final report on October 9, 1956, to the Air Force chief of staff and 

also provided copies to the Air Staff and the Engle committee. In it, the 

board determined that the Air Force lacked detailed instructions governing 

size requirements for bases to accommodate training missions. Moreover, 

since it found that approximately 5.7 million acres of the Air Force’s 

14.2-million-acre holdings were in excess of the service’s long-range 

bombing and gunnery range needs, the board recommended that excess Air 

Force lands should be examined to determine if they could meet other Air 

Force requirements.If not, the board advised that such lands be returned 

to the federal government and the public domain.15 One nuclear expert 

who appeared before the board, however, cautioned against releasing any 

large land holdings in isolated areas because such tracts might be required 

for security purposes, nuclear test facilities, and other possible dimensions 

of nuclear training.16 As previously noted, Atomic Energy Commission 

officials had testified before the Engle committee in May 1956 that in the 

near future, the commission would need additional land for conducting 

classified nuclear tests, particularly of nuclear-powered aircraft and nuclear 

warheads.17 After the officers on the Weapons Range Board, including 

eight generals, one colonel, one lieutenant colonel, and chaired by Maj. 

Gen. Leland S. Stranathan, considered all possible future scenarios, they 

recommended that the Air Force make certain that “no lands are disposed 

of which might be required.”18
75

The board also concluded that existing Air Force regulations on hunting 

and fishing by military personnel and local civilians on its installations were 

divergent and ambiguous.19 The board disclosed that “more than 5.1 million 

acres of land on 9 ranges in 8 States had been automatically and continually 

closed to fishing and hunting” for several years “without justification.” 

In addition, the Air Force had failed to maintain adequate provisions for 

multiple uses on its installations. Its grazing, agriculture, and wildlife rules 

were outdated, inadequate, and inconsistent. To remedy these shortcomings, 

the board recommended that Headquarters, U.S. Air Force, consolidate its 

policy and guidance for land management and ensure that new provisions 

were in compliance with federal and state fish and game laws.20

In direct response to the Engle committee’s first two rounds of hearings 

and the Air Force Weapons Range Board meetings to date, the Air Force 

established an official, service-wide natural resource program. In August 

1956, Headquarters, U.S. Air Force, assigned the Air Force provost marshal 

responsibility for developing a service-wide fish and wildlife conservation 

As chief of staff of the Air Force, Gen. Nathan F. Twining had 

his service be proactive in reviewing its range requirements. 

He also ordered the development of an Air Force-wide 

conservation program, which was largely implemented after 

he became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. USAF.
76

program, discussed below. The first item on the program’s agenda was to 

revise Air Force hunting and fishing regulations according to federal and 

state laws, as well as anticipating congressionally mandated requirements 

that might result from the Engle committee hearings.21 In December, the 

Air Force also entered into a memorandum of agreement with the U.S. 

Fish and Wildlife Service for that organization to provide technical advice 

and assistance for the Air Force’s new endeavor.22

Corey Ford Papers, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.
77

Old Bonds Renewed for Conservation

In 1956, synchrony reunited fellow airmen and old fishing

buddies—Corey Ford, Alastair MacBain, and several generals for 

whom they had worked—who joined forces to devise the Air Forcewide conservation program. MacBain, by then director of public 

information for the Fish and Wildlife Service since 1950, used his 

position to foster a collaborative relationship between Fish and Wildlife 

and the natural resource professionals working on early Air Force 

conservation projects. His experience with Fish and Wildlife equipped 

MacBain with knowledge of the most current environmental science 

and a vast contact list of civilian natural resource professionals. He 

also had the opportunity to learn directly from Rachel Carson, whom 

he supervised as she wrote The Sea Around Us (1951) and developed 

the concepts she presented in Silent Spring (1962). Carson considered 

Rachel L. Carson worked with Alastair MacBain at the U.S. 

Fish and Wildlife Service as she completed The Sea Around 

Us (1951). U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
78

MacBain a friend, and they often interacted outside the confines of the 

Fish and Wildlife Service office.23

Ford had maintained his ties to the U.S. Air Force as a reserve officer. 

His enduring relationships with Air Force leaders from World War II 

allowed him to devise and perform special active-duty assignments for 

several Air Force chiefs of staff.24 These generals respected Ford for 

giving them a voice heard by the American people during the war through 

his many articles on U.S. airmen published in popular magazines. They 

also honored Ford’s close relationship with General Arnold. Officers who 

witnessed interactions between Ford and Arnold felt that Ford still “carried 

Hap Arnold’s five stars on his shoulders,” even after Arnold’s death in 

1950.25 In addition to his military activities, Ford continued educating 

the American public about wildlife conservation in a Field and Streamcommissioned series, “Is Alaska’s Wildlife Doomed?” that appeared in 

three successive 1953 issues.26

By 1956, Ford had a new protégé and writing collaborator, James N. 

“Jim” Perkins. The two had met in 1952 when Perkins was a sophomore at 

Dartmouth College, where Ford served as the college’s unofficial advisor 

to student publications. Perkins possessed attributes Ford respected: he 

Corey H. Ford (right), who had remained a colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, with his 

new protégé, James N. “Jim” Perkins, while Perkins was in Air Force ROTC at Dartmouth 

College. As an Air Force second lieutenant, Perkins devised the idea to designate Air Force 

bases as conservation districts, and Ford helped him draft and develop the plan. Corey 

Ford Papers, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.
79

was a natural writer, an outdoorsman, and an Air Force ROTC cadet. While 

Perkins was still a student, Ford orchestrated paid writing assignments 

for him with Field and Stream and the Saturday Evening Post. Later, 

Ford applied his informal influence within the Air Force to engineer an 

appointment with the Air Force Office of Public Information for young 

Second Lieutenant Perkins when he came on active duty in March 1956.27

In late 1956, Perkins’s senior boss, Maj. Gen. Eugene B. “Ben” 

LeBailley, deputy director of the Office of Public Information, called a 

meeting to brainstorm a solution for a thorny issue brewing within the Air 

Force Office of Legislative Liaison. The House Committee on Interior and 

Insular Affairs had a bill under consideration—legislation that ultimately 

became the Engle Act—that would restrict the Defense Department’s 

ability to withdraw land from the public domain for military use and 

potentially give mining, timber, oil, and gas interests access and possible 

development rights on Air Force bases. LeBailley carped, “They want 

Eglin [Florida] and Wendover [Utah] and Matagorda Island [Texas] . . . 

and a bunch of other places. Any ideas?” According to Perkins, several 

officers put forward suggestions that fell flat. The general said, “Let me 

know if you think of anything” as he ended the meeting.28

Ford (right) and Perkins (center) toured several bases with exisiting convervation 

programs to gain an understanding of what the service was already doing. The image 

shows them among the pines at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, with base forester Walker 

V. Spence. Corey Ford Papers, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.
80

By the next morning, Perkins had thought of a possible solution to the 

problem, which he shared with Maj. Timothy J. E. Dunn III, his immediate 

supervisor. Perkins suggested designating Air Force bases as conservation 

districts for the protection of wildlife and the management of soil, water, and 

timber resources. The Air Force would develop official guidelines for the 

conservation program and seek the support of conservation-minded agencies 

and organizations such as the National Wildlife Federation and the U.S. Fish 

and Wildlife Service. Dunn liked the suggestion and ordered Perkins to “give 

me a memo on it, something I can go over with General LeBailley.” 29

The general was intrigued by the idea and requested more details. 

Perkins, feeling he was in over his head, reached out to his mentor, Ford, 

asking, “What do I do now?” Forty-eight hours later, Ford arrived at the 

Pentagon, in uniform, having “recalled himself to active duty,” according to 

Perkins.30 Within a few days, Perkins and Ford had orders to fly to Eglin Air 

Force Base to learn how base conservationists ran their highly successful 

wildlife program. They then traveled to Matagorda Island, Wendover, and 

several other Air Force installations to conduct more research.31

Upon returning to the Pentagon, Ford and Perkins coauthored a 

comprehensive memo describing an “Air Force Fish and Wildlife 

Conservation Program” and routed it directly to General White, the Air 

Force vice chief of staff, with Ford providing General LeBailley a verbal 

notification. The memo recommended designating all Air Force bases 

as conservation districts for fish and wildlife; developing conservation 

education programs for base personnel and their families; establishing 

outdoor recreational activities for military personnel; and increasing 

local civilian access to bases for hunting and fishing. Ford and Perkins 

also strongly advised that the conservation program receive highlevel command support, meaning that base commanders would accept 

responsibility for their fish and wildlife programs.32

Ford and Perkins stressed that the Air Force should publicize the 

program to clarify its purposes and to inform citizens of efforts to expand 

access to natural resources on bases. To accomplish this, Ford and Perkins 

sought direct assistance from the Fish and Wildlife Service’s chief of 

public information, MacBain. In response, MacBain provided them with 

his agency’s endorsement and introductions to the leaders of significant 

conservation and wildlife organizations such as the National Wildlife 

Federation, the Audubon Society, the Wildlife Management Institute, and 

pertinent federal agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Soil 

Conservation Service.33

Soon after General White received the memo, he invited Ford and 

Perkins to meet with him to discuss the proposed conservation program. 
81

Entering the general’s office, Perkins recalled that he “sat agog” as 

Ford and generals White, Twining, and Carl A. “Tooey” Spaatz greeted 

one another.*

 The three generals “quickly stood, grinning, each warmly 

grabbing Corey’s hand, greeting him as they would an old and familiar 

team mate. . . . Twining and Spaatz had both worked for General Hap 

Arnold and, like Corey, were fishermen.” Perkins recalled that for “twenty 

minutes or so . . . they talked, reminiscently, little about the conservation 

plan, but about fishing, where they’d been, what lake, what stream, what 

fish were running, what flies were working, and so on.” 34

After a brief discussion about the conservation program, General White 

concluded the meeting by telling Ford and Perkins that he had approved 

their memo. In a letter to Ford near the time of the meeting, White added, 

“I have heard so much of you and read so many of your things that when 

we met the other day I felt that we were old friends. . . . I am so glad 

that you and Lieutenant Perkins are taking an interest in our conservation 

program and I promise you my personal support.” 35 White soon appointed 

Lt. Col. Benjamin E. Royal to the provost marshal directorate, Office of the 

* Spaatz served as the first chief of staff of the newly independent U.S. Air Force, from 

September 1947 to April 1948. Twining was chief of staff from June 1953 to June 1957 and 

chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from August 1957 to September 1960.

One of the bases Ford and Perkins visited on their fact-finding trip in 1956 was on 

Matagorda Island, Texas, near the winter home at that time to the only surviving flock 

of Whooping Cranes in the world. This image shows a crane wintering on the island in 

January 2010. Photo by Steve Hillebrand. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
82

Inspector General, to rewrite Air Force conservation regulations to meet 

the evolving standards of the ongoing Engle committee hearings, and to 

issue the service’s orders for the conservation program. Perkins assumed 

responsibility for promoting the fledgling conservation effort within the 

Air Force and with civilian conservation groups.36

Ford and Perkins seized the momentum of White’s support for the 

conservation program and coordinated an invitation for the general to speak 

at the annual North American Wildlife Conference in Washington, D.C., 

Corey Ford Papers, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.
83

on March 4–6, 1957. White’s speech, which Ford and Perkins drafted, 

provided an “outstanding opportunity” to explain the Air Force Fish and 

Wildlife Conservation Program to all state fish and game program directors, 

other conservation organization leaders, and members of the outdoor 

recreation press, some of whom had been critical of Defense Department 

land management practices during the congressional hearings.37 Prior to 

his presentation, General White sought the consent of Secretary of the 

Air Force James H. Douglas Jr. to participate at the conference. Douglas 

approved of White’s speech, believing it would help improve the Air 

Force’s relationships with conservation organizations and gain support for 

the the conservation program from top civilian and military leaders.38

White’s speech emphasized the new memorandum of agreement 

between the Air Force and the Fish and Wildlife Service, signed in 

December 1956, to develop a professionally managed conservation 

program on Air Force bases. He also articulated his desire to build closer 

relationships between military personnel and their civilian neighbors 

and expressed the Air Force’s interest in creating new generations 

of outdoors enthusiasts through the program. White stressed the Air 

Force’s commitment to adhere to all state and local fish and game 

regulations, a point that greatly interested audience members.39 A week 

after the conference, Ford wrote White, thanking him for speaking and 

for lending his prestige to the Air Force project. He observed that state 

fish and game program directors were impressed by White’s sincerity 

and commitment to the service’s conservation program and noted that 

they were eager to cooperate with the Air Force. White agreed with 

Ford that the speech had helped improve the service’s reputation with 

the state fish and wildlife professionals.40

To gain publicity and support for the Air Force conservation initiative, 

Perkins and Ford engaged a broad spectrum of MacBain’s Fish and Wildlife 

Service contacts, from the Smithsonian Institution and U.S. Forest Service 

to congressional staffers and outdoor sportswriters. Perkins understood that 

a proactive approach to educating the public about the Air Force Fish and 

Wildlife Conservation Program would diminish public suspicions that the 

military was prohibiting civilians from hunting and fishing on the bases and 

help establish trust in the service’s land stewardship practices. One Washington 

Post article disseminated by the Associated Press newswire, “You Can Hunt 

on AF Bases,” specifically stated that civilians would be “permitted to hunt 

and fish on the reservations ‘whenever feasible,’” in contrast to earlier times 

when outsiders had been allowed on bases in only a few locations.41

Perkins and Ford also began research in April 1957 for a longer 

article, “Operation Wildlife,” which appeared in the January 4, 1958, issue 
84

of the Saturday Evening Post. For this story, Ford and Perkins surveyed 

air bases across the country, reported on active rod and gun clubs at each 

installation, and described a wide variety of base conservation efforts. 

Projects ranged from planting ground cover and food crops for waterfowl 

on Matagorda Island, to building new fish ponds at Eglin Air Force Base, 

to installing chukar guzzlers42 for partridges at Edwards Air Force Base, 

California. Air Force leaders acknowledged in the article that the new 

conservation program aimed to overcome “town-versus-base prejudices” 

Corey Ford Papers, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College.
85

and to build a “better relationship between service personnel and their 

civilian neighbors.” 43 It concluded with the authors quoting an interview 

with the new Air Force chief of staff, General White, who offered his 

personal perspective: 

Isn’t conservation really a defense effort in itself? Defense is more 

than planes and missiles to protect the country against an enemy 

attack. Part of the defense job is the safeguarding of the land 

and timber and water, the fish and wildlife, the priceless natural 

resources which make this country of ours worth defending.44

Just before Ford and Perkins embarked on their research trip for that 

article, the Engle committee released its final “Report on Military Public 

Gen. Thomas D. White remained an avid fisherman, shown 

here in 1962, a year after he had retired as chief of staff. His 

active role in supporting the Air Force conservation program 

helped establish its crediblity among wildlife professionals. 

Courtesy of the White family.
86

Land Withdrawals” on March 21, 1957. In it, the committee observed that 

of the services, only the U.S. Air Force had completed land utilization 

reports on all of its properties. Further, the Air Force was the only service 

that had finished revising its fishing and hunting regulations. The committee 

also commended the Air Force for its “forthright and direct assault” on Air 

Force property control practices.45 Pending final disposition of the bill, the 

committee concluded that the “sum-total of the past 12-months actions by 

the military in hunting-fishing matters is very meritorious and meaningful 

progress.”46 After reviewing the House hearings and new Defense Department 

conservation activities, members of the Senate Committee on Interior and 

Insular Affairs concluded in August 1957 that the Department of Defense 

and each of the military services had made “measurable and substantial 

improvement in military-local relations in fishing, hunting, and trapping 

matters, with a limited number of matters still unresolved.” 47 By the time 

the Engle Act became law in February 1958, the Air Force had already 

established a service-wide conservation program that would function as the 

model for the other services and the Department of Defense.
87

Five

The Air Force and

Department of Defense

Launch Conservation Programs

The Air Force Fish and Wildlife Conservation Program that existed in 

1958 arose from successive decisions by senior leaders who endorsed 

proactive natural resource management activities on service installations. 

The centralized effort drew heavily on two successful models: then-Lt. 

Gen. Nathan F. Twining’s work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to 

establish conservation initiatives on Air Force bases in Alaska in 1948 while 

commander of all military forces in Alaska, and the program developed 

at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, after passage of the Sikes Act in 1949. 

In July 1956, concurrent with the second round of the Engle committee 

hearings, General Twining, as chief of staff of the Air Force, formally 

established the Air Force Fish and Wildlife Conservation Program in the 

Office of the Provost Marshal, officially codifying it within the service. Six 

months later, on December 17, 1956, then-Undersecretary of the Air Force 

James H. Douglas Jr. signed a memorandum of agreement with the Fish 

and Wildlife Service that formalized cooperation on fish and wildlife issues 

on air bases and increased the program’s credibility among conservation 

professionals.1

 Building on Twining’s foundation, Gen. Thomas D. White 

dedicated an officer, Lt. Col. Benjamin E. Royal, as chief of the Fish and 

Wildlife Conservation Section in April 1957. Royal immediately began 

revising Air Force Regulation 125–5, dated August 20, 1957, the provision 

outlining the service’s conservation program, and amended it again in 

1958 to agree with the final language of the Engle Act. While updating the 

regulation, Royal coordinated with eleven Department of Defense (DOD) 

agencies and obtained backing from the Fish and Wildlife Service, the 

Wildlife Management Institute, and the National Wildlife Federation.2

Prior to implementation of the Engle Act in February 1958, the Air 

Force guideline on wildlife conservation, Air Force Regulation 93–14, 

dated April 30, 1954, “Installations—Control Procedures: Game Law 

Enforcement and Wildlife Conservation on Air Force Installations,” 

merely stated that the service’s policy was to conserve wildlife on its 

installations according to federal and state fish and game laws and 

made reference to cooperation with state and local agencies beyond 
88

law enforcement purposes. However, after the Engle Act became law in 

1958, the updated Air Force Regulation 125–5, dated November 6, 1958, 

“Provost Marshal Activities: Fish and Wildlife Conservation Program,” 

required installations to develop their fish and game resources to the 

maximum extent, if consistent with local mission requirements, and added 

that commanders were encouraged to seek technical advice and assistance 

from federal, state, and private conservation agencies. It also required that 

Air Force personnel abide by state and local game laws and permitted 

civilians to hunt and fish on bases.3

At the Defense Department level, before the Engle Act became law, 

DOD Directive 5500.3, “Hunting and Fishing on Military Reservations,” 

dated June 8, 1956, authorized, but did not order, commanders to permit 

hunting and fishing on their bases and encouraged cooperation with 

federal, state, and local agencies and civilian sportsmen’s groups to 

promote conservation activities. In October of the same year, DOD twice 

updated Directive 5500.3, on October 10, 1956, and October 31, 1956, 

adding that military personnel on installations under federal jurisdiction 

were not required to purchase state licenses.4

 However, after the Engle 

law passed, the Defense Department cancelled DOD Directive 5500.3 and 

issued Directive 5500.5, “Management, Conservation, and Harvesting of 

Fish and Game Resources,” dated July 16, 1958, specifically intended to 

implement the Engle Act. This directive required all military installations 

with suitable land and water to have “active, progressive program[s] for the 

management of renewable natural resources” and compelled commanders 

to “seek appropriate agreements” with federal, state, territorial, and local 

officials to create effective conservation programs. It also required military 

personnel on all installations to obtain state hunting and fishing licenses.5

Before the Engle Act and the updated DOD directives took effect, the 

Air Force had sought and hired a professionally trained and experienced 

civilian conservationist to lead the service’s natural resource initiative. 

The Air Force began its search in October 1956, three months after 

General Twining established the Air Force Fish and Wildlife Conservation 

Program. It desired a person who could develop a working rapport with 

governmental and private conservation agencies and organizations and 

provide continuity to the program, which was originally staffed by two 

uniformed officers who were transferred into other assignments every 

two years. The search committee received many recommendations and 

interviewed several individuals but found it difficult to locate a biologist 

with experience in both the fish and wildlife fields. In October 1957, after 

a yearlong search, the Air Force hired Elwood A. “Woody” Seaman to 

serve as the Air Force advisor on fish and wildlife conservation.6
89

Seaman’s qualifications in both fish and wildlife conservation made 

him ideal for the job. Prior to World War II, he had earned an undergraduate 

degree in biology from Wooster College and worked as a fishery biologist 

with the Ohio Conservation Department. During the war, Seaman served in 

the U.S. Navy as an epidemiologist, researching chiggers and mosquitoes to 

develop disease-prevention measures. That military service later eased his 

Elwood A. “Woody” Seaman (right), the first advisor for the Air Force Fish and 

Wildlife Conservation Program, and his uniformed deputy, Maj. Russell E. “Rusty” 

DeGroat, with the trophy for the service-wide Gen. Thomas D. White Fish and Wildlife 

Conservation Award. In 1962, DeGroat became the first director of natural resources 

for the Department of Defense. USAF photo, courtesy of Rusty DeGroat.
90

transition to working at the Pentagon with men in uniform. After the war, 

Seaman earned a master’s degree from the School of Fisheries and Wildlife 

at Marshall College. He then served for more than seven years as chief 

of the Division of Fish Management with the West Virginia Conservation 

Commission. Later, as executive secretary of the Sport Fishing Institute 

and secretary-treasurer of the American Fisheries Society in Washington, 

D.C., Seaman gained insight into the politics of natural resources legislation 

and learned the inner workings of national conservation organizations.7

He was acutely aware of the skepticism the Air Force Fish and Wildlife 

Conservation Program faced from some professionals in the field. As 

Seaman departed the Sport Fishing Institute for the Air Force, several 

former colleagues chided that he was “prostituting” himself and joining 

the “enemy” by taking a job with the military. Nevertheless, when Seaman 

reported for duty with the Air Force, he brought with him an extensive 

network of supportive colleagues in the conservation community who 

respected him as a trained, professional biologist.8

 Seaman’s background in 

fish biology also established his credibility with General White, the amateur 

ichthyologist, who had succeeded General Twining as chief of staff.9

Gen. Thomas D. White (right) fishing the Castor River in Newfoundland. White took 

a personal interest in the Air Force conservation program and established a strong 

relationship with its advisor, Woody Seaman, who was impressed with White’s 

knowledge and understanding of conservation issues. Courtesy of the White family.
91

As Seaman adapted to his Air Force position, he welcomed the 

opportunity to implement a substantive new conservation program, with 

the support of senior leaders. When he received a complaint from Earl S. 

Herald, director of San Francisco’s Steinhart Aquarium, about Air Force 

pilots shooting whales, porpoises, and sea lions as live targets along the 

California coast, he presented his concerns to General White. The Air 

Force chief of staff immediately sent a worldwide telegram, a TWX, to 

all air bases ordering a halt to the practice effective at 8 a.m. the next day. 

Seaman wrote in his memoir that he was amazed at White’s swift response 

and the service’s quick obedience to the general’s order.10

As Seaman got to know White better, he realized how knowledgeable the 

general was about professional conservation practices.He wrote that General 

White “had a fine knowledge of nature [and] understood conservation better 

than some professional administrators who head up programs in fish and 

wildlife management, forestry, and soil conservation.” Seaman added, 

“Without exception, every time I brought a conservation matter to General 

White’s attention, be it a request to stop bad practices such as pilots shooting 

animals as targets-of-opportunity or initiating a special fish and wildlife 

and forestry project at a base somewhere, he always approved and made 

excellent suggestions. I have felt that Tommy could have gone into biology 

and made a great name for himself as he did in the military field.” 11

Because many civilian fish and wildlife experts initially doubted the 

sincerity of the Air Force Fish and Wildlife Conservation Program, Seaman 

and Lieutenant Colonel Royal worked to demonstrate the program’s 

professionalism. They sought to dispel skepticism of the military’s 

commitment to scientific conservation practices by hosting tours of active 

Air Force fish and wildlife activities at bases nationwide for leaders of 

civilian conservation organizations.12 The two men also engaged in 

other outreach efforts. Royal addressed the Izaak Walton League annual 

meetings about the goals and methods of the conservation program, and 

Seaman attended scientific meetings of professional conservation bodies 

such as the American Fisheries Society, the International Association of 

Game and Fish Conservation Commissioners, and the American Institute 

of Biological Sciences. Seaman contacted state conservation directors and 

updated them on new Air Force conservation regulations that corrected 

past problems between the service and state agencies.13 These efforts 

won over critics of the program and created new networks of supportive 

experts on whom Seaman could call for assistance.

To promote conservation within the Air Force, Seaman and Royal 

surveyed installations to determine the extent to which fish and wildlife 

programs could be developed on individual bases. Survey responses 
92

showed that the Air Force had 1.3 million acres of active hunting areas and 

17,000 acres of fishing waters available. With that knowledge, Seaman and 

Royal helped Air Force base commanders develop land management plans 

with professional advice from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. 

Forest Service, and various state and local conservation agencies. These 

organizations evaluated Air Force bases, made recommendations, and 

when possible, provided personnel and equipment to accomplish the work. 

To increase awareness of and participation in the conservation program, the 

Air Force established the General Thomas D. White Conservation Award 

in November 1958, a trophy presented annually to the most effective fish 

The Air Force widely promoted its conservation efforts, both within the service and at 

conferences of fish and wildlife professionals. This image shows an exhibit from the late 

1950s or early 1960s. USAF photo, courtesy of Rusty DeGroat.
93

and wildlife conservation program on an Air Force installation, one that is 

still given as of this publication.14

In 1959, when Lieutenant Colonel Royal moved to another military 

assignment, Seaman chose Maj. Russell E. “Rusty” DeGroat, an 

experienced forester, as Royal’s replacement. Seaman had met DeGroat 

through Dan A. Poole, editor of the Wildlife Management Institute’s (WMI) 

Outdoor News Bulletin. Poole, who later succeeded Ira N. Gabrielson as 

president of the WMI, and DeGroat had been classmates in the late 1940s 

at the University of Montana—Poole in wildlife biology and DeGroat in 

forestry—and had renewed their friendship when they both landed jobs 

in Washington. DeGroat’s prior experience as Eglin Air Force Base’s 

forestry officer under the chief civilian forester, Walker V. Spence, and his 

work with the Florida Fish and Game Commission made him an excellent 

choice to help implement the new Air Force natural resource directives.15

As Seaman’s conservation officer, DeGroat enthusiastically coordinated 

Air Force efforts with those of federal and state natural resource agencies. 

DeGroat also oversaw the making of a fifteen-minute documentary, 

Runways in the Wild, which demonstrated how the Air Force managed its 

natural resources at Eglin Air Force Base. The film was narrated by actor 

James M. “Jimmy” Stewart, who had recently been promoted to brigadier 

general in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. It premiered in Washington, D.C., 

on March 10, 1961, with General White and Florida congressman Bob 

Sikes among those in attendance.16

An early quail shelter at the Air Force’s Matagorda Island gunnery and bombing range, 

one of 100 built on the Gulf Coast island by the parent facility, Bergstrom Air Force 

Base, Texas. The fence kept the cattle from destroying the shelters. USAF.
94

DeGroat also worked with Poole to persuade newspaper and magazine 

outdoor writers to develop stories about military conservation efforts and 

accompanied natural resource professionals on information-gathering and 

hunting trips. DeGroat’s relationships with civilian conservationists fostered 

cooperation between the Air Force and other wildlife organizations on natural 

resource projects. In one case, the Air Force provided Piasecki H–21 Work 

Horse helicopters and pilots to the National Wildlife Federation and U.S. 

Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct an aerial inventory of the endangered 

Lesser Prairie Chicken in Oklahoma and Kansas.17 In another, the Air Force 

Fish and Wildlife Conservation Program transported 400 live grayling and 

black fish from Alaska to the National Aquarium in Washington, D.C.18

DeGroat’s contributions to the Air Force’s early conservation efforts 

brought him new professional opportunities in October 1962 when the 

Defense Department selected him as the first Department of Defense 

director of natural resources.19 Seaman remained as head of the Air Force 

program, a position he held for more than a decade.

The Sikes Act of 1960

The Defense Department issued new natural resource conservation 

directives to the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force after the 

Engle Act became law in 1958. However, it did not create an umbrella 

conservation program encompassing all of the military services—the 

organization DeGroat came to head—until a new version of the 1949 Sikes 

Act compelled the Pentagon to do so in 1960. To facilitate this task, Air 

Force conservationists assisted DOD officials in drafting a memorandum 

of understanding between the Department of Defense and the U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service. That memo, signed on July 11, 1960, advised all military 

installation commanders to seek technical assistance from federal, state, 

and local conservation agencies and created a cooperative relationship 

between the Defense Department and the Fish and Wildlife Service.20

Congressman Robert L. F. “Bob” Sikes introduced legislation in 

1951, 1955, and 1957 to extend the original 1949 law to all military 

installations, but his early attempts gained no traction in Congress. On the 

heels of passage of the Engle Act, Sikes again introduced his bill, H.R. 

2565, in June 1959, “A Bill to promote effectual planning, development, 

maintenance, and coordination of wildlife, fish, and game conservation and 

rehabilitation in military reservations.” The proposed legislation sought to 

require the Defense Department to establish a mandatory and centralized 

fish and wildlife program that individual installation commanders would 

be obliged to implement. It also promoted the concept of cooperative 
95

plans between the Defense and Interior Departments and state agencies 

for conservation efforts on military lands. Further, if passed, it would 

empower the Defense Department to collect hunting and fishing fees on 

military lands that could be spent to support its conservation programs. 

Sikes believed that the bill would encourage implementation of the Engle 

Act and spur the services to make tangible progress on fish and wildlife 

conservation policies and practices.21

Pentagon officials responded tepidly to Sikes’s proposal. Defense 

spokesperson Leslie V. Dix testified at congressional hearings on H.R. 2565 

that Defense Department officials believed the Sikes bill was unnecessary 

because existing laws and regulations sufficiently addressed military fish 

and wildlife conservation issues. He added, however, that if the House 

approved the bill, the law should apply to all federal lands, not just those 

managed by the military.22 He also recommended several minor wording 

clarifications if the bill moved forward.23 Repeating the same contrary 

position argued during the 1949 Sikes Act hearings, the Bureau of the 

Budget and the Comptroller General’s Office objected to the bill’s funding 

mechanism, which would circumvent official military appropriations 

channels. The Treasury Department labeled it “back-door financing.”24

Most individuals testifying before the House supported the Sikes bill, 

however, as did committee members. Congressman John D. Dingell Jr. 

(D-MI), who later authored the Endangered Species Act (1973), believed 

that the new legislation would address a weakness in the Engle Act by 

improving civilian access to hunting on military lands. He also invoked 

language from the 1957 Senate report on the Engle Act, which asserted that 

Congress would legislate further on the issue if the military departments 

failed to implement a bona fide conservation program.25

Civilian conservationists agreed that H.R. 2565 would enhance 

implementation of the Engle Act. At the same time, the Wildlife Management 

Institute’s vice president, Clinton Raymond “C. R.” Gutermuth, observed 

that “with the exception of the Air Force, the other services really are not 

making much progress in implementing” the provision of the Engle Act to 

allow hunting and fishing on military reservations. “The Navy apparently 

has done no more than issue activating instructions,” he added, and “the 

Army appears to be doing everything possible to disregard” the provisions 

of the law.26 Seaman, who testified about the Air Force hunting program 

at Eglin Air Force Base, observed that “there was no question but that 

the committee, as a whole, was in favor of H.R. 2565,” and it quickly 

approved the bill with minor amendments.27 When the bill reached the 

Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce on May 19, 

1960, Engle, by then a U.S. senator, chaired the hearings.28 When Engle 
96

issued the Senate committee’s final report on May, 27, 1960, he stated 

that the committee approved the Sikes proposal, with minor amendments. 

On September 15, 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the 

legislation known as the Sikes Act into law.29

To implement the Sikes Act, the Defense Department issued directives 

mandating that each military installation with land and water areas suitable 

for conservation establish cooperative agreements with state conservation 

agencies and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to carry out professional 

land and wildlife management practices.30 Department of Defense 

Directive 5500.5, “Natural Resources: Management and Harvesting of 

Fish and Wildlife,” dated February 16, 1962, which cancelled Defense 

Directive 5500.5, dated July 16, 1958, explicitly stated that its purpose 

was to implement both the Engle and Sikes Acts and affirmed that the 

resulting conservation programs and the military mission “need not, 

and shall not, be mutually exclusive.” It required that personnel “at all 

Cmdr. Charles F. Zirzow, USN, became the first manager of the Navy’s Natural 

Resources Management Branch in 1960. He kept taxidermic albatrosses in his office 

as mementos of a Navy project he led on Midway Island in the early 1960s to relocate 

thousands of Laysan Albatrosses away from runway areas to help prevent bird strikes. 

Zirzow worked closely with renowned ornitholigist Chandler Robbins of the U.S. Fish 

and Wildlife Service to develop and implement the plan. Courtesy of the Zirzow family.
97

echelons of command must support national conservation policies and 

programs” and that commanders take full responsibility for cooperating 

with civilian conservationists. The 1962 directive also established the 

Secretary of Defense Conservation Award, patterned on the Air Force’s 

Thomas D. White Conservation Award, to encourage fish and wildlife 

activities on all military installations.31 On June 26, 1962, the Air Force 

revised its regulation administering the fish and wildlife program to 

parallel the Defense Department directive’s language and began enhancing 

its conservation activities with the support of the new Air Force chief of 

staff, General Curtis E. LeMay.32 

The new DOD directive also compelled the Navy and Army to revise 

their fish and wildlife regulations and enhance the conservation programs 

initiated in response to the Engle Act. In 1960, Lt. Cmdr. Charles F. Zirzow, 

an environmental engineer by training, had become the first manager of the 

Navy’s Natural Resources Management Branch, and the service extended 

the conservation program to twelve regional offices.33 Later that year, the 

Navy delegated responsibility for its participation in wildlife, forestry, and 

soil and water conservation efforts to the chief of the Bureau of Yards 

and Docks.34 However, Navy organizations did not receive a complete set 

of official instructions enabling service-wide activation of the Navy and 

Marine Corps’ natural resources conservation program, in cooperation 

with state and federal agencies, until November 1962.35

While the Air Force and Navy natural resource programs fell under 

centralized control, as of 1960, the Army’s fish and wildlife efforts remained 

haphazard.36 G. Blair Joselyn, the former conservation and wildlife 

management officer at Fort Riley, Kansas, from July 1960 to April 1962, 

wrote in 1965, “Of the three military services, the Army has placed the 

least command emphasis on wildlife-management programs . . . because 

of the lack of firm policy and guidance from higher echelons.” 37 Indeed, 

the 1962 DOD conservation directive compelled the Army to revise Army 

Regulation 210–221, “Installations: Natural Resources—Management 

and Harvesting of Fish and Wildlife,” dated July 24, 1962, for natural 

resource management on the service’s installations. However, Army 

commanders retained considerable discretion on how comprehensively 

they implemented the directive. As a result, they seldom provided adequate 

financing and personnel for effective conservation programs.38 Civilian 

conservationists observed that the Air Force and Navy had made good 

progress with their fish and wildlife programs but began to ask in 1962 

“why the Army’s program is lagging behind the others.” 39 It would take 

until 1965 and the influence of new environmental laws for the Army’s 

efforts to match those of the Air Force and Navy.
98

Since 1960, Congress has amended and extended the Sikes Act on 

numerous occasions. Most notably, in 1974, Congress authorized 

conservation plans for lands belonging to the Department of Energy, Bureau 

of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, and National Aeronautics 

and Space Administration and also provided partial appropriations for 

the Departments of Defense, Interior, and Agriculture to execute their 

natural resource plans. In 1986, seven years after namesake Bob Sikes 

retired, Congress again amended the Sikes Act, requiring that the Defense 

Department employ trained wildlife professionals and authorized, but 

did not require, development of periodic integrated natural resource 

management plans with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service assistance.40

Congress updated the law again in 1997 and statutorily mandated Pentagon 

cooperation with Fish and Wildlife to develop conservation plans. The 

revision also included a provision that allowed citizen participation in the 

drafting of military conservation plans.41

The Sikes Act of 1960 provided funding for Defense conservation 

activities through the sale of hunting and fishing permits, timber harvests, 

and agricultural leasing on military installations. An additional level 

of funding for the program began with 1968 amendments to the Sikes 

Act, and appropriations increased incrementally with each amendment 

to the law. However, the Defense Department often failed to request 

funds to implement the law’s requirements, causing much congressional 

dissatisfaction. By making conservation plans mandatory through 1997 Sikes 

Act amendments, Congress forced the Department of Defense to request 

funding, some of which would be passed along to the Fish and Wildlife 

Service for expenditures that supported military conservation efforts.42 In 

the early twenty-first century, revisions to the Sikes Act remain the guiding 

legislation for natural resource conservation on military installations and 

resonate today in the realm of wildlife and habitat conservation.
99

Conclusion and

Epilogue

The U.S. Air Force Fish and Wildlife Conservation Program accomplished 

significant results during its first decade. It overcame the skepticism of 

civilian conservationists and the American public about the sincerity of 

the Air Force’s commitment to its conservation responsibilities; revised 

outdated and insufficient Air Force regulations governing the service’s 

fish and wildlife conservation programs; forged strong collaborative 

relationships with federal agencies responsible for fish and wildlife 

and land management; appointed trained natural resource professionals 

to manage Air Force lands; and established a template for the Defense 

Department-wide natural resources program. In 2014, more than sixty 

years after initiating fish and wildlife conservation activities on bases in 

Alaska and Florida, the Air Force remains the steward of 9.1 million acres, 

one-third of the Department of Defense’s 27.7 million acres of land.1

The Air Force’s first conservation efforts were largely informal, 

unofficial, and carried out through local rod and gun clubs established by 

commanders on large bases. During congressional wrangling over the 1949 

Sikes bill, the Department of Defense assigned the Air Force responsibility 

for fish and wildlife conservation concerns. The passage of the Sikes Act 

of 1949 was a watershed for conservation efforts on military installations 

and created the framework for the more encompassing Sikes Act of 1960. 

In addition to establishing the Air Force as the executive agent for the 

Department of Defense on conservation issues, the legislative process 

surrounding the 1949 bill heightened Thomas D. White’s awareness of 

the increasing political importance of conservation issues to Congress and 

the American public. When General White assumed more authority as 

vice chief and subsequently as chief of staff of the Air Force, he was well 

positioned to respond to congressional mandates to improve Air Force 

natural resource stewardship, and he personally promoted the service’s 

conservation program.

While the Sikes Act of 1949 proved important to Air Force 

conservation, information brought forward during hearings of the House 
100

Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs in 1956 and 1957 served as the 

principal catalyst for authentic and enduring change in natural resource 

management practices on U.S. military installations. The law that resulted 

from the hearings, the Engle Act of 1958, required congressional approval 

for any military land withdrawals of more than 5,000 acres of public lands; 

compelled the military services to follow state and local fish and game 

laws; and permitted access to military installations for game inspection 

and enforcement purposes. 

Before the of Engle committee hearings concluded in February 1957, 

the Air Force responded proactively to the political and public rancor 

caused by natural resources professionals’ testimony. In July 1956, at the 

Gen. Nathan F. Twining’s direction, the Air Force formally established 

the centralized Air Force Fish and Wildlife Conservation Program and 

began revising regulations governing fishing and hunting on air bases to 

impose greater uniformity in rules and address concerns raised during the 

Engle hearings. In October 1956, the Air Force Weapons Range Board’s 

final report provided the committee with an inventory of the service’s 

total acreage, data the Army and Navy did not compile until late 1957. In 

December 1956, the Air Force undersecretary signed a memorandum of 

agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that strengthened the 

Air Force Fish and Wildlife Conservation Program on its installations.2

Rick Gilbride (left), the 23d Civil Engineer Squadron base entomologist, SSgt. Kenneth 

Butler, and J. C. Griffin, a U.S. Department of Agriculture wildlife biologist, snared a 

ten-foot alligator for relocation at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, in July 2013. Photo 

by SrA Eileen Meier. USAF.
101

The 1960 Sikes Act, which extended the 1949 conservation law from 

Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, to all Defense installations, made mandatory 

the fish and wildlife conservation measures that the Engle Act had not 

deemed compulsory. The Department of Defense responded to the 1960 

Sikes Act by establishing an umbrella conservation program and issuing 

DOD-wide directives for the services to follow. The law induced each 

service to revise its regulations on the subject, and the Air Force responded 

quickly by augmenting its existing centralized, professionally managed 

fish and wildlife conservation program. The Navy also recognized the need 

for unified natural resource management and established its centralized 

program in 1960. The Army reissued its natural resource directives in 1962 

prescribing general policies and procedures for fish and game management 

but did not establish a coordinated conservation program until 1965. 

The Defense Department’s current conservation program is deeply 

rooted in an Air Force land ethic established by insightful leaders, 

principally Generals Henry H. Arnold, Twining, and White. Long before 

analysts coined the term “environmental security” in 1991, these men 

Mark Hagan, the natural resources manager at Edwards 

Air Force Base, California, tended to an injured brown 

pelican in April 2006. The pelican was transported to the 

California Wildlife Center in Calabasas for rehabilitation. 

Photo by A1C Julius Delos Reyes. USAF.
102

recognized the inextricable link between natural resource conservation 

and national security.3

 Arnold applied practical solutions when he used 

aircraft in forest-fire patrols and expanded his conservation principles 

after firsthand experience with the Civilian Conservation Corps. Arnold 

also empowered Corey H. Ford and, by later association, James N. “Jim” 

Perkins, to advance prevailing conservation ethics with his successors in 

the Air Force. Twining established an enduring fish and wildlife program in 

Alaska in 1948 and instituted a formal, service-wide conservation program 

in 1956 while chief of staff. White advanced the service’s natural resource 

efforts by hiring highly qualified professionals and modernizing Air Force 

regulations that controlled the service’s wildlife and land management 

practices and ensured compliance with state and local fishing and hunting 

laws. These actions earned the trust of civilian conservation professionals 

and the American public in the Air Force’s capacity to properly manage its 

natural resources.

The initial Air Force Fish and Wildlife Conservation Program 

kept pace with innovations in earth science and more comprehensive 

environmental statutes. However, it was the exponential increase in 

environmental legislation after 1962 that stimulated the second wave of 

As part of the Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard program at Travis Air Force Base, California, 

A1C David Mumme, 60th Civil Engineer Squadron, sends Columbia, a female lanner 

falcon, out to help clear the airspace. Photo (2011) by Heide Couch. USAF.
103

natural resources management on Department of Defense lands. New laws 

such as the Clean Air Act (1963, 1970), the Clean Water Restoration Act 

(1966, 1970), the National Historic Preservation Act (1966), the National 

Environmental Protection Act (1969), and the Endangered Species Act 

(1973) gradually shifted the military’s emphasis from fishing, hunting, 

and wildlife conservation to developing procedures and practices that 

complied with the new legislation.

It took nearly a decade for federal agencies, including the Department of 

Defense, to implement policies to meet National Environmental Protection 

Act requirements for mitigating or avoiding environmental degradation. 

To meet these obligations, for example, the Air Force and Navy modified 

flight paths over national parks in California and Texas to reduce noise 

pollution in sensitive natural areas. Additionally, compliance with the 

Endangered Species Act resulted in the military developing strategies to 

offset environmental impacts on an individual protected animal or plant 

species. For instance, when the Army expanded its national training 

center at Fort Irwin, California, it established a natural area to study the 

endangered Desert Tortoise and relocated tortoises from the training area to 

a protected refuge on Army land. While adhering to existing environmental 

Dr. Jeffrey Lincer of the Wildlife Research Institute holds a burrowing owl he has just 

banded. The 452d Environmental Flight built six alternate burrows for the owls at 

March Air Force Base, California, to relocate them away from development in another 

area of the facility. Photo (2010) by Megan Just. USAF.
104

At MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, SSgt. Kevin Rocha (above, left), 6th Force Support 

Squadron, and Chris Sutton of Tampa Bay Watch installed oyster habitats on the beach 

in December 2008. SSgt. Rachel McCray (below), 6th Logistics Readiness Squadron, 

helped prepare a manatee for transport from MacDill to San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 

December 2010. The animal had been rehabilitated in Florida after suffering injuries in 

a boat strike. Top photo uncredited; bottom image by SSgt. Angela Ruiz. USAF.
105

laws, military natural resources programs from the early 1960s through the 

1980s established initiatives often in reaction to a specific incident or threat 

to a particular species. Not until the 1990s did the Pentagon implement 

more proactive, holistic conservation policies and activities.4

By the early 1990s, during the third and current wave of military natural 

resources conservation, Pentagon leaders reacted to two primary factors: 

legal action taken in response to environmental violations, and new scientific 

approaches to integrated ecosystem management. The former involved 

threats of federal criminal indictment against three civilians under military 

A female Loggerhead Sea Turtle on Santa Rosa Island at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, 

in 2009. The Jackson Guard rescued the disoriented turtle with the help of Eglin 

firefighters, who used a stretcher to carry the animal for release in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Loggerheads are listed as an endangered species. USAF.
106

contract on eight counts of conspiring to violate the Endangered Species Act 

at Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1992. The men knew that the endangered Redcockaded Woodpecker inhabited areas that they recommended for timber 

cutting, and they intentionally failed to protect the birds by submitting 

maps of areas that showed they were not nesting in the trees that were to 

be harvested. Consequently, military commanders noted that they could be 

held legally liable for failure to enforce existing environmental laws and 

Approximately 25 percent of the remaining Western Snowy Plover population resides 

at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, which annually closes portions of its beaches 

to the public during nesting season. The small shorebird is federally listed under the 

Endangered Species Act of 1973 as threatened. USAF.
107

took greater care to obey them.5

 In response to new environmental science 

methods, the Pentagon undertook the Biological Diversity Initiative in 1994, 

which sought to develop a more comprehensive approach to managing 

land and wildlife diversity on DOD lands. Under Air Force direction, the 

initiative solicited advice from military environmental experts, federal and 

state environmental land management professionals, and academic and 

nongovernmental environmental authorities. At the conclusion of a yearlong 

effort, the Defense Department incorporated policy recommendations into 

DOD Instruction 4715.3, “Environmental Conservation Program,” dated 

May 3, 1996, that was issued to all military components, and published a book, 

Conserving Biodiversity on Military Lands: A Guide for Natural Resource 

Managers (1996), for commanders and natural resource professionals to use 

at their installations.6

This third wave of military conservation increased the scope of the 

military’s program far beyond fish and wildlife concerns. As of 2013, the 

Defense Department spent roughly $4 billion a year on environmental 

programs ranging from alternative fuel development, green procurement, 

and recycling initiatives to cultural resource protection and environmental 

restoration activities.7

 One of Defense’s greatest conservation successes, 

harking back to early military wildlife conservation efforts, has been its 

In a joint effort of Eglin Air Force Base and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation 

Commission, a 325-pound black bear was relocated to an isolated area of the base’s 

range in October 2012. Photo by Samuel King Jr. USAF.
108

management of 420 federally listed endangered species and 523 at-risk 

species. Although the Defense Department shares the distinction of 

protecting the most federally listed species with the U.S. Forest Service, 

military lands have a higher density of imperiled species per acre than 

any other federal agencies’ land and thus a disproportionate level of 

significance to the species’ survival.8

The Pentagon has not always prioritized ecological stewardship, and the 

military’s motives for species protection are not entirely altruistic. But the 

Defense Department recognizes that if endangered or at-risk species decline 

too greatly, it could be forced to relocate military activities, which is more 

expensive than addressing species conservation issues. Slowly, installation 

commanders learned that proper natural resource management maintains the 

ecological integrity of their lands and ultimately preserves and provides the 

realistic training conditions that are essential to military readiness. Brig. Gen. 

A Desert Bighorn ram at a wildlife water station in June 2009 in the Air Force’s Barry 

M. Goldwater Range, which covers 1.7 million acres in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert and is 

used for training by pilots from Luke Air Force Base. USAF.
109

Sonoran pronghorn (below) are shown visiting a water station in the Goldwater Range 

in April 2012. These stations are fed from tanks like the ones (above) being installed 

in January 2013. The tanks store rainwater and use a gravity flow system to circulate 

it to the drinkers. Images on the previous page and below are from motion-activated 

cameras; above by A. Alvidrez. USAF.
110

J. Robert Barnes, USA (ret.), who became a senior policy advisor with The 

Nature Conservancy, observed that “as far as the military’s mission goes, the 

environment is a stage prop for practicing the art of war.” He noted that the 

military “has to take good care of the land it’s got, because it’s not getting 

any more.”9

The natural resource conservation programs established by the Air 

Force and the Department of Defense in the mid-twentieth century have 

an enduring legacy. Beginning in 1991, the National Security Strategy of the 

United States (NSS) has included environmental security as a key aspect of 

broader U.S. national security. The 1991 NSS stated, “We must manage the 

Earth’s natural resources in ways that protect the potential for growth and 

opportunity for present and future generations. . . . Global environmental 

concerns . . . respect no international boundaries. The stress from these 

environmental challenges is already contributing to political conflict.”10

Beginning in 1997, the DOD Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) has 

incorporated environmental security as part of its effort toward national 

defense, and the 2010 QDR acknowledged that climate change “may act 

as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden to respond on 

civilian institutions and militaries around the world.” The 2014 QDR 

noted that “we have increased our preparedness for the consequences of 

Airmen of the 30th Medical Operations Squadron dug up sea mussels for testing at 

Minuteman Beach, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, in February 2012 (left to 

right): TSgt. Roy Champion, SrA Barry Jones, and A1C Charles Bryant. The mussels 

were tested for paralytic shellfish poisoning and the neurotoxin domoic acid. Photo by 

SSgt. Andrew Satran. USAF.
111

environmental damage and continue to seek to mitigate these risks while 

taking advantage of opportunities.”11

The U.S. military’s connection to the natural world dates back to the 

earliest era of American exploration, to the Lewis and Clark expedition 

and the Pacific railroad surveys. This linkage has, at times, been an 

imperfect relationship, as there have been many instances of military 

disregard for conservation and ecology, some of which are described 

in this work. While new conservation laws in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s 

compelled the Department of Defense to develop tangible natural resource 

management practices on its lands, it was senior military leaders who 

enabled the services to implement meaningful conservation programs 

during the initial wave of military natural resources conservation after 

World War II. A few innovative and forward-looking Air Force leaders in 

particular were keenly aware of environmental problems, and the service’s 

unconventional culture permitted them to implement innovative programs 

to find solutions. The Air Force led the Department of Defense into a new 

era where the defense of nature is an integral part of its mission.
112

A pelican perched on a post by Weekly Bayou at Eglin Air Force Base in November 2011. 

Photo by Samuel King Jr. USAF.
113

Notes

Prologue

1. “Death Knell Sounded for Buffalo Herd,” Prescott Evening Courier, December 20, 

1954, 6; Frank A. Tinker, “Tragedy at Huachuca,” Nature Magazine, April 1955, 202–3; 

U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, “Withdrawal and 

Utilization of the Public Lands of the United States,” 84th Cong., 2d sess., June 11, 12, July 

2, 3, 9, 10, 1956, 26–27, 155 (hereafter House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 

2d Round). The Arizona Game and Fish Commission did attempt to find new homes for as 

many of the animals as it could before resorting to the hunt. It moved thirty-five to forty 

animals to Raymond Ranch, near Flagstaff, Arizona, and roughly a dozen went to the state 

of Sonora, Mexico, with another dozen to the Kaibab National Forest in northern Arizona. 

“Death Knell Sounded for Buffalo Herd,” 6; Cornelius C. Smith, Fort Huachuca: The Story 

of a Frontier Post (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978), 313; “Buffalo 

Herd is Dispersed,” Prescott Evening Courier, January 26, 1955, 5.

2. “Selected Hunters Bang Away as Buffalo Herd is Thinned,” Prescott Evening Courier, 

January 13, 1955, 4 (1st quote); Tinker, “Tragedy at Huachuca,” 202–3 (2d quote).

3. Tinker, “Tragedy at Huachuca,” 203.

4. “Fort Huachuca Sought for Wildlife,” Prescott Evening Courier, May 3, 1947, 4; 

Huachuca Illustrated: A Magazine of the Fort Huachuca Museum. Vol. 10: The Modern Era, 

1950–2000 (1999), 3–5, 11–12, http://huachuca-www.army.mil/files/History_Illustrated_

ModernEra.pdf (hereafter Huachuca Illustrated); Steve Gregory, “The Last Buffalo on Fort 

Huachuca,” Sierra Vista Historical Society Newsletter, February 2011, 6.

5. Huachuca Illustrated, 11–12; Smith, Fort Huachuca, 311–12; Gregory, “Last Buffalo 

on Fort Huachuca,” 6; Ray Hebert, “Herd of Buffalo Thrives on Arizona Reservation,” Los 

Angeles Times, January 4, 1953, B1, B2.

6. Huachuca Illustrated, 14, 38, 91; Smith, Fort Huachuca, 311–13; Tinker, “Tragedy 

at Huachuca,” 202–3; Hebert, “Herd of Buffalo Thrives on Arizona Reservation,” B1, B2.

7. “Game Group Threatens to Jail General,” Prescott Evening Courier, December 6, 

1954, 1; R. G. Lynch, “Wildlife Leaders Win in Fight with Military: Department of Defense 

Does Not Object to Control of Hunting House Group Told,” Milwaukee Journal, February 

1, 1957, 10; Stewart L. Udall (D-AZ), in House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 

2d Round, 27 (quote).

8. “Game Group Threatens to Jail General,” 1; “Sportsmen’s Group Raps Gen. Lenzner,” 

Prescott Evening Courier, December 8, 1954, 1; “Fort Huachuca Group to Hunt Wild 

Animals,” Prescott Evening Courier, November 10, 1954, 5; Tinker, “Tragedy at Huachuca,” 

203; House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 2d Round, 1956, 155.
114

9. “Sportsmen’s Group Raps Gen. Lenzner,” 1 (1st quote); “Game Group Threatens to 

Jail General,” 1 (2d quote).

10. Tinker, “Tragedy at Huachuca,” 203; “Death Knell Sounded for Buffalo Herd,” 6; 

House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 2d Round, 155.

11. Dian Olson Belanger, Managing American Wildlife: A History of the International 

Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988), 

7, 53, 101 (quote).

12. Lynch, “Wildlife Leaders Win in Fight with Military,” 10. Many of the same incidents 

Lynch referenced in his article are also described in congressional testimony in House 

Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 2d Round, 10–14, 49–80. Other incidents 

included the unlawful taking of deer at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin; illegal trapping and 

transporting of deer from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Fort Benning, Georgia; the illegal 

killing of does out of season at Cherry Point, North Carolina; the illegal transport of wildlife 

killed by military personnel in New Mexico by Fort Bliss soldiers; the appearance of a 

deluxe officer’s shooting club at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland; and the plan of all 

the military services to acquire large tracts of public domain land in the Desert Game Refuge 

in Nevada, the Kenai National Moose Range in Alaska, and the Wichita Mountains National 

Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma, to name a few locations.

One

1. Harvey Meyerson, Nature’s Army: When Soldiers Fought for Yosemite (Lawrence: 

University Press of Kansas, 2001), 3–23; William H. Goetzman, Army Exploration in the 

American West, 1803–1863 (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1991), 3–21; Frank 

N. Schubert, Vanguard of Expansion: Army Engineers in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1819–

1879 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980), vii–xi.

2. For details of the role the U.S. Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers and 

other Army units played in exploration, expansion, and settlement of the United States, see 

Goetzman, Army Exploration in the American West; William H. Goetzman, Exploration 

and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the American West (New 

York: Knopf, 1966); Schubert, Vanguard of Expansion; Ray A. Billington and Martin Ridge, 

Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier (Albuquerque: University of New 

Mexico Press, 2001); Frank N. Schubert, ed., The Nation Builders: A Sesquicentennial 

History of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, 1838–1863 (Fort Belvoir, VA: Office of 

History, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1988).

3. Goetzman, Army Exploration in the American West, 262–304; Schubert, Vanguard of 

Expansion, 95–113; Meyerson, Nature’s Army, 13.

4. Meyerson, Nature’s Army, 51–232; H. Duane Hampton, How the U.S. Cavalry Saved 

Our National Parks (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1971), 3–5, 41–42, 79–94, 

130–63; Karl Jacoby, Crimes Again Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden 

History of American Conservation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 99–120.

5. Goetzman, Army Exploration in the American West, 4 (quote), 12–13.

6. Ibid., 15–17; Meyerson, Nature’s Army, 20–22.

7. Meyerson, Nature’s Army, 11, 21 (1st, 2d quotes), 24 (3d quote).

8. Ibid., 22–23 (quotes); Goetzman, Army Exploration in the American West, 17.

9. George Bird Grinnell was a Yale-educated zoologist who became an early 

conservationist known for his efforts to save the American buffalo from extinction. 

Edward S. Dana was a classmate of Grinnell’s at Yale and a respected geologist and 
115

mineralogist. William Ludlow, Exploring Nature’s Sanctuary: Captain William Ludlow’s 

Report of a Reconnaissance from Carroll, Montana Territory, on the Upper Missouri to 

the Yellowstone National Park, and Return Made in the Summer of 1875 (Washington, DC: 

U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985), vii; James B. Trefethen, An American Crusade for 

Wildlife (New York: Winchester Press, 1975), 17–19; James T. White, “Edward Salisbury 

Dana,” in National Cyclopaedia of American Biography 30 (New York: J. T. White and 

Company, 1943), 332; Adolph Knopf, “Biographical Memoir of Edward Salisbury Dana, 

1849–1935,” presented at the National Academy of Sciences autumn Meeting, 1937, http://

www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/dana-edward.pdf.

10. Ludlow, Exploring Nature’s Sanctuary, 26, 36–37 (quote, 36); Meyerson, Nature’s 

Army, 79–82.

11. Grinnell’s zoological report in Ludlow, Exploring Nature’s Sanctuary, 60.

12. Jacoby, Crimes Against Nature, 103–8.

13. Hampton, How the U.S. Cavalry Saved Our National Parks, 130–63; Meyerson, 

Nature’s Army, 85–155.

14. According to Turner’s “frontier thesis,” the “existence of an area of free land, its 

continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American 

development” and the social conditions that exist on the frontier line “furnish the forces 

dominating American character.” Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History

(New York: Henry Holt, 1920), 1, 3.

15. For history of the depletion of American natural resources and development of 

the conservation movement, see Peter Matthiessen, Wildlife in America, rev. ed. (New 

York: Viking, 1987); Trefethen, American Crusade for Wildlife; Thomas R. Dunlap, Saving 

America’s Wildlife: Ecology and the American Mind, 1850–1900 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton 

University Press, 1988); Henry E. Clepper, ed., Origins of American Conservation (New 

York: Ronald Press, 1966); William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great 

West (New York: Norton, 1991); Mary R. McCorvie and Christopher L. Lant, “Drainage 

District Formation and the Loss of Midwestern Wetlands, 1850–1930,”Agricultural History 

67 (Autumn 1993): 13–39; Donald J. Pisani, “Forests and Conservation, 1865–1890,” 

Journal of American History 72 (September 1985): 340–59; Douglas W. MacCleery, 

American Forests: A History of Resiliency and Recovery (Durham, NC: Forest History 

Society, 1992), 13–40; Hugh M. Raup, “The View from John Sanderson’s Farm: A 

Perspective for the Use of the Land,” Forest History 10 (April 1966): 2–11; Robert L. Kelley, 

“Forgotten Giant: The Hydraulic Gold Mining Industry in California,” Pacific Historical 

Review 23 (November 1954): 343–56; Robert L. Kelley, “The Mining Debris Controversy 

in the Sacramento Valley,” Pacific Historical Review 25 (Nov. 1956): 331–46; David 

Igler, “Industrial Cowboys: Corporate Ranching in Late Nineteenth-Century California,” 

Agricultural History 69 (Spring 1995): 201–15; Stuart L. Udall, The Quiet Crisis (New 

York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963).

16. William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong 

Nature,” in Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, ed. William Cronon 

(New York: Norton, 1995), 69–90 (quotes, 76–77).

17. John F. Reiger, American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation, 3d ed. 

(Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2001), 3.

18. Reiger and historian Thomas R. Dunlap have had a notable public exchange 

concerning Reiger’s work. Dunlap believes that Reiger’s central thesis, that sport hunters 

and fishermen were the primary organizers of the conservation movement before 1901, is 

exaggerated, that while sport hunters may have “introduced many people to the notion of 

conservation and wise use, and the new game laws, . . . none of that make hunting central 
116

to the conservation crusade or the movement’s intellectual fountainhead.” Dunlap asserts 

that the conservation movement was defined by its “concern for the ‘interrelationship of all 

resource use’ and a commitment to scientific management and bureaucratic administration,” 

characteristics he believed the sport hunting movement lacked. However, Dunlap does agree 

that sport hunters did play an important role in conservation and preservation by organizing 

into groups that made wildlife laws more comprehensive. Reiger responds that when 

Dunlap asserted that he “made no differentiation between the ‘sportsmen-conservationists’ 

and the anonymous rank-and-file hunters and fishermen that Dunlap misrepresented his 

book’s thesis. Reiger explains that he did make the distinction by repeatedly stating that the 

“sportsmen-conservationists” were from the upper classes, “automatically cut[ting] out the 

vast majority of rank-and-file hunters and fishermen.” Further, Reiger writes that Dunlap’s 

“anti-hunting bias” is implicit throughout his critique of Reiger’s work. Dunlap, “Sport 

Hunting and Conservation, 1880–1920,” Environmental Review 12 (Spring 1988): 51–60 

(quotes, 55–56); Reiger, “John F. Reiger’s commentary on Thomas R. Dunlap’s article, 

‘Sport Hunting and Conservation, 1880–1920,’ in ER 12:1 (Spring 1988),” Environmental 

Review 12 (Fall 1988): 94–96 (quotes).

19. Reiger, American Sportsmen, 6–7 (1st and 2d quotes), 9 (3d quote), 51, 182–84.

20. Theodore Roosevelt and founding members, “Language adapted from the 

Certificate of Incorporation of the Boone and Crockett Club, May 23, 1923, Washington, 

D.C.,” in “History of the Boone and Crockett Club,” https://www.boone-crockett.org/about/

about_history.asp?area=about (quote); Robert V. Hine, Frontiers: A Short History of the 

American West (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 198–99; Reiger, American 

Sportsmen, 146.

21. Trefethen, American Crusade for Wildlife, 76–90, 97–105, 139–42, 195–98.

22. Reiger, American Sportsmen, 45–50.

23. Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (Glencoe, 

IL: Free Press, 1960), 84–89 (quote, 85). Janowitz surveyed 760 generals and admirals and 

another 576 military officers from the Pentagon and then “intensively interviewed” 113 of 

these high-level officers to explain the social backgrounds and career experiences of the 

military elites. He also provided an account of military style of life, etiquette, and the code 

of military honor. For more information on Janowitz’s methodology, see “Methodological 

Appendix,” 443–52. His widely praised book is one of the foundational works in the field of 

military sociology.

24. The outdoor interests and concerns of these men are developed throughout the book. 

For examples on this general subject matter from their correspondence, see Maj. Gen. Henry H. 

Arnold to Joe E. Elliott, Forest Supervisor, Sequoia National Forest, August 10, 1938, October 

11, 1939, U.S. Air Force Historical Studies Office (AFHSO) microfilm collection, reel 280521, 

no frame nos.; Arnold to Corey Ford, January 25, 1940, Papers of Corey Ford, box 2, folder 10, 

Rauner Special Collections, Dartmouth College (hereafter Ford Papers); Arnold to Nate Milnor, 

President, California Fish and Game Commission, July 23, 1941, AFHSO microfilm collection, 

reel 28055, no frame nos.; Fred P. Cronemiller, U.S. Forest Service, to Arnold, May 14, 1947; 

Arnold to George C. Marshall, U.S. Secretary of State, letter with enclosures (Trip I: information 

supplied by Trinity National Forest; Trip II, extracted from letter of May 14 from Cronemiller), 

May 22, 1947; Marshall to Arnold, June 2, 1947, AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 28064, no 

frame nos.; Alastair MacBain, Chief, Division of Information, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to 

Gen. Carl Spaatz, February 18, 1952; Spaatz to Ford, January 18, 1955, January 17, 1958; Ford 

to Spaatz, January 14, 1956, January 13, 1958, Papers of Carl Spaatz, part 2, box 14, folder: Bang 

Bang Club, 1952–1960, Library of Congress (hereafter Spaatz Papers); Gen. Thomas D. White 

to Spaatz, letter, October 16, 1957, March 19, 1958, Spaatz Papers, part 2, box 14, folder: “W” 
117

miscellaneous, 1928, 1952–1963; White to Gen. Ira C. Eaker, September 18, 1958; Eaker to 

Gen. Charles P. Cabell, Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency, August 22, 1958, Papers 

of Ira Eaker, part 2, box 14, folder: 2 Mar 1958–30 Jan 1959, Library of Congress (hereafter 

Eaker Papers); Eaker to Gen. Nathan F. Twining, October 1, 1956, Eaker Papers, part 2, box 

12, folder: 2 Aug 1956–31 May 1957; Eaker to White, August 21, 1957, Papers of Thomas 

D. White, box 10, folder: Corres: 1957 August, Syracuse University Manuscript Collection 

(hereafter White Papers-Syracuse); White to Gen. Omar N. Bradley, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of 

Staff, December 18, 1952, White Papers-Syracuse, box 1, folder: Corres: 1952, Nov–Dec; C. 

R. Slemon, Air Marshall, Chief of Staff, Canadian Department of National Defense, to White, 

May 30, 1957; White to Slemon, June 5, 1957, White Papers-Syracuse, box 6, folder: Corres. 

1957 May; White to Spaatz, March 10, 1958, AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 23160, frame 

463; White to Lee Wulff, May 16, 1960, September 10, 1960; Wulff to White, May 23, 1960, 

September 26, 1960, Lee Wulff Papers, box 10, folder: T. White, Manuscripts and Archives, 

Beinecke Library, Yale University; Spaatz to Ford, n.d., Ford Papers, box 48, folder 67; White to 

Ford, April 4, 1962, Ford Papers, box 4, folder 58; Twining to Gen. Frank F. Everest, March 7, 

1966, AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 23389, frame 946.

Contemporary articles about their outdoors interests included Lee Wulff, “Fishing with 

Generals Marshall and Arnold,” Outdoor Digest, January 1946, 5–9; Wulff, “New Fish for 

the General,” Outdoor Life, May 1958, 33–35, 136–39; Drew Pearson, “AF Craft Crashes On 

Fishing Trip,” Washington Post and Times Herald, August 7, 1958, C23; Thomas D. White, 

“I Catch My Own,” n.d., George Sprague Myers Papers, Record Unit 7317, box 42, folder 

4, Smithsonian Institution Archives; Thomas D. White, “Red Trout,” manuscript copy, later 

published in Field and Stream (December 1962), AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 30130, 

no frame nos.

25. Janowitz, Professional Soldier, 80, 218–19 (3d quote), 229 (1st quote), 233 (2d quote).

26. Ibid., 176, 196–200 (1st quote, 200; 2d quote, 197).

27. Ibid., 176, 196 (quote), 205.

28. Ibid., 176, 197–99, 205 (quote, 199). 

29. Ibid., 206–7.

30. Ibid., 209–10.

31. C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), 

171, 175 (2d quote), 192 (1st quote). 

32. For the examples of Arnold, Twining, and White, see note 24 above.

33. U.S. Army, History of Spruce Production Division (Portland, OR: Kilham Stationery 

& Print Co., 1920), ii, 34–35 (quotes, 35).

34. Coert duBois, “Autobiography of and by Coert duBois” (typescript, ca. 1953), 69–

70, Carl Alwin Schenck Papers, box 66, folder 17, North Carolina State University Archives, 

http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollections/forestry/schenck/series_vi/bios/DuBois.html; 

Robert W. Cemack, Fire in the Forest: A History of Forest Fire Control on the National 

Forests in California, 1898–1956 (Vallejo, CA: U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Southwest 

Region, 2005), 99–108; Thomas M. Coffey, Hap: The Story of the U.S. Air Force and the 

Man Who Built It (New York: Viking Press, 1982), 101–2; U.S. Air Force, “Biography: 

General Henry H. Arnold,” http://www.af.mil/DesktopModules/ArticleCS/Print.aspx?Porta

lId=1&ModuleId=858&Article=107811; Maurer Maurer, Aviation in the U.S. Army, 1919–

1939 (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1987), 131–38. In his piece, duBois 

wrote that Arnold wore the insignia of a major when they met, the temporary rank as an Army 

regular that Arnold held at the time.

35. duBois, “Autobiography,” 69–70; “History of Rockwell Field, California, 

1919,” AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 2491, frame 1121; “Arnold and the Foresters,” 
118

Library of Congress notes on the Henry Arnold Papers, AFHSO microfilm collection, 

reel 43814, no frame nos.; DeWitt Nelson, interview by Amelia R. Fry, August 17, 1976, 

transcript, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, https://archive.org/details/

managementnat00nelsrich; Maurer, Aviation in the U.S. Army, 131–35.

36. Air Service News Letter, May 4 1920, 2; October 25, 1921, 2–3; February 20, 

1922, 1–3; January 31, 1923, 1–6, AFHSO electronic collection; Maurer, Aviation in the 

U.S. Army, 131–38.

37. Air Service News Letter, January 4, 1921, 6, AFHSO electronic collection; Willis 

T. Chapman, “Forest Fliers have ‘Nerve Camp’ for Rest,” San Francisco Call and Post, 

September 26, 1921, 3.

38. “Arnold and the Foresters;” Nelson interview; Maurer, Aviation in the U.S. Army, 

131–35; F. P. Cronemiller, U.S. Forest Service, to Gen. Henry H. Arnold, May 14, 1947, 

AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 28064, no frame nos.; Col. Minton W. Kaye, interview 

by Murray Green, March 13, 1970, AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 43796, no frame nos. 

Kaye, who helped Arnold inspect CCC camps, stated that “Arnold was pretty close to these 

guys in the Forest Service. He used to write letters to them all the time.” DeWitt “Swede” 

Nelson served nineteen years with the U.S. Forest Service, nine as state forester for California 

and thirteen as director of the Departments of Conservation and Natural Resources. During 

the last five years of his active career, he was professor of forestry and outdoor recreation at 

Iowa State University, Oregon State University, and the University of California, Berkeley. 

Forest History Society, “Inventory of the DeWitt Nelson Papers, 1940–1976,” http://www.

foresthistory.org/ead/Nelson_DeWitt.html. Fred P. Cronemiller served as a U.S. Forest Service 

forest supervisor for seventeen years and for twenty-three years as the chief of the division 

of range and wildlife management in Region 5, which included California. M. W. Talbot 

and F. P. Cronemiller, “Some of the Beginnings of Range Management,” Journal of Range 

Management 14 (March 1961): 95–102.

39. “Arnold’s Philosophy: Re CCC Experience, Juvenile Delinquency, and the Great 

Outdoors,” Murray Green notes for book on Arnold, AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 

43796, no frame nos. 

40. Cemack, Fire in the Forest, 106–8; Maurer, Aviation in the U.S. Army, 138.

41. Maurer, Aviation in the U.S. Army, 349; “March Field to be Virtually Decommissioned 

in Order to Accommodate CCC from the Riverdale Press, May 20, 1933,” Murray Green 

notes for book on Arnold, AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 43796, no frame nos.; Col. 

Duncan K. Major Jr., Acting Assistant Chief of Staff, to the War Department General Staff, 

Memorandum for the Adjutant General (Through the Secretary, General Staff), “Subject: 

Curtail of West Coast Air Corps Maneuvers due to work in connection with Civilian 

Conservation Corps,” May 20, 1933, record group 407, box 402, General Admin Files 

(CCC), National Archives and Records Administration.

42. DeWitt S. Copp, A Few Great Captains: The Men and Events That Shaped the 

Development of U.S. Air Power (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 117.

43. Murray Green notes for book on Arnold. Green cited a letter from Arnold to 

Robert Beatty, director, Izaak Walton League, May 14, 1948, and a letter from Arnold to 

California governor Earl Warren, February 12, 1948, AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 

43814, no frame nos.

44. Henry H. Arnold to C. Ray Knight, March 12, 1947; Arnold to L. Aldo Leopold, 

March 10, 1947; Leopold to Arnold, March 14, 1947; AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 

28072, no frame nos.

45. Copp, A Few Great Captains, 117. Marshall commanded two different CCC 

districts of roughly thirty camps, from July to October 1933 in the Florida and Georgia swamp 
119

areas and from August 1936 to July 1938 in the Oregon and Washington mountains. Marshall 

valued his time working on CCC projects, once calling it “the most instructive service I 

have ever had, and the most interesting.” Forrest Pogue, George C. Marshall: Education 

of a General, 1880–1939 (New York: Viking Press, 1963), 274–80, 303, 308–11 (quote), 

348; George C. Marshall Foundation, “Detailed Marshall Chronology,” http://www.

marshallfoundation.org/about/chronology.html. In 1936, Clark served for a year as deputy 

chief of staff for CCC VII Corps Area at Omaha, Nebraska. Charles E. Heller, “The U.S. 

Army, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and Leadership for World War II, 1933–1942,” Armed 

Forces and Society 36 (August 2010): 445, http://intl-afs.sagepub.com/content/36/3/439.

refs?patientinform-links=yes&legid=spafs;36/3/439; The Citadel Archives and Museum, 

“Mark W. Clark Collection: Biography,” http://www3.citadel.edu/museum/Clark_Inventory.

pdf. Schriever was a CCC camp commander in New Mexico from June 1935 to October 

1936. Jacob Neufeld, Bernard A. Schriever: Challenging the Unknown (Washington, DC: 

Office of Air Force History, 2005), 3–6, 24, http://www.afhso.af.mil/shared/media/document/

AFD-100929-007.pdf.

46. Neil M. Maher, Nature’s New Deal: The Civilian Conservation Corps and the 

Roots of the American Environmental Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 

2008), 212–14.

47. Historical Section, A–2, Fourth Air Force, “Army Air Corps Alaskan Flight, 

Historical Document No. 440103–4, 25 June 34–20 August 34,” Miscellaneous Historical 

Papers, Fourth Air Force, 27 October 1943, 11–12, AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 

28236, no frame nos; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “Alastair MacBain Joins FWS Staff,” 

press release, August 3, 1950, http://fws.gov/news/historic/1950/19500803a.pdf; William 

A. MacBain, son of Alastair MacBain, interview by author, May 14, 2013, AFHSO. The 

bomber flights to and from Alaska took place in July and August 1934.

48. Michael W. Giese, “A Federal Foundation for Conservation: The Evolution of 

the National Wildlife Refuge System, 1920–1968” (PhD dissertation, American University, 

2008), 124–28; Trefethen, American Crusade for Wildlife, 219–20; Thomas Beck, Jay 

Darling, and Aldo Leopold, Report of the President’s Committee on Wild-Life Restoration

(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1934), 20.

49. “Wallace Appoints 3 to Aid Wild Life Plan,” New York Times, January 3, 1934, 8.

50. Beck, Darling, and Leopold, Report of the President’s Committee on Wild-Life 

Restoration, 15.

51. “Seth Gordon, 93, Wildlife Conservationist,” Chicago Tribune, June 30, 1983, A15; 

Rich Becker, “Chicago Loses Gordon, Expert on Conservation,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 

December 15, 1930, 28; Ellen Zazzarino, “Finding aid to Ira N. Gabrielson, Wildlife 

Management Institute Papers, 1974,” Denver Public Library Conservation Collection, 

http://eadsrv.denverlibrary.org/sdx/pl/toc.xsp?id=CONS37&qid=sdx%5Fq5&fmt=tab&idt

oc=CONS37-pleadetoc&base=fa&n=14&ss=true&as=true&ai=Advanced; Beck, Darling, 

and Leopold, Report of the President’s Committee on Wild-Life Restoration, 20.

52. Corey Ford and Alastair MacBain, “No Hunting or Fishing,” Saturday Evening 

Post, December 7, 1935, 8–9, 31–33, 35; Ford and MacBain, “Unhappy Hunting Grounds,” 

Saturday Evening Post, January 25, 1936, 12–13, 58, 60, 62; Ford and MacBain, “Chasing 

Rainbows: The Trout Streams take a Beating,” Collier’s, June 6, 1936, 20, 60–62; Ford and 

MacBain, “Feathered Dynamite: Quail on the Wing,” Collier’s, January 30, 1937, 15, 38; 

Ford and MacBain, “Fuss and Feathers: No Home on the Range,” Collier’s, March 26, 1938, 

12, 74–75; Ford and MacBain, “Hell and High Timber: Money to Burn,” Collier’s, June 25, 

1938, 12–13, 66–69; Ford and MacBain, “Hot Fur: Protecting Alaska’s Wild Life is a Big 

Job,” Collier’s, December 2, 1939, 22, 28–31; Ford and MacBain, “Happier Hunting Grounds: 
120

What Conservation Can Do—and, Incidentally, Some Fine Game-bird Drawings,” Collier’s, 

September 28, 1940, 14–19, 70, 72. See also Ford and MacBain to J. N. Darling, October 7, 

1935; Ford and MacBain to Darling, October 18, 1935; Darling to Ford, December 3, 1935; 

Darling to Ford, December 10, 1935, Ford Papers, box 29, folder 18; Seth Gordon to Ford, 

November 5, 1935, Ford Papers, box 28, folder 3.

53. Ford and MacBain coauthored more than fifty magazine articles about men serving 

in U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II that appeared in popular periodicals of the 

time, primarily in Collier’s. These articles encompassed a wide range of Army Air Force 

topics. They included Ford and MacBain, “High into the Sun: How A.A.F. fliers Win their 

Wings,” Collier’s, October 3, 1942, 61, 65–66; Ford and MacBain, “Take It, Mister!: The 

Unsung Heroes of the A.A.F.,” Collier’s, October 10, 1942, 46–47, 49; Ford and MacBain, 

“Nine Young Men: Get Acquainted with the Crew of a Bomber,” Collier’s, November 7, 

1942, 16, 57; Ford and MacBain, “They Shoot for Keeps: A.A.F. Gunnery Schools turn out 

Annie Oakleys,” Collier’s, December 19, 1942, 21; Ford and MacBain, “The Sky’s the Limit: 

General Hap Arnold doesn’t Believe in the Impossible,” Collier’s, January 9, 1943, 18–20, 63; 

Ford and MacBain, “Mission Over Kiska: Take a Bomber Trip over Japanese-held Kiska,” 

Collier’s, February 13, 1943, 20, 30; Ford and MacBain, “One Foot on the Ground: The Grease 

Monkeys—Anonymous Heroes of our Air Force,” Collier’s, February 27, 1943, 52, 55–65; 

Ford and MacBain, “Remember Dutch Harbor: The Complete Account of the Japanese 

Invasion of the Aleutians,” Collier’s, May 1, 1943, 13, 66, 70, and May 8, 1943, 16–17, 40; 

Ford and MacBain, “Gunners’ Green Pastures: A Manor on the Thames is G.I. Heaven for 

U.S. Fortress Crews in England,” Collier’s, November 20, 1943, 16–17; Ford and MacBain, 

“They Also Serve: ‘Sweating It Out’—What the Boys Call Waiting for the Bombers’ Return 

from a Raid,” Collier’s, December 11, 1943, 21, 64–65; Ford and MacBain, “Cochran’s 

Commandos: Col. Cochran and His Gang Invented a New Kind of Jungle Warfare,” Collier’s, 

August 26, 1944, 20, 69; Ford and MacBain, “The Last Time I Saw Them: A Message to the 

Folks Back Home from the Crew of a B–29,” Collier’s, August 18, 1945, 28–29, 46; Ford 

and MacBain, “I’ll See You Soon: How Things are with the Wounded Flying Back via Air 

Transport Command,” Collier’s, August 25, 1945, 17–19; Ford and MacBain, “Somewhere 

We’ll Find You: Fliers Downed in the Remote Himalayas are Saved by ATS Rescue Squads,” 

Collier’s, February 17, 1945, 22–24, 84. Ford also published several books on World War II 

topics, including Short Cut to Tokyo: the Battle for the Aleutians (1943); War Below Zero: 

the Battle for Greenland (1944), coauthored with Bernt Balchen and Oliver LaFarge; and The 

Last Time I Saw Them (1946), coauthored with MacBain.

54. Ford and MacBain to Arnold, April 10, 1942, Ford Papers, box 2, folder 10; Arnold 

to Ford, April 14, 1942, Ford Papers, box 2, folder 10; U.S. War Department, “Military 

Record and Report of Separation, Certificate of Service,” for Corey Ford, November 16, 

1945, Ford Papers, box 2, folder 104.

55. The Hump route was a high-altitude military aerial supply route over the Himalayan 

mountains between the Assam Valley in northeastern India, across northern Burma, to Yunnan 

province in southwestern China, flown during World War II.

56. Gen. Henry H. Arnold to Maj. Gen. William O. Butler, Commanding General, 11th 

Air Force, Alaska, November 30, 1942, Ford Papers, box 3, folder 12; William J. Donovan, 

Director, Office of Strategic Services, “Memorandum to Maj. Corey Ford and Capt. Alastair 

MacBain, Subject: Orders,” March 12, 1944, Ford Papers, box 3, folder 21; Maj. Gen. 

George E. Stratemeyer, Commanding General, Headquarters, Army Air Forces, India-Burma 

Sector, China-India-Burma Theater, “Memorandum To: Army Air Force Commanders, 

Army Air Forces, India-Burma Sector, China-Burma-India Theater” regarding “courtesy to 

be extended” to Maj. Corey Ford and Capt. Alastair MacBain, May 11, 1944, Ford Papers, 
121

box 3, folder 21; Arnold to Ford, January 25, 1940, Ford Papers, box 2, folder 10; Ford to 

Arnold, January 16, 1942, Ford Papers, box 2, folder 10; Arnold to Ford, April 14, 1942, Ford 

Papers, box 2, folder 15; Ford to Arnold, May 20, 1946, Ford Papers, box 2, folder 15; Ford 

to Arnold, November 27, 1947, Ford Papers, box 2, folder 10; Arnold to Ford, December 2, 

1947, Ford Papers, box 2, folder 10; Eleanor P. “Bee” Arnold to Ford, February 8, 1950, Ford 

Papers, box 2, folder 10; Gen. Carl Spaatz to Ford, November 20, 1946, Ford Papers, box 5, 

folder 21; Spaatz to Ford, July 16, 1948, Ford Papers, box 3, folder 8; Ford to Spaatz, January 

13, 1958, AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 23150, frame 410; Spaatz to Ford, January 17, 

1958, AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 23150, frame 409; Ford to Spaatz, February 2, 1958, 

AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 23153, frame 476; Spaatz to Ford, February 5, 1958, 

Ford Papers, box 4, folder 58; Maj. Gen. William J. Donovan, Director, Office of Strategic 

Services, to the Adjutant General, “Memorandum re: FORD, Corey,” September 21, 1945, 

Ford Papers, box 3, folder 21; Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker to Ford, September 29, 1949, Ford 

Papers, box 3, folder 8.

57. MacBain to Spaatz, February 18, 1952, AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 43824, 

no frame nos.; Spaatz to Ford, no date, Ford Papers, box 48, folder 67; Eaker to Glenn L. 

Jackson, California Oregon Power Company, July 12, 1957, Papers of Carl Spaatz, part II, 

box 7, folder “Eaker, Ira C., 1953–1963,” Library of Congress.

Two

1. William Mitchell, Winged Defense: The Development and Possibilities of Modern 

Air Power—Economic and Military (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1925), 6.

2. Ibid., vii.

3. Terrence E. Deal and Allen A. Kennedy, Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals 

of Corporate Life (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1982), 13–18; J. Steven Ott, The 

Organizational Culture Perspective (Chicago, IL: Dorsey Press, 1989), 50, 192; Edgar 

H. Shein, Organizational Culture and Leadership: A Dynamic View (San Francisco, CA: 

Jossey-Bass, 1985), 210; Carl H. Builder, The Icarus Syndrome: The Role of Air Power 

Theory in the Evolution and Fate of the U.S. Air Force (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction 

Publishers, 1994), 53–56, 62–65, 98–105.

4. DeWitt S. Copp, A Few Great Captains: The Men and Events That Shaped the 

Development of U.S. Air Power (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 43–53; Henry H. 

Arnold, Global Mission (1949; repr., Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Tab Books, 1989), 121–22; 

Richard G. Davis, Carl A. Spaatz and the Air War in Europe (Washington, DC: Center for Air 

Force History, 1993), 20–21, 23.

5. Lt. Col. Lynne E. Vermillion, “Understanding the Air Force Culture” (research 

paper, Air War College, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL, April 1, 1996), 

4, 13–14, 22–26, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a393915.pdf; Maj. William C. 

Thomas, “The Cultural Identity of the United States Air Force,” Air & Space Power 

Journal 30 (January 2004): 1–2, http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/thomas.

html; Lt. Col. James M. Smith, “Air Force Culture and Cohesion: Building an Air and 

Space Force for the Twenty-First Century,” Airpower Journal 6 (Fall 1998): 40–53, 

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj98/fal98/smith.pdf; James Q. 

Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (New York: 

Basic Books, 1989), 96.

6. Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (Glencoe, 

IL: Free Press, 1960), 63–64.
122

7. Ibid., 59, 86–89. Because the predecessor organizations to the U.S. Air Force were 

part of the U.S. Army, Air Force officers in the 1950s with academy educations had attended 

the U.S. Military Academy. The U.S. Air Force Academy was established in 1954 and 

graduated its first class in 1959.

8. Isaac Don Levine, Mitchell: Pioneer of Air Power, A Biography of General Billy 

Mitchell (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1943); Copp, A Few Great Captains; Edgar 

R. Puryear Jr., Stars in Flight: A Study in Air Force Character and Leadership (Novato, 

CA: Presidio Press, 1981); Thomas M. Coffey, Hap: The Story of the U.S. Air Force and the 

Man Who Built It, General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold (New York: Viking Press, 1982); Davis, 

Spaatz and the Air War in Europe. See also Lt. Col. Timothy E. Kline, “Where Have All the 

Mitchells Gone?” Airpower Journal 11 (Fall 1997): 70–76, http://www.airpower.maxwell.

af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj97/fal97/kline.pdf.

9. See ch. 1, n. 24, above.

10. Mitchell, Winged Defense, 6–7.

11. David T. Hanson, introduction to Waste Land: Meditations on a Ravaged Landscape 

(New York: Aperture, 1997), discussed in William L. Fox, Aereality: Essays on the World 

From Above (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint: 2009), 78.

12. Charles A. Lindbergh, Charles A. Lindbergh: Autobiography of Values (New York: 

First Harvest/HBJ edition, 1992), 266.

13. Ibid., 32.

14. Lindbergh speech to group of conservationists, quoted in “Conservation is 

Lindbergh Interest Now,” Chicago Tribune, November 3, 1968, A4.

15. Lindbergh, Autobiography of Values, 32.

16. Gen. Henry H. Arnold was born in Gladwyne, PA, in 1886; Gen. Carl A. Spaatz in 

Boyertown, PA, in 1891; Gen. Nathan F. Twining in Monroe, WI, in 1897; and Gen. Thomas 

D. White in Walker, MN, in 1901. Puryear, Stars in Flight, 3, 47, 139, 165; George M. Watson, 

Secretaries and Chiefs of Staff of the United States Air Force: Biographical Sketches and 

Portraits (Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2001), 107, 119, 125.

17. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There (1949; repr., 

New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 214, 223.

18. Puryear, Stars in Flight, 139, 152; John Frisbee, Makers of the United States 

Air Force (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1987), 260, 263–64; J. Britt 

McCarley, “General Nathan Farragut Twining: The Making of a Disciple of American 

Strategic Air Power, 1897–1953” (PhD dissertation, Temple University, 1989), 6, 259, 279, 

294. Atkinson’s successors included Maj. Gen. Frank A. Armstrong, Maj. Gen. William D. 

Old, and Maj. Gen. George R. Acheson. Twining served as commander in chief, Alaskan 

Command (CINCAL), October 1947–July 1950. His successors continued the overarching 

conservation program, including Lt. Gen. William E. Kepner (CINCAL, July 1950–March 

1953) and Lt. Gen. Joseph H. Atkinson (CINCAL, March 1953–September 1956). U.S. Air 

Force, Alaskan Command, “Why the Alaskan Command Maintains a Wildlife Conservation 

Program” (n.d., ca. 1953), introduction (no page nos.), 9, Papers of Corey Ford, box 7, 

folder 17, Rauner Special Collections, Dartmouth College (hereafter Ford Papers); Lola 

M. Homsher, Alaskan Command Historian, “Alaskan Command, Oral History Program, 

1947–1969,” 3–5, U.S. Air Force Historical Studies Office (AFHSO) microfilm collection, 

reel 30046, no frame nos.

19. “Why the Alaskan Command Maintains a Wildlife Conservation Program,” introduction; 

U.S. Air Force, Alaskan Command, “Lecture Outline, Phase I, Wildlife Conservation,” 6, Ford 

Papers, box 7, folder 17; William Wilbanks, Forgotten Heroes: Police Officers Killed in Alaska, 

1850–1997 (Paducah, KY: Turner Publishing Co., 1999), 62–64.
123

20. “Why the Alaskan Command Maintains a Wildlife Conservation Program,” 

introduction, no page nos. (both quotes; emphasis in original).

21. Blair Joselyn, “Wildlife Management on Military Installations: A Critique of Army 

Policy,” Journal of Wildlife Management 29 (January 1965): 216–17.

22. James R. Arnold and Roberta Wiener, The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and 

Natural Resource Management on Army Installations, 1941–1987 (Fort Belvoir, VA: Office 

of History, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1989), vii–xi, 4–8, 31–34; Joselyn, “Wildlife 

Management on Military Installations,” 217, 221–24. 

23. “Navy Moves on Natural Resources Program,” Outdoors News Bulletin 16, no. 24 

(1962), 2; Joselyn, “Wildlife Management on Military Installations,” 217.

24. “Message from the President,” October 13, 1949, 81st Cong., 1st sess.,

Congressional Record—House, 14429.

25. U.S. Code, Congressional Service, 81st Cong., 1st sess., 1949, 1:775–76; U.S. 

Code, Congressional Service, 81st Cong., 1st sess., 1949, 2:2076–77.

26. Brig. Gen. Carl A. Brandt to Chief of Staff, U.S. Air Force, memo, “Request for 

Exemption of Forestry Fund, Eglin Field Military Reservation,” October 6, 1947 (quote); 

Robert L. F. Sikes to Frank Pace, Jr., Director, Bureau of the Budget, June 8, 1949, Papers of 

Robert L. F. Sikes, box 2, University Archives and West Florida History Center, University 

of West Florida (hereafter Sikes Papers).

27. Sikes to Merrill Y. Winslett, October 15, 1947 (quote); Sikes to Winslett, telegram, 

October 21, 1947, Sikes Papers, box 2.

28. W. Stuart Symington to Sikes, telegram, October 23, 1947; Headquarters, U.S. Air 

Force to Sikes, telegram, October 27, 1947, Sikes Papers, box 2.

29. Sikes to Winslett, October 15, 1947; Sikes to Winslett, telegram, October 23, 1947; 

Brig. Gen. John K. Gerhart, Director, [Air Force] Legislative and Liaison Division, to Sikes, 

December 3, 1947; Brandt to Sikes, January 23, 1948; Lindsay G. Warren to Sikes, April 10, 

1948, Sikes Papers, box 2.

30. “Robert Lee Fulton Sikes,” Congressional Record, September 30, 1994, vol. 140, 

no. 140, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-1994-09-30/html/CREC-1994-09-30-pt1-

PgS25.htm; “Robert L. F. Sikes Obituary,” The News (Boca Raton, FL), September 29, 

1994, 2B, at http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=tCFUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PY0DAA

AAIBAJ&pg=6556,7273655&dq=flaming+liberals+sikes+dies&hl=en; Robert Sikes, He 

Coon: The Bob Sikes Story (Pensacola, FL: Perdido Bay Press, 1984), 161, 264, 293–94, 

301, 342, 354–55, 365–66, 445, 463.

31. Sikes, He Coon, 213, 228, 311–12, 360, 448, 479–81, 515–16, 536–37, 548, 564–

65, 603; Jerrell H. Shofner, “Roosevelt’s Tree Army: The Civilian Conservation Corps in 

Florida,” Florida Historical Quarterly 65 (April 1987): 433–56.

32. Sikes, He Coon, 10, 12, 15–17, 54–56, 91, 180–81, 213, 256, 259 (quote), 304, 

370, 430, 622–23, 716. Sikes served as a liaison officer for the Offfice of Strategic Services 

(OSS) and at William Donovan’s request helped plan for creation of free-press newspapers 

run by civilians in German towns after they were recaptured from the Nazis. Sikes, He 

Coon, 180–81.

33. Lindsay G. Warren, Comptroller General of the U.S., to Sikes, April 10, 1948; U.S. 

Congress, U.S. Code, Congressional Service, 80th Cong., 2nd sess., 1948, H.R. 5506, looseleaf copy of original bill, Sikes Papers, box 2; “A Bill to authorize restocking, propagation, 

and conservation of game in the Eglin Field Reservation,” H.R. 2418, 81st Cong., 1st sess., 

Congressional Record, February 7, 1949, 931.

34. Warren to Edwin C. Johnson, chairman, Committee on Interstate and Foreign 

Commerce, U.S. Senate, June 13, 1949, Sikes Papers, box 2.
124

35. Sikes to Warren, July 16, 1949; Johnson to Sikes, July 26, 1949; Frank L. Yates, 

Acting Comptroller of the United States, to Sikes, July 29, 1949, Sikes Papers, box 2; U.S. 

Code, Congressional Service, 81st Cong., 1st sess., 1949, 1:775–76; U.S. Code, Congressional 

Service, 81st Cong., 1st sess., 1949, 2:2076–77; “Message from the President,” October 13, 

1949, 81st Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record—House, 14429.

36. Symington to Carl Vinson, Chairman, House Committee on Armed Services, May 

4, 1949, Sikes Papers, box 2.

37. Gerhardt to Sikes, December 3, 1947; Sikes to Maj. Gen. William E. Kepner, 

Commanding General, Eglin Field, February 9, 1949, Sikes Papers, box 2. Maj. Gen. Thomas 

D. White served as director of Air Force Office of Legislative and Liaison Division, Office 

of the Secretary of the Air Force, from September 1948 through April 1950. U.S. Air Force, 

Office of Information Services, Public Information Division, “Statement of Military Service 

of General Thomas D. White,” January 1959, AFHSO.

38. Catherine Conry, sister of Thomas D. White, interview by Murray Green, October 

23, 1978, transcript, AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 37227, p. 11.

39. Harvey Meyerson, Nature’s Army: When Soldiers Fought for Yosemite (Lawrence: 

University Press of Kansas, 2001), 17–22. Meyerson wrote that a West Point education in 

the 1800s made army officers “skilled and knowledgeable scientific observers of nature . . . 

[because they] had already studied their country’s geography, meteorology, and geological 

composition . . . learned to identify and sketch its flora and fauna . . . and trained to write about 

the natural environment with scientific clarity and precision” (quote, 21). White began his 

West Point career at age sixteen in the summer of 1918. His class of 1920 was a “war” class, 

which was promoted early to fill the ranks of the classes of 1918 and 1919 that graduated 

early to serve in World War I.

40. Gen. Thomas D. White, “Personal Recollections,” AFHSO microfilm collection, 

reel 30131, frame 1142; George S. Myers to White, June 30, 1941, November 6, 1941, March 

26, 1942, George Sprague Myers Papers, box 42, folder 5, Smithsonian Institution Archives, 

Washington, DC (hereafter Myers Papers); George S. Myers and Stanley H. Weitzman, 

“Two New Fishes Collected by General Thomas D. White in Eastern Columbia,” Stanford 

Ichtyhological Bulletin 7, no. 4 (1960), 98–109.

41. White to Myers, June 15, 1946; Myers to White, December 18, 1946 (quote); White 

to Margaret Storey, Myers’s research assistant, October 3, 1949; Storey to White, October 18, 

1949, Myers Papers, box 42, folder 5.

42. U.S. Code, Congressional Service, 81st Cong., 1st sess., 1949, 2:2076–78; U.S. 

Congress, Public Law 86–373 (16 U.S. C. 670a–670o; 74 Stat. 1052); U.S. Congress, House 

of Representatives, 93d Cong., 2d sess., report 93–753, “Conservation Programs on Military 

and Other Federal Lands” (January 21, 1974), 1; Teresa K. Hollingsworth, “The Sikes Act 

Improvements Act of 1997: Examining the Changes for The Department of Defense,” Air 

Force Law Review 46 (1999): 112–13.

Three

1. Samuel P. Hays with Barbara D. Hays, Beauty, Health, and Permanence: 

Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955–1985 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge 

University Press, 1987), 13, 21–26; Carolyn Merchant, American Environmental History: 

An Introduction (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 193; Hal K. Rothman, The 

Greening of a Nation? Environmentalism in the United States since 1945 (Fort Worth, TX: 

Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1998), 7–15.
125

2. Donald Worster, Nature’s Economy: The Roots of Ecology (Cambridge, UK: 

Cambridge University Press, 1995), 351–53, 361–63. Worster discusses influential popular 

books that presented an interdisciplinary approach of the new field of human ecology and 

informed the American public about the increasing impact humans were having on the 

environment, including Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (1949), Fairfield Osborn, 

Our Plundered Planet (1948), and William Vogt, Road to Survival (1948). He also examines 

the academic textbook by Eugene and Howard Odum, Fundamentals of Ecology, originally 

published in 1953 with second and third editions in 1959 and 1971, that were translated into 

twenty languages and described as having “done more to influence development in both 

teaching and research than any other single factor in the last thirty years” (quote, 362).

3. Worster, Nature’s Economy, 387.

4. Rothman, Greening of a Nation, 15–20 (quote, 15).

5. Dian Olson Belanger, Managing American Wildlife: A History of the International 

Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 

1988), 61–62, 64, 71, 81–83; James B. Trefethen, An American Crusade for Wildlife (New 

York: Winchester Press, 1975), 244–245, 256–266.

6. Rothman, Greening of a Nation, 16–17, 20–23.

7. Trefethen, American Crusade for Wildlife, 256–66 (quote, 256).

8. Special Collection and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, 

“Guide to Douglas McKay Papers, 1925–1958,” http://nwda.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/

xv03770#historicalID; Trefethen, American Crusade for Wildlife, 257–58; John B. Oakes, 

“Conservation: Federal Program,” New York Times,” October 2, 1955, 29; Warren Unna, 

“Disposal of Part of Land is Assailed by Conservationists,” Washington Post and Times 

Herald, January 13, 1956, 18; Drew Pearson, “Ike’s Note Cited in Giveaway Charge,” 

Washington Post and Times Herald, January 26, 1956, 59; Unna, “Republican ‘Giveaways’; 

The Charges and the Facts,” Harpers, May 1956, 29–35.

9. Rothman, Greening of a Nation, 41; Mark W. T. Harvey, A Symbol of Wilderness: 

Echo Park and the American Conservation Movement (Seattle: University of Washington 

Press, 2000), xi–xviii; Roderick F. Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 4th ed. (New 

Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 209–19.

10. Rothman, Greening of a Nation, 34 (quote), 45–46; John B. Oakes, “Conservation: 

A Growing Force,” New York Times,” November 13, 1955, 33; Oakes, “Conservation: 

Federal Program,” New York Times,” October 2, 1955, 29.

11. Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 231–45.

12. Ronald F. Lee, “Family Tree of the National Park System: Part IV, Growth of the 

National Park System, 1933–1964,” http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/lee3/

lee4.htm; National Park Service, “The Origins of Mission 66,” http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/

online_books/allaback/vc0.htm; Marion Clawson, “Statistical Data Available for Economic 

Research on Certain Types of Recreation,” Journal of American Statistical Association 54, 

no. 285 (March 1959), 300–301.

13. Marion Clawson, Statistics on Outdoor Recreation (Washington, DC: Resources 

for the Future, 1958), 93–97; Population Estimates Program, Population Division, U.S. 

Census Bureau, “Historical National Population Estimates: July 1, 1900 to July 1, 1999,” 

http://www.census.gov/population/estimates/nation/popclockest.txt.

14. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of Interior, “National Survey of 

Fishing and Hunting: A Report of the first Nationwide Economic Survey of Sport Fishing 

and Hunting in the United States during the Calendar Year 1955” (Washington, DC: U.S. 

Government Printing Office, 1956), 1–7, 30–31, 39.
126

15. Hays, Beauty, Health, and Permanence, 111, 115.

16. Alvin T. M. Lee, “Getting and Using Land in Time of War,” The Yearbook of 

Agriculture: Land (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1958), 87, 89–90.

17. Ibid., 88.

18. Ibid., 94–95.

19. U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 

Withdrawal and Utilization of the Public Lands of the United States, 84th Cong., 2d sess., 

January 4–6, 27, 28, February 15, 20, March 9, 16, 23, April 20, May 28, 1956, 50 (hereafter 

House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 1st Round).

20. Ibid., 125.

21. Ibid., 148.

22. Ibid., 473 (1st quote), 475 (2d quote).

23. “The Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge Threat,” National Parks Magazine, 

October–December 1955, reprinted in House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 

1st Round, 373–77 (quote, 375); Raymond R. Camp, “Wood, Field and Stream: Army Again 

Seeks Wildlife Refuge Land after Unsuccessful Bid 2 Years Ago,” New York Times,” July 3, 

1955, S4; Aubrey Graves, “Article 2, no title,” Washington Post and Times Herald, October 

30, 1955, E3.

24. Camp, “Wood, Field and Stream.”

25. John B. Oakes, “Conservation: Pollution Control,” New York Times, June 3, 1956. 

26. Michael W. Giese, “A Federal Foundation for Wildlife Conservation: The Evolution 

of the National Wildlife Refuge System, 1920–1968 (PhD dissertation, American University, 

2008), 268–71; Trefethen, American Crusade for Wildlife, 259–61; Graves, “Article 2, no 

title;” “Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge Threat;” Warren Unna, “Wildlife Service Critics 

Allege Lack of Results,” Washington Post and Times Herald, January 11, 1956, 40.

27. Neil Loomis, Combat Zoning: Military Land-Use Planning in Nevada (Reno: 

University of Nevada Press, 1993), 16–17; House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public 

Lands,” 1st Round, 171; Neil Murbarger, “Navy Landgrab in Nevada’s Black Rock Country,” 

Desert Magazine, October 1956, 4–10, http://mydesertmagazine.com/files/195610-

DesertMagazine-1956-October.pdf.

28. Loomis, Combat Zoning, 16–17; George W. Malone, U.S. Senator from Nevada, 

“Withdrawals of Public Domain Lands for Public Purposes in the 11 Western States,” 84th 

Cong., 2d sess., Congressional Record—Senate, March 5, 1956, 3914–28.

29. Murbarger, “Navy Landgrab in Nevada’s Black Rock Country,” 8.

30. Malone, “Withdrawals of Public Domain Lands for Public Purposes in the 11 

Western States,” 3917–18; Lee, “Getting and Using Land in Time of War,” 90, 92–93.

31. Loomis, Combat Zoning, 16, 18–19, 20–23, 35.

32. “Armed Services Draw Brisk Volley for Advancing on Wild Life Areas,” 

Washington Post and Times Herald, September 22, 1955, 1 (quote); “Wildlife Unit Acts to 

Save 28 Cranes,” New York Times,” September 22, 1955, 19; “AF Yields to Whoopers After 

Sally by Bird Lovers,” Washington Post and Times Herald, October 15, 1955, 3. The exact 

number of Whooping Cranes listed in a year can differ depending on whether the census was 

taken in the Canadian summering or Texas wintering location. Further, the birds’ nesting 

ground in Wood Buffalo Park, Alberta, Canada, was not discovered until June 1955.

33. In 1905, a loose organization of state-level Audubon groups joined to form the 

National Association of Audubon Societies, which initially focused on protecting waterbird 

populations and later expanded its efforts to conserve and restore habitat for all birds. National 

Audubon Society, “History of Audubon and Waterbird Conservation,” http://birds.audubon.

org/history-audubon-and-waterbird-conservation. 
127

The National Wildlife Federation, originally the General Wildlife Federation, came into 

being as a result of the 1936 first North American Wildlife Conference in Washington, DC—a 

program conceived of by former head of the Bureau of Biological Survey, Jay N. “Ding” 

Darling, and promoted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After the conference, representatives 

of 36,000 organizations from across the country united to form what was first known as the 

General Wildlife Federation. National Wildlife Federation, “Creation of the National Wildlife 

Federation,” http://www.nwf.org/Who-We-Are/History-and-Heritage/Creation-of-NWF.aspx. 

Established in 1919, the National Parks Association was an independent advocate for 

the National Park System that operated outside the political system. In 1970, it became the 

National Parks and Conservation Association and in 2000 the National Parks Conservation 

Association. “The History of the National Parks Conservation Association,” http://www.

npca.org/about-us/history-and-values/npca-timeline.html; John C. Miles, Guardians of the 

Parks: A History of the National Parks and Conservation Association (Washington, DC: 

Taylor & Francis, 1995), 1–2, 237–41.

The American Nature Association, led by respected naturalist and storied nature 

photographer Arthur N. Pack and his father, Charles Lathrop Pack, a wealthy timber 

man turned conservation philanthropist in the early twentieth century (Charles Lathrop 

Pack Forestry Foundation), published Nature Magazine from 1923 to 1959 (absorbed by 

Natural History magazine in 1960), created documentary nature films, and educated small 

communities about local conservation issues. Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, “Arthur 

Pack,” http://www.desertmuseum.org/books/scrapbook_p5.html.

The Natural Resources Council of America was founded in 1947, in part by C. R. 

Gutermuth, who also served as its secretary (1946–57) and chairman (1959–61), and other 

conservationists who acknowledged the need for a centralized organization for information 

sharing among conservation groups. As of 2010, it no longer had an active website or 

telephone at its Washington, DC, headquarters. Forest History Society, “Inventory of 

the Natural Resources of America Records, 1946–1981,” http://www.foresthistory.org/

ead/Natural_Resources_Council_of_America.html; Center for Media and Democracy, 

“SourceWatch: Natural Resources Council of America,” http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.

php?title=Natural_Resources_Council_of_America.

34. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 1st Round, 377–78; Unna, 

“Wildlife Service Critics Allege Lack of Results,” 40; “Armed Services Draw Brisk Volley 

for Advancing on Wild Life Areas,” 1; “Canada Protests U.S. Range Near Whooping 

Cranes,” Washington Post and Times Herald, September 21, 1955, 1; “Wildlife Unit Acts to 

Save 28 Cranes,” 19; “AF Yields to Whoopers after Sally by Bird Lovers,” 3 (quote).

35. U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, “Military 

Public Land Withdrawals,” 85th Cong., 1st sess., March 21, 1957, H. Rep. 215, 36 (hereafter 

House Committee Report 215).

36. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 1st Round, 50; House Committee 

Report 215, 13, 24–25 (quote, 25). 

During the same time, pending military requests for additional land, including that 

in Alaska, totaled almost 8.7 million acres in June 1956. If the Department of the Interior 

had approved the new requests as customary, without issue, DOD landholdings would have 

amounted to more than 39 million acres, 25.6 of which would have been from the public 

domain, leaving the net acquisition of DOD land from January 1, 1954, to June 30, 1956, to 

total 4.2 million acres, or “7,622 acres per day, 317 acres per hour, or—more than 5 acres 

per minute every minute of the night and day for 547 days!” House Committee Report 215, 

25–26 (quote, 26). The data presented to Congress did not detail any military land holdings 

in Hawaii or other U.S. territories other than Alaska.
128

37. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 1st Round, 2–4.

38. Stewart R. Cox, Chairman, Inyo Associates (a nonprofit organization created for 

developing California east of the Sierra Nevada) to Clair Engle, October 22, 1951; Alan H. 

Jacobs, Big Pine Civic Club, to Engle, October 19, 1951; Engle to Rear Adm. Joseph F. 

Jelley, Chief, Bureau of Yards and Docks, Department of the Navy, November 16, 1951; 

J. P. Hall, editor and owner, California Mining Journal, to Engle, March 25, 1952; Jelley 

to Engle, December 7, 1951; Rear Adm. W. L. Rees to Engle, August 9, 1954; Charles L. 

Gilmore, attorney for the National Parks Association, to Engle March 14, 1955; Robert 

Loundagin, district attorney for Inyo County, CA, to Engle, June 8, 1955, Papers of Clair 

Engle, manuscript 177, box 39, folder 9, Meriam Library Special Collections, California 

State University, Chico (hereafter Engle Papers); Harold J. Powers, California Lieutenant 

Governor, to Engle, February 9, 1956, with attached list of land owners protesting Navy land 

withdrawal, Engle Papers, box 39, folder 8.

39. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 1st Round, 1 (quote); Senate 

Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Report, “Military Public Land Withdrawals,” 85th 

Cong., 1st sess., August 13, 1957, S. Rep. 857, 2 (hereafter Senate Committee Report 857); 

U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, “Providing that 

Withdrawals or Reservations of More Than 5,000 Acres of Public Lands of the United States 

for Certain Purposes Shall Not become Effective Until Approved by Act of Congress,” 84th 

Cong., 2d sess., July 21, 1956, Report No. 2856, 6 (hereafter House Committee Report 2856).

40. House Committee Report 2856, 2, 36.

41. Stephen P. Sayles, “Clair Engle and the Politics of California Reclamation, 1943–

1960” (PhD dissertation, University of New Mexico, 1978), 62 (quote), 301–7; Sayles, Clair 

Engle: The Forging of a Public Servant: A Study of Sacramento Valley Politics, 1933–1944

(Chico, CA: Association for Northern California Records and Research, 1976), 1–20; Paul F. 

Healy, “Wildcat in Washington,” Saturday Evening Post, March 12, 1955, 22, 23, 53, 55, 58, 

60, 62; Special Collections, Merriam Library, California State University, Chico, “Collection 

Summary, Clair Engle Collection, MSS 177,” http://opac.csuchico.edu/record=b1801963~S5.

42. Sayles, Engle, 2 (quote); Healy, “Wildcat in Washington,” 22.

43. Healy, “Wildcat in Washington,” 62 (quote); “Collection Summary, Clair Engle 

Collection,” http://opac.csuchico.edu/record=b1801963~S5.

44. “Nod of Engle’s Head Meant ‘Aye,’” Red Bluff Daily News, June 11, 1964, Vertical 

Files, Clair Engle folder, Tehama County Free Library, Red Bluff, CA; Nick K. Kotz, Judgment 

Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws that Changed America

(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 151.

45. Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation, “About Stewart L. Udall,” 

http://www.udall.gov/AboutSLUdall/AboutSLUdall.aspx.

46. Tracy E. Garthe, “John P. Saylor,” http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/

Saylor__John_Phillips.html, 5 (quote); “Saylor, John Phillips,” Biographical Directory of 

the United States Congress, 1771–Present, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.

pl?index=S000102.

47. Kathleen Brosnan, “Politics, Personality, and Western Water,” H-Environment, 

H-Net Reviews, April 2004, http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9235.

48. “Pioneer of the Conservation Movement,” Great Falls Tribune, December 2, 2010, M1, 

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/multimedia/125newsmakers5/metcalf.html (quote); “Metcalf, 

Lee Warren,” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, http://bioguide.congress.gov/

scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=m000671.

49. “Young, Clarence Clifton,” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress,

http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=Y000032.
129

50. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 1st Round; House Committee, 

“Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 2d Round; House of Representatives, Committee on Interior 

and Insular Affairs, “Withdrawal and Utilization of the Public Lands of the United States,” 

85th Cong., 1st sess., January 23, 28, 29, 30, February 5, 6, 1956, 163–64 (hereafter House 

Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 3d Round).

51. House Committee Report 215, 30–31.

52. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 1st Round, 23–32, 39–42; 

House Committee Report 215, 30–31.

53. U.S. Air Force, “Report of Proceedings, USAF Weapons Range Board,” October 9, 

1956, Air Force Historical Studies Office (AFHSO) microfilm collection, reel 36497, frames 

425, 1277–79 (hereafter USAF Weapons Board Report); House Committee, “Withdrawal of 

Public Lands,” 1st Round, 150.

54. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 1st Round, 10–12.

55. House Committee Report 2856, 27 (1st quote), 37 (2d quote).

56. James W. Platt, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower, Personnel, 

and Reserve, “Government Coordination in the Fish and Wildlife Field,” Proceedings of the 

Forty-seventh Convention of the International Association of Game, Fish and Conservation 

Commissioners, September 9–10, 1957 (St. Paul, MN: International Association of Game, 

Fish and Conservation Commissioners, 1958), 22–26; Department of Defense, Department of 

Defense Instruction 5500.3, “Hunting and Fishing on Military Reservations,” June 8, 1956.

57. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 2d Round, 101–2.

58. Ibid., 101 (quote); Ellen Zazzarino, Denver Public Library Conservation Collection, 

“Finding Aid to Ira N. Gabrielson, Wildlife Management Institute Papers, 1974,” http://

eadsrv.denverlibrary.org/sdx/pl/toc.xsp?id=CONS37&qid=sdx%5Fq5&fmt=tab&idtoc=CO

NS37-pleadetoc&base=fa&n=14&ss=true&as=true&ai=Advanced.

59. R. G. Lynch, “Wildlife Leaders Win in Fight With Military: Department of Defense 

Does Not Object to Control of Hunting House Group Told,” Milwaukee Journal, February 

1, 1957, 10; House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 2d Round, 10–14, 49–78.

60. “Offshore Aims Scored: ‘Monkeyshines’ Laid to Navy in Reserving Gulf Air 

Space,” New York Times, July 4, 1955, 12; “Bill Bars Military ‘Grabs,’” New York Times, 

August 21, 1957, 18.

61. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 2d Round, 47 (quote); “David 

Brower, an Aggressive Champion of U.S. Environmentalism, Is Dead at 88,” New York 

Times, November 7, 2000.

62. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 2d Round, 257–58, 267–86; 

House Committee Report 215, 46–48 (quote, 46).

63. “House Group Would Curb Military,” Washington Post and Times Herald, July 11, 

1956, 18 (1st quote); “Armed Forces Blasted for ‘Illegal Hunting,’” Washington Post and 

Times Herald, July 3, 1956, 24 (2d quote); “Services to Punish Hunting Violators,” New York 

Times, July 3, 1956, 27.

64. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 2d Round, 152 (1st quote), 153 

(2d quote).

65. Ellen Zazzarino, Denver Public Library Conservation Collection, “Finding Aid to 

the Izaak Walton League of America,” http://eadsrv.denverlibrary.org/sdx/pl/toc.xsp?id=CO

NS41&fmt=text&idtoc=CONS41-pleadetoc&base=fa&ss=true&as=true&ai=Advanced.

66. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 1st Round, 380–81 (quotes).

67. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 2d Round, 83 (1st quote), 166 

(2d quote).

68. Ibid., 167.
130

69. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 1st Round, 380.

70. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 2d Round, 275.

71. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 3d Round, 163–64.

72. Ibid., 89 (quote), 98, 164–85.

73. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 2d Round, 1–7. These bills 

included: H.R. 10362 by Wayne N. Aspinall (D-CO); H.R. 10384 by Walter E. Rogers (DTX); H.R. 11001 by Lester R. Johnson (D-WI); 10380 by Gracie B. Pfost (D-ID); H.R. 

10377 by Lee W. Metcalf (D-MT); H.R. 10366 by Edward L. “Bob” Bartlett (D-Territory 

of Alaska); H.R. 10372 by Antonio M. Fernández (D-NM); H.R. 10394 by John P. Saylor 

(R-PA); H.R. 10396 by Stewart L. Udall (D-AZ); H.R. 10548 by Clarence C. Young (R-NV); 

H.R. 10367 by Hamer H. Budge (R-ID); and H.R. 10725 by Samuel H. Coon (R-ID). 

74. House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 2d Round, 110–11.

75. Ibid., 123. President Dwight D. Eisenhower selected Charles E. Wilson as his secretary 

of defense in 1953 while Wilson was the president of General Motors (since 1941). During 

World War II, Wilson directed GM’s defense production effort. Historical Office, Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, “Charles E. Wilson,” http://history.defense.gov/wilson.shtml.

76. House Committee Report 215, 27–30, 56 (quote), 57.

77. Senate Committee Report 857, 2, 73; “Sundry Messages from the President,” 85th 

Cong., 2d sess., Congressional Record—House, March 5, 1958, 19167.

78. U.S. Congress, Public Law 85–337 (HR 5538), “The Engle Act of 1958,” 85th 

Cong., 2d sess., February 28, 1958; “House Votes Land Curb: Would Require Approval for 

Military Withdrawals,” New York Times, February 19, 1958, 3; “House Curbs Land Taking 

By Military,” Washington Post and Times Herald, February 19, 1958, A7; “House Passes 

Curb on Military’s Lands,” New York Times, April 12, 1957, 14 (quote).

79. U.S. Congress, Public Law 85–337 (HR 5538), “The Engle Act of 1958,” 85th 

Cong., 2d sess., February 28, 1958.

Four

1. U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, “Military 

Public Land Withdrawals,” 85th Cong., 1st sess., March 21, 1957, H. Rep. 215, 49–50 

(hereafter House Committee Report 215).

2. Elliott V. Converse III, Rearming for the Cold War, 1945–1960 (Washington, DC: 

Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2012), 392–96; Allan R. Millett and 

Peter Maslowski, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of 

America (New York: Free Press, 1984), 511–17; Steve Call, Selling Air Power: Military 

Aviation and American Popular Culture after World War II (College Station: Texas A&M 

University Press, 2009), 101–2, 133–35, 143–51.

3. Lt. Col. James M. Smith, “Air Force Culture and Cohesion: Building an Air and 

Space Force for the Twenty-First Century,” Airpower Journal 6 (Fall 1998): 40–53, http://

www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj98/fal98/smith.pdf; Carl H. Builder, The 

Icarus Syndrome: The Role of Airpower Theory in the Evolution and Fate of the U.S. Air 

Force (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1996), 133–37, 207–9.

4. Henry H. Arnold, “Air Force in the Atomic Age,” in One World or None: A Report to 

the Public on the Full Meaning of the Atomic Bomb, ed. Dexter Masters and Katharine Way 

(1946; repr., New York: New Press, 2007), 70.

5. Charles A. Lindbergh, Charles A. Lindbergh: Autobiography of Values (New York: 

First Harvest/HBJ edition, 1992), 26–30 (quote, 30). An authoritative Lindbergh biography 
131

by A. Scott Berg, Lindbergh (New York: Berkeley Books, 1999), 476–47, echoes the sentiments 

and words written by the famous aviator.

6. Masters and Way, One World or None; Fairfield Osborn, Our Plundered Planet

(New York: Little, Brown, 1948); William Vogt, Road to Survival (New York: William Sloane 

Associates, 1948); David Bradley, No Place to Hide (New York: Little, Brown, 1948).

7. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962; repr., Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002), 6.

8. Call, Selling Air Power, 143. Call expands on this idea: “But the emergence during 

the early fifties of the image of strategic nuclear bombing and SAC [Strategic Air Command] 

as the ultimate expression of air power wed the air power revolution to nuclear weapons to 

such an extent that support for air power meant support for nuclear warfare, while opposition 

to nuclear warfare increasingly meant opposition to air power” (p. 132). 

9. Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (Glencoe, 

IL: Free Press, 1960), 395, 397–403.

10. Corey Ford, “The Truth About the ‘Sonic Boom,’” Saturday Evening Post, December 

4, 1954, 120 (quote); “You Can Hunt on AF Bases,” Washington Post, January 6, 1957, C7.

11. Janowitz, Professional Soldier, 399, 408–9 (quote). The Army had 600 public 

affairs officers, while the Navy had only 221.

12. Historical Section, A–2, Fourth Air Force, “Army Air Corps Alaskan Flight, 

Historical Document No. 440103–4, 25 June 34–20 August 34,” Miscellaneous Historical 

Papers, Fourth Air Force, 27 October 1943, 1–13, Air Force Historical Studies Office 

(AFHSO) microfilm collection, reel 28236, no frame nos.; Maurer Maurer, Aviation in the 

U.S. Army, 1919–1939 (Washington, DC: Office of Air Force History, 1987), 352.

13. U.S. Air Force, “Report of Proceedings, USAF Weapons Range Board,” October 

9, 1956, AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 36497, frames 425, 440, 459, 1110–11, 1277–82 

(hereafter USAF Weapons Range Board Report).

14. Ibid., frames 1280–82.

15. Ibid., frames 434–35, 442; House Committee Report 215, 37–41; House of 

Representatives, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, “Withdrawal and Utilization of 

the Public Lands of the United States,” 85th Cong., 1st sess., January 23, 28, 29, 30, February 

5, 6, 1956, 85 (hereafter House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 3d Round).

16. USAF Weapons Range Board Report, frames 1312, 1316–17. The witness was only 

identified as Colonel Meals, Office of Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion-Atomic Energy Commission.

17. U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 

Withdrawal and Utilization of the Public Lands of the United States, 84th Cong., 2d sess., 

January 4–6, 27, 28, February 15, 20, March 9, 16, 23, April 20, May 28, 1956, 473–94 

(hereafter House Committee, “Withdrawal of Public Lands,” 1st Round); USAF Weapons 

Range Board Report, frames 1316–17, 1327.

18. USAF Weapons Range Board Report, frames 447–48, 1317. Board members under 

Stranathan included Maj. Gen. Edward H. Underhill, Brig. Gen. Kurt M. Landon, Brig. Gen. 

William E. Rentz, Brig. Gen. Charles M. McCorkle, Brig. Gen. William H. Blanchard, Brig. 

Gen. Avelin P. Tacon Jr., Brig. Gen. Arthur C. Agan Jr., Col. Joseph F. Brannock, and Lt. Col. 

David F. MacGhee (nonvoting member).

19. Ibid., frames 423, 440, 1110–11, 1318–19.

20. Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Report, “Military Public Land 

Withdrawals,” 85th Cong., 1st sess., August 13, 1957, S. Rep. 857, 53 (quote) (hereafter Senate 

Committee Report 857); USAF Weapons Range Board Report, frames 423, 1110–11, 1318–19.

21. USAF Weapons Range Board Report, frames 1110–11; History of the Office of the 

Inspector General of the United States Air Force, 1 July–31 December 1956, 4; History of the Office 

of the Inspector General of the United States Air Force, 1 July–31 December 1957, 29, AFHSO.
132

22. “Memorandum of Agreement between the United States Air Force and the United 

States Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior, for the Development of a Fish 

and Wildlife Conservation Program Throughout the United States Air Force,” December 

17, 1956, Papers of Corey Ford, box 52, folder 8, Rauner Special Collections, Dartmouth 

College (hereafter Ford Papers); House Committee Report 215, 49; “Pact on Conservation: 

Air Force to Promote Fish and Game on Bases,” New York Times, December 18, 1956, 14. 

The memorandum was signed by James H. Douglas Jr., undersecretary of the Air Force (later 

secretary of the Air Force), and John L. Farley, acting director of the Bureau of Fisheries and 

Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

23. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “Alastair MacBain Joins FWS Staff,” press release, 

August 3, 1950, http://fws.gov/news/historic/1950/19500803a.pdf; Linda Lear, Rachel Carson: 

Witness for Nature (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), 183, 195–96, 201; Rachel Carson, The 

Sea Around Us (New York: Oxford University Press, 1951); Alastair MacBain to Gen. Carl 

Spaatz, February 18, 1952, AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 23150, frame 453.

24. Gen. Carl Spaatz to Lt. Col. Corey Ford, November 20, 1946, Ford Papers, box 

5, folder 21. Ford wrote a report, “Morale in the Post-War Air Force”; additional reports 

followed by Ford, with Walker M. “Bud” Mahurin, “Report on Morale Conditions in 

European Theater,” December 28, 1950, Ford Papers, box 5, folder 49; “Report on Morale 

Conditions in Far East Forces,” July 9, 1951, Ford Papers, box 4, folder 20; Col. Maurice 

F. Casey, Acting Director, Information Services, to Gen. Thomas D. White, U.S. Air Force, 

Vice Chief of Staff, memo, re: Jet Age Conference, February 12, 1957, Papers of Thomas D. 

White, box 10, folder: White memoranda 1957 Jan–May, Syracuse University Manuscript 

Collection (hereafter White Papers-Syracuse); Ford, “The Truth about the ‘Sonic Boom,’” 

Saturday Evening Post, December 4, 1954, 26–27, 120; Ford to White, April 9, 1958, 

White to Ford, April 22, 1959; White to Ford, May 2, 1958, Ford Papers, box 4, folder 58, 

regarding research on SAC bases in Spain and moral conditions of missile organizations, 

which appeared as articles by Ford and James Perkins, “Our Key SAC Bases in Spain—How 

We Got Them,” Reader’s Digest, August 1958, 23–26, “Boss of the Missilemen,” Saturday 

Evening Post, August 23, 1958, 30, 89–90; and “With the Men Who Fire the Atlas,” Reader’s 

Digest, February 1960, 213–28. Ford also wrote a biography of William J. Donovan, director 

of the Office of Strategic Services, Donovan of OSS (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970). General 

Arnold asked Ford to write his biography, but Ford had previous commitments and was 

unable to serve as his biographer. Ford to Arnold, November 27, 1947; Arnold to Ford, 

December 1, 1947, Ford Papers, box 2, folder 10.

25. James N. Perkins to author, email, November 15, 2010, with attachment, “Relationship 

between Corey Ford and Jim Perkins, including bios, and Their Collaboration on the USAF Wildlife 

Conservation Project, Plus various anecdotes and asides” (quote) (hereafter Perkins email).

26. Corey Ford, “Is Alaska’s Wildlife Doomed?” Field and Stream, February 1953, 32–

33, 128–31, 141; Ford, “Is Alaska’s Wildlife Doomed?” Field and Stream, March 1953, 40–42, 

136–41; Ford, “Is Alaska’s Wildlife Doomed?” Field and Stream, April 1953, 63–65, 143–47, 

155–56. In developing this series, Ford formed a lasting friendship with Clarence Rhode, Alaskan 

regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the man who had worked with General 

Twining to establish the Air Force’s conservation program in Alaska in 1948.

27. Perkins email; James N. Perkins, interview by author, November 17, 2010, AFHSO 

(hereafter Perkins interview).

28. Perkins email.

29. Ibid.

30. Perkins interview.

31. “USAF JOINT MESSAGEFORM, DOD Form 173,” December 27, 1956, approved 
133

by Col. James Sherrill, executive officer to Gen. Thomas White, Ford Papers, box 4, folder 

71; Perkins email.

32. Corey Ford and James N. Perkins, “Air Force Fish and Wildlife Conservation 

Program,” memo, n.d. (ca. January 15, 1957), Ford Papers, box 4, folder 71.

33. Ibid.

34. Joseph Mathewson, Dartmouth Class of 1955 Newsletter, March 2011; Perkins to 

author, email, March 11, 2011.

35. Perkins email. Although the exact timing of the Ford and Perkins meeting with 

the general is uncertain, White wrote Ford on January 3, 1957, thanking him for a book and 

expressing his appreciation for his work with the conservation program. It is possible that 

Ford met with White privately prior to the meeting Perkins references in the text. White to 

Ford, January 3, 1957 (quote), White Papers-Syracuse, box 6, folder: Corres., 1957 Jan.

36. Perkins email; History of the Office of the Inspector General of the United States 

Air Force, 1 July–31 December 1957, 29, AFHSO.

37. General White spoke on March 6. Ford memo for White, “Subject: Annual North 

American Wildlife Conference at Hotel Statler, Washington, DC, March 4, 5, 6, 1957,” February 

25, 1957, White Papers-Syracuse, box 10, folder: T. D. White Memoranda, 1957, Jan.–May.

38. Routing slip handwritten comments, “Memorandum for Gen. White,” February 

25, 1957, White Papers-Syracuse, box 10, folder: T. D. White Memoranda, 1957, Jan.–May.

39. “Remarks by General Thomas D. White, Vice Chief of Staff, United States Air Force, 

Before the State Directors’ Luncheon, North American Wildlife Conference, South American 

Room, Hotel Statler, Washington, Wednesday, March 6, 1957, 12:15 P.M.,” Manuscript 

Collection 68–2086, box 54, folder: Gen. White’s Statements, Jan–Dec 1957, Library of 

Congress (hereafter White Papers-LC). Perkins stated that he and Ford drafted White’s speech 

and hoped to silence critics of military conservation programs. Perkins interview.

40. Ford to White, March 11, 1957, White Papers-Syracuse, box 6, folder: Corres.: 

1957 March; White to Ford, March 13, 1957, White Papers-Syracuse, box 6, folder: Corres.: 

1957 March.

41. “You Can Hunt on AF Bases,” Washington Post, January 6, 1957, C7.

42. A chukar (partridge) guzzler is a device that catches and stores water from rain and 

snow for wildlife in areas where lack of water inhibits the establishment and growth of animal 

populations. Dean Mitchell, Randy Larsen, and Danny Raymer, “What the heck is a guzzler? And 

why are they so important to wildlife?” http://wildlife.utah.gov/wr/0706guzzler/0706guzzler.pdf.

43. Corey Ford and James Perkins, “Operation Wildlife,” Saturday Evening Post, 

January 4, 1958, 30, 54–55 (both quotes).

44. Ibid., 55. White took over as chief of staff of the Air Force in July 1957.

45. House Committee Report 215, 49–50, 58–59 (quote).

46. House Committee Report 215, 50.

47. Senate Committee Report 857, 48.

Five

1. “Memorandum of Agreement between the United States Air Force and the United 

States Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior, for the Development of a Fish 

and Wildlife Conservation Program Throughout the United States Air Force,” December 

17, 1956, Papers of Corey Ford, box 52, folder 8, Rauner Special Collections, Dartmouth 

College (hereafter Ford Papers); History of the Office of the Inspector General of the United 

States Air Force, 1 July–31 December 1956, 4, Air Force Historical Studies Office (AFHSO).
134

2. History of the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Air Force, 1 

January–30 June 1957, 36–40; History of the Office of the Inspector General of the United 

States Air Force, 1 July–31 December 1957, 29–33, AFHSO.

3. U.S. Air Force, Air Force Regulation 93–14, “Control Procedures: Game Law Enforcement 

and Wildlife Conservation on Air Force Installations,” April 30, 1954; U.S. Air Force, Air Force 

Regulation 125–5, “Provost Marshal Activities: Fish and Wildlife Conservation Program,” 

November 6, 1958.

4. U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Defense Directive 5500.3, “Hunting and 

Fishing on Military Reservations,” June 8, 1956; U.S. Department of Defense, Department of 

Defense Directive 5500.3, “Hunting and Fishing on Military Reservations,” October 10, 1956; 

U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Defense Directive 5500.3, “Hunting and Fishing on 

Military Reservations,” October 31, 1956.

5. U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Defense Directive 5500.3, “Hunting and 

Fishing on Military Reservations,” June 8, 1956; U.S. Department of Defense, Department of 

Defense Directive 5500.5, “Management, Conservation, and Harvesting of Fish and Game 

Resources,” July 16, 1958.

6. History of the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Air Force, 1 

July–31 December 1956, 4; History of the Office of the Inspector General of the United States 

Air Force, 1 July–31 December 1957, 30, 32, AFHSO.

7. Elwood Armstrong Seaman, Silent Letters Released: Seven Decades of One Life

(New York: Vantage Press, 1988), 40–41, 60–69, 109–16; Tim Seaman, son of Elwood A. 

Seaman, and Cathy VanDerSluys, daughter of Elwood A. Seaman, interview by author, 

March 20, 2011, AFHSO (hereafter Seaman and VanDerSluys interview).

8. Seaman, Silent Letters Released, 109, 112–14 (quotes, 113); Seaman and 

VanDerSluys interview.

9. Thomas D. White, speech, Anglers’ Club Dinner, N.Y.C. Annual Dinner, January 

9, 1962, AFHSO microfilm collection, reel 30131, no frame nos.; George S. Myers and 

Stanley H. Weitzman, “Two New Fishes Collected by General Thomas D. White in Eastern 

Columbia,” Stanford Ichtyhological Bulletin 7, no. 4 (1960); Seaman, Silent Letters 

Released, 115–16.

10. Seaman, Silent Letters Released, 113–15.

11. Ibid., 115–16.

12. History of the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Air Force 1 

July–31 December 1957, 32–33, AFHSO.

13. History of the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Air Force 1 

July–31 December 1957, 32; History of the Office of the Inspector General of the United 

States Air Force 1 January–30 June 1958, 41; History of the Office of the Inspector General 

of the United States Air Force 1 January–30 June 1959, 23–24, AFHSO.

14. History of the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Air Force 1 

January–30 June 1959, 23; History of the Office of the Inspector General of the United States 

Air Force 1 January–30 June 1960, 32; History of the Office of the Inspector General of the 

United States Air Force, 1 July–31 December 1960, 24, AFHSO; U.S. Air Force, Air Force 

Regulation 125–5A, “Fish and Wildlife Conservation Program,” August 16, 1960.

15. Russell E. DeGroat, Rusty: Memoirs of a Military Pilot (Roseburg, OR: Dykema 

Publishing, 2000), 238–40, 298; Daniel A. Poole, interview by author, December 27, 2011, 

AFHSO.

16. DeGroat, Rusty, 301–3; History of the Office of the Inspector General of the United 

States Air Force, 1 July–31 December 1959, 18, AFHSO; “Preparing Film on Conservation,” 

Washington Post and Times Herald, December 20, 1960, C5; U.S. Air Force, Runways in 
135

the Wild (1961), copy at National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD, 

NARA# 100863, CR# 342 SFP 1121U.

17. DeGroat, Rusty, 303–4.

18. History of the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Air Force, 1 

July–31 December 1959, 19, AFHSO.

19. DeGroat, Rusty, 303, 306–7; LeRoy Whitman, “Military is Pushing Wildlife 

Programs,” Washington Post, April 25, 1967, D5.

20. History of the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Air Force, 1 

July–31 December 1960, 24, AFHSO; Department of the Interior, “Departmental Manual: 

Multi-Program Management, Part 501: Fish and Wildlife Outdoor Recreational Resources,” 

August 8, 1974, http://elips.doi.gov/ELIPS/DocView.aspx?id=1656&dbid=0.

21. “A Bill to promote effectual planning, development, maintenance, and coordination 

of wildlife, fish, and game conservation and rehabilitation in military reservations,” H.R. 

3233, 82nd Cong., 1st sess, Congressional Record, March 14, 1951, 2439; “A Bill to promote 

effectual planning, development, maintenance, and coordination of wildlife, fish, and game 

conservation and rehabilitation in military reservations,” H.R. 5442, 84th Cong., 1st sess, 

Congressional Record, March 15, 1955, 4165; “A Bill to promote effectual planning, 

development, maintenance, and coordination of wildlife, fish, and game conservation and 

rehabilitation in military reservations,” H.R. 4834, 85th Cong., 1st sess., Congressional 

Record, February 14, 1957, 2061; “A Bill to promote effectual planning, development, 

maintenance, and coordination of wildlife, fish, and game conservation and rehabilitation 

in military reservations,” H.R. 2565, U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on 

Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation of the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, 

Hearings, “Miscellaneous Fish and Wildlife Legislation,” 86th Cong., 1st sess., May 5, June 

3, 30, July 1, and August 4, 1959, 81–83 (hereafter House Subcommittee, “Miscellaneous 

Fish and Wildlife Legislation”); U.S. Senate, Merchant Marine and Fisheries Subcommittee 

of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Hearings, “Coordination of Wildlife, 

Fish and Game Conservation, and Rehabilitation in Military Reservations,” 86th Cong., 

2nd sess., May 19, 1960, 43–45 (hereafter Senate Subcommittee, “Conservation in Military 

Reservations”).

22. Leslie V. Dix, Chief of Defense-State Relations, Office of the Assistant Secretary 

of Defense for Manpower, Personnel, and Reserve, was referring to lands of agencies such 

as the U.S. Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and Bureau of 

Land Management.

23. House Subcommittee, “Miscellaneous Fish and Wildlife Legislation,” 103–10; Senate 

Subcommittee, “Conservation in Military Reservations,” 48–52.

24. Senate Subcommittee, “Conservation in Military Reservations,” 39 (quote); House 

Subcommittee, “Miscellaneous Fish and Wildlife Legislation,” 90–92.

25. House Subcommittee, “Miscellaneous Fish and Wildlife Legislation,” 109–10.

26. Ibid., 123.

27. History of the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Air Force, 1 

January–30 June 1959, 24, AFHSO.

28. Senate Subcommittee, “Conservation in Military Reservations,” 1.

29. U.S. Senate, Merchant Marine and Fisheries Subcommittee of the Committee 

on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Report, “Coordination of Wildlife, Fish and Game 

Conservation, and Rehabilitation in Military Reservations,” Report, “Promoting Effectual 

Planning, Development, Maintenance, and Coordination of Wildlife, Fish, and Game 

Conservation and Rehabilitation in Military Reservations,” 86th Cong., 2nd sess., May 27, 

1960, S. Rep. 1492, 1; U.S. Congress, United States Code, 86th Cong., 2d sess., vol. 1 (1960), 
136

1453–54; “Bills and Joint Resolutions Approved After Sine Die Adjournment,” 86th Cong., 

2d sess., Congressional Record—House, September 1, 1960, 19167.

30. U.S. Congress, United States Statutes at Large, 86th Cong., 2d sess., vol. 74 (1960), 

1052–53; Blair Joselyn, “Wildlife Management on Military Installations: A Critique of Army 

Policy,” Journal of Wildlife Management 29 (January 1965): 216.

31. U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Defense Directive 5500.5, “Natural 

Resources: Management and Harvesting of Fish and Wildlife,” February 16, 1962.

32. Ibid.; U.S. Air Force, Air Force Regulation 125–5, “Natural Resources: Fish and 

Wildlife Conservation Program,” June 26, 1962; DeGroat, Rusty, 305; Seaman, Silent Letters 

Released, 136–37.

33. “LCDR Zirzow Heads New Natural Resources Branch,” Navy Civil Engineer 1, 

no. 3 (April 1960), 5; Joselyn, “Wildlife Management on Military Installations,” 217.

34. U.S. Department of the Navy, Bureau of Yards and Docks, Updated BUDOCKS 

Notice 11015, “Meeting of Bureau of Yards and Docks Field Conservationists,” March 14, 

1962, record group 71, box 15, Record Set of Publications, 1945–63, National Archives and 

Records Administration; “Navy Moves on Natural Resources Program,” Outdoors News 

Bulletin (Wildlife Management Institute) 16, no. 24 (1962), 2; U.S. Department of the Navy, 

SECNAV Instruction 5800.80, “Management, Conservation and Harvesting of Fish and 

Game Resources,” September 5, 1958.

35. “Navy Moves on Natural Resources Program,” 2.

36. Ibid.; Joselyn, “Wildlife Management on Military Installations,” 215–17; House 

Subcommittee, “Miscellaneous Fish and Wildlife Legislation,” 124.

37. Joselyn, “Wildlife Management on Military Installations,” 217.

38. Ibid., 222; U.S. Army, Army Regulation 210–221, “Natural Resources—Management 

and Harvesting of Fish and Wildlife,” July 24, 1962.

39. “Navy Moves on Natural Resources Program,” 2 (quote); House Subcommittee, 

“Miscellaneous Fish and Wildlife Legislation,” 124.

40. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “Sikes Act History,” http://www.fws.gov/

habitatconservation/sikes%20act%20history.pdf.

41. Theresa K. Hollingsworth, “The Sikes Act Improvement Act of 1997: Examining 

the Changes for the Department of Defense,” Air Force Law Review 46 (1999): 117–22, 135.

42. Ibid., 141–45; Dan Ashe, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “Testimony before the 

House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans, and Wildlife Hearings 

on H.R. 5284, Sikes Act Amendments of 2010,” May 25, 2010, http://www.doi.gov/ocl/

hearings/111/HR5284_052510.cfm?renderforprint=1&.

Conclusion and Epilogue

1. U.S. Department of Defense, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Installations 

and Environment, “Base Structure Report: Fiscal Year 2013 Baseline, A Summary of the 

Department of Defense’s Real Property Inventory,” 14, https://acc.dau.mil/adl/en-US/658975/

file/73118/Base%20Structure%20Report%202013.pdf. As of this writing, the Army controls 51 

percent of all DOD land, the Navy and Marine Corps each 8 percent of the DOD total. The 

Defense Department owns outright 13.4 million of the total 27.7 million acres. The reminder is 

leased or otherwise under DOD control. Of that total, 44 percent belongs to the Air Force, 41 

percent to the Army, 11 percent to the Marine Corps, and 4 percent to the Navy.

2. Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, Office of Legislative and Liaison Division, 

“Public Lands, Withdrawal of Over 5,000 Acres from the Public Domain for Defense 
137

Purposes,” History of the Office of Legislative Liaison for Fiscal Year 1956, 24, Air Force 

Historical Studies Office (AFHSO); Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, Office of 

Legislative and Liaison Division, “Public Lands, Withdrawal of Over 5,000 Acres from the 

Public Domain for Defense Purposes,” History of the Office of Legislative Liaison for Fiscal 

Year 1957, n.p., AFHSO.

3. Kenneth Hugh Butts, Environmental Security: What is DOD’s Role? (Carlisle, PA: 

Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 1993), v–vi.

4. Thomas H. Lillie and John J. Fittipaldi, “Evolution of Ecosystem Management for 

Stewardship of U.S. Military Lands,” in Achieving Environmental Security: Ecosystem Services 

and Human Welfare, ed. P. H. Liotta et al. (Amsterdam, Netherlands: IOS Press, 2010), 87–94.

5. Richard Conner, D. Craig Rudolph, and Jeffrey R. Walters, The Red-cockaded 

Woodpecker: Surviving in a Fire-Maintained Ecosystem (Austin: University of Texas Press, 

2010), 258; Administrative and Civil Law Division, Judge Advocate General’s School, U.S. 

Army, Environmental Law Deskbook (Charlottesville, VA: Judge Advocate General’s School, 

1995), I–29; Mark. D. Ahner, Can the United States Army Adjust to the Endangered Species 

Act of 1973? (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 1; Thomas H. Lillie and 

J. Jerome Montague, “A Transition to Mission-Based Environmental Stewardship of Natural 

Resources in the United States Air Force,” Federal Facilities Environmental Journal 9, no. 

3 (Autumn 1998), 7–17.

6. J. Douglas Ripley, “The Development of Biological Diversity Conservation in the 

Department of Defense” (conference paper, American Society for Environmental Historians 

2011 Annual Conference, Phoenix, AZ, April 2011); Michele Leslie, Gary K. Meffe, Jeffrey L. 

Hardesty, and Diane L. Adams eds., Conserving Biodiversity on Military Lands: A Guide for 

Natural Resource Managers, 1996 ed. (Arlington, VA: NatureServe, 1996), introduction, n.p., 

http://www.mojavedata.gov/deserttortoise_gov/documents/HBK_Conserving_Biodiversity_

on_Military_Lands_A_Handbook_for_Natural_Resources_Managers_DOD_1996.pdf.

7. Office of the Under Secretary for Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, 

Fiscal Year 2012 Defense Environmental Programs Annual Report to Congress, November 

2013, http://www.denix.osd.mil/arc/ARCFY2012.cfm, 1.

8. L. Peter Boice, Department of Defense Natural Resources Program, “Threatened and 

Endangered Species on DOD Lands,” http://www.denix.osd.mil/nr/upload/T-E-s-fact-sheet-1-

15-10-final.pdf; Boice, “The Role of DOD Lands for Endangered Species Protection,” http://

www.denix.osd.mil/nr/upload/06-302-FS_Role-of-DoD-Lands-for-End-Species-Protection.

pdf; Boice, “Species At Risk on DOD Lands,” http://www.denix.osd.mil/nr/upload/SAR-factsheet-12-09-final-2.pdf.

9. “The Military and Nature: Our Partnership with the Department of Defense,” The 

Nature Conservancy, n.d., http://www.nature.org/newsfeatures/specialfeatures/partnership-withthe-department-of-defense.xml.

10. National Security Strategy of the United States, August 1991, 22, http://history.

defense.gov/resources/nss1991.pdf.

11. Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review (Washington, DC: Department of 

Defense, May 1997), http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/administration_and_Management/

other/900.pdf; Quadrennial Defense Review Report (Washington, DC: Department 

of Defense, February 2010), 84–88, http://www.defense.gov/qdr/images/QDR_as_

of_12Feb10_1000.pdf; Quadrennial Defense Review 2014 (Washington, DC: Department 

of Defense, March 2014), 25, http://www.defense.gov/pubs/2014_Quadrennial_

Defense_Review.pdf (quote).
Jean A. Mansavage is a historian with the Air Force Historical 

Studies Office, Washington, D.C. She holds a doctorate in history 

from Texas A&M University and in 2014 completed a certificate 

in Natural History Field Studies with the U.S. Department of 

Agriculture Graduate School/Audubon Naturalist Society. Prior 

to her appointment with Air Force History in 2008, she served 

as deputy director of historical research for the Department of 

Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office. She has also 

worked for the Smithsonian Institution.