In 1938, the city of Denver purchased a 100-square mile area of land several miles east of the city and donated it to the United States War Department. The United States Army Air Corps used the Demolition Bombing Range–Lowry Auxiliary Field, or Lowry II, as a bombing range, auxiliary landing field, and ammunition depot to support operations from its training sites at Lowry Field. On 14 July 1941, the United States Army Air Forces renamed the base Buckley Field in honor of United States Army Air Service First Lieutenant John Harold Buckley, a World War I pilot from Longmont, Colorado, who flew with the 28th Aero Squadron and was killed in a mid air collision on 27 September 1918 during the Meuse–Argonne offensive.