Hendricks Army Airfield

Hendricks Army Airfield
Part of Army Air Forces Training Command
Located near: Sebring, Florida
Hendricks Army Airfield - 1944 Hendricks Army Airfield
Coordinates	27°27′23″N 081°20′33″W
Site history
In use	1941-1945

For the civil airport, see: Sebring Regional Airport

Hendricks Army Airfield, was a World War II United States Army Air Force located 6.6 miles east-southeast of Sebring, Florida.

History

Hendricks Army Airfield is a former United States Army Air Forces base. It was used during World War II as a Heavy Bomber Training School for B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator pilots. It was under the jurisdiction of the 76th Flying Training Wing (Specialized 4-Engine), Smyrna Army Airfield, Tennessee.

The base was named Hendricks Field in honor of 1st Lieutenant Laird Woodruff Hendricks, Jr. A native Floridian, Hendricks was born in Ocala, Florida, grew up in Jacksonville, Florida and graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1939. Commissioned into the Army Air Corps, Hendricks completed flight training and received his aeronautical rating as an Army pilot. Lieutenant Hendricks was killed in a B-17C (RAF Fortress I) crash near RAF Polebrook, England on 28 July 1941, just three days after he arrived there to train Royal Air Force pilots.

Origins

The airfield's origins begin in 1940 when Sebring Officials and citizens contacted their Florida congressional delegation to see about getting an Army base in the area. In the summer of 1940, and in early 1941, a group of Army Air Corps officers surveyed the area. On June 12, 1941, Congressman J. Hardin Peterson advised that an area of 9,200 acres (3,700 ha) of woodland had been approved for a basic flying school. The City of Sebring purchased the land and leased it to the government at $1 per year for 99 years.

On July 20, 1941 construction began with Cleary Brothers of West Palm Beach as the General Contractor and Colonel A.H. Bond of the United States Army Corps of Engineers in charge. Major Leonard H. Rodieck, who had designed the base, provided oversight for the Army Air Corps. A railroad spur was extended to the installation, followed by construction of the air base facilities and infrastructure. In time, the base became a self-supporting city with paved streets, water and sewage systems, frame buildings, 2-story barracks, and 4 concrete runways, each 300 feet (91 m) wide by 5,000 feet (1,500 m) long. The first soldiers arrived on September 5, 1941 and initially occupied tents on the shore of Lake Jackson on the edge of Sebring until they moved onto the base in December when the first barracks were completed.

While under construction, the base was known, unofficially, as Kehoe Field, either by joke or by error. The base achieved its initial operating capability and was placed under command of Major Roderick on June 26, 1941. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the base's status was upgraded to full operational capability and placed under the command of Colonel Carl B. McDaniel. In addition to the main base, several sub-bases and auxiliaries were constructed to support the training program:

• Conners Auxiliary Field
• Immokalee Auxiliary Field

At the close of 1941, the initial construction program was completed and the contractors were preparing to move their equipment elsewhere when an order came to expand the building program. Then it was revealed that the field would not be used for basic flight training. It was to become the first Combat Crew Training School in the United States, for heavy bombers. On 29 January 1942, the first B-17 Flying Fortress landed at Hendricks Field.

The base was renamed Hendricks Field on 14 January 1942. It was assigned to the Army Air Forces Training Command, Eastern Flight Training Center, 76th Flying Training Wing.

See also

• Florida World War II Army Airfields

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency

• World War II airfields database: Florida