{"id":4024,"date":"2019-01-06T10:02:25","date_gmt":"2019-01-06T16:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/?page_id=4024"},"modified":"2019-01-06T10:20:13","modified_gmt":"2019-01-06T16:20:13","slug":"desert-center-army-air-field","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/places\/desert-center-army-air-field\/","title":{"rendered":"Desert Center Army Air Field"},"content":{"rendered":"

Desert Center was location used by Tom in his transition to medium bombers training. On June 24, 1944, he describes<\/a> an 1100 mile night navigation exercise in which he navigated from Mather Field<\/a> to Desert Center and back.<\/p>\n

\"Desert<\/a>
Desert Center AAF, 1943<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Excerpt from Wikipedia:<\/a><\/p>\n

Desert Center Army Air Field<\/b>\u00a0(AAF) was built in the early 1940s was a subbase of\u00a0Thermal Army Air Field<\/a>\u00a0and served as a support base for the\u00a0Air Technical Service Command<\/a>. The airfield was located within the Desert Center Division Camp,which encompassed over 34,000 acres (140\u00a0km2<\/sup>). Desert Center was one of the areas included in the California Arizona Maneuver Area, used during 1942-44 to train\u00a0General Patton’s<\/a>\u00a0armored forces for desert combat prior to it deploying to\u00a0North Africa<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Desert Center AAF was first known as the Desert Center Airdrome. According to a history of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Airdrome Detachments, a detachment of the 475th Base Headquarters & Air Base Squadron was the first administrative unit stationed at Desert Center, arriving on 15 January 1943. It was described as having 5,500′ runways. The field also had taxiways & a parking apron. More than 40 buildings were constructed at the airfield, including an operations building, power house, Link Trainer building, hangar and various supply buildings. The\u00a074th Reconnaissance Group<\/a>\u00a0was the first flying unit at the field, arriving in December 1942 while the facility was under construction. It was variously equipped with O-52s, L-1s, L-4s, B-25s, P-39s and P-40s and trained to provide air support and reconnaissance to the Army ground forces training at the desert combat training facility.[3]<\/a><\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n

Desert Center AAF was officially opened in April 1943. The 3d Airdrome Detachment was activated on 1 August to maintain the installation and assist in the administration and training of tactical organizations stationed at the airfield for training and maneuvers.[4]<\/a><\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n

When the training area closed in 1944, the airfield was assigned to the\u00a0Fourth Air Force<\/a>, and operational activities decreased greatly. The airfield remained open, however, and was used by\u00a0B-24 Liberator<\/a>\u00a0crews flying training missions from\u00a0March Field<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Desert Center was location used by Tom in his transition to medium bombers training. On June 24, 1944, he describes an 1100 mile night navigation exercise in which he navigated from Mather Field to Desert Center and back. Excerpt from Wikipedia: Desert Center Army Air Field\u00a0(AAF) was built in the early 1940s was a subbase … Continue reading Desert Center Army Air Field<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":52,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4024","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4024"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4032,"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4024\/revisions\/4032"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/52"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brooksidepress.org\/cartmell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}