When the U.S. was drawn into World War II in 1941, the federal government expanded training facilities across the nation, and the area around Lake Bridgeport, built in 1931, became an ideal place to train airmen and test equipment with limited impact on local residents. Lake Bridgeport became an important military training site as a bombing target area and auxiliary sea plane base for Eagle Mountain Lake Marine Corps Air Station in Tarrant County. Construction in the northeast corner of the lake’s main body began in September 1942 and included an administration building, boathouse, seaplane ramp and parking, the east hill stone target, and various floating targets. Training and research there included amphibious troop gliders, night and day fighter-machine gun strafing, skip and dive bombing, and testing for the TDR, an early U.S. Navy radio controlled assault drone. Hundreds of U.S. Navy and Marine aviation pilots and crewmen trained there. During training accidents in 1944, Marine aviators Lt. T. S. Wharton, Jr. and Cpl. A. J. Paleszewski died, and later a local guard, Thomas Troy Mitchum, also died. Bombing runs took place daily at 10:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m., and 4:55 p.m., while night bombings could happen at any hour. Magnesium flares suspended under parachutes lit the area and occasionally set a landowner’s pasture on fire, bringing neighbors out to help extinguish the flames. As an auxiliary training site for Eagle Mountain Lake Air Station, Lake Bridgeport gave aviators valuable maneuvering room during the war, and both sites ceased operations afterward.