Nothing'll Stop The Army Air Corps

AT WILLIAMS FIELD THEY LEARN TO FLY THE BOMBERS LONG ABOUT THE time that the Japs committed hari-kari at Pearl Harbor and just before Santa Claus was making a rather timid appearance down the chimney of American homes, the army Air Force's Williams Field in the Salt River Valley between Chandler and Mesa could be described as a whirlpool of confusion.

If the sudden appearance of Luke Field could be termed startling, the appearance of Williams Field had a touch of sorcery about it. You heard one day that the Army was going to put in a Bombardment School, a day or so later the desert was being whipped into shape for a flying field, and before you had time to turn around Williams Field was a functioning institution. Everything took place from mid-summer to mid-winter and today you would think the field had been there always so smoothly and efficiently is its program being carried out.

The air base was named after First Lieutenant Charles L. Williams, Arizona-born flyer who died when his plane crashed into the sea near the Island of Oahu, Hawaii, in 1927. Over the great fields of alfalfa and cotton and citrus groves that checker the Salt River Valley, big, twin-motors of Williams Field roar day and night as flying officers-to-be receive their advanced training in the skillful and competent manipulation of multi-motored training planes. In a few short months Williams Field graduates will go roaring over the various continents of the earth and it would not be an over-statement to say that in the not-too-distant future many of these same graduates will leave calling cards in the form of high explosives in such places as Tokyo, Yokohama, and Berlin.

The post commander at Williams Field is Col. Bernard A. Bridget, who served as an enlisted man in the last war and knows the Army from the ground up. He came to Williams Field with nearly 18 years experience as a pilot officer. On his shoulder and those of a competent staff fell the task of supervising the building of Williams Field and getting it ready for its place in the Air Corps program.

The initial cadets of Army Air Corps men moved into Williams Field in December and shortly after "... Minds of men fashioned a crate of thunder, Sent it high into the blue Hands of men blasted the world asunder, How they lived God only knew!

Souls of men dreaming of skies to conquer, Gave us wings ever to soar, With scouts before, the bombers galore, Nothing'll stop the Army Air Corps..."

This business of learning to be a flying soldier is no small matter. The only respite in the program may be a weekend off occasionally. In the meantime, hours of classroom work and flight training keeps the cadets at William Field busy most of the time.

The athletic program at Williams is a full one with enlisted personnel and cadets alike participating under the direction of trained physical instructors. Physical fitness and alertness of mind are required part of the makeup of the components of a great flying field.

When the war broke out the plans for the intensive to receive a 5-week basic training course. Shorttraining and physical training. the training program that was to come had been ly after the beginning of the new year, Wilduties of a reception center had been transferred, laid out. liams Field became a reception center for flyWilliams Field began a full-fledged flying A class of Chinese flying cadets, learning to ing cadets and was used as such until facilities training program, primarily designed as a fly under instructors of Uncle Sam's air force for an air corps reception center was completed bombardment school for flying cadets in their by arrangements under the lease-lend act, aron the coast. These first cadets received no final, or advanced, stage of flight training. rived at Williams in the latter part of December flight training, but only received preliminary Today, while its full expansion and growth Williams Field cadets are shown here marching to a class which is Williams Field is a little world within a world, a unit complete and part of the ground school instruction course given to advanced-training intact within itself. Men of many religions worship in the post flyers. Cadet training is long hours, hard work, little play. chapel. The post chaplain and visiting ministers conduct services.

Hours in the radio code classroom are spent by Williams Field cadets learning the intricacies of one of the five means of communication used by the Aviation Cadets in flight. Classes of this kind are essential to the proper training of the cadet, and without perfection in such technique he cannot efficiently operate his plane.

has not been reached, Williams Field is a going concern in every way, as important in its role of flight training as Luke Field is in its role.

On a war-time footing, Williams Field has become in a short time a community in itself. It has its own theatre, gasoline service station, tailor shop, chapel and library. Its post exchange stocks a miscellaneous assortment of articles, sufficient in quantity to provide for the every-day needs of the growing personnel. Enlisted men find opportunity for recreation in day rooms maintained by various units of command and fitted out with pool and pingpong tables, lounging chairs and writing desks. Officers have a fine officers' club, decorated in an attractive Southwest Indian motif. Its hospital is a low, sprawling structure elaborately equipped and staffed by a crew of competent physicians and dentists.

The Williams Field of today, although yet an unfinished project, is far removed from the settlement that mushroomed a short half-year ago out of a tract of mesquite-dotted desert land. Where once could be seen only the outline of desert vegetation, a distant observer now sees a cluster of buildings, typically Army in appearance, each of them teeming with life. Bituminous-treated roads and sidewalks and spacious concrete runways overlie great ribbons of soil native in state not long since.

Williams Field mess halls, of which there are two, have a tremendous job to perform each day in satisfying the healthy appetites of the officers, cadets and enlisted men. Staffed by trained army cooks and large numbers of K. P.'s, Williams Field kitchens prepare and serve vast quantities of food. That the food is good is proven in the absence of grumbling among the army personnel, the hardest-to-satisfy class of eaters in any walk of life.

It would make every American citizen proud to know the group of men peopling this new post. They range from oldish veterans who have made the army their life to younger men but a few months removed from civilian pursuits and habits. They come from every corner of the nation leaving behind them contrasting environments. As civilians their interests had varied widely. Again for fear of giving aid, comfort and information to the enemy (them louses) no figures can be published as to what Uncle Sam plans to turn out of Williams Field in the form of competent, capable and inspired multi-motored aircraft pilots, but we can assure you that the numbers are large enough to warrant a great cheer if you are on our side of the fence and a deep groan if you are not. And not only are the pilots important, but the numbers of young men who are being trained at Williams Field to perform various and intensive chores and odd-jobs around a bomber to make its mission successful is something else, too, to cheer about. As a matter of fact the more we learn about Williams Field and Luke Field the luckier a person is who is an American or friendly to those who live in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. And when you multiply the work of such fields by the vast number of training schools in operation in this country to train pilots for the Army, Navy and Marines you feel that ultimately things are going to turn out all right for us and for our friends.

Again for fear of giving aid, comfort and information to the enemy (them louses) no figures can be published as to what Uncle Sam plans to turn out of Williams Field in the form of competent, capable and inspired multi-motored aircraft pilots, but we can assure you that the numbers are large enough to warrant a great cheer if you are on our side of the fence and a deep groan if you are not. And not only are the pilots important, but the numbers of young men who are being trained at Williams Field to perform various and intensive chores and odd-jobs around a bomber to make its mission successful is something else, too, to cheer about. As a matter of fact the more we learn about Williams Field and Luke Field the luckier a person is who is an American or friendly to those who live in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. And when you multiply the work of such fields by the vast number of training schools in operation in this country to train pilots for the Army, Navy and Marines you feel that ultimately things are going to turn out all right for us and for our friends.