Names for Air Force bases

[Pat Carry]

I thought this would be an interesting topic, one that I dont think has been discussed before. For whom are the numerous Air Force bases (past & present) named for? Bases like Pease, Travis, Luke, McClellan, March, Ellsworth, Hurlburt, Eglin, Offut, Vandenburg, etc., how did they get their names? Isn't Edwards AFB named for a test pilot who lost his life in a test flight someplace? Wasnt there a Vance AFB at one time? I was just reading about what Leon "Bob" Vance did in a B-17 over Europe in Robert Dorr's book "Mission to Berlin" http://www.af.mil/information/heritage/ ... =123101309

Last edited by Pat Carry on Tue Nov 22, 2011 7:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[mustangdriver]

Wright Patterson AFB is named after the Wright Brothers of course as well as Patterson who was killed testing a new prop in the early years. 1918 or so? I could be wrong on the date.

Grissom AFB is of course named after Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom. Gus was one of the original 7 astronauts and was killed along with Roger Chaffee and Ed White when fire swept through their Apollo I spacecraft.

Hurlburt Field was named after Donald Hurlburt who volunteered in flew in the RAF, wond the DFC, and was killed in a training accident there.

[APG85]

Yet a few bases are not named after anyone and simply have the name of the nearest city i.e. Little Rock AFB and Grand Forks AFB. Why they were never named for a person is a mystery to me...

Last edited by APG85 on Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[K5DH]

The former Carswell AFB is located in Fort Worth, Texas. Text from the Wiki page:

"The base was named after Medal of Honor recipient Major Horace S. Carswell, Jr. (1916–1944). Major Carswell was returning from an attack on Japanese shipping in the South China Sea on 26 October 1944. He attempted to save a crewmember whose parachute had been destroyed by flak. He remained at the controls of his crippled bomber and died while crashlanding the B-24 Liberator near Tungchen, China. The base was renamed in his honor on 29 January 1948.

Previous base names were:
- Army Air Force Combat Crew School, Tarrant Field
(aka Tarrant Field and Tarrant Field Airdrome), 1 July 1942–29 July 1942
- Fort Worth Army Airfield, 29 July 1942 – 13 January 1948.
- Griffiss Air Force Base, 13 – 29 January 1948"

Today the base is run by the Navy and is known as Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth at Carswell Field (quite a mouthful!).

[dors]

Just up the road from me is Harrisburg International Airport, which used to be Olmsted AFB, named for Robert Stanford Olmsted. Olmsted was a 1st Lieutenant in the Army Air Corp, killed in 1923 along with 4 others in a balloon race in Holland when his balloon was struck by lightning. There's not a whole lot of info on Olmsted the person or the AFB on the internet. Would love to see some more pics and stories.

[The Inspector]

Paine Field in Everett, WA. is named after a Lt. Loftin Paine an Everett native, who flew the mail, but I believe also shot himself in the head with his service revolver

[Clifford Bossie]

Often times Air Force Bases were named in honor of local service members. Biggs AFB was named for James Berthea "Buster" Biggs, an El Paso native killed in France during WWI. Davis-Monthan was named for two Tucson natives, Samuel H. Davis and Oscar Monthan, both WWI pilots. Walker Air Force Base (Roswell NM) was named for Kenneth Newton Walker, who was from Los Cerrillos, NM.

Air Force base names can also carry over to civilian fields. The Orlando International Airport has the three letter code of MCO and that is because it was formerly McCoy AFB.

[Airlift48]

Ellsworth AFb in Rapid City, SD is named for Brig. Gen. Richard E. Ellsworth, who was killed in the crash of an RB-36H (S/N 51-13721) on March 18, 1953, along with 22 others.

The story goes as follows:

They were evading coastal radar. They were also maintaining radio silence. The weather report on takeoff indicated that they would encounter headwinds. The plan was to approach to coast at a very low altitude and then climb to a high altitude to clear the mountains.

They were in IFR conditions coming across the ocean and unfortunately drifted north a bit. The spinning weather system that they were to hit the south of with the headwinds slid south and with them being off course to the north, they were now in fast tailwinds. They arrived at the coast 90 minutes ahead of schedule. Therefore they did not climb when they anticipated and stayed low and flew directly into the terrain.

My mother's cousin Harold G. Smith was one of the crew, listed as Observer Navigator. I believe the lack of visibility, the radio silence and the change in weather sealed their fate from the start. Even of they had stayed on course, it appears that they were doomed anyway.

More info and photos are located here
http://atlanticcanadaaviationmuseum.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/summer2005.pdf

[Airlift48]

Selfridge was named for Lt. Thomas Selfridge, the first air crash fatality. He died in a crash of a Wright Flyer with Orville Wright at the controls.

From about.com

Lift Off!

Twenty-six year-old Lieutenant Thomas E. Selfridge volunteered to be a passenger. A member of the Aerial Experiment Association (an organization headed by Alexander Graham Bell and in direct competition with the Wrights), Lt. Selfridge was also on the Army board that was assessing the Wrights' Flyer at Fort Myers, Virginia.

It was just after 5 p.m. on September 17, 1908, when Orville and Lt. Selfridge got into the airplane. Lt. Selfridge was the Wrights' heaviest passenger thus far, weighing 175 pounds. Once the propellers were turned, Lt. Selfridge waved to the crowd. For this demonstration, approximately 2,000 people were present.

The weights were dropped and the airplane was off.

Out of Control

The Flyer was up in the air. Orville was keeping it very simple and had successfully flown three laps over the parade ground at an altitude of approximately 150 feet.

Then Orville heard light tapping. He turned and quickly looked behind him, but he didn't see anything wrong. Just to be safe, Orville thought he should turn off the engine and glide to the ground.

But before Orville could shut off the engine, he heard "two big thumps, which gave the machine a terrible shaking."1


The machine would not respond to the steering and lateral balancing levers, which produced a most peculiar feeling of helplessness.2
Something flew off the airplane. (It was later discovered to be a propeller.) Then the airplane suddenly veered right. Orville couldn't get the machine to respond. He shut off the engine. Yet he kept trying to regain control of the airplane.


. . . I continued to push the levers, when the machine suddenly turned to the left. I reversed the levers to stop the turning and to bring the wings on a level. Quick as a flash, the machine turned down in front and started straight for the ground.3
Throughout the flight, Lt. Selfridge had remained silent. A few times Lt. Selfridge had glanced at Orville to see Orville's reaction to the situation.

The airplane was about 75 feet in the air when it started a nose-dive to the ground. Lt. Selfridge let out a near inaudible "Oh! Oh!"

The Crash

Heading straight for the ground, Orville was not able to regain control. The Flyer hit the ground hard. The crowd was at first in silent shock. Then everyone ran over to the wreckage.

The crash created a cloud of dust. Orville and Lt. Selfridge were both pinned in the wreckage. They were able to disentangle Orville first. He was bloody, but conscious. It was harder to get Selfridge out. He too was bloody and had an injury to his head. Lt. Selfridge was unconscious.

The two men were taken by stretcher to the nearby post hospital. Doctors operated on Lt. Selfridge, but at 8:10 p.m., Lt. Selfridge died from a fractured skull, without ever regaining consciousness. Orville suffered a broken left leg, several broken ribs, cuts on his head, and many bruises.

Lt. Thomas Selfridge was buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. He was the first man to die in an airplane.

Orville Wright was released from the Army hospital on October 31. Though he would walk and fly again, Orville continued to suffer from fractures in his hip that had gone unnoticed at the time. Orville later determined that the crash was caused by a stress crack in the propeller. The Wrights soon redesigned the Flyer to eliminate the flaws that led to this accident.

Original article here:
http://history1900s.about.com/od/1900s/a/firstcrash.htm

[CrewDawg]

Barkdale AFB is named for Lt. Eugene Hoy Barksdale, excerpt taken from the Arlington National Cemetery webiste http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/ehbarksdale.htm:

Barksdale Air Force Base was named after Lieutenant Eugene Hoy Barksdale, a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot who lost his life August 11, 1926, while flight testing an observation type airplane near McCook Field at Dayton, Ohio.
Barksdale was born November 5, 1897, in Goshen Springs, Mississippi. Known throughout his life as Hoy, he was one of seven children - two boys and five girls. His family members were farmers with a rich military tradition dating to the Revolutionary War.

Barksdale attended Mississippi State College but left during his junior year to enter officers training camp at Fort Logan H. Roots in Little Rock, Arkansas. He volunteered for the aviation section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a Private First Class.

He later went to England to receive his flight training with the Royal Flying Corps and was assigned to the 41st Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, in 1918. A year later, Barksdale was assigned to Mitchel Field, Long Island, where he married Lura Lee Dunn in 1921. He set several flight records at Mitchel Field.

A veteran of several successful parachute escapes from aircraft, Barksdale was testing a Douglas O-2 observation airplane for spin characteristics, and found it necessary to parachute from the craft when he could not recover from a flat spin. His parachute became entangled in the wing's brace wires, causing Barksdale to fall to his death. He was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

[Clifford Bossie]

And probably the most logical: Luke AFB, named for Arizona native Frank Luke.

[JohnB]

They tried to name bases after local heros.

Col. Edwin Dyess was born in Albany, not far from Abilene. So they renamed Abilene AFB shortly aftyer it was built in the mid 50s (a B-47 base).

Same thing for Richards-Gebaur...Richards was a WWI pilot, Gebaur was killed in an F-84 in Korea, both were from the Kansas City area.

Goodfellow AFB was named after a WWI puilot killed in action from San Angelo. Mathis Field was a WWII training base and now San Angelo's civil airport, Mathis won the Medal of Honor after being killed on a B-17 mission. His brother too was killed in the war.

There was going to be a Bong AFB in upper Wisconsin, but it was never finished. Dick Bong was from Poplar, Wis, south of Duluth, Minn.

The list is endless.

Air Force magazine used tio have an annual AF Almanac issue. Under the base listings, it said how the base was named and currents units assigned.

[tex-fan]

Curtis Field in Brady, Texas was named after the mayor who convinced the AAF to locate the tranning school there. the mayor was no hero but i guess the boost to the local economy in that time got him the name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Field

[WallyB]

Bad link, see below.

Last edited by WallyB on Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[The Inspector]

WALLY,
Link appears to be, as my kid used to say, is 'busticated'