As the U.S. prepared to enter World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt called for annual production of 50,000 aircraft and training for thousands of pilots and navigators. After the Army Air Corps struggled for months to train enough bomber navigators, business leaders from Hondo approached the War Department in February 1942 about locating a navigation school near the city, whose clear flying days, uncongested airspace, and good transportation made it attractive. Before the site was selected, the federal government required Hondo to incorporate as a city, which it did on May 14, 1942. The H.B. Zachry Construction Company of San Antonio then used about 3,000 workers over 90 days to build Hondo Army Air Field with three main runways, aviation facilities, streets, utilities, and hundreds of support buildings. When it opened in July 1942, the City of Hondo, then home to about 2,800 people, supported many thousands more at the field. Navigator training lasted up to 20 weeks, and the field later hosted other aviation units and activities. It trained about 3,000 men for the glider pilot replacement pool, and two squadrons of Women's Airforce Service Pilots flew navigation training missions there. During the war, the field trained 14,158 navigators, including some from allied nations in Europe. In 1945 the military closed the navigator training school and deactivated the field. The U.S. Air Force later reactivated it for military training from 1951 to 1958 for pilot training and from 1973 to 2000 for the flight screening program, and the site continued to serve various government and civilian functions.