Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) History Office has a strong history of documenting and protecting the institutional memory of the acquisition, test, development, and sustainment of the United States Air Force. The History Office works diligently in uniting the AFMC History and Museums Program to become indispensable to our leadership in order to empower the most important command by operationalizing our history through weaponization of the archives, while inspiring and educating Airmen.
Key within this, is the archives and the facility that holds them. We are currently in the developmental phase of building The Sarah Clark Research Facility, named after Sarah B. Clark. Sarah Clark entered federal service on 10 January 1919 and spent the next 39-years managing the research, development, and test records created by managers, engineers, scientists, test pilots, and acquisition personnel at McCook Field, Wright Field, and then finally here at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base into what was known then as the Central Files and later renamed the Sarah Clark Files. She utilized the War Department’s decimal filing system to index the collection. Most of the collection was gathered into two series. The Central Decimal Correspondence Files, 1917 to 1951, consisted of incoming and outgoing letters, memorandums, messages, reports, and other like material relating to research and development activities. The Research and Development Project Cases Files, 1921 to 1953, was created by the various laboratories and units of the Engineering Division and consisted of studies, test reports, technical instructions, drawings, photographs, and project record books. By the mid-1950s, the Collection had grown substantially and a dramatic downsizing was about to begin when Ms. Clark retired in 1956. The Collection was dispersed with the majority of the collection transferred and accessioned at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) College Park, a piece sent to NARA-Chicago, a piece sent to NARA-St. Louis, some accessioning into the Smithsonian Institution Archive, and a small piece retained at Wright-Patterson in various collections.
AFMC History Office currently maintains the records of AFMC dating back to the formation of the Command in 1992 as well as the past archival holdings of various units that have been stood down and the former commands that were merged to form AFMC – Air Force Logistics Command and Air Force Systems Command. The Archive also consists of all current units histories if that unit is authorized a historian – Air Force Test Center, Air Force Sustainment Center, Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, etc. The documents within these various collections tell the history of acquisition, test, development, and sustainment from our not too distant past.
HQ AFMC is currently in the early stages of a HQ refurb, and with that, we have moved into a temporary location. With the move, we are currently consolidating our archive from three locations within the building to one location consisting of over 4,000-sq.-ft. Our future home will consist of a specific-built 10,000-sq.-ft. archival holding with a 3,000-sq.-ft. dark storage area for paintings and other items requiring special storage. Along with consolidation of the archive, we
are also accomplishing a complete relook of the holding and creating a comprehensive finding aid while digitizing key documents that are requested more often than others. These digitized products are then uploaded into what we call HISINT, a cloud-based SharePoint site that mirrors the physical archive. Mirroring this site is HISINT-Photo that will become our cloud-based digital photograph archive, which currently houses over seven terabits of searchable aviation photographs.
Just naming our facility the Sarah Clark Research Facility would not be enough without having the Collection back here at Wright-Patterson. In 2019, discussions were started with NARA and an agreement struck to transfer the St. Louis collection to the AFMC History Office, over 6,500-cubic-feet of historical documents, consisting of nearly 6,800 record boxes. With this agreement, we will digitize the collection over a set amount of years and provide the digital content back to NARA. In return we will either decide to retain the paper original, send to another facility, or properly dispose. This collection, closed off for so long to aviation researchers, will be a great gain to the aviation community. We will partner with the NMUSAF Research Division to leverage this collection with our customers to ensure that it is well utilized as well as develop a public-facing website/database the collection will sit on. Currently, transfer of the collection from their holding facility in St. Louis to their holding facility here in Dayton has begun for convenience to AFMC and processing into the collection with the first semi-load (29 pallets) arriving in October and second semi arriving the first week of November 2023. The Research Facility has also been the beneficiary of the Robert Bradley Collection that consists of 210 record boxes of Convair documents as well as just over three terabytes of digital files covering the Ryan Firebee family of drones, other Ryan UAV’s, lots of seaplane and Flying boat data, as well as early F-102 Delta Dagger and F-106 Delta Dart design information, Atlas missile material, and Convair space-related material. The Hartley Burnham Collection, a deceased contract engineer from Massachusetts, consists of eight boxes of early engine and afterburner performance and design reports.
Key to any research facility, besides the archival records, is its research library. The cornerstone of the AFMC History Office’s research library will be the Collection of the late Col. (Ret) Walter J. Boyne thanks to the donation of his family. Known as Walt by many, he authored over fifty books and thousands of articles. Marrying up the research library of one of the most prolific aviation writers of our time to one of the most sought out aviation collections in the country will propel the Sarah Clark Research Facility as one of the key research stops of any aviation writer for years to come.
The collection consists of over four million pages of data that continues to grow daily along with another 1,300 rolls of microfilm. This does not include the 2,256 GBs (2.27 TBs) of digitized material on HISINT, the current digital archive as well as the numerous micfiche, movie reels, and other media. Also not included is the nearly 6,800 boxes of the incoming Sarah Clark Collection as well as the 210 boxes of the Robert Bradley Collection.
Archival data utilized from the HQ AFMC History & Heritage Directive collection, in whole, has been utilized by researchers from the SecDef, SecAF, CSAF, RAND, AFMC Commander, DoD, aviation authors, PME students, GAO inquiries, AF Legal Operations Agency, and multiple other requestors.
AFMC History & Heritage Directorate
4225 Logistics Ave., RM S133 • Wright-Patterson AFB 45433-5006 • DSN: 713-1797 • Comm: (937) 713-1797
https://community.apan.org/wg/afmc-history/ • email: hqafmc.ho@us.af.mil