By Terri Jo Ryan

Tribune-Herald staff writer

James Connally Air Force Base began taking shape in early 1940, with local civic leaders lobbying the federal government for a military installation.

In mid-August 1941, county and city leaders learned that an air base was planned in the vicinity. The county acquired more than 1,100 acres for the project.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor spurred on construction, and by the spring of 1942, the first basic training pilots arrived at what was called Waco Army Air Field. After the war ended in September 1945, the base reverted to inactive status for almost three years.

But with the Cold War heating up international tensions, the base was reopened in August 1948 and named Waco Air Force Base. It was renamed Connally Air Force Base the following year, and became James Connally Air Force Base in 1950.

The Air Force was sharing the base with the state of Texas by 1965, when James Connally Technical Institute (now Texas State Technical College) was established. The state bought the base for $5.2 million after the Twelfth Air Force moved its headquarters to Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin, and the Waco base closed in the summer of 1966.

The base was named for Col. James T. Connally. Born in McGregor but raised in Waco, Connally graduated from Waco High in 1928 and Texas A&M University in 1932.

Connally completed pilot training and got his U.S. Army Air Corps commission at Randolph Field near San Antonio in 1933, where he flew air mail as an Army pilot.

In the summer of 1941, before the United States entered World War II, the first Boeing B-17 “Flying Fortresses” were sold to the British Royal Air Force. Connally accompanied the aircraft overseas to British territories in the South Pacific for high-altitude training missions. The 31-year-old pilot was stationed at Clark Field in the Philippines with the 19th Bombardment Group when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

In 1942, Connally won the Distinguished Flying Cross for a mission that destroyed a Japanese tanker ship and rescued 23 stranded American pilots.

After tactical school in Orlando, Fla., in 1944, the flying ace returned to the Pacific in December 1944. Connally was killed on May 29, 1945, in a raid over Yokohama, Japan.

Sources: ArmyAirCorpsMuseum.org, Time.com, Handbook of Texas Online, James-Connally.org, FlightJacket.com