The city of Dallas purchased land at this site in 1928 and leased it to the U.S. Army for a training airfield because Love Field, established in Dallas in 1917, had become too busy to provide safe training facilities. The field was named for Major William N. Hensley, an air officer for the Eighth Corps Army Area who helped select the site before his death. Army air operations moved here from Love Field, and Hensley Field became the center of area Army air training as well as a key repair and refueling point in the Southwest. As World War II approached, the U.S. War Department granted part of Hensley Field to the Navy for a naval reserve aviation base, commissioned in May 1941 and nicknamed the Prairie Navy because of its inland location. Also in 1941, North American Aviation transferred production of T-6 and Navy SNJ Texan planes here from California, and the Army Air Corps moved its midwestern ferry command headquarters to Hensley Field. In 1943 the naval reserve aviation base became Dallas Naval Air Station. Personnel trained here included fleet, Coast Guard, and Marine pilots, three future astronauts, a contingent of Free French forces, and women accepted for volunteer emergency service, or WAVES. In 1944 the North American Aviation facility was retooled to produce B-24 bombers. By the end of World War II, Hensley Field had expanded to include 4,104 people. After the war, Congress established a naval air training program to preserve the skills and expertise of former military personnel. The Navy officially took over Hensley Field on May 1, 1949, while the Air Force remained as a tenant, and Dallas Naval Air Station remained in operation until 1998.