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While
many of Texas’ current municipal airports were postwar gifts to the host communities,
the case was reversed in Sweetwater
where the existing municipal airport became a training facility in May of 1942.
The transfer was a tremendous help to the war effort since it only required
expansion and improvement of the field, which had been in use since the late 1920s.
The name was chosen from a contest sponsored by the local newspaper.
Expanded to a total of 920 acres by the city of Sweetwater,
the War Department leased it for a token payment of $1.00 per year. |
| The
Former Avenger Field location at Sweetwater's Airport |
Training
the necessary pilots and personnel for a two-theater war was a daunting task and
during the first months of the war, instructors were often civilian contractors.
This was the case with the first class to graduate from the facility – a single
class of British RAF cadets. After that, ten classes of American aviation cadets
graduated and then three classes of enlisted student pilots (most pilots were
commissioned officers).
The
lasting legacy of the field was formed from February 21, 1943 until December 20th,
1944 when the base became the training facility for the Women's Airforce Service
Pilots (WASPs).
Licensed female civilian pilots were recruited and
trained to fly military aircraft, ferrying them from factory to shipping point
and on occasion flying damaged planes back for repair. This enabled more male
pilots to be sent into combat. |
| Women
Airforce Service Pilots historical marker |
Jacqueline Cochran
The unit was led by aviatrix Jacqueline Cochran, a natural-born pilot who held
more speed, distance and altitude records than any other aviator, male or female.
A friend of the soon-to-be-missing Amelia Earhart, Cochran was part
of "Wings for Britain" prior to the U.S. entry into WWII.
Delivering American aircraft to Britain, she became the first woman to fly a bomber
across the Atlantic.
She first worked for the British, her job recruiting
qualified U.S. women pilots to fly for the British Air Transport Auxiliary. After
the U.S. became a combatant, it was Cochran who proposed a unit of female transport
pilots in the U.S.
Howard Hughes Field
Houston’s
Howard Hughes Field (see the 1940
Houston Air Terminal Museum) had been a WASP training facility, but heavy
fogs and civilian air traffic necessitated the move to Sweetwater.
Avenger Field trained both men and women for a brief period, but beginning in
April of 1943 it was designated the only all-female air base in history (excepting
male instructors, maintenance and communication crews).
Avenger
graduated 1,074 pilots during its tenure and the pilots learned to fly everything
from trainers to the new B-29 Superfortress. In 1945 the field became a training
base for P-47 Thunderbolt pilots, the pursuit planes that escorted B-17s over
their bombing runs over Germany.
In November 1945 ownership reverted
to the City of Sweetwater.
It was reopened briefly as an auxiliary field for Big Springs’ Webb Air Force
Base during the Korean War. |
Avenger
Field
WW II WASP Memorials |
| "The memorials
are located at the airport in a stand alone hanger at the south end of the airport,
with the large monument at the TSTC grounds toward the north west part of the
field." - Mike
Price, photographer, December 08, 2007 |
| Names
of WASPs on display |
| Close-up
of statue in preceeding photo. |
| Inscription:
"To the best women pilots in the world." - General "Hap" Arnold
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| Museum
Sign showing the wings wore by WASPs |
Photographers'
Notes:
Subject: Sweetwater WW II WASP Memorials
The Women
Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) were a little known group of female pilots who
performed many duties short of combat during WW
II. Their story makes pretty good reading for those interested in WW
II. All were trained at Avenger Field in Sweetwater.
While the army was forming the 509'th group (to deliver the atomic bombs)
the men pilots did not want to fly the large and complicated B-29 which had a
reputation for problems. The commanding officer brought in two WASP pilots and
in a couple of days trained them to fly that plane and they proceed to shame the
men into flying.
The only flying B-29, owned by the CAF in Midland,
carries the nose art name of FIFI. - Mike
Price, December 08, 2007 |
| 3-D
Statue of "Fifi" (Finfinella) is in the Nolan
County Courthouse lobby. The mascot design was supplied by the Walt Disney
Co. |
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