Walterboro Army Air Field was activated on August 4, 1942, as a small sub-base of Columbia Army Air Base and became part of the South’s wartime network of training air fields. The base developed as its own small community, with a theater, chapel, hospital, fire station, barracks, a POW camp, camouflage school, ordnance storage, and three runways, and both white and negro troops were stationed there, with negro troops making up about ten percent of the total personnel. Beginning in August 1942, units arriving from Columbia found the base not yet completed and used it as a training base for entry into combat. From daylight to dark, B-25 bombers flew from its runways, and life on the base included chapel and theater attendance, the base band, basketball and baseball teams, newspaper columns, and dances and games at the USO in downtown Walterboro. At the end of World War II the airfield closed after nearly 2,000 army personnel had trained and served there, including Tuskegee trainees, fighter and bomber groups, teachers, administrators, support technicians, and POWs. Afterward, the hospital became the county hospital, other army buildings gave way to an industrial park, recreational park, and high school, and the airfield remained a regional airport serving the Lowcountry.