Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Children were not invited.
“We’re worried about the effect of the noise caused by the sonic boom of participating jet aircraft,” explained 1st Lt. Curtis Rape, the information officer at Cannon Air Force Base 50 years ago this week.
Adults were welcome to watch, he continued, but children might be upset by the exploding rockets, bombs and machine-gun fire during a 45-minute display the Air Force had scheduled at the Melrose Bombing Range.
The event, attended by more than 300 cadets from the U.S. Air Force Academy, was billed as the “biggest firepower demonstration in Cannon AFB history,” the Clovis News-Journal reported.
About 2,300 area residents accepted the Air Force’s invitation to witness the display on June 25, 1964. It included four F-100 Super Sabres dropping napalm bombs, emergency parachute drops, an in-flight refueling demonstration and rocket-firing demonstrations.
The newspaper reported Phantom 4-Cs, nicknamed “Triple Nickels,” from McDill Air Force Base in Florida, each carried 750-pound bombs — 51 total — that made direct hits on designated targets.
“Spectators were able to accurately count the conventional bombs as they floated through the crystal clear atmosphere,” the article reported.
David Stevens is editor for Cannon Connections. Contact him at: [email protected]