Midland Army Airfield: Where Bombardiers Were Made
Near Midland Odessa, Texas
After Pearl Harbor, the United States Army Air Forces needed bombardiers by the thousands. Midland's flat, clear West Texas skies made it a natural choice. The base was formally designated Midland Army Air Field in June of nineteen forty-one, and the first cadets arrived the following February.
At its peak, the field held more than four thousand personnel and operated twenty-three bombing ranges scattered across the Permian Basin. Instructors here pioneered use of the highly secret Norden bombsight, the precision targeting device that Allied planners believed could win the air war over Europe. By the time training ceased on January first, nineteen forty-six, the school had graduated six thousand six hundred twenty-seven bombardier officers.
The land returned to civilian use in nineteen forty-seven and became the foundation of today's Midland International Air and Space Port.
