Venice Army Airfield
Venice Army Airfield
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| Part of Third Air Force | |
| Venice, Florida | |
Venice Army Airfield - 1948
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 Venice Army Airfield
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| Coordinates | 27°04′18″N 082°26′25″W / 27.07167°N 82.44028°WCoordinates: 27°04′18″N 082°26′25″W / 27.07167°N 82.44028°W |
| Site history | |
| Built by | United States Army |
| In use | 1942-1945 |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
Venice Army Airfield is an inactive United States Army Forces base, approximately 2 miles south-southeast of Venice, Florida. It was active during World War II as a Third Air Force training airfield. It was closed on 30 November 1945
The story of Venice Army Air Field begins in 1941 when influential citizens in Venice, Florida sent a telegram to the War Department offering 3,000 acres of land near the town of 500 citizens for use as an Army campsite. The War Department responded by sending a military detail to Venice to survey the site. The survey was successful and it was announced on 16 July 1941 that the site was selected for an "Anti-Aircraft Artillery Installation". Further surveys were made by the United States Army that summer, but then nothing happened. For reasons never made clear, the land would never be used by anti-aircraft artillery.
In early 1942, the Army Air Forces became interested in the site and developing a training center on it. The plan was to establish a small training facility to accommodate about 1,000 men with a possibility of expanding it later. Its mission would not be for forces directly engaged in combat, but for the Air Service Command whose members would work in the rear echelon and would relieve combat squadrons of maintenance and housekeeping details at air bases behind the lines.
The trained unit would be designated a "Service Group" and would serve several combat units flying from different forward airstrips. The Service Group would be equipped with the necessary resources to fully support the combat units by providing station security, mess halls, aircraft parts supply, base administration, aircraft mechanics, communications, medical, finance, and all the other necessary support services needed, and also be mobile enough to follow the combat units.
With these requirements, Army Air Force construction personnel began arriving in Venice during May 1942 and within a short time, the first load of trucks loaded with tent frames began to arrive. This signaled the start of construction with began in early June. Within a short time, construction of two 5,000' concrete runways aligned E/W (09/27) and NW/SE (14/32) began to the original design of the ground station and over the next several months the once overgrown and vacant land was converted into an Army Air Base. A third runway, aligned NE/SW (05/22) was later added in the spring of 1943. The ground station initially had few amenities, but eventually would be ready for it task of training personnel for the Service Groups.
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Wikipedia