This week In Travis history

  • Published
  • By Mark Wilderman
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing historian
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  From its activation in May 1943 until the end of 1944, the primary mission of the new Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base was to prepare United States war planes and their aircrews for combat deployment to the Pacific Theater of operations.

The base prepared more than 2,000 such aircraft between July 1943 and January 1945, with a monthly peak of 274 aircraft in June 1944. The base also hosted a Curtiss C-46 Commando training school and a cargo operations school, established in late September 1943 and staffed by civilian instructors. On Nov. 7, the growing importance of the base was confirmed when the War Department designated the Fairfield-Suisun AAB as a port of aerial embarcation for the Pacific Theater.

On Dec. 1, 1944, the first four-engine Douglas C-54 Skymaster transport assigned to Fairfield-Suisun AAB arrived to join the C-47s previously based here. By Victory in Europe Day in May 1945, there were 60 C-54s assigned to the base. The build up of the C-54 fleet and the designation as an aerial port on the West Coast guaranteed a bright future for Fairfield-Suisun AAB for the remainder of World War II and beyond.

On Jan. 29, 1945, the U.S. Army Air Forces Air Training Command, a forerunner of Air Mobility Command, further increased the importance of the base by opening an all-purpose training school for the Douglas C-54, one of three in the Army Air Forces. The C-54 school was divided into four divisions, pilot flight training, radio operations and maintenance, aerial engineering and mechanic and line maintenance. In May 1945, ATC expanded the mechanics training program, making the base ATC's largest major maintenance training center. In July, the school was expanded again, making the base an important training center for fighter and bomber pilots retraining to become C-54 pilots after VE Day. By 1946, the C-54 school occupied 31 buildings on the base.

Between opening in January 1945 and relocation to Great Falls Air Force Base, Montana now Malmstrom Air Force Base in September 1948, the Fairfield-Suisun AAB/AFB C-54 training school graduated 3,140 students, including 775 pilots, 1,397 maintenance specialists, 410 aerial engineers, and 400 radio operators. These students played an important role in the final eight months of WWII, the Berlin Airlift and the Korean Conflict.

The Travis Heritage Center preserves a Douglas C-54D Skymaster, as used at Fairfield-Suisun AAB for trans-Pacific flights, at the C-54 Training School, in the Berlin Airlift and during the Korean Conflict. The historic aircraft occupies a place of honor in the traffic circle in front of the Base Exchange on the appropriately-named Skymaster Drive.