STRATOSPHERIC BALLOON BASES IN THE WORLD

In late 1942, the Navy started work on two auxiliary stations in the San Joaquin Valley near the small and isolated communities of Vernalis and Crows Landing. At Vernalis, 16 miles west of Modesto, 700 acres were purchased to build a base to support two multi-engine patrol squadrons. The navy formally inaugurated as Naval Auxiliary Air Facility Vernalis on June 8, 1943, with the function of being the auxiliar base for Alameda Naval Air Station and counting with a single 4,000 ft. tarmac runway.

In November the same year, the existing runway was extended to 7000 ft. and were added some buildings and gasoline storage capacity. In the meantime, base's designation changed to the definitive denomination as Vernalis Naval Auxiliary Air Station. During this time, VB-148 and VB-150 operated there but in the spring of 1944, the Navy realized that the airfield at Crows Landing, located 18 miles to the southeast counted with concrete runways. As this base would be better suited for these heavier planes the two stations swapped missions and thereafter, Vernalis hosted only carrier squadrons.

With the arrival of carrier units, Vernalis added a 160 acre dive bombing range. Also in this time several improvements were done in the field: the addition of a 4000 x 150-ft. crosswind runway, permanent runway lighting and a Seabee installed catapult and arresting gear. Finally, at a strafing range on the Diablo Mountain Range to the west, a silhouette of a submarine was painted on rocks for strafing practice.

After the war, Vernalis initially was chosen to remain open; however, Crows Landing received the nod due to its concrete runways. On October 15, 1945, Vernalis was placed on caretaker status and finally abandoned three months later. After that in several aerial maps of the time the installation airfield was labeled as "Closed. Emergency only."

In the 1950's the site would be used again by the US Air Force, being denominated according several sources as "Vernalis Geophysics Annex" and operated by the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory. The first use was related to a country wide project started by the Air Force called "Moby Dick" and intended to study the high altitude wind patterns. For this project, Vernalis -among other bases- was choosed to launch stratospheric balloons wich would be tracked by a network of radio receiving stations while traveled throught the US.

Many of the balloons launched there, traveled as far as Mexico, Canada and even Europe.

After the program was completed several other balloons mission took place there during the decade including some flight test of balloon surveillance equipment and a series of launches to test launch techniques and systems as part of a project aimed to detonate a nuclear device in the stratosphere using a balloon as carrier. That mission known as "Yucca" shot took place in 1958 at the Eniwetok Proving Grounds, in the Pacific Ocean.

Some other balloon launches took place there during the remainder of the decade and the first year of the following, but that would be the last ones.

The site remained abandoned until the 70's decades when the runway was used on a more or less regular basis on weekends as drag strip, eventually leading to a formal business and a real track established. Finally by the 80's decade this activity also ceased and from that moment on the terrain occupied by the former base has been used for various purposes including scrap metal, scrap wood processing, and fertilizer manufacturing businesses.

Nowadays, the only remains of the older station is the flag pole and some older buildings.