Reese Air Force Base

After ten years of effort by city officials, a U.S. Army Air Corps Advanced Flying School was established at Lubbock in the summer of 1941. Built ten miles west of the city, where barracks, runways, and other military facilities replaced cotton fields and grassland, the base officially opened in January 1942. Renamed Lubbock Army Flying School the next month as the first class of cadets arrived, it trained more than 7,000 World War II pilots before deactivation in 1945. In the post-war years, reserve units used the facilities, and barracks were converted into housing for returning veterans and their families. By 1949 the base was reactivated and renamed for First Lt. Augustus F. Reese, Jr., a Shallowater, Texas, native killed in action during World War II. Designated a permanent installation by 1950, Reese Air Force Base was transferred to Air Training Command in 1958. Thousands of pilots trained there in the following decades, and more than 25,000 men and women earned their wings at Reese, including more than 600 international students from 40 allied countries, before its planned permanent closure in the 1990s ended a 56-year legacy of excellence.

Texas · United States