The 6555th Guided Missile Wing operated CGM-13/TGM-13 Mace cruise missiles from the island. On January 5, 1967 an international incident was narrowly avoided when a TGM-13 Mace, launched from Santa Rosa Island, which was supposed to circle over the Gulf on a racetrack course for shoot-down by a pair of Eglin F-4 Phantoms, instead, headed south for Cuba. A third F-4 overtook the drone, firing two test AAMs with no effect, and damaged it with cannon fire, but the unarmed Mace actually overflew the western tip of Cuba before crashing in open water some further south.Washington, D.C.: Washington Daily News, "Made a MACE of It: Jet Failed to Down Errant Missile", January 5, 1967.Fort Walton Beach, Florida: Playground Daily News, United Press International,"Air Force Hunts Missing Missile Which Fell, They Know Not Where", Thursday, January 5, 1967, Volume 20, Number 267, page 1. The final Mace launches from Hurlburt Site A-15 took place in June 1974.Fort Walton Beach, Florida: Playground Daily News, Air Force Resumes MACE Tests, Thursday, May 30, 1974. Other launches in the 1960s included six high-altitude releases of vaporized barium from 2-stage Nike Iroquois sounding rockets in January 1967 to measure wind speeds and directions in the upper atmosphere, conducted under the auspices of the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories in conjunction with the Space Systems Branch of the Aircraft and Missile Test Division, Air Proving Ground Center, Eglin AFB.Fort Walton Beach, Florida: Playground Daily News, "Vapor Cloud Expected From Tests", Thursday, January 12, 1967, Volume 20, Number 272, page 1.
