Army Air Forces Training Command

Army Air Forces Training Command
United States Army Air Forces recruiting poster
Active	1943–1946
Country	United States
Branch	United States Army Air Forces
Type	Command and Control
Role	Air Force Indoctrination, Flight and Technical training
Part of	Office of the Chief of Army Air Forces
Nickname(s)	AAFTC
Engagements	World War II World War II American Theater
Commanders
Notable commanders	Lt. Gen. Barton K. Yount
Insignia
Insignia, Army Air Forces Training Command
Shoulder patch, AAFTC

World War II

Army Air Forces Training Command (AAFTC) is an inactive United States Air Force unit. It was last assigned to Headquarters, United States Army Air Forces, and was inactivated at Barksdale Field, Louisiana, on 1 July 1946.

Training Command was the initial organization to which new recruits were assigned upon entry into the Army Air Forces during World War II. Its mission was the training of new personnel and the preparation of them for assignment to one of the numbered air forces for military service. It focused on pilot and aircrew training, technical training, basic training of enlisted personnel and Officer Candidate School. It was inactivated on 1 July 1946 as part of the reorganization of the Army Air Forces after the war, with all assets and personnel were assigned to the new postwar Air Training Command.

AAFTC was created as a result of the merger of the Army Air Forces Flying Training Command and the Army Air Forces Technical Training Command on 31 July 1943. Constituted and established on 23 January 1942. Its mission was to train pilots, flying specialists, and combat crews. Re-designated on or about 15 March 1942, after the Army Air Forces became an autonomous arm of the United States Army.

During its lifetime, the command struggled with the challenge of a massive wartime expansion of the air forces. Throughout 1942, the need for combat crew personnel far exceeded the current and contemplated production of the command’s flying training schools. The rate of expansion of housing and training facilities, instructors, as well as the procurement of aircraft and other equipment, though at a breakneck pace, constrained the rate of increase of production. Facilities were used to their maximum capacity as quickly as they could be stood up. Some schools were expanded while they were still under construction. New airfields had to be located in areas with sufficient flying space free of other air traffic, and the West Coast training center faced the extraordinary requirement to avoid sites near the internment camps for Japanese-Americans.