The Stars Were Big and Bright: The United States Army Air Forces and Texas During World War II

History

Alexander, Thomas E.

Americas

Eakin Pr

For this second volume of his critically acclaimed and award-winning study of World War II airfields, the author has extensively researched eleven more of the sixty-five bases that were located in Texas. Included are chapters on military air installations near Pampa, Hondo, Del Rio, Midland, Marfa, El Paso, Fort Worth, Lubbock, Austin, Big Spring, and Houston. The book provides both a compelling and fascinating view of life on the Texas home front during the war, and serves as a much needed reference guide to the once mighty airfields that have been for the most part abandoned and forgotten. It also serves as a tribute to the thousands of men and women in uniform who came to the Lone Star State to learn the skills of war nearly sixty years ago.

The Stars Were Big and Bright: United States Army Air Forces and Texas During World War II, Vol. 2

Military

The Stars Were Big and Bright: The United States Army Air Forces, Texas During World War II: Vol 2

Each of the wars fought by Texans spawned the creation of scores of military sites across the state, from the lonely frontier outpost at Adobe Walls to the once-bustling World War II shipyards of Orange. Today, although vestiges of the sites still exist, many are barely discernible, their once-proud martial trappings now faded by time, neglect, the elements and, most of all, public apathy. ?In Faded Glory: A Century of Forgotten Texas Military Sites, Then and Now, Thomas E. Alexander and Dan K. Utley revisit twenty-nine sites—many of them largely forgotten—associated with what was arguably the most tumultuous hundred-year period in a five-century span of Texas history.?
Whether in the war with Mexico, the American Civil War, in clashes between Indians and the frontier army, or in two worldwide conflicts fought on foreign shores, Texas and Texans have often answered the call to arms. Beginning in 1845 and continuing through 1945, the Lone Star State and its people were fully involved in seven major conflicts. ?In this thoroughly researched and absorbing guide, Alexander and Utley recount the full story of the sites from their days of fame to the present. Comparing historic sketches, paintings, and period photographs of the original installations with recent photographs, they illustrate how time has dealt with these important places. Providing maps to aid readers in locating each site, the authors close with a resounding call for preservation and interpretation for future generations. ?The descriptions and images restore, at least in the mind’s eye, a touch of vitality and color to these forgotten and disappearing sites. Thanks to Faded Glory: A Century of Forgotten Texas Military Sites, Then and Now, both the traveler and the armchair tourist can recover a sense of these places and events that did so much to shape the military history of Texas.

Faded Glory: A Century of Forgotten Military Sites in Texas, Then and Now (Volume 25) (Tarleton State University Southwestern Studies in the Humanities)

Utley, Dan K.

Texas A&M University Press

In their previous book, Faded Glory: A Century of Forgotten Texas Military Sites, Then and Now, historians Thomas E. Alexander and Dan K. Utley chose to go beyond the familiar military sites of Texas—the Alamo or the San Jacinto battlefield, for example—to feature lesser known locations. The book successfully recovered these “forgotten” arenas for tourists and preservationists alike. Alexander and Utley now return with Echoes of Glory, and the result is another impressive catalogue that highlights the hidden gems of Texas history. Echoes of Glory explores two dozen rarely discussed but equally significant military sites across Texas. From the establishment of a Spanish fortress at San Sabá during the mission era to a multimillion-dollar Cold War naval base, readers will find a range of sites and stories to enlighten and entertain. Rare illustrations contrast each site with how it appeared in its glory days to how it appears today. Echoes of Glory underscores the need to preserve or fully interpret such places before they are lost forever.

Echoes of Glory: Historic Military Sites across Texas

Thomas E. Alexander was among 20,000 military service personnel ordered into the Strategic Air Command, formed in 1946 as US military and political leaders began to understand the growing nuclear threat posed by Stalin’s USSR. Alexander served for a number of years in this elite force, designed as a primary deterrent to Soviet military ambitions.
In this gripping memoir, Alexander describes what it was like to occupy a “mole hole” beside a SAC runway, ready to go from full sleep to taxiing for takeoff within seven minutes of the sounding of the klaxon. He shares the experience of sitting on the couch with his family and watching President Kennedy’s announcement of the discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba, realizing that within hours he would be airborne. He tells what it was like to be at a New Year’s Eve party on the base, only to hear the announcement that his unit had just been activated. Less than twenty-four hours later, he was in Greenland.
In SAC Time: Navigating the Strategic Air Command, Alexander presents “an honest and reflective account of the impact the Cold War had on individuals who were then on the front lines of defense—like it or not.” Coauthor Dan Utley says of Alexander’s narrative, “The story of an ordinary individual in extraordinary times has value. . . . These are stories Tom Alexander has waited much of his life to share with others, but they are as rich as the day they occurred.”

SAC Time: A Navigator in the Strategic Air Command (Volume 165) (Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series)

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

In a remote corner of West Texas in 1942, the dreaded western diamondback rattlesnake was awarded the unique distinction of having a mighty airfield named in its honor. Although the installation originally bore the official title of Pyote Army Airfield, the massive quantity of serpents encountered during the construction of the base quickly earned it the nickname of "The Rattlesnake Bomber Base." For the thousands of military men and women who served on the airfield and the additional thousands of civilians who worked there, what is now only a ghostly ruin will always be a vibrant and undying monument to a brief time when men and snakes and giant silvery bombers all came together on the West Texas desert to share a legendary chapter of American history. The One and Only Rattlesnake Bomber Base tells the story of what happened when an American bomber base aptly named for a serpent arose, Brigadoon-like, from the sun-baked caliche desert located just east of the fabled Pecos River and just west of nearly every place else. Although the huge airfield was eventually to sprawl over nearly three thousand acres of Texas hardscrabble, its important and colorful history should by no means be considered merely a regional wartime episode. What happened at Pyote, Texas, before, during, and after World War II represents instead a microcosm of what took place all across the North American continent.

Rattlesnake Bomber Base: Pyote Army Airfield In World War II

State House Press

On the brink of World War II, Texas was still largely a rural state, a closed society. Few chose to leave, and even fewer outsiders found any reason to enter. A frontier morality dictated adherence to strict moral guidelines regarding temperance, frugality, tolerance, fidelity, and moderation. Cultural activities and educational opportunities were limited. The state’s economic situation was dire as a result of the Great Depression and persistent drought. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, needing to put unemployed men back to work and at the same time begin preparing for a looming war, called for building more than fifty thousand new military aircraft and training more than thirty thousand pilots to fly them. And that’s when Texas began to change. In the next few years, sixty-five army airfields would be located in Texas, more than in any other state. Some citizens may have been troubled initially at the prospect of uniformed strangers trooping down their streets, perhaps up to all manner of nefarious deeds. Those concerns, however, were all but obscured by the reality of federal dollars flowing into citizens’ pockets long empty and civic coffers all but bone dry. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, a surging spirit of patriotism universally overcame any shreds of lingering doubt about the need not only to have the bases close by but to welcome military personnel to the community with open arms. The air force had come to Texas in a big way, and changes, as well as the wings of thousands of airplanes, were in the air, from Dalhart to Laredo and from El Paso to San Antonio.

The Wings of Change: The Army Air Force Experience in Texas During World War II (Military History of Texas Series)

In The Stars Were Big and Bright, Volume I, Thomas Alexander has created a concise and colorful portrait of Texas during World War II and illustrated how the coming of thousands of strangers in military uniforms forever changed the faces of eight towns and cities across the Lone Star State. Based on extensive on-site research, rich anecdotal material, and personal interviews, the book briefly describes each community, establishing each location's pre-war condition, then analyzes the permanent social and economic impact each wartime airfield had on its host community.

The Stars Were Big and Bright, Volume I: The United States Army Air Forces and Texas During World War II

When a Chickamauga Battlefield ranger was asked where to find the Texas monument, his quick reply was “Go to where the fighting was fiercest.”  While that spontaneous response accurately underscored the legendary battlefield zeal of the Texas forces in virtually every major Civil War battle, it likely did little to answer the visitor’s question.In this book, the authors will inform visitors to many Civil War battlefields about the heroic role played by the Texans at key sites and why the State of Texas has, over the years, seen fit to officially commemorate the valor of the hard-fighting men of Texas with impressive monuments. With the sesquicentennial observance of America’s Civil War already underway, however, Texas has chosen to pay little attention to Texans’ contribution to the Confederate cause.  Regardless of the scant official recognition being afforded this seminal event, the facts remain that there was a Civil War and that Texans were very often at the hot center of its battles—“Where the fighting was the fiercest.”Students of American history, as well as visitors and those planning to visit the eighteen battlefield monuments described in this book, will learn how Texas forces fared in the fighting. Time must never be allowed to erase the memories of those sacrifices and those battle-bloodied accomplishments on the field of honor.  This book will ensure that present and future generations will always remember the monumental significance of the story of Texas in the Civil War.

Go Where the Fighting Was Fiercest: The Guide to the Texas Civil War Monuments

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