Hendricks Army Airfield
Hendricks Army Airfield
 |
|
|---|---|
| Part of Army Air Forces Training Command | |
| Located near: Sebring, Florida | |
Hendricks Army Airfield - 1944
|
|
 Hendricks Army Airfield
|
|
| Coordinates | 27°27′23″N 081°20′33″W / 27.45639°N 81.34250°WCoordinates: 27°27′23″N 081°20′33″W / 27.45639°N 81.34250°W |
| Site history | |
| In use | 1941-1945 |
Hendricks Army Airfield was a World War II United States Army Air Forces base located 6.6 miles east-southeast of Sebring, Florida.
Hendricks Army Airfield is a former United States Army Air Forces base. It was used during World War II as a Heavy Bomber Training School for B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator pilots. It was under the jurisdiction of the 76th Flying Training Wing (Specialized 4-Engine), Smyrna Army Airfield, Tennessee.
The base was named Hendricks Field in honor of First Lieutenant Laird Woodruff Hendricks, Jr. A native Floridian, Hendricks was born in Ocala, Florida, grew up in Jacksonville, Florida and graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1939. Commissioned into the Army Air Corps, Hendricks completed flight training and received his aeronautical rating as an Army pilot. Lieutenant Hendricks was killed in a B-17C (RAF Fortress I) crash near RAF Polebrook, England on 28 July 1941, just three days after he arrived there to train Royal Air Force pilots.
The airfield's origins begin in 1940 when Sebring officials and citizens contacted their Florida congressional delegation to see about getting an Army base in the area. In the summer of 1940, and in early 1941, a group of Army Air Corps officers surveyed the area. On June 12, 1941, Congressman J. Hardin Peterson advised that an area of 9,200 acres (3,700 ha) of woodland had been approved for a basic flying school. The City of Sebring purchased the land and leased it to the government at $1 per year for 99 years.
...
Wikipedia