During World War II, more than 6,000 United States military pilots flew gliders, unpowered aircraft dependent on wind and lift, in missions that penetrated enemy lines and helped fight the Axis powers. To support this effort, several training and auxiliary landing fields were established in Texas and across the United States, including Rhome Field, an outlying landing field created in late 1942 to support Eagle Mountain Lake Marine Corps Air Station and partly to develop a program for amphibious troop gliders, primarily the Waco CG-4A glider plane. Located west of Aurora, the base covered more than 1,200 acres and included two 6,000-foot runways, barracks, a single hangar, and one control tower, with construction completed in mid-1943. Gliders aided many wartime missions, including the final glider mission during the invasion of Luzon in 1945, when under the command of General MacArthur, glider pilots assisted in recapturing the northern Philippines region occupied by Japanese forces. By 1945 the glider program was cancelled, and by the end of the war the U.S. had built more than 14,000 gliders and trained more than 6,000 pilots. Eagle Mountain Lake Marine Corps Air Station and Rhome Field were then transferred to the United States Navy; the Navy used the Eagle Mountain Lake site to test an early radio-controlled drone, while the field at Aurora was abandoned. Several buildings and remnants of the base remain, and the brief World War II glider program remains a significant part of military and aviation history.