World War II Air Training School Brayton Flying Field

Cadets at Cuero flew Waco UPF-7 biplanes in 1941 and later Fairchild PT-19s from a grass field of 501 acres, backed by four practice fields of about 800 acres more. The nine-week course covered meteorology, navigation, aircraft identification and engines, with five hours on the Link trainer and sixty-five in the air. When training ended, Clyde Brayton moved to Houston to head Red Arrow Freight Lines. By spring 1946 the field was stacked with surplus aircraft, and a state emergency prison was built on its center in 1994.

What the plaque says

World War II Air Training School Brayton Flying Field In 1939 when the Nazis threatened world conquest, the United States had immediate need for thousands of pilots -- more than could be trained at military fields alone. Aid was enlisted from civilian flying schools. One field was established in Cuero under direction of Clyde E. Brayton, veteran pilot whose first licenses (1926-1931) were signed by air pioneer Orville Wright. Cuero provided land; Brayton put in facilities and enrolled the first class in March 1941. A staff of 550 civilians and 100 military men trained 6,611 students who flew 335,000 hours. The field received awards for safety and meritorious service. It ceased operating in August 1944. Favorable flying conditions made Texas the site of 17 civilian training schools, located at Ballinger, Bonham, Brady, Coleman, Corsicana, Cuero, Dallas, Fort Stockton, Fort Worth, Houston, Stamford, Sweetwater, Paris, Terrell, Uvalde, Vernon and Wichita Falls. Personnel in the United States Army Air Forces increased from 21,556 in 1939 to almost 2,500,000 in 1944; many received training at civilian schools. These installations also trained airmen for Brazil, China, England, France and Mexico. Their work was an important contribution toward Allied victory. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum — 0.2 mi
  A cattle-country museum in Cuero's 1903 Knights of Pythias Hall, telling the Guadalupe Valley's 1866 drive north and the Sutton-Taylor feud that bloodied DeWitt County.
• Spoetzl Brewery — 25 mi
  The brewery a Czech and German railroad town started in a tin shed in 1909, run through Prohibition by a Bavarian who had brewed in Cairo, and then by his daughter.
• De León Plaza — 26 mi
  The central plaza of Guadalupe Victoria, the only predominantly Mexican colony in Texas, founded by Martín De León in 1824 and taken from his family after 1836.
• Museum of the Coastal Bend — 27 mi
  Victoria College's museum of thirteen thousand years on the middle Texas coast, from Clovis hunters and Karankawa potters to La Salle's lost Fort St. Louis and the first ranches.

More markers nearby

• Cuero Land and Immigration Company — steps away
• Early Texas Bandstands — steps away
• St. Michael's Catholic Church — steps away
• Buchel Bank — steps away