Spence Air Base
| Spence Air Base Spence Army Airfield  |
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| Part of Air Training Command | |
| Located near: Moultrie, Georgia | |
2006 USGS airphoto
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 Spence AB
Location of Spence Air Base, Georgia
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| Coordinates | 31°08′15.67″N 083°42′14.62″W / 31.1376861°N 83.7040611°WCoordinates: 31°08′15.67″N 083°42′14.62″W / 31.1376861°N 83.7040611°W |
| Type | Air Force Base |
| Site history | |
| Built | 1941 |
| In use | 1941–1945; 1953–1961 |
| Garrison information | |
| Garrison | Army Air Forces Advanced Flying School (1941–1945) 3302d Pilot Training Group (1953–1961) |
Spence Air Base was a United States Air Force base that operated from 1941 to 1961. It was later reopened as Spence Airport.
The City of Moultrie gained its first official municipal airport, Clark Field, in the 1930s. In 1940, local leaders, aware of the Federal government's airport building program, formed a committee to represent the community. The committee then contacted the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) about the possibility of acquiring a modern CAA built airport at Moultrie. The CAA, receptive to the idea, informed the committee that once the local government provided the land the Federal government would fund the building of an airfield. Due to the impossibility of expanding Clark Field for a modern airport, Moultrie and Colquitt County then took an option on a tract of land northeast of the city. When the committee members learned the Army planned on establishing additional training bases in the Southeast, they traveled to Maxwell AAF, Alabama to secure an Air Corps airfield on the site. Air Corps engineers came to Moultrie in March 1941. After inspecting the first site, they selected a more desirable site five miles (8 km) southeast of the city. In June, after the War Department approved the second site, Moultrie and Colquitt County purchased the 1,600 acres (6.5 km2) involved.
Construction got underway on 15 July 1941 involving building airplane hangars, three concrete runways, several taxiways and a large parking apron and a control tower. Several large hangars were also constructed. Buildings were ultimately utilitarian and quickly assembled. Most base buildings, not meant for long-term use, were constructed of temporary or semi-permanent materials. Although some hangars had steel frames and the occasional brick or tile brick building could be seen, most support buildings sat on concrete foundations but were of frame construction clad in little more than plywood and tarpaper.
It was named Spence Army Airfield after World War I hero Lt. Thomas Lewis Spence of Thomasville, Georgia who died in a 1918 aircraft crash in France. When the attack on Pearl Harbor came on 7 December 1941 a small military detachment of 27 officers and 39 enlisted men staffed the airfield
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