Find out some of the history of Scott, including what year Scott was established and who it was named after. 

    Nestled among some of the finest farmland in the state, Scott's heritage dates back to 1917. Since its early days as a pilot training center, Scott has expanded into the versatile community it is today.

375th Airlift Wing
Scott Air Force Base History

    Scott Air Force Base is one of the oldest, continuous-service Air Force installations. Its history spans the major evolutionary states of the Air Force: Aviation Section, Signal Corps; Army Air Service; Army Air Corps; Army Air Forces; Air Force. It was named Scott Field July 20, 1917, after Corporal Frank S. Scott, the first enlisted person to be killed in an airplane crash. The fatal crash, the Army's fourth, occurred Sept. 28, 1912, when Scott, an aircraft mechanic, was flying as a passenger in a Wright Type B biplane at the Army Flying Field in College Park, Md.

    The original Scott Field consisted of just under one square mile, according to the lease negotiated and signed by the War Department and the Belleville Board of Trade June 14, 1917. Lt. William H. Carruthers, the officer in charge of construction, employed 3,000 civilians who erected nearly 59 buildings, laid out a mile-long railroad spur, and leveled off an airfield with a 1,600-foot landing circle. Cost of the project, completed Sept. 1, 1917, was $1.5 million. Scott Field was accepted as an Army Aviation station that same day and had a primary mission of training pilots and ground crews for the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I. William Couch, a civilian flying instructor, made the first flight from the field Sept. 2, 1917, in a Standard Trainer. flight training with a class of almost 100 cadets began Sept. 11, 1917, and the first cadet soloed 17 days later.

    One of the field's early commanders was Lt. Col. James E. Fechet (Oct. 2, 1917 - Jan. 10, 1918), who became the chief of the Air Corps in 1927. Scott's flying ambulance, a converted JN-4D "Jenny" carried its first patient, a cadet with a fractured leg, Aug. 24, 1918. On Oct. 12, 1918, Scott supported the Fourth Liberty Loan Drive by sending an armada of aircraft to "assault" St. Louis, Mo. A crowd of more than 100,000 spectators were treated to a show of such daring aerial acrobatics as tail spins, Immelman turns, the falling leaf and the barrel loop. The climax of the event was the aerial bombardment of downtown St. Louis with Liberty Loan circulars, "eagerly grabbed by thousands," according to the Aerofoil, Scott Field's newspaper at the time.

    The War Department purchased Scott Field March 31, 1919, for $119,285.84 but had yet to decide its future role. In October 1919, just four enlisted men and a few officers remained. Finally, in October 1921, the War Department established Scott Field as a "lighter than air" station for airships and balloons. The base grew rapidly. The airship hangar, completed here in 1923, was second only to the airship hangar at the Navy station in Lakehurst, N.J., the largest in the world. The entire U.S. Army consisting of almost 100,000 members in 1923, could have stood in military formation inside the Scott hangar. Lt. Col. John A. Paegelow, a veteran balloon pilot in World War I, assumed command of Scott in 1923 and continued in that post until his retirement in 1933. During the Paegelow era, lighter than air craft were favored by the Air Corps over airplanes. This policy encountered strong and steady opposition from airplane advocates which included Brig. Gen. "Billy" Mitchell. Among the field's most prized possessions were the TC-1, TC-3, RN-1, RS-1, and TC-14 airships.

    Some of the pioneers of lighter than air flight at Scott experienced thrilling and hazardous voyages aboard runaway balloons. On April 23, 1923, the descent controls malfunctioned on a balloon carrying Air Service Majs. John D. Reardon and Rush B. Lincoln. Strong winds swept the balloon at high speeds along an erratic course all the way to the Chicago area before the officers escaped by jumping into a mud bank along the Fox River. The wayward balloon disappeared from their sight as it sailed across Lake Michigan.

    Highlights of the airship era (1921-1927) included speed records for dirigibles set by Scott's TC-1 in 19232, and Capt. Hawthorne A. Gray's American free balloon altitude record of 28,510 feet March 9, 1927. Gray would have established a world record for free balloon altitudes Nov. 4, 1927, if he had not suffocated when his oxygen supply ran out. His barograph recorded 342,470 feet, but his record was disqualified by Gray's death. On Nov. 11, 1935, two of Gray's former colleagues, Capt. Albert W. Stevens and Capt. Orvil A. Anderson, set a world record with a balloon altitude of 72,395 feet near Rapid City, S.D. Unlike Gray who flew in an open basket, Stevens and Anderson were enclosed in an airtight metal gondola, EXPLORER II, which was attached to a balloon with a volume of 3,700,000 cubic feet -- almost 50 times as large as Gray's balloon and the third largest balloon in the world at that time. This project was sponsored by the National Geographic Society and drew upon a military cadre mostly trained at Scott Field. The weather observer for this project, Capt. Randolph P. Williams, later became known as the "Father of the Air Weather Service."

    In 1937, lighter than air operations came to an abrupt end when a change in Air Corps policy called for the replacement of airships and balloons by airplanes. Four concrete runways, each a mile long, were constructed at Scott after the great airship hangar was demolished in 1938-1939. Scott was also selected as a potential site for the headquarters of General Headquarters Air Force, the Army's air combat arm, scheduled to be moved from Langley Field, Va. The GHQ Air Force had been created in 1935 at the same echelon level as the Air Corps, the other half of the Army's air component, to which the non-tactical functions of administration, logistics, and training had been assigned. However, the Army chief of staff, Gen. George Marshall, decided to keep HQ GHQ close to the center of power in Washington, D.C., when the scope of war in Europe expanded rapidly after 1939. Although Scott did not become the center for the Army's air combat arm, it did assume the important wartime mission of training radio operators/mechanics and became known as the "Communications University of the Army Air Forces." Scott's school graduates, 77,370 by the end of the war, were crew members aboard thousands of Army Air Forces aircraft, including B-17s and B-29s.

    In June 1948, the newly-formed U.S. Air Force Military Transportation Service (MATS) was given responsibility for airlifting all military and other authorized government medical patients. A year later, Scott, which had been redesignated Scott Air Force Base Jan 13, 1948, was selected as a "remain overnight" station for patient airlift. On Oct. 17, 1949, Headquarters Air Training Command (ATC) relocated to Scott, resulting in an overall assignment of six general officers at the base. The headquarters of both the Air Force Technical Training Command and the Air Force Flying Training Command were consolidated at HQ ATC. For the first time, a major command headquarters as located at Scott. A 40-year era as a major training base ended in 1957 when Scott was transferred from the jurisdiction of ATC to HQ MATS, which had officially moved to Scott Oct. 1, 1957. ATC left Scott and by February 1959, all communication and technical training at Scott had ceased. The 1405th Air Base Wing, as Scott host unit, supported the units assigned to the base and maintained Scott Air Force Base properties.

    On June 1, 1964, the 1405th Air Base Wing was renamed the 1405th Aeromedical Transport Wing and tasked with patient airlift in the U.S. Units of the 1st Aeromedical Transport Group at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas, were transferred to the 1405th with no change in station. The 1405th ATW was inactivated Jan. 12, 1966. Its mission and resources were absorbed at this time by the 375th Aeromedical Airlift Wing, which was a direct reporting unit of the Military Airlift Command (formerly MATS). Reorganizations changed the 375th Aeromedical Airlift Wing to the 375th Military Airlift Wing on March 30, 1990, and the 375th Airlift Wing on Dec. 1, 1991 (as part of a major Air Force reorganization). During this timeframe of change, the mission remained essentially the same, and always saw the 375th serving as the host unit for all other organizations on Scott Air Force Base.

    The reorganization of the Air Force brought about many changes at Scott Air Force Base. Foremost among these changes was the inactivation of the Military Airlift Command and the establishment of Air Mobility Command June 1, 1992. Scott Air Force Base is unique in that it handles host duties for two major commands, AMC and the United States Transportation Command and also provides services for other large organizations such as the Air Force Communications Agency and the Defense Information Technology Contracting Office.

    Including military members, their families, civilians and retirees, the population of Scott Air Force Base totals more than 35,000 with an annual economic impact which exceeds $1 billion. Encompassing 3,278 acres (on and off base), Scott Air Force Base is more than four times as large as the original Scott Field in 1917.