... Here's a nice LIFE photo series that seems appropriate for July 4th.
BRADLEY FIELD - CONNECTICUT - USA - 1945
Photos : Sam Shere - LIFE Collection
68th Bomb Squadron, 44th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force
"This was on or about May 22, 1945. Description of events follows. A total of sixty-five bombers, B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators carrying 275 officers and 800 enlisted men (including former prisoners of war), landed between 1142 and 2033 Hours on May 22. They flew from bases in England and France to Iceland and Labrador before landing at Bradley. Starting that day, some 3,500 aircraft and over 40,000 men returned to the United States by air by August 30, 1945, to Bradley, the designated field for returning aircraft from the 8th and 15th Air Forces. After a thirty-day furlough, they were scheduled to be trained in Boeing B-29 Superfortress operations, but for many the end of the Pacific War cancelled their transition to that bomber and they were discharged. Most of the planes returned to Bradley were flown to scrapping yards around the country and recycled." Steven Tenenbaum
Historical Note below regarding Bradley Field:
On January 23, 1941, Governor Robert A. Hurley sent a proposal to the Connecticut General Assembly requesting the state buy land to lease to the United States Army for an air base. The U.S. Army had earlier indicated to state officials that it wished to have a base for fighter planes in or near Connecticut as part of the nation's defensive grid though the attack on Pearl Harbor had not yet occurred. In response, the state acquired 1,700 acres most of which was then a tobacco plantation. The tract was purchased and then leased to the federal government for $1.00 a year for twenty-five years. The field, which at the time was named the Windsor Locks Army Air Base, became ready for airmen and troops early in the summer of 1941.
The air base was later officially renamed "Army Air Base, Bradley Field, Connecticut," on January 20, 1942, but more familiarly called Bradley Field in honor of Army Air Corps Second Lieutenant Eugene M. Bradley. Lt. Bradley's P-40 fighter plane crashed after he went into a routine dive during training and failed to come out on August 21, 1941. Bradley hailed from Pushmataha County in Oklahoma, and arrived at the air base three days before his fatal accident. He was the first of many pilots to die in training accidents at the field.
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