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:
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“False history gets made all day, any day,
the truth of the new is never on the news
False history gets written every day
...
the lesbian archaeologist watches herself
sifting her own life out from the shards she’s piecing,
asking the clay all questions but her own.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence over he who was great.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)