page_title: Buckingham Army Airfield
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Buckingham Army Airfield / History / Origins
caption_attribution_description: English: Buckingham Army Airfield - station area 1944
context_page_description: Buckingham Army Airfield is an inactive United States Army Air Forces base, approximately 10 miles east of Fort Myers, Florida. It was active during World War II as an Army Air Forces Training Command airfield. It was closed on 30 September 1945, prior to the establishment of the United States Air Force as an independent service two years later in 1947. Part of the airfield is now in the Wild Turkey Strand Preserve.
  Buckingham Army Airfield was a training base, established in 1942 under AAF Eastern Flying Training Command, and when active, was the largest airfield in the State of Florida.
  Its primary mission during World War II was to train the aerial gunners who would defend bombers. In 1942 and 1943, most American fighter planes didn't have the range needed to keep up with the bombers. This would leave the bombers and their crews unprotected on lengthy flights over enemy territory. Sitting in turrets and standing behind openings in fuselage of the bomber, it was their job to shoot down attacking aircraft. This was critical to the United States' success in both the European and Pacific theaters.
context_section_description: The field's beginnings was a land purchase in 1941 by a group of Fort Myers and Lee County, Florida  officials, and then leased the land back to the War Department for the establishment of an Army Air Corps airfield.  At the time of its purchase, the land was used for cattle grazing.  The new base would create thousands of jobs, increase property values, and bring a business boom to the local economy.   Construction of the airfield began in February 1942 at a cost of $10 million on a total of 7,000 acres (28 km²) of swamp land, which had to be drained with an extensive system of newly constructed drainage canals, by itself an impressive engineering achievement.   By mid-June 1942, construction of the airfield was underway and by August, almost 500 buildings were under construction.
  The airfield was a large and expansive facility, and originally was constructed using the "eight star" layout parking ramp, capable of hundreds of aircraft.  The airfield was initially constructed with three runways, as the base grew in size, it was expanded to six. It consisted of a single 5,000' N/S (00/18) runway; two parallel 5,000' NE/SW (05/22) runways; two parallel 5,000' E/W (09/27) runways, and a 5,000' NW/SE runway (14/32), initially all concrete, with numerous taxiways. Parts of the runways later had an asphalt surface.
  For gunnery training there were 2 oval tracks of the Ground Moving Target Range, located to the west of the airfield, 26°38′32″N 081°44′13″W as well as nearby skeet ranges & trap ranges.  In addition to the main base, Buckingham also operated Naples Army Airfield (Now Naples Municipal Airport) as an auxiliary landing field.  In addition, two crash boat bases; one at Marco Island and the other on the Caloosahatchee River near the Gulf of Mexico were construed.
  The ground support station was also very expansive,  consisting of about seven hundred buildings based on standardized plans and architectural drawings, with the buildings designed to be the "cheapest, temporary character with structural stability only sufficient to meet the needs of the service which the structure is intended to fulfill during the period of its contemplated war use."  To conserve critical materials, most facilities were constructed of wood, concrete, brick, gypsum board and concrete asbestos. Metal was sparsely used. Buckingham Field was designed to be nearly self-sufficient, with not only hangars, but barracks, warehouses, hospitals, dental clinics, dining halls, and maintenance shops were needed. There were libraries, social clubs for officers, and enlisted men, and stores to buy living necessities.
  As the base was east of the developed area (at the time) of Fort Myers,  a seven-mile-long railroad spur was constructed between the Seaboard Railroad depot in Fort Myers to Buckingham AAF.   Buckingham even had its own switch engine to move railcars round   The switch engine was powerful enough to move passenger cars with new students or freight cars filled with supplies from the depot to the base.
  On 8 January 1943, the AAF Training Command constituted and activated the 75th Flying Training Wing (Flexible Gunnery) at Buckingham and assigned it to the AAF Eastern Flying Training Command.  At its peak, Buckingham Field  and its target ranges covered a total of 65,723 acres (265.97 km²), and housed 16,000 men.
caption: Some of the over 700 buildings of the station area at Buckingham Army Airfield, 1944. Today none remain
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