The war years: training at both fields, and the base that went elsewhere

1940 — 1945

South Bend bid for a base and got a training program: In 1940, as the Army Air Corps looked for Midwestern bases, South Bend and Fort Wayne lobbied for the same prize, and Fort Wayne won it. The Tribune's aviation column "Airfax" (John H. Magill, 27 October 1940) recorded the consolation in the city's own words: at Fort Wayne "private operators have been ordered to cease their activities," while at South Bend "the federal government, through the civil aeronautics administration, relies on our private operators to carry out the private pilot training program." In March 1942 the Tribune reported the possibility of a huge naval air training base — Mayor Jesse I. Pavey and the county commissioners were in the effort, some thirty such bases were planned nationally, and the one that came to Indiana went to Peru, not to the bend. So the war record of South Bend's fields is a civilian one: the old northeast field renamed Cadet Field in August 1942 for pilot training, Homer Stockert gone to Evansville to test P-47s, and the county's private operators carrying the Civil Aeronautics Administration's training program at Bendix Field. No Army or Navy base was ever built at South Bend, and this section prints the two bids at the size the record gives them — real efforts, documented in the press of the day, that ended with the training and without the base.

Sources:

1. South Bend Tribune, "Airfax," John H. Magill, 27 October 1940 — the two cities' base lobbying, Fort Wayne's award, and the CAA's reliance on South Bend's private operators for pilot training.
2. South Bend Tribune, 23 March 1942 — the reported naval air training base possibility, Mayor Pavey and the county commissioners, the thirty planned bases, and Peru, Indiana's award.
3. South Bend Tribune, 9 August 1942 — Cadet Field's official opening at the old northeast field.