Camp Skeel

Wurtsmith Air Force Base
Part of Air/Aersopace Defense Command (ADC) and Strategic Air Command (SAC)
Oscoda Township, Iosco County, Michigan
2006 USGS Airphoto. Note the christmas tree alert staging area at top center.
Wurtsmith Air Force Base Location of Wurtsmith Air Force Base
Coordinates	44°27′09″N 083°22′49″W / 44.45250°N 83.38028°W / 44.45250; -83.38028
Type	Air Force Base
Site information
Controlled by	United States Air Force
Site history
Built	1923
In use	1923–1993
Garrison information
Garrison	379th Bombardment Wing

Wurtsmith Air Force Base is a decommissioned United States Air Force base in northeastern Iosco County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The former base includes 4,626 acres (1,872 ha) located approximately two miles west of Lake Huron in the Charter Township of Oscoda, bordered by Van Ettan Lake, the Au Sable State Forest.

Wurtsmith got its start in 1923 as Loud-Reames Aviation Field, a soft-surface landing site for Army Air Corps aircraft from Selfridge Field. It was renamed Camp Skeel in 1924, for World War I pilot Captain Burt E. Skeel, and was used as an aerial gunnery range and for winter maneuvers 1924 through 1944 by the 1st Pursuit Group at Selfridge Army Air Base near Detroit. During those winter maneuvers the army pilots and mechanics battled snow squalls and bitter cold temperatures to get the engines of the planes started. Oil was heated in drums over open fires of pitchpine and then poured into the engines. Crews then worked fast to get the engines running before the oil congealed. No self-starters were available on those early planes so engines were cranked by hand by swinging the propellers. Aviation gasoline to refuel the planes was hauled across the ice-covered lake on a six-foot hand sled which held two barrels. After 1927 the field was also used for aerial gunnery practice.

Three 5000' x 150' hard-surface concrete runways aligned NE/SW, E/W and NW/SE were built in 1942 and the camp was renamed Oscoda Army Air Field. The airfield was placed under III Fighter Command jurisdiction on 2 September 1942 and the 100th Base HQ and Air Base Squadron was activated at Oscoda AAF on 31 October 1942. The mission of the field was an auxiliary airfield of Selfridge Army Air Base for the defense of Sault Sainte Marie and the Straits of Mackinac. The airfield was declared excess by Third Air Force in December 1942 and turned over to Air Service Command and placed on standby status.