Naval Air Station Jacksonville
Naval Air Station Jacksonville, also known as NAS Jacksonville or NAS Jax, is a military airport located eight miles south of the central business district in Jacksonville, Florida. There are two naval bases in Duval County Jacksonville, and the second one is Naval Station Mayport.
During World War I, the area that is currently taken by NAS Jacksonville was named Camp Joseph E. Johnston and was commissioned in October of 1917. This center contained more than 600 buildings and was where the United States Army trained their quartermasters. By 1918, Camp Johnston was the largest of the quartermaster training camps and had the second largest rifle range in the United States. In May of 1919, the camp was decommissioned, but in 1928 the Florida National Guard began using it and renamed it to Camp J. Clifford R. Foster. In 1939, ten prior military men traveled to Washington at their own expense to speak with the Navy about looking at the old National Guard base. The Navy was looking for a new station, and when they saw the camp, they decided they liked it.
Naval Air Station Jacksonville was officially commissioned on October 15th, 1940 and became the first part of the Jacksonville Navy Complex. The Jacksonville Navy Complex would later include NAS Cecil Field, Naval Station Mayport, and several fields and auxiliary air stations. On September 7th, before the commissioning, Commander Jimmy Grant was the first pilot to land his N3N-3 biplane on the unfinished runway. After that, over 10,000 pilots and 11,000 crewmen earned their “wings of gold” at the Jacksonville air station during World War II.
Once America entered World War II, NAS Jacksonville increased both training and construction. The Navy began operating three runways that were over 6,000 feet long, as well as seaplane runways and ramps leading from the St. Johns River. Overhaul and Repair facilities were also built to rework the station’s planes. These facilities would be renamed as Naval Air Rework Facility Jacksonville, Naval Aviation Depot Jacksonville, and its current name of Fleet Readiness Center Southeast.
Over 700 buildings were opened on the based before Victory over Japan Day, including a hospital, a prisoner-of-war compound which held over 1,5000 German prisoners of war, a chapel, and other buildings. During the 1940s, NAS Jacksonville continued growing when Fleet Air Wing Eleven moved to the base, along with Patrol Squadron THREE from Panama and Patrol Squadron FIVE from Puerto Rico.
The famous U.S. Naval Flight Demonstration Squadron, known as the Blue Angels had called NAS Jacksonville home until the late 1940s when they moved to NAS Corpus Christi. The Blue Angels performed a last air show at the station in April of 1950 before becoming part of Satan’s Kittens, which was assigned to combat in Korea.
The station was continuing to grow in the mid-1950s and was having a significant impact on the economic growth of Jacksonville and Duval County. NAS Jacksonville had more than 11,000 military personnel, around 5,000 civilians, and a yearly payroll of over $35 million.