Moore Air Force Base

Moore Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force base established in September 1941 as Moore Field, fourteen miles northwest of Mission, Texas,

History

The 1,087-acre field was named for 2d Lt. Frank Murchison Moore, a native of Houston, who was killed in World War I. The facility was used for advanced pilot training in single-engine aircraft. The facility trained 6,000 pilots before it was closed on 31 October 1945.

In 1950 part of the field was operating as the Weaver H. Baker Memorial Sanatorium, and part was jointly operated by Mission, McAllen, and Edinburg as Tri-Cities Municipal Airport.

In 1954, after the closing of the sanatorium and as part of the Cold War military expansion by the United States, the base was reactivated under the name Moore Air Force Base. It served as a contractor operated USAF primary pilot training school (with T-28s & T-34s). Training was conducted by California Eastern Airways Incorporated (1954-59) and Beiser Aviation Corporation (1959-61).

By December 1960 some 4,000 Air Force pilots received their primary flight training and academic instruction at this base. From July 1959 until the base was again deactivated, the six-month training program featured jet-plane flight instruction. USAF jet training in the T-37 at Moore was concluded in 1961.

In February 1962 about half of the site was turned over to the US Department of Agriculture which was trying to eradicate the screwworm fly. It continues to be known as Moore Air Base under this new mission.

In 1977 Scientists of the Screwworm Research Unit relocated from the laboratory at Moore Air Force Base, to the sterile fly production facility near Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, Mexico.

As of 1983 The USDA-ARS Screwworm Research laboratory at Moore Air Force Base has been closed.

The facility is no longer used by the United States Air Force, and is depicted as a private airfield on current Sectional Charts.

ee also

* Texas World War II Army Airfields

References

* Thole, Lou (1999), Forgotten Fields of America : World War II Bases and Training, Then and Now - Vol. 2. Publisher: Pictorial Histories Pub, ISBN 1575100517

External links

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* http://www.screwworm.ars.usda.gov/HISTORY1.htm