page_title: Brookley Air Force Base
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Brookley Air Force Base / History / World War II
caption_attribution_description: WWII scene at Brookley Army Air Field, Mobile, Alabama
context_page_description: Brookley Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force base located in Mobile, Alabama. After it closed in 1969, it became what is now known as the Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley.
context_section_description: During World War II, Brookley Army Air Field became the major Army Air Forces supply base for the Air Material Command in the southeastern United States and the Caribbean.
  Many air depot personnel, logisticians, mechanics, and other support personnel were trained at Brookley during the war. Both Air Materiel and Technical Services Command organized mobile Depot Groups at Brookley, then once trained were deployed around the world as Air Depot Groups, Depot Repair Squadrons, Quartermaster Squadrons, Ordnance Maintenance, Military Police, and many other units whose mission was to support the front-line combat units with depot-level maintenance for aircraft and logistical support to maintain their operations. Air Transport Command operated large numbers of cargo and passenger aircraft from the base as part of its Domestic Wing.
  During the war, Brookley became Mobile's largest employer, with about 17,000 skilled civilians capable of performing delicate work with fragile instruments and machinery. In 1944, the Army decided to take advantage of Brookley's large, skilled workforce for its top-secret "Ivory Soap" project to hasten victory in the Pacific. The project required 24 large vessels to be re-modeled into Aircraft Repair and Maintenance Units that had to be able to accommodate B-29 bombers, P-51 Mustangs, R-4B Sikorsky helicopters, and amphibious vehicles.
  The Air Force delivered all 24 vessels to Mobile, Alabama, in spring 1944 to start remodeling. Some 5,000 men 
  underwent a complex training process that prepared them to rebuild the vessels and operate them once on the water. By the end of the year, the vessels departed Mobile.
  One of the keys to Allied victory in Europe was the Norden Bomb Sight, which enabled bomber squadrons to target Germany's war-making industry and infrastructure much more accurately. The military repaired and calibrated the bombsights at Brookley in a secret facility, still standing and in use today.
  In 1944 with the closure of the Army contract flying school at nearby Bates Army Airfield, Air Transport Command operations were shifted to Bates to alleviate runway traffic at Brookley. Late in 1945 Bates Field was returned to civil control and ATC operations returned to Brookley.
caption: World War II scene at Brookley Army Air Field
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