The Early Days of Keesler Air Force Base

This article originally written by Paige Gutierrez with the title "'Keep 'Em Flying!' Keesler Field" for BNews Monthly, the monthly newsletter of the City of Biloxi. Photographs courtesy of the LHG Image Collection / Local History & Genealogy Department / Harrison County Library System unless otherwise specified.

Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi began with the activation of Army Air Corps Station No. 8, Aviation Mechanics School, on June 12, 1941. Later that month the Army Air Corps became the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). On August 25, 1941, the base was officially named “Keesler Army Airfield,” and was commonly referred to as “Keesler Field.” Construction of buildings and other facilities was largely completed by June of 1942, and the population of Keesler had grown quickly with the addition of basic training as part of the base’s mission.

New recruits arriving at Keesler Field received a forty-pagepictorial guidebook to their new home. The introduction to the guidebook, dated 1942, reads as follows:

“From the very beginning, only one thing was expected of Keesler Field. That was a steady flow of highly trained airplane mechanics, men qualified for the important task of keeping this nation’s warplanes in first-rate fighting condition. 

Today, as one of the great schools in the Army Air Force’s Technical Training Command, Keesler Field has lived up to that expectation and established itself as a fitting memorial to the late Second Lieutenant Samuel R. Keesler of Greenwood, Miss., who died a hero in World War I, and for whom the field was named.

Keesler Field grew from an old golf course, ball park, airport, Naval Reserve Park and swampy woodland on the outskirts of Biloxi, Miss. Ground was first broken June 13, 1941, before war clouds burst over the Pacific. In February, less than eight months later, it made its first direct reply to the bombing of Pearl Harbor with the graduation of several hundred mechanics, the first to complete the intensive 19- week course in the AAFTS.

Keesler’s work did not end there, however. In addition to supplying thousands of mechanics, it teaches new men the basic fundamentals of warfare in its Basic Training Center. Regardless of their duties here or overseas, the men of Keesler Field have the same goal in mind – they intend to “Keep ‘Em Flying!”

In 1947, the United States Air Force was created as a separate branch of the armed services. Keesler Field became Keesler Air Force base in 1948.

PHOTO CAPTIONS

PHOTO 1 — New recruits arriving at Keesler Field. The base grew rapidly in response to World War II.

PHOTO 2 — Pictured here is Keesler Field’s first class of African American airplane mechanics, who graduated in August 1944. Over 7,000 African American troops, including Tuskegee Airmen and others – were stationed at Keesler by late 1943, including pre-aviation cadets, radio operators, aviation technicians, bombardiers, and aviation mechanics. The military was segregated until after July 26, 1948, when President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9981, which ordered full integration of the armed forces. Source: KAFB’s “History of KAFB”; National Archives; photo from Air Force Historical Research Agency.

PHOTO 3 — Basic training calisthenics at Keesler Field, with Biloxi’s Back Bay in the background.

PHOTO 4 — Classwork, AAFTS inspection branch.

PHOTO 5 — First B-24 Liberator bomber arrives at Keesler, fall of 1942, when specialized B-24 maintenance training program began.

PHOTO 6 — Hydraulics class.

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