A 300-person Air Force base was located at Johnson's Lee from 1951 to 1963. Today the area has been revegetated and serves as the gateway to backcountry beach camping.

Post-War Military Facilities
In moves to upgrade post-war readiness, and accelerated by Cold War tensions with the USSR and China after World War II, the branches of the military used the momentum gained in wartime research and development of detection and weapons systems to establish new defense and communication systems throughout the world. The West Coast saw much of this development, especially in missile technology and radar communications, and these relatively new disciplines would be represented on the Channel Islands from the 1940s through the 1990s. On Santa Rosa Island, the Air Force and Navy established complex communications systems that followed in the footsteps of the relatively primitive World War II-era facilities there.

US Navy Operations
In 1952, the US Naval Air Missile Test Center installed a communications station (including receiver and transmitting building and barracks) on Navy Hill on Santa Rosa to track missiles fired from its installations at Point Mugu and San Nicolas Island. After 1985 the Navy abandoned the site and removed the buildings. However, as late as 1993 an unmanned EATS (Extended Area Test System) Ground Reference Station sat on Black Mountain, under the operation of the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, successor to the Pacific Missile Test Center.

Santa Rosa Island Air Force Station at Johnson's Lee
The US Air Force activated the 669th Aircraft Control and Warning (ACW) Squadron on May 5, 1950, at Fort MacArthur. The squadron's mission would be to detect, identify, and track air traffic in southern California as a defense against enemy invasion. The detection system would be directly linked to armed air defense stations throughout the area that could respond instantly to any attack or threat. After tests, Air Force officials chose Santa Rosa Island for the operations site, making use of the protected area on the central southern shore called Johnsons Lee.

Completed in 1952, the station consisted of the radar, transmitting, and receiving facilities located at the top of what is now referred to as Vail Peak (elevation 1,589 feet) and a cantonment area for personnel near the shore at Johnson's Lee. The cantonment included five two-story barracks for the airmen, dining hall, training and recreation buildings, offices, warehouses and maintenance facilities, dispensary, concrete pier, modern paved road between the Johnson's Lee facilities and the communications station, and landing strip.

Los Angeles Times feature reporter Charles Hillinger and photographer Howard Maxwell visited the island in 1956, as the first representatives of the press allowed to tour the secret facility. According to Hillinger, the station was staffed by up to 300 men, including about 30 civilians. Personnel worked seven days a week, six hours on and twelve hours off, during an eighteen-month tour of duty with three days a month leave. Upon arrival via a 78-foot PT boat from Port Hueneme, men were off-loaded in a cage, lowered and raised to the boat deck by a crane.

Men were assigned duty depending on their training and skills. Most did technical work, involving monitoring air traffic on large scopes, while others performed guard duty and patrol. Civilians took care of most maintenance and repair.

The cantonment included numerous venues for entertainment and relaxation, according to Hillinger: "Hobby shops, recreational facilities, television (with reception exceptionally good on all the Islands), nightly movies, fishing trips on calm days in four light boats, archery, badminton, baseball and tennis provide activity for lonely hours. The camp library, stocked with donated books, rates high in popularity. "

Hillinger noted that lack of women was the only drawback to many of the men. Vail & Vickers prohibited women and children to take up residence at the base. The lease prohibited "any person of school age, unless such person be an active member of the Armed Forces . . . . There are no schools on Santa Rosa Island, and therefore, Owner does not pay any school tax." Otherwise, morale was "surprisingly good."

The Air Force Base and cattle ranch interacted well, according to most sources. Ed and Al Vail visited the station regularly and Air Force men came to the ranch headquarters. The facility had a bar that attracted island workers. Once Ed and Al Vail, after receiving "first class invitations," dressed in tuxedos and brought the Vaquero II around for a formal party with the "big brass." The Air Force invited island cowboys to the movies and to beer parties on the beach. The commanding officer allowed the ranch to take parts and tires from the motor pool and shared stores. Diego Cuevas recalled receiving a huge four-foot wheel of cheese given as a gift for ranch workers.

In 1962 an Air Force study concluded that cost of support and operation at the station was just too high and recommended that the operation could be moved without significant sacrifice of radar coverage to a site at Point Conception. In 1963, the station was closed and the The Islander, the squadron's newsletter, published its last edition with its headline reading "Santa Rosa Island Bids a Fond Farewell" and reporting of the base closing party, complete with "delicious" steak dinners, softball, tug-of-war, and relay races.

The Air Force then abandoned the facility, leaving all buildings, utilities, and much equipment to Vail & Vickers. At the time of abandonment by the Air Force, the site consisted of at least forty buildings and structures. Vail & Vickers soon made use of their bounty. Ranch workers used salvaged materials all over the island for buildings, including the new foreman's residence and replacement bunkhouse and roundup corrals. Cowboys used the guardrail left on the military road as railing at all the roundups, resulting in some of the sturdiest corrals existing in California. The Air Force left the water plant, heating and steam systems, cots, mattresses, lamps and the like. In the motor pool the cowboys found an abandoned compressor, car lift, fuel tanks, and pumps.

Not all of the staggering amount of materials and buildings could be used, and the facilities lay deteriorating for more than 30 years, used as occasional shelter by boaters, and continually picked over by the ranch crew for odds and ends. After a few years of NPS use as island headquarters, from about 1987 to 1990, the site was abandoned except for one building. In the late 1980s the Army Corps of Engineers removed asbestos and underground storage tanks, and the NPS then burned most of the buildings. After completing environmental and historical studies, in 1991 and 1992 the National Park Service buried the remaining foundations of the facility, removed the pier ruins, and revegetated the terrain. Only one building of the base remains in place, Building 147, the auto maintenance shop, which is now used by park personnel as a remote storage and study base.

For more detailed historical information and citations, please refer to the Historic Resource Study: Island Legacies - A History of the Islands within Channel Islands National Park _