Bryan Air Force Base

The plaque gives the hurricane flight a line. On July 27, 1943, a storm hit Galveston and flight classes at Bryan Field were cancelled, so Col. Joseph Duckworth took an AT-6 trainer up with navigator Lt. Ralph O'Hair and flew into it. One account says a wager with British trainees prompted it. The base meteorologist, Lt. William Jones-Burdick, then asked to go, and Duckworth flew in again with him. He had no authorization, and his superiors gave him a medal instead of a reprimand.

What the plaque says

Bryan Air Force Base During World War II, construction of Bryan Army Air Field (Bryan AAF) began in August 1942. The U.S. Army Air Forces site grew out of a war department initiative to train pilots and instructors. The site was the only instrument instructor school for some time, and the airfield hosted more than 1,000 Women Army Service Pilots (WASPS), 38 of whom died during training. From Bryan Field on July 27, 1943, Col. Joseph Duckworth made the first intentional flights through a hurricane. The field also included a large but segregated contingent of African American servicemen and cadets. Bryan AAF covered almost 2,000 acres of rural property. Its construction displaced farmers and the entire Riverside community, but the airfield brought significant economic impact to Brazos County. The airfield had a triangular runway system, hangars, barracks, a theater, chapel, hospital and library. After the end of World War II, much of the site was obtained by Texas A&M College. 'The Annex' was home to freshmen to alleviate overcrowding at the main campus due to hundreds of returning veterans. Reactivated as Bryan Air Force Base (BAFB) in 1951 in response to the Korean War, the facility was a major jet training base and racially integrated. Tuskegee airmen and pilots from many countries were trained by skilled instructors, including future astronauts. The base was deactivated in 1961, deeded to the college and eventually developed into the Riverside Campus, a multi-faceted part of Texas A&M University. (2016)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum — 7.5 mi
  The library of the forty-first president on the Texas A&M campus, opened in 1997, where George and Barbara Bush and their daughter Robin are buried in a family plot on the grounds.
• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 23 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Calvert — 26 mi
  A railroad cotton town of 1868 on State Highway 6 that claimed the largest cotton gin in the world and elected Black men to county and state office during Reconstruction.
• Navasota — 29 mi
  A railroad and cotton town where the La Bahia Road crossed the Navasota River, scarred by an 1865 explosion and yellow fever, and the home ground of the songster Mance Lipscomb.

More markers nearby

• Brazos River Levee — 4.2 mi
• Robert Henry — 4.2 mi
• Moseley's Ferry — 4.7 mi
• Ibarra Elementary School — 5.5 mi