Aloe Army Airfield is an abandoned airfield located west of

Victoria, Texas Victoria is a small city in South Texas and county seat of Victoria County, Texas. The population was 65,534 as of the 2020 census. The three counties of the Victoria Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 111,163 as of the 2000 censu ...

History

Aloe AAF was established by the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

as an advanced flying school, first known as Victoria Field #2 on 28 July 1942. It was redesignated as Aloe Army Airfield on 27 October 1942. Its mission was an advanced single-engine training field for fighter pilots. Aloe also became the new home of the Lake Charles Army Flying School, which relocated from Lake Charles,

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

. Its training unit was the 347th Aviation Squadron, which used the North American

AT-6 Texan The North American Aviation T-6 Texan is an American single-engined advanced trainer aircraft used to train pilots of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), United States Navy, Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force and other air forces ...

, Curtiss

P-40 Warhawk The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk is an American single-engined, single-seat, all-metal fighter and ground-attack aircraft that first flew in 1938. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time and ...

and lastly Republic

P-47 Thunderbolt The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt is a World War II-era fighter aircraft produced by the American company Republic Aviation from 1941 through 1945. It was a successful high-altitude fighter and it also served as the foremost American fighter-bombe ...

s. Cadets were schooled in flying & in ground & aerial gunnery. During its use as a training airfield, Aloe had a total of 4 satellite fields: * Aloe Aux #7 (7.6 miles northwest of Victoria), of which no trace remains, * Aloe Aux #8 (4.2 miles south of Goliad), of which no trace remains, * Aloe Aux #9 (15 miles southwest of Victoria), of which no trace remains, * Fannin Aux #10 (7.2 miles ENE of Goliad). Aloe AAF was inactivated on 31 October 1945, and the government made plans to reassign the field as a subpost of Foster Army Air Field near Victoria, but both Aloe & Foster were closed. Aloe AAF was declared surplus by the War Department in 1946 and was turned over to the

War Assets Administration The War Assets Administration (WAA) was created to dispose of United States government-owned surplus material and property from World War II. The WAA was established in the Office for Emergency Management, effective March 25, 1946, by Executive Ord ...

for disposal. Aloe Field, with its 304 buildings, was transferred to Victoria County in 1948, after which the site became Victoria County Airport. In 1960 the County Airport was moved to Foster Field, and Aloe Field was closed. Victoria County returned the field back to the Federal Government in 1961. The base was declared surplus by the General Services Administration in 1962 & offered for sale. The land was broken into parcels & sold in April 1963. A portion of the former airfield was purchased in 1963 by a local businessman, who leased a runway on a year-to-year basis to the “Rod Benders”, a hot rod club to use the runway for drag races. The club could not make any permanent improvements at the property. They named the facility “Six Flags Drag Way”. In 1968 G.A. Kupfernagel purchased the property which had been used for drag racing, and named it “Six Flags Raceway Park”. In 1973 Kupfernagel sold the land & equipment. The new owner continued to operate races at the airfield until the end of 1975, when he sold the land to a developer. The west side of the airfield (including the runways) has become an industrial park. The east side has become a housing development.

References

* Manning, Thomas A. (2005), ''History of Air Education and Training Command, 1942–2002''. Office of History and Research, Headquarters, AETC, Randolph AFB, Texas. * Thole, Lou (1999), ''Forgotten Fields of America : World War II Bases and Training, Then and Now'' – Vol. 2. Publisher: Pictorial Histories Pub,
Aloe

Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields is an online database An online database is a database accessible from a local network or the Internet, as opposed to one that is stored locally on an individual computer or its attached storage (such as a CD) ...

: Texas, Northeastern Corpus Christi area

External links

{{USAAF Training Bases World War II 1942 establishments in Texas Airports established in 1942 Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in Texas Airports in Texas USAAF Central Flying Training Command American Theater of World War II Buildings and structures in Victoria County, Texas

History

See also

References

External links