During World War II, the Army Air Corps, later known as the Army Air Forces, operated a navigation training school in Monroe at Selman Field, named for Lieutenant Augustus James Selman, a Monroe-born United States Navy aviator who died in the line of duty at Norfolk, Virginia, on November 28, 1921. Activated on June 15, 1942, under Colonel Norris B. Harbold, Selman Field quickly became a full military establishment with the Pre-Flight School (Bombardier-Navigator) and the Advanced Navigation School, and it grew into the nation's largest navigation training school during the war. Its curriculum trained selected young men in pilotage, dead reckoning, radio navigation, and celestial navigation so they could determine position, destination, and time of arrival, with the navigator's ultimate objective being “Zero Zero,” or perfect precision in reaching a target on time. Graduates joined combat crews, and Selman Field provided 15,349 navigators during a critical period in the nation's history. As the war ended, the need for navigators declined; Selman graduated its last class on October 6, 1945, closed in February 1946, briefly reopened as a satellite of Barksdale Field and then as an independent base, was officially deactivated in 1947, and its property was transferred to the city of Monroe in September 1949. Stanton R. Morrison of Class 1945-07N later reflected that those who used the stars were the last celestial navigators.