History
Nellis Air Force Base is named in honor of 1st Lieutenant William Harrell Nellis (1916–1944). He was born in Santa Rita, New Mexico on 8 March 1916, and his family relocated to Searchlight, Nevada as a child. He remained in the town until he graduated the eighth grade then moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he attended Las Vegas High School. He graduated in 1936. Nellis enlisted in the Enlisted Reserve Corps on 9 December 1942. He reported for active duty in the United States Army Air Forces as an aviation cadet on 2 March 1943.
After completing flight training at Albany Army Airfield, Georgia, in January 1944, he was deployed to the European Theater of Operations (ETO) and assigned to the Ninth Air Force 406th Fighter Group, 513th Fighter Squadron, where he participated in aerial combat missions flying the P-47 Thunderbolt. Most of the missions flown by Lt. Nellis were air-to-ground operations in support of General George S. Patton's Third United States Army. He was shot down in combat three times. On 27 December 1944 during his 70th mission, Lt. Nellis's aircraft was hit by ground fire while strafing a German convoy near Bastogne, Belgium. His plane burst into flames, plunged into the ground, and he was killed in the crash.
0n 30 April 1950, the United States Air Force officially renamed Las Vegas Air Force Base to Nellis Air Force Base. A dedication ceremony to mark the occasion took place 20 May 1950, with Lieutenant Nellis's family in attendance.
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