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“I think the most significant thing I did during my military
career was in 1973,” recalls retired Chief Master Sgt. Lonnie
Arnold. “Troops returning from Vietnam were being delivered here and
it was our job to help repatriate them; get them settled into
lodging, link them back up with their wives and kids, make sure they
felt welcome. It was hard to do but it was the most important job I
ever did.”
Throughout the last 75 years, Keesler Air Force Base and its
surrounding community have been home to many things; significant
events, units, missions and memories.
Where a 1930s-era
baseball field once sat, a flight line and C-130Js capable of global
weather reconnaissance and tactical airlift now reside, along with a
state-of-the-art training campus and living and working facilities
for 12,000 Airmen and civilians. And, like how many things come to
be, Keesler's creation came from a well-intentioned request by
costal leadership.
In 1939, Keesler was but a concept conceived by Biloxi city
leaders in an attempt to convince the War Department that Biloxi
would be an ideal place for pilot training. However, a year later,
Biloxi officials were notified that a coastal town was not the best
location to build a training facility for fear of attack by enemy
naval forces.
In late-1940, the Army Air Corps Technical
School headquarters announced plans to activate two new training
bases which would specialize in aircraft mechanics training. After
being turned down in 1939 as a potential site for a military air
training program, Biloxi officials were determined that one of the
two new training bases be located at the city's airport.
By
January 1941, Biloxi officials met with Technical School officials
to negotiate a land transfer to host a technical training school.
After several changes to the number of personnel to be stationed at
the Biloxi technical school and the acquisition of additional land,
the War Department notified Biloxi's mayor that the city had been
selected as the site of a new technical training school on March 6,
1941.
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Aircraft mechanic students relax outside one of the dormitories in
1941, at Keesler Field, now known as Keesler Air Force Base, Miss.
The dormitory was located south of where the present-day service
station and shoppette are located. Thomas Adams Jr., a member of the
first class of aircraft mechanic students at Keesler in 1941, made a
visit to the base on December 7, 2011 on the 70th anniversary of the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Adams was 90 at the time of his
2011 visit. (U.S. Air Force courtesy photo)
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Biloxi and the Veterans Administration transferred the
832-acre site which included three golf courses, the Biloxi
Airport, the Naval Reserve Park, and some private property
to the Army Air Corps. The War Department activated Army Air
Corps Station No. 8, Aviation Mechanics School, on June 12,
1941, in Biloxi, Miss. Ground breaking for the technical
school began on June 18, 1941 and by June 1942, most of the
barracks, academic buildings and support facilities were
completed.
The Army Air Corps Station No. 8 was renamed Keesler Army
Air Field on August 25, 1941 in honor of 2nd Lt. Samuel
Reeves Keesler Jr., a native of Greenwood, Miss.
On
Oct. 8, 1918, Lt. Keesler, an aerial observer, was wounded
in the Verdun Sector of the Western Front during aerial
combat with German aircraft and subsequent crash landing
east of Verdun, France. He died Oct. 9, 1918 from wounds he
sustained the previous day. Lt. Keesler was awarded the WWI
Victory Medal with Silver Star for his gallantry.
Following World War II, the United States Air Force became a
separate branch of service on Sept. 18, 1947. Thus, Keesler
Army Air Field became Keesler Air Force Base on 13 Jan.
1948, and was then recognized under the Air Force's unique
command for finding and preparing the force for both peace
and war, then called Air Training Command.
Since its
inception, Keesler's mission has always been training.
Today, 81st Training Wing unit personnel train approximately
2,600 students daily in 31 initial skills training courses,
seven enlisted medical specialties, graduate medical
education, and 300-plus other technical training courses.
Students enrolled in training courses on Keesler include
Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard personnel.
Additional students include Defense Department civilians and
international students from allied nation partners. Keesler
graduated its one millionth student on June 11, 1968.
In addition to technical training, Keesler was also an
Air Force basic training center twice in its first 25 years
of operation: 1941 to 1946 and 1950 to 1966. Keesler also
provided flight training at various times in its history:
B-24 Liberator and B-32 Dominator co-pilot training; air-sea
rescue; Military Assistance Program; T-28 Trojan pilot
training and C-12C/F and C-21A pilot training.
As
Keesler's training mission evolved and changed, so did the
way it was maintained and managed.
“We received our
first computers in 1958,” said Arnold, then a personnel
Airman. “We used them to process the training students' next
assignments.”
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Air Defense students participate in training at the 339rd Training
Squadron on Keesler Field, MS. (U.S. Air Force courtesy photo)
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The base's parent organization, ATC, redesignated as Air
Education and Training Command in 1993, activated 2nd Air
Force, located on Keesler, to manage its
continually-evolving technical training within the command.
Just as Keesler has been involved in training for 75
years, it's also been heavily involved in the community.
In Fiscal Year 2014 alone, Keesler provided an estimated
$1.65 billion total economic impact to the state of
Mississippi through its jobs, contracts, services and
retirees' pensions, making Keesler an economic engine to the
Gulf Coast. A commitment to serve is evident as Keesler
personnel volunteered more than 139,000 hours to agencies
and events on base and in the local communities.
“The
most significant link between Keesler now and Keesler in the
past is its community involvement,” said retired Chief
Master Sgt. Charles Teston, a 31-year Air Force veteran.
“When I was here in 1954 for airborne radio operator
training, we built so many things both on and off base. We
upgraded the World War II-era barracks in the just-opening
Triangle [training area of Keesler], built structures at
Ship Island – Keesler has always been just as dedicated to
its community as it has its Airmen.”
The past few
years have been an active, but rewarding time for Team
Keesler. Keesler continues to “Train, Develop and Inspire
the World's Best Airmen!” The base was the
Commander-in-Chief's Installation Excellence Award recipient
for 2013; recognizing it as the top U.S. Air Force
installation in the world. Each year, Team Keesler provides
Air Expeditionary Forces to support contingency and
humanitarian operations around the globe.
“The
training I got here carried me through three tours in
Vietnam,” Teston stressed. “And the discipline, order and
community ties I experienced at Keesler have stayed with me
through my whole life.”
*Editor's note-this article
is part of a series focused on the roles AETC's wings have
played in the command's first 75 years.
By U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Duncan McElroy
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2017
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