Boca Raton Army Air Field, established in 1942 on 5,820 acres bounded by Palmetto Park Road, Dixie Highway, Yamato Road, and Military Trail, was built in four months at a cost of $12 million and included 800 structures. It was in full operation from 1942 to 1947 and over its first five years was home to 100,000 soldiers and civilians while Boca Raton itself had only 700 residents. Its primary function was training soldiers to operate and maintain airborne radar, then a top-secret technology. On May 12, 1944, a U.S. Army Air Corps B-34 bomber on a training mission crashed on takeoff from the field, and the flaming wreckage came to rest at what is now North University Drive and FAU Boulevard at Florida Atlantic University. All nine men aboard were killed: 1st Lt. William H. Carson, 1st Lt. Jacob M. Buie, 1st Lt. Thomas A. Lamont, 1st Lt. John J. Lominac, 1st Lt. Benjamin P. Sibley, Staff Sgt. Frank L. Bursaw, Sgt. John S. Safieko, Pfc. Norman R. Steiner, and Pvt. Robert E. Locke, in one of the worst disasters in Boca Raton history. In 1947, a Category 4 hurricane destroyed much of the base, and that same year it was decommissioned and reduced to 1,200 acres. In 1962, the field was divided into 1,000 acres for Florida Atlantic University and 200 acres for the Boca Raton Airport, and the former Crash Fire Station 2 became the office of FAU's first president, Dr. Kenneth Williams.