Florida Historical Markers Programs - Marker Detail

Description: Side One: At the beginning of World War II, a group of Hernando County leaders met with U.S. Senator Claude Pepper and expressed a desire to have a military airfield built in the county. In November 1942, the Brooksville Army Airfield consisting of 2,230 acres opened as the Army Air Force School of Applied Tactics (AAFSAT). Young men from the 1st, 5th, 99th, and 340th Bombardment Squadrons trained to drop bombs on the enemy. The sky above Brooksville filled with bombers – B-17 Flying Fortress, B-24 Liberator, B-25 Mitchell, and B-26 Marauder. Only a concrete backstop or bunker approximately 25 feet by 100 feet remains from the World War II airfield. The gunnery backstop containing targets, railroad ties, and some sand served both to align the fifty caliber machine guns mounted on the bombers and as a site for target practice. The trainees fired the guns from bombers chained to the ground a hundred yards away. This system was called a Boresight Range. The holes made by the bullets can still be seen in the steel support beam along the top of the concrete. At the end of the war, in 1945, the United States government donated the airfield to Brooksville. Side Two: In 1940, the population of the little town of Brooksville hovered around 5,000. After the Brooksville Army Airfield opened in 1942, young men in uniform doubled that population. The flyboys filled the void created by local men leaving to fight in the war far from Brooksville. The military presence transformed a slow-paced agricultural community into a social epicenter. The airfield became a new source of employment for the locals and expanded the customer base for businesses. Young daredevil pilots controlled the best machines in the air. One day planes from the Zephyrhills airfield buzzed downtown Brooksville. Pilots from Brooksville bombed the Zephyrhills airfield with sacks of flour in retaliation. After the war, the beautiful Florida weather enticed many of the Army fliers to come back. They married Brooksville ladies, and settled in the town. The end of the war meant the end of the Brooksville Army Airfield and the birth of the Brooksville Municipal Airport in 1947. In 1961, it became the Hernando County Airport. In March 2013, the name changed to Brooksville-Tampa Bay Regional Airport and Technology Center.