History
Named in honor of 2d Lieutenant George Allison Whiteman (1919–1941). On 7 December 1941 Lieutenant Whiteman attempted to take off from Wheeler Field during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Hit by enemy fire, his P-40 Warhawk crashed and Lieutenant Whiteman became the first member of the United States armed forces to die in aerial combat in World War II
Read more about this topic: Whiteman Air Force Base
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)