Before U.S. involvement in World War II, the Naval Expansion Act of 1940 funded growth of a two-ocean Navy and authorized expanded Naval Air Stations. Kingsville officials promoted the area’s abundant air space, year-round flying weather, available acreage, and flat terrain, and the U.S. Navy commissioned U.S. Naval Auxiliary Air Station, Kingsville, Texas, on July 4, 1942. The original Advanced Pilot Training School layout included north and south fields with two independent sets of runways. As part of the Intermediate Training Complex out of Naval Air Station Corpus Christ, the station accepted male cadets for the initial step in carrier pilot training, combining classroom sessions and flight simulator instruction with touch-and-go landings on short strips built to simulate aircraft carrier decks and bombing runs over area targets and Padre Island. During the war, a unit of Navy W.A.V.E.S. served there in various professions. The station played a significant role in training naval aviators for combat in the Pacific and Atlantic theaters and also had a positive economic impact on Kingsville and Kleberg County. After the war, as the U.S. reduced its military inventory, the station was officially decommissioned on April 1, 1951, as a jet transitional training facility, and in August 1968 the Navy upgraded it to Naval Air Station Kingsville.