Keesler marks 66 years of training warriors Published June 5, 2007 By Perry Jenifer 81st Training Wing Public Affairs KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Even before there was an Air Force, there was a Keesler Field. Tuesday, Keesler turns 66, making the base more than six years older than the service to which it belongs. For more than six decades, Keesler has trained nearly 2.3 million American and foreign military people in a broad range of subjects and disciplines. June 12, 1941, the original 832-acre site was officially designated Air Corps Station No. 8, Aviation Mechanics School, Biloxi, Miss. Before the land was transferred to the Army Air Corps by the City of Biloxi and Veterans Administration, it was known as the Biloxi Country Club. Actually, the area included not only three golf courses, but the Biloxi airport, a baseball park used by the Washington Senators major league baseball team for spring training, the Naval Reserve Park and some private property. Named for Mississippi aviator Later that June, the War Department renamed the new base in honor of 2nd Lt. Samuel Keesler, a native of Greenwood, Miss., who died behind German lines after being shot down in air combat with four enemy aircraft in the last months of World War I. Originally, the base's mission was training aircraft mechanics. However, the first threads of change which have marked the base's history were being spun even before Keesler was activated. Basic training was added and the first 12 recruits arrived Aug. 12. They were followed Sept. 20 by the first class of about 800 aircraft mechanic students. More than 7,000 troops were in basic training and another 4,000 in aircraft mechanics school when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, bringing the U.S. into World War II. During the war, 336,000 recruits and 142,000 aircraft mechanics were trained here. Most B-24 mechanics stationed throughout the several theaters of war -- Europe, Africa, the Far East and Pacific -- received their training in Keesler classrooms. WACS arrive in 1943 Many pilots forced to ditch in the Pacific Ocean owed their lives to OA-10A amphibian aircrews graduated from the air-sea rescue school here. Chemical warfare training was also conducted at Keesler during the war, and shortly after it ended, the world's first rotary wing school for helicopter mechanics opened here. In 1943, Keesler's first detachment of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps -- WACS -- arrived to fill administrative and clerical positions. In the same year, the training of U.S. allies' military people was introduced. This program continues today, with students from more than 50 nations receiving personnel, administrative and electronics training. The installation that would become known as the "Electronics and Computer Training Center for the Air Force'' moved from aircraft mechanic to electronics training in 1947, the year the Air Force became a separate service. The new service first moved its radar school from Boca Raton, Fla., to Keesler, and then elements of its communications and electronics courses from Scott Air Force Base, Ill. Eventually, these courses evolved into ground and airborne communications-electronics maintenance and operator training, and air traffic control courses. Then came the semi-automatic ground environment air defense system that made the digital computer a central feature of Keesler's electronics training program. Training Vietnamese pilots In 1967, flying training came to Keesler under the Military Assistance Program. Over the next six years, about 800 South Vietnamese pilots earned their wings in T-28s here before advancing to jet fighters. Another new training mission arrived in 1968 -- personnel and administration courses, previously taught at Amarillo AFB, Texas. In 1972, when the Air Force became the manager for all training in the Defense Department's worldwide military command and control system, Keesler people taught programs here and at sites around the globe. Pilot training ended in 1973, then resumed two decades later with the activation of the 45th Airlift Squadron. Originally, the squadron trained pilots on both C-12 and C-21 aircraft. The C-12 training mission came to a close at Keesler as the 1990s wound down. Centers of flying activity From 1973 into the 1990s flying activity at Keesler centered around three associate units: 403rd Wing of the Air Force Reserve, 53rd Weather reconnaissance Squadron and 7th Airborne Command and Control Squadron. The 7th ACCS left several years ago. The 53rd WRS -- Hurricane Hunters -- was deactivated as an active-duty unit in 1991 and reappeared as an arm of the 403rd Wing two years later. The reservists also operate the 815th Airlift Squadron, a transport unit. Keesler is also host to elements of other Air Force and Department of Defense organizations. The most familiar of these are the base exchange (Army and Air Force e Exchange Service) and commissary (Defense Commissary Agency). Growing in numbers and visibility in the 1990s were the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard, reflecting the increasing emphasis on joint military training and operations in the wake of downsizing. A slight reversal of this trend was the deactivation of the Army Training Detachment seven years ago. Gains outweigh downsizing losses Downsizing ... Keesler has taken some losses, but the overall effect here has been growth. The departure of 7th ACCS followed the transfer in 1993 of chapel service support and paralegal specialist schools, and the First Sergeant Academy, to Maxwell AFB, Ala. Outweighing the losses have been gains of more than two dozen courses and hundreds of military and civilian employees from the closures of Chanute AFB, Ill., and Lowry AFB, Ill. These are in addition to the "upsizing'' effects of locating 2nd Air Force headquarters here, the continuing Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard presence, and C-21 aircrew training. As Keesler turns 66, it covers more than 1,500 acres with a real property value in excess of $200 million. Bouncing back again Prior to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, about 15,000 military and civilian employees worked and trained here. Nearly that many more military family members called Keesler home, and more than 25,000 military retirees frequented the base for a variety of services. The numbers are lower across the board as the base, and Mississippi Gulf Coast, recover from the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. However, training is back stronger than ever and progress is evident across the base as the reconstruction effort moves forward. The price tag: nearly $1 billion. Katrina wasn't the first hurricane to vent its wrath on Keesler - there was Camille in 1969, Frederic 10 years later, Elena in 1985 and Georges in 1998. It's highly unlikely Katrina is the last. However, as now, the base bounces back every time to resume the mission it has fulfilled since 1941: Training warriors.