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Story on Marfa, Texas

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Apr 152013

CBS News 60 Minutes I enjoyed watching the recent 60 Minutes story on Marfa, Texas.¹ Apparently this isolated, rural town is attracting lots of different people today. In the story, they briefly mentioned the remnants of an old army base there.

Actually it was the Marfa Army Air Field, a twin-engine advanced pilot training school. Hundreds of Army Air Force pilots earned their silver wings at Marfa. So, the town must have been a hub of activity about 1943 before slipping back into obscurity, then rediscovery.

The AAF Collection has a few pilot class books from Marfa.

Citations

CBS News, 60 Minutes, “Marfa Texas: The Capital of Quirkiness,” aired April 14, 2013. [↩]

Museum Material

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Feb 052013

Bombardiers' Information File

I recently visited the United States Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin Air Force Base, near Fort Walton Beach, Florida. On display behind glass were four training manuals. One was the Bombardiers’ Information File, a copy of which is available to view in the AAF Collection.

The Astro Compass

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Feb 052013

Astro Compass

The Navigator’s Information File has a description of the Astro Compass (or Astrocompass) . This device was used by navigators to determine the true heading of the airplane, to steer a true heading, to identify a star, or as a pelorus, a device without magnetic needles used to read bearings.

It is unclear to me if, or how often, this device was actually used. I ran across an Astro Compass while visiting the United States Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin Air Force Base, near Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

Mixed Race, Mixed Message

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Sep 292012

Here’s something interesting from On Course!, class 45-14B at the San Angelo Army Air Field. This class trained at least fifteen black cadets to be bombardiers. Assigned to Flight 6, they are pictured along with their Bomb-a-dears (wives, sweethearts and children) starting on page 57.

That they are pictured at all, especially with their family members, shows the base was somewhat ahead of its time. They were still segregated, but they appear in the book like any other cadets. A cartoon on page 67 emphasizes the situation. It’s humorous, but still not quite right.

Seventy Years Since Pearl Harbor

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Nov 152011

The seventieth anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is this year. I found a poignant reminder of that tragedy in an item recently added to the AAF Collection.

The Gig Sheet is a class book for advanced pilot training at Kelly Field, Texas. Class 41-F graduated on August 15, 1941 just three months before the United States entered the war.