(Illustration of an F-35 in flight. AI-generated/AlaDefense.com)
COMMENTARY
By Troy Turner
It might be a hard-to-detect stealth fighter jet, but there was no sneaking into Tallapoosa County last Wednesday afternoon when an F-35 roared up the river at low altitude and made a multi-G-force tight turn over Martin Dam.
“Hello, 187th, I see you!” I said aloud as I stood in a pasture looking up and marveling from next to my own impressive piece of machinery.
Theirs was made by Lockheed Martin. Mine by John Deere.
An Alabama Air National Guard F-35. (USAF)
A strategic target
The aircraft with its powerful jet engine that suddenly and loudly commanded the sky where moments earlier a single hawk had reigned was no doubt a bird from the Alabama Air National Guard 187th fighter wing stationed at Dannelly Field in Montgomery.
Fighter aircraft from Air Guard units at Dannelly and elements taking off from nearby Maxwell Air Force Base are among the military aircraft that for decades have used Martin Dam as a strategic target in simulated training runs, and on other occasions simply as a landmark on exercise flights, as the dam likely has stood out on their navigation charts since it was completed in 1926.
If the dam sounds old, aviation based in Montgomery is older.
Martin Dam was built in the 1920s to create electricity, forming the now super-popular Lake Martin in the process.
Aviation in Montgomery, however, began in 1910 when Wilbur and Orville Wright opened the nation’s first civilian flying school on old cotton fields that later would become Maxwell Air Force Base.
Maxwell Field, 1928. (USAF archives)
The Vietnam days
My eyewitness accounts of military aircraft flying over or near the dam go back to boyhood, as I grew up only about three miles from it.
Or, from a timeline with less-personal perspective, back to the days of the Vietnam War.
When I was growing up, fighter jets still were allowed to break the sound barrier over domestic landscapes, and when they did, every window in the house would rattle with the sonic boom.
Meanwhile, more than once, I would watch the old World War II television series “Combat,” and then proceed to march into the woods and pastures behind my home and single-handedly defeat the Germans.
During one of those occasions, I got unexpected air support.
Two Alabama-based F-4 Phantom fighter jets appeared to engage in a low-level exercise in what seemed only a few hundred yards above treetops. They buzzed back and forth overhead, and then finally, one of them slowed down, titled its cockpit slightly, and the pilot with a white helmet waved at me.
I was stoked. Some years later I wrote about it in the newspaper where I worked in Colorado.
Somehow, somewhere, someone in the Air Force chain of command read it, and yours truly was given the opportunity to spend a day with the Thunderbirds flight demonstration team and actually fly with them as a guest pilot in an F-16 fighter jet.
It remains one of the biggest thrills of my career. However, I digress.
Turner in an F-16 with the Thunderbirds. (USAF)
Special Forces units
Martin Dam for most of its life also was a popular visit for sightseers interested in visiting it as a civil engineering marvel. Tours could be arranged, and they often included a hike across the dam where the lake it formed was on one side, and the straight-down, stories-high dam wall descended on the other side to where the Tallapoosa River resumed its southward flow.
The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, changed all of that.
The Department of Homeland Security and multiple other agencies immediately after 9/11 began to identify and secure critical infrastructure that could be seen as a potential target for attack.
Martin Dam was seen as such a potential target.
Public access soon was restricted, and security was and remains tightened around the dam. That, however, doesn’t stop the U.S. Air Force.
Furthermore, it’s not just the Air Force that has been known to fly in the airspace over or in the vicinity of the dam. Elements of U.S. Special Forces also have trained in the area, and other aircraft such as helicopters and the V-22 Osprey, which is capable of vertical landings and takeoffs, have been seen overhead, including during night exercises.
A V-22 Osprey prepares for nighttime operations. (DOD)
The V-22 can be used by Special Forces, and it also is a mainstay in everyday use by the Marine Corps.
Alabama, it should be noted, is home to Special Forces units, including the 20th Special Forces Group headquartered in Birmingham.
Fort Novosel, located in south Alabama near Enterprise, is the home to Army aviation and its helicopter training and development.
Huntsville is home to the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command.
Maxwell Air Force Base, in addition to numerous other duties, serves as home to the prestigious Air University and the Air War College.
Keeping the British out
Military interest in the Martin Dam area goes back long before the days of aviation.
Creek Indians lived in the region and during the early 1800s, bands of the tribe joined forces with the British against Americans during the War of 1812.
The young United States responded by sending Gen. Andrew Jackson with militia, including a youthful Lt. Sam Houston, and volunteers who engaged with and defeated the Creeks farther up the Tallapoosa River in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, which today is preserved as a National Military Park.
Horseshoe Bend National Military Park
Years later, more settlers began moving into the area, and crossing the Tallapoosa River normally required the use of one of several ferries that charged for the service. When the need for electricity arrived in Alabama during the early 1900s, it led to the construction of Martin Dam, and the ensuing creation of Lake Martin.
Construction on the dam took place between 1923-26.
The lake, with more than 730 miles of shoreline, was filled by 1928 and at the time was the largest manmade lake in the world.
Ground and sky
The F-35 I joyfully watched that afternoon as it flew overhead and quickly disappeared over Elmore County is one of the most technologically advanced examples of aerospace engineering ever conceived.
I couldn’t help but enjoy every millisecond I could see of it while taking a break from bush hogging with my tractor. But, alas, it was a short-lived moment, and I ironically went back to what I was doing on my break:
Hunting for arrowheads.
*****
Troy Turner is the editor and senior consultant for AlaDefense.com, with more than three decades of journalism and strategic communications experience. He can be contacted at [email protected].
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