Mountain Home Air Force Base - History - Postwar Era - 5th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing

5th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing

Mountain Home's first operational USAF unit was the Strategic Air Command (SAC) 5th Strategic Reconnaissance Group which was reassigned from Clark Field in the Philippines, being assigned on 26 May 1949. The mission of the 5th Strategic Reconnaissance Group (later 5th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing) was long-range strategic reconnaissance, primarily of the periphery of the Soviet Union. Its primary operational squadron was the 72d Reconnaissance Squadron, which had been had been assigned to the group from Ladd AFB, Alaska Territory where it had operated RB-29 Superfortress for several years. On 3 September 1949, aircraft of the 72d identified the first evidence of a successful explosion of a Soviet nuclear weapon in the Semipalatinsk test site in Eastern Kazakhstan on 29 August 1949.

The pending assignment of the new RB-36 Peacemaker to the 5th SRW, along with the inadequacy of its World War II facilities to support the large aircraft led SAC to move the 5th SRW to Fairfield-Suisun AFB, California on 9 November 1949. The provisional 4209th Base Service Squadron was assigned to the base which supervised construction activities to modernize facilities and also construct a 12,000-foot runway. The base was formally closed on 25 April 1950, however the 5th SRW maintained control of Mountain Home from Fairfield-Suisun AFB, maintaining it as a subbase.