The entire acreage, together with the Fairfield Air Depot (FAD), was renamed Wright Field. A permanent engineering center was constructed in today’s Area B and dedicated by Orville Wright in 1927. McCook Field transferred its operations to the new center and closed in 1929.
A 1926 reorganization of Air Corps transformed the Engineering Division into the Materiel Division. All Air Corps materiel activities were centralized in Dayton. When Wright Field opened a year later, it was responsible for developing, purchasing and maintaining practically all Air Corps equipment and supplies.
Wright Field was a kaleidoscope of aerospace science, engineering, technology and education. As home of the Materiel Division and later the Materiel Command, it was the heart of aeronautical engineering, procurement and logistical support. It was also home to the Air Corps School of Engineering, today’s AFIT, and the test pilot school. It soon became synonymous with military aeronautical development and cutting-edge technology.
The name “Wright Field” soon became synonymous with developments in aeronautical engineering, a reputation that Wright-Patterson AFB retains to the present day. By 1935, the Materiel Division had begun working on the plans and designs that would drastically change world history and introduce a new age of air power. The Army Air Forces fought World War II with aircraft that Wright Field had either in the production stage or under development before Dec. 7, 1941. The airplanes were the products of the dynamic development triad of pilot, engineer-scientist, and manufacturer, represented nowhere better than at Wright Field, the “nerve center of air power.” Together, they met the ultimate challenge to produce machines capable of forcing the enemy into surrender.
Many local citizens believed that part of Wright Field should have honored the Patterson family for its leadership during the 1913 flood and keeping the engineering center in Dayton. This happened July 1, 1931, when the portion of Wright Field east of Huffman Dam (Area A) was separated and renamed Patterson Field in honor of Lt. Frank Stuart Patterson, a family member who was killed June 19, 1918, during a test flight at Wilbur Wright Field. Patterson Field soon emerged as the Army’s center for aviation logistics, maintenance and supply.
Although the two fields were separate, their missions remained closely intertwined. Patterson Field, with its logistics and supply mission, was assigned to the Materiel Division until 1941 when the supply function was broken out. In the early 1920s the Fairfield Air Depot was a primary storage and disposal depot for war surplus property. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s its operations expanded across the nation and overseas. It became a major supply depot and one of the principal aircraft and engine overhaul facilities.
The start of World War II in Europe saw the logistics role skyrocket to meet the need for emergency maintenance, repair and supply work. FAD’s workforce expanded from 500 in 1939 to more than 19,000 at its height in 1943. Women represented 10 percent of the 1939 workforce, and they were limited to clerical positions. By 1944, women were 50 percent of the Patterson Field workforce, and they worked in most jobs across the base. The manpower shortage was so severe recruiting teams scoured Appalachia to find workers.
FAD’s staff operated 24/7 supplying, maintaining and repairing all types of war materiel for stateside depots and remote field depots around the world. FAD became a proving ground for new ideas to streamline the supply system and ran schools to train military and civilian employees in supply and repair procedures. It helped establish, layout and man new depots and sub-depots around the nation. Until the day it closed in January 1946, FAD was the Army Air Forces’ logistics backbone.
Both fields experienced dramatic expansion during the war. Employment at the two fields jumped from 3,700 in December 1939 to more than 50,000 at the war’s peak. There were chronic shortages of office space, housing and most other facilities. Wright Field grew from a modest 30 buildings into a 2,064-acre facility with some 300 buildings and the Air Corps’ first modern paved runways. The original field became saturated with office and laboratory buildings and test facilities. Real estate acquisitions included the Hilltop area, the area that became Woodland Hills, and the area where Wright State University now resides.
Warehouses, shops, barracks, mess halls, hospitals and an array of other buildings sprang up in every nook and cranny of Patterson Field. An additional 851 acres (which eventually included the Cox family cemetery) was acquired at the northeast end of the runway. Wood City, today’s Kittyhawk Center, was completely developed with barracks, training facilities, and a cantonment hospital. Skyway Park was erected at the intersection of Kauffman Avenue and Colonel Glenn Highway. It contained 546 family housing units and a dormitory that could accommodate 640 residents.
Wright Field hosted a huge Army Air Forces Fair in October 1945 to celebrate victory. The weekend event was so popular that officials extended it for an entire week. More than a million visitors from the United States and 26 foreign countries attended the fair. They saw captured German and Japanese weapons, displays on the AAF story, and formerly classified equipment developed at Wright Field. Virtually every type of AAF aircraft, including experimental models, was available for viewing.
While the two Fields remained separate during the war, their leaders began planning a postwar merger. In 1944 the 4000 Army Air Forces Base Unit (today’s 88th Air Base Wing) was activated and began administering the fields as a single enterprise. The next year the master plans for both fields were merged. This practice was formalized in December 1945 with the establishment of the Army Air Forces Technical Base, Dayton, Ohio, which provided base operational support to the combined bases. On Jan. 13, 1948, the newly created U.S. Air Force officially merged Wright and Patterson Fields to create Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
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