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improvements, as well as airfield lighting. A visit by
Brigadier General G.C. Brant, Commander of the Gulf Coast Air Corps Training Center at Randolph Field was made and he reported that the situation at Midland was very favorable. It was on Friday, 13 June 1941, that it was announced that Midland would get the air school. On 1 July 1941, the municipal airport was leased to the United States government for a dollar a year, and construction began on 17 July.
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It was originally named Sloan Field for Samuel
Addison Sloan, who leased 240 acres of pastureland from Clarence Scharbauer, a rancher in October 1927 to establish a privately owned landing field and flying school. Sloan was killed in a plane crash on 1 January 1929, and the operation was continued by
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One of the first structures to go up was the 500,000 gallon water tank which is still in use. Buildings for
Headquarters, officer, enlisted and cadet barracks, a station hospital, classrooms, mess hall and flight line were all being erected by civilian employees. By the time the first enlisted man
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Immediate search for ranch land to be used as target ranges was instigated and plans for "an advanced twin-engine flying and bombardment school" had begun. Ground was broken on 15 July 1941 with the leasing of 1,030 acres of land for the duration of the war plus six months. Twenty-three bomb ranges
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Cadets remained at
Midland exactly twelve weeks for combined ground and flight training, rigorous physical activity and rigid military discipline during a sixteen-hour day, with only part of Sunday off. They learned to hit targets with remarkable accuracy, dropping at least 200 practice bombs each
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In August 1943 the AAF Central
Bombardier Instructor School was transferred from Carlsbad Army Airfield, New Mexico, to Midland. The base pioneered the use of the highly secret Norden bombsight and at one time operated twenty-three bombing ranges across West Texas. Personnel from Midland AAF were
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On 26 September 1942, the base was formally re-designated
Midland Army Air Field, and the school was named the Army Air Forces Bombardier School, one of a dozen bombardier-training schools. It was one of the "West Texas Bombardier Quadrangle" schools of the Army Air Forces Training Command. The
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It was announced that training of cadets would begin in
January 1942. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the need for bombardiers was evident, soon after an announcement was made by Lieutenant Colonel Isaiah Davies, Commanding Officer of Midland Army Air Field (MAAF), that the
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Prominent businessmen in
Midland could foresee the possibility of a military base in West Texas. In 1940, after Hitler struck Poland, they started promoting the airport for use as a training base to the military establishment in Washington. Work was done by the WPA with more runway and taxiway
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The air field was deactivated as a military installation on 15 June 1946, and returned to the city of
Midland on 1 July 1947. Since that date, it has been improved and modernized and has become an increasingly busy commercial air terminal and transportation-distribution center.
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The first group of cadets, Class 42–6, arrived for training from
Ellington, Texas, on 6 February 1942. Midland reached a peak base population of more than 4,000 and graduated a total of 6,627 bombardier officers before all training ceased on 1 January 1946.
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arrived in October 1941, he found that 105 buildings were partially completed with the remaining 99 waiting to be started. In November 1941, officers and enlisted men started arriving for duty.
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from the AT-11 airplane—and learned to handle the complex Norden sight with considerable skill. The first class consisted of 103 cadets and graduated on 30 April 1942. Students from the
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his brother and sister. Sloan Field was designated an Army Airways Station in May 1930. In 1939 Harvey Sloan sold the Field to the City of Midland for $ 14,500.
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Shaw, Frederick J. (2004), Locating Air Force Base Sites History’s Legacy, Air Force History and Museums Program, United States Air Force, Washington DC, 2004.
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instrumental in developing photographic and sonic methods of scoring bomb hits and analyzing bombing proficiency.
439:. The sole purpose of the Bombardier College was to train young men to use the bombsight invented by Carl Norden.
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This article is about the World War II era military airfield. For the predecessor "Sloan Field", see
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bombardier-training base on U.S. Highway 80 halfway between Midland and
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Block Busters Class 43-09, Midland Army Air Field, Midland, Texas
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were mapped out - located within a 50-mile radius of the base.
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Bombs Away Class 44-05, Midland Army Air Field, Midland, Texas
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Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in Texas
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school would be used exclusively to train bombardiers.
356:. It operated as a Bombardier training school for the
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military airfield, located 8.4 miles west-southwest of
717:Precision Class 43-15, MAAF, AAFBS, Midland, Texas
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522:B-34 Lexingtons and AT-11 Kansans on flightline
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71:Midland Army Airfield, Texas, 13 October 1943
890:World War II airfields in the United States
498:Loading concrete training bombs on aircraft
486:AT-11 training bomb drop on practice target
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510:Mission briefing prior to training flight
602:34th Flying Training Wing (World War II)
591:Midland International Air and Space Port
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33:Midland International Air and Space Port
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475:1942-1945 Midland Army Airfield photos
147:Midland AAF Bombardier training school
900:USAAF Central Flying Training Command
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690:Midland International Airport history
634:Air Force Historical Research Agency
570:Pool table in cadet barracks dayroom
558:Classroom ground instruction lecture
337:Texas World War II Airfield database
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869:Western Technical Training Command
864:Central Technical Training Command
859:Eastern Technical Training Command
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613:Texas World War II Army Airfields
905:American Theater of World War II
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628: This article incorporates
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427:other bases in the quad were
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381:United States Army Air Forces
358:United States Army Air Forces
29:Midland International Airport
419:Midland Army Air Field 1942
232:Midland Army Airfield, Texas
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40:Airport in Midland, Texas
31:. For the successor, see
910:USAAF Bombardiers School
437:Big Spring Army Airfield
433:San Angelo Army Airfield
534:Cadet Physical Training
429:Childress Army Airfield
630:public domain material
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374:Midland Army Air Field
360:from 1942 until 1945.
176:31.94333°N 102.20528°W
467:were trained at MAF.
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346:Midland Army Airfield
47:Midland Army Airfield
181:31.94333; -102.20528
803:Specialized schools
387:in Midland County.
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852:Technical training
695:2013-01-28 at the
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607:Bombardier (film)
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585:Post-closure
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378:World War II
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350:World War II
348:is a former
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453:East Indies
449:Netherlands
225:Midland AAF
187:Midland AAF
179: /
166:102°12′19″W
153:Coordinates
884:Categories
810:Bombardier
619:References
411:Operations
185: (
163:31°56′36″N
830:Navigator
421:classbook
255:Direction
138:Occupants
133:1942-1945
693:Archived
596:See also
326:Asphalt
312:Asphalt
298:Asphalt
289:00L/18R
284:Asphalt
275:00R/18L
262:Surface
112:Location
825:Gunnery
576:Closure
369:Origins
364:History
259:Length
243:Runways
107:Summary
461:Brazil
457:France
385:Odessa
376:was a
323:1,981
320:6,500
317:14/32
309:1,981
306:6,500
303:05/23
295:1,293
292:4,243
281:1,981
278:6,500
130:In use
465:China
122:Built
463:and
435:and
125:1942
97:none
93:ICAO
86:none
82:IATA
267:ft
200:Map
886::
666:^
642:^
459:,
455:,
451:,
431:,
270:m
95::
84::
750:e
743:t
736:v
189:)
35:.
20:)
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
