History
Kirtland Air Force Base was named for Colonel Roy C. Kirtland (1874–1941) in February 1942. Colonel Kirtland learned to fly in 1911 in one of the first Wright airplanes at Dayton, Ohio. During World War I he organized and commanded a regiment of mechanics, and served as an inspector of aviation facilities. Recalled from retirement in 1941 at the age of 65, the oldest military pilot in the Air Corps, he died of a heart attack on 2 May 1941 at Moffett Field, California.
Kirtland Air Force Base has changed a great deal since its establishment as a U.S. Army airfield in 1941. It has evolved from a hastily constructed training and testing facility necessitated by the onset of World War II to a significant USAF center for R&D. What began as a 2,000-acre air base has grown into a 51,800-plus-acre facility.
Read more about this topic: Kirtland Air Force Base
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It’s a very delicate surgical operation—to cut out the heart without killing the patient. The history of our country, however, is a very tough old patient, and we’ll do the best we can.”
—Dudley Nichols, U.S. screenwriter. Jean Renoir. Sorel (Philip Merivale)
“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)