USAF OCS Class 62-A
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History of OCS

 


Lackland AFB Role in

INITIAL TRAINING OF OFFICERS

FOR THE AIR FORCE

September 1941 - July 1973

Lackland Air Force Base had its origins in 1941 performing the mission of preparing men to serve as flying officers in the Army Air Forces (AAF). Officer indoctrination has remained a part if not always the principal part of its operations to the present. By the 1970s, between 40 and 45 percent of the United States Air Force officer corps was receiving initial training at Lackland.

WORLD WAR II ERA

President Roosevelt began a rearmament program in 1940-1941. As part of the military expansion, Army Air Corps officials recognized a need for two distinctly different types of officers: aviators and "administrative officers." The latter would perform leadership duties not requiring aircrew (i.e., "rated") skills. An Army Air Corps tradition of an officer corps almost exclusively possessing flying skills could not be preserved. Rated officers were too slow and expensive to train, and each one bound to a desk reduced the number of aircraft that the AAF could put into combat. This need for nonrated officers became critical with general mobilization following the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor and the 8 December American declaration of war.

Pilot Preparation at Lackland. The Army's need for rated officers (pilots, navigators, and bombardiers) was serviced by the aviation cadet-training program. The portion of Kelly Field destined to become Lackland Air Force Base was one of the installations that played an early and large role in World War II rated-officer training. As the Air Corps Replacement Training Center (Air Crew), it received the first class of flying cadets on 12 November 1941. This replacement center and its sister organization- AAF Classification Center-quickly established themselves on this portion of Kelly. [See Appendix 1, for official lineage data.]

The installation became independent of Kelly Field on 26 June 1942, gaining a designation of San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center (SAACC). While both the replacement and classification centers remained assigned to the Army Air Forces Gulf Coast Training Center, an intermediate higher headquarters at Randolph Field, Texas, they now came under the immediate direction of SAACC's installation commander. As part of the evolution of the Army Air Corps into the Army Air Forces, both centers were redesignated on 30 April 1942 as the Army Air Forces Pre-Flight School (Pilot) and the Army Air Forces Classification Center.

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Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3
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