History
Construction of some 50 buildings began March 15, 1918. The Field was occupied April 30, 1918. Its first commander was 1st Lieutenant Sam P. Burman, March 15, 1918. The first unit stationed there was the 283rd Aero Squadron. There were no concrete runways or aprons. These were added in the late 1930s. In the meantime aircraft flew from grass-covered fields. Training activities ceased on January 8, 1919. The Field was used by the aerial forestry patrol.
Following World War I, the field was used intermittently to support small military units. The Field was closed on May 12. 1923. Again on active status on April 1, 1930 but as a sub post of the Presidio U.S. Army Post, San Francisco; Hamilton Field and Stockton Field in that order during the 1930s.
Read more about this topic: Mather Air Force Base
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)
“We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”
—Terry Hands (b. 1941)