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SHEPPARD AIR FORCE BASE. Sheppard Air Force Base, just north of the city limits of Wichita Falls in Wichita County, houses the 3750th Technical School, the 3630th Flying Training Wing, and the Air Force School of Health Care Sciences. The base was one of a series of flight-training facilities established by the United States Army Air Corps in 1940-41. In 1940 Maj. Gen. Rush B. Lincoln, then commander of the United States Army Air Corps Technical Training Schools, was attracted to the flat pastureland just north of Wichita Falls. J. S. Birdwell offered to sell 300 acres of his cattle ranch to the government for one dollar. Congress accepted. Later an additional 500 acres was added to the site. Construction of the base began on June 12, 1941, and was completed on October 17. The training facility was named Sheppard Field, in honor of Texas senator John Morris Sheppard,qv who had died six months earlier. Col. Edward C. Black and a staff of eighteen took command of the base. Two months later the first 300 troops arrived. The cadets were trained as mechanics of medium bombers and gliders and as glider pilots. Some of the personnel also received liaison-pilot training. The last year of the war the base became the only helicopter-pilot training school in the nation and housed a military air-traffic school. In 1945 the base reached its peak strength, 46,304, the largest concentration of American air corps troops in the world. Within six months after the defeat of Japan, orders were issued to deactivate the field temporarily, and the city of Wichita Falls received a lease to the property. Over the next two years the National Guard used twenty of the buildings, and a few others were moved into the city for use by Wichita General Hospital and Midwestern Hospital. In April 1948 the air force asked that Sheppard Field be "frozen" to prevent further disposal of base property. Months later the base was reactivated. In early September seven men and one officer arrived to prepare the field for the 21,000 men expected to arrive by December. Col. Samuel C. Gurney, Jr., was the first commanding officer of the reactivated base, which was renamed Sheppard Air Force Base. Over the next three decades the airfield expanded to 5,400 acres, became the home of 3,500 permanent military personnel, annually drew just over 4,000 students including Dutch and German nationals, and employed 2,000 private citizens. Three training schools were stationed at the base. The 3750th Technical School trained students in aircraft maintenance, transportation, communication, civil engineering, and field training. During the 1960s the school became the center for Titan and Atlas intercontinental missiles. Later, Thor and Jupiter intercontinental ballistic missile training was added. By the mid-1960s these training activities had been discontinued. The 3630th Flying Training Wing conducted two undergraduate pilot-training programs, one for West Germany and the other for South Vietnamese helicopter pilots (1965-71). Between 1960 and 1965 the Strategic Air Command had an operational wing stationed at the base. The 3630th subsequently conducted aerospace rescue schools and weather instruction. The Air Force School of Health Care Sciences offers training in dentistry, medicine, nursing, and health-services administration and manages a 7,300-bed hospital. The population of the base reached 13,861 in 1960 but declined to 3,825 in 1990. |
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