Reese Air Force Base

Duane's take

The way the marker at Reese Air Force Base tells it, here's how Duane's gonna lay it out for you. Ten years. That's what it took.

Ten years of city officials in Lubbock pushing, lobbying, and making the case before the U.S. Army Air Corps finally agreed to put an Advanced Flying School right there in that part of West Texas. And when it came, in the summer of 1941, they didn't build it in the middle of town.

They went ten miles west of the city, out where cotton fields and grassland stretched as far as you cared to look. They put up barracks, they laid down runways, they raised up all the machinery of a military installation, and the base officially opened in January of 1942. The very next month, they renamed it Lubbock Army Flying School, just as the first class of cadets arrived.

Something was getting started here. Something that would keep getting started, class after class, year after year. By the time the base was deactivated in 1945, more than seven thousand World War II pilots had trained on those runways.

Seven thousand. Out there where the cotton used to grow. After the war, reserve units moved through, and those old barracks got converted into housing for returning veterans and their families.

The place had a second life, a quieter one, but it didn't last long in that form. By 1949 the base was reactivated, and it was renamed. This time, the name meant something personal.

It was given in honor of First Lieutenant Augustus F. Reese, Junior, a native of Shallowater, Texas, who was killed in action during World War II. Reese Air Force Base.

By 1950 it was designated a permanent installation. In 1958 it was transferred to Air Training Command, and the decades that followed piled up thousands more pilots trained on those same West Texas skies. But by the 1990s, the word came down.

The base was slated for permanent closure. Fifty-six years of legacy, and then silence. Here's the number that lands, though.

More than twenty-five thousand men and women earned their wings at Reese. That includes more than six hundred international students from forty allied countries. Cotton fields and grassland, all those years ago.

Then runways, and cadets, and twenty-five thousand sets of wings lifted off into the sky.

What the marker says

Ten years of concentrated efforts by city officials led to the establishment of a U. S. Army Air Corps Advanced Flying School at Lubbock in the summer of 1941. Built ten miles west of the city, where barracks, runways and other military facilities replaced cotton fields and grassland, the base officially opened in January 1942. Renamed Lubbock Army Flying School the next month as the first class of cadets arrived, the base provided training to more than 7,000 World War II pilots by the time of its deactivation in 1945. During the post-war years reserve units used the facilities here, and barracks were converted into housing for returning veterans and their families. By 1949 the base was reactivated and renamed in honor of First Lt. Augustus F. Reese, Jr., a Shallowater, Texas, native killed in action during World War II. Designated a permanent installation by 1950, Reese Air Force Base was transferred to Air Training Command in 1958. Thousands of pilots were trained here in the following decades, but by the 1990s the base was slated for permanent closure, leaving a 56-year legacy of excellence. More than 25,000 men and women earned their wings at Reese, including more than 600 international students from 40 allied countries. (1997)