![]() ![]() ![]() Provide the necessary tools and guidance that enable Sailors and Marines to develop to their fullest potential, professionally, personally, and in the Fleet.Educate, train and function to meet Fleet requirements.“We endeavor to be the best Naval Air Station throughout Navy Region Southeast by effectively operating as an extension of the Fleet, delivering the world’s best combat aviators to forward-deployed commands at the right time.” To provide NAS Kingsville personnel, including all tenant activities, with the best reliable and sustainable shore infrastructure and services to enable and support the Fleet, fighter, and family. The faculty had 150 members in 1949, and 60 percent of the 2,000 students were male. The base had been adapted to house returning World War II veterans, both students and faculty, and also to provide facilities for model farming and a stock farm. In 1949, the buildings and dormitories were valued at $5 million. For the next five years, until the start of the Korean Conflict, the college used the facilities while it continued to grow. The County Commissioners’ Court and the City of Kingsville agreed to lease the base for $1 a year, plus maintenance costs, and sublease the property to Texas A&I University to be developed as the school’s East Campus for use primarily by the Department of Agriculture. In addition to jet fighter training, pilots received training in carrier dive bombing tactics, anti-submarine warfare, and cockpit gunnery and artillery at both North and South Fields.Īfter the war, the base was placed in a caretaker status and leased to the City of Kingsville. Over the next three years, Kingsville Field played a vital role in training Navy and Marine Corps aviators for the Fleet. “Kingsville Field” was dedicated to the pilots who would train here and play an important role in winning the war. With the attack on Pearl Harbor still fresh on their minds, a large group of Kingsville citizens came to witness the commissioning ceremony. Sims family and the Navy decided to keep it intact for use as a residence for airfield commanders. Quarters “Q” on the property (now Quarters A) was the only existing building on the land to escape demolition when the Navy took control. The Navy planned to build a combination of two fields with barracks and other Station activities in a central location, thus saving construction time. The farmland site of 3,000 acres was soon purchased from the B. CAPT Bernhard, foreseeing an immense training buildup that would overtake NAS Corpus Christi’s capacity, immediately selected a site in Kingsville and put his plans into high gear for procurement and construction. 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. While the Navy made no immediate promises to the Kingsville group, that all changed on the morning of Dec. Among the most impressed of the Navy staff was CAPT Alva Bernhard, who at the time was NAS Corpus Christi’s Commanding Officer. The Kingsville group picked out several good sites for airfields and presented them to Navy leaders at NAS Corpus Christi. The city leaders wasted little time in making their belief known to the Department of Defense. In the fall of 1941, a group of Kingsville civic leaders decided that the city’s desirable climate and scarcely populated area would be very suitable for a military airfield, much like the one in Corpus Christi. ![]()
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