Forgotten Fields of America World War II Bases and Training, Then and Now - Vol. II Book

During the short period from 1939 to 1943, the poorly armed and understaffed Army Air Corps grew from just 17 airfields to 461 bases and nearly 500 gunnery ranges. This pictorial history tells the fascinating stories behind the operation of 12 of those facilities and the unprecedented effort it took to establish them. In preparing the book, the author pored over thousands of frames of microfilm, scoured old newspaper accounts, worked within historical society archives, and interviewed personnel and family members who worked and lived in Spartan conditions at bases from Moton Field-home of the Tuskegee Airmen-to the 3.5-million-acre Wendover Field. The resulting history brings these long-forgotten air bases to life and gives readers a glimpse of what it meant to train, work, and live on them more than a half-century ago. 164 pages