CREECH AIR FORCE BASE
On June 20, 2005, Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field officially changed its name to Creech Air Force Base in honor of Gen. Wilbur L. “Bill” Creech. As the commander of Tactical Air Command from 1978 to 1984, General Creech shaped the Air Force of today with a call for new weapons and tactics. He revolutionized the Air Force by espousing a philosophy of decentralized authority and responsibility. He was also known as the “father of the Thunderbirds,” the Air Force’s premiere air demonstration squadron.
The airfield that now bears General Creech’s name was originally built by the Army in the early 1940s to support the war effort during World War II. A month after the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, the Army began building a training camp near the community of Indian Springs, Nev. By the end of 1942, the service had contracted for regular facilities and by the end of February 1943 the base was being used as a divert field and base for air-to-air gunnery training.
The little post was in service supporting B-17s and T-6s until March 1945 when the Army put the base in stand-by status maintained by a small housekeeping staff. When Las Vegas Army Air Field inactivated in January 1947, Indian Springs also closed down.
The base re-opened in January 1948 and two years later received its first permanently assigned Air Force unit. In August 1951 the base became an auxiliary field and in July 1952 transferred from Air Training Command to the Air Research and Development Command, reporting to the Air Force Special Weapons Center in Albuquerque, N.M.
In 1961 the base transferred to the Tactical Air Command. It officially became Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field during the 1980s. Following the inactivation of Tactical Air Command In 1992, the base became a component of Air Combat Command.
Along with being the aerial demonstration training site for the Thunderbirds, today the base plays a major role in the ongoing war on terrorism. The base is home to the MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle which flies daily in Afghanistan and Iraq. The base is also home to the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Battlelab whose mission is to work with the warfighter and identify problems that can be solved using innovative UAV solutions.
Location
Creech AFB is located about 45 miles northwest of Nellis AFB. It takes an hour to drive from Nellis to Creech AFB. Nellis AFB provides daily round-trip shuttle bus service from Nellis to Creech. There is also a park-and-ride facility on U.S. 95 in northwest Las Vegas that serves Creech AFB and the Department of Energy’s Nevada Test Site. Very few Airmen assigned to Creech AFB live in the nearby town of Indian Springs, which has a population of about 1,000 people and few services.
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