DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along to you straight. East of Del Rio, out where the sky goes on forever and the weather's about as cooperative as weather gets, the U.S. Army looked around in 1942 and said — yeah, this'll do.
They needed to train more pilots for World War II, and this stretch of Val Verde County, with its year-round good weather and vast open ground, offered near ideal conditions. So they got to work. Lt.
Col. E.W. Suarez oversaw construction of the new base, reachable by U.S.
Highway 90 and the Southern Pacific rail line. And on July 2, 1942, the Army activated the field under a name the local press couldn't quite believe. They called it — and I want you to hear every syllable — The Army Air Forces Transition Flying School, Medium Bombardment.
The local papers dubbed that a jaw-shattering title, and honestly, who's going to argue? Col. George W.
Mundy took over as commanding officer on December 26, 1942, and the business of making pilots got underway in earnest. But a base needs a name that means something. And there was one already — a name Del Rio hadn't had long enough to carry before it was taken away.
Lt. Jack Thomas Laughlin was a Del Rio native, an Army pilot, and in 1942 he died in military action — the first pilot from his community killed in World War II. He was flying a B-17 when he was shot down over the Java Sea.
A young man from this very stretch of Texas, gone. Local citizens and U.S. Congressman Charles L.
South petitioned the Army to name the base for Laughlin. The Army agreed in 1943. And when the dedication came, two people were there who carried the weight of it more than anyone else in that crowd: Laughlin's widow, and the young daughter he never met.
Maj. Gen. Gerald C.
Brant delivered the dedicatory speech. There are moments in a ceremony when the words almost don't matter — when the presence of a widow and a child who never knew her father says everything that needs saying. Now, the work of the base was serious and dangerous in its own right.
Instructors here trained experienced pilots on the Martin B-26 medium bomber. That aircraft went by a few names — the Marauder was the official one, but the pilots who flew it also called it the Widow Maker and the Flying Prostitute. Not exactly names that inspire a relaxed morning.
The men who trained on it at Laughlin went on to fly missions in both the European and Pacific theaters of the war. When the war ended, the Army closed the base. But the story wasn't finished.
In 1952, it came back to life — reopened as Laughlin Air Force Base, still carrying the name of a young man from Del Rio who flew a B-17 over the Java Sea and never made it home to meet his daughter. Some names get attached to places by committees and paperwork. This one was earned the hard way.
What the marker says
With the need to train more pilots for military service during World War II, the U.S. Army established an air field east of Del Rio in 1942. The region's year-round good weather and vast areas of open ground offered near ideal flight training conditions. On July 2 of that year, the Army activated the field as what the local press called a "jaw-shattering title": The Army Air Forces Transition Flying School, Medium Bombardment. Lt. Col. E.W. Suarez oversaw construction of the base, which was accessible by U.S. Highway 90 and by the Southern Pacific rail line. Col. George W. Mundy became the base's commanding officer on December 26, 1942. Earlier in 1942, Del Rio native and Army pilot Lt. Jack Thomas Laughlin died in military action, becoming the first pilot from the community killed in World War II. He was shot down over the Java Sea while flying a B-17. Local citizens and U.S. Congressman Charles L. South petitioned the Army to name the base for Laughlin, which the Army agreed to in 1943. Laghlin's widow and the young daughter he never met attended the field's dedication that year, and Maj. Gen. Gerald C. Brant delivered a dedicatory speech. Instructors at the field trained experienced pilots on the Martin B-26 medium bomber, which was also known as the Marauder, the Widow Maker and the Flying Prostitute. Laughlin pilots went on to fly missions in both the European and Pacific theaters of the war. The Army closed the base at the end of the war but reopened it as Laughlin Air Force Base in 1952. (2006)