Lakeland Army Air Field

History

Origins

On May 22, 1941, the Lakeland City Commission passed a Resolution naming the Lakeland Airport No. 2, which was under construction, Drane Field in honor of Herbert J. Drane, one of Lakeland's outstanding citizens.

The city had barely begun work on the new airport when, with

In early May 1942, enough construction was completed to dedicate the new military base, named Lakeland Army Air Field. The base was assigned to the

In May 1942, however, the airfield was not yet ready to support the flying training mission. Construction delays limited the operational use of the field, and

III Bomber Command

The first flying unit to arrive at Lakeland AAF was the

The next unit, arriving shortly afterwards, was the

The

The

In October 1943, the

In late 1943, when

It was soon found that Lakeland AAF was not suitable for B-17 training because the asphalt runways could not withstand the weight of the heavy bombers, and the 463d was the first and last heavy bomber group to train at Lakeland. The

III Fighter Command

With the Air Commando training completed, the

Closure

The training mission ended with the departure of the P-51 squadrons for the Pacific, and the 352d AAFBU was inactivated at the end of February. The Air Service Command mission continued however, and the airfield remained open; mostly seeing transient training aircraft from various training bases in Florida and South Georgia. The number of personnel were reduced, being reassigned to other bases, and in mid-April 1945, orders were received from Third Air Force that Lakeland Army Airfield would be closed on 30 April 1945 and placed in a standby status.

The facility was subsequently transferred to

The facility, however, was vastly larger in scope with large numbers of support buildings and other improvements than the one leased to the War Department in 1940. After the war ended, the Army Airfield was left mostly unused due to the size of the facility far exceeding the needs of the city as well as the costs involved of converting it to civil use.

Drane Field, was essentially abandoned for the next decade. With the closure of Lodwick Aircraft at

Major units assigned

Air Service Command

• 323d Service Group (1942)
• 324th Service Group (1942)
• 40th Service Group, 1 January 1944-

Re-designated: 4501 Army Air Forces Base Unit (Service Group), 1 March 1944-April 1945

III Bomber Command

• 60th Flying Training Detachment (Medium Bombardment)
• 320th Bombardment Group
  8–28 August 1942, (B-26, 3d Level Training)
• 322d Bombardment Group
  22 September–November 1942, (B-26, 3d Level Training)
• 344th Bombardment Group
  , 28 December 1942 – 19 December 1943 (B-26 OTU)
• 557th Bombardment Squadron
  , 12 April-12 May 1943 (B-26, 2d Level Training)
• 407th Fighter-Bomber Group
  (Dive), 2 October-9 November 1943 (A-36 OTU)
• 463d Bombardment Group
  , 3 January-2 February 1944 (B-17 3d Level Training)

Army Air Forces School of Applied Tactics

• 410th Bombardment Group
  (Light), 8 February-13 March 1944 (A-20)

III Fighter Command