Cutting Edge

Chapter 1
Earning Our Wings

The saga of Fort Detrick began with a squadron of airplanes, a group of young men, and the Maryland National Guard Adjutant General. Frederick City was the center of a county known for its fertile land, rolling hills, and prosperous farms.

Modern aviation came to Frederick in 1929. According to the 1932 Yearbook published by the Frederick News-Post:

Municipal airport includes slightly more than 92 acres, leased to U.S. Government on August 1, 1929, as an emergency landing field. Cost of land $26,785.56. Title to property acquired by city July 29, 1929.

Made permanent training field for annual encampment of 104th Aero Squadron of the 29th Division (Maryland National Guard) in 1931 and named Detrick Field in honor of the late Dr. Frederick L. Detrick, flight surgeon of the unit.

It was operated by a single person and the field was one of a string of emergency airfields between Cleveland, Ohio, and Washington, DC.

The 104th Aero Squadron, 29th Division, Maryland National Guard, trained at Langley Field, Virginia, each summer. Its members lived in the Baltimore area, some of whom were veterans of World War I. Among them was the squadron surgeon, then Captain Frederick Louis Detrick, a distinguished teaching surgeon at Johns Hopkins University Hospital.

In March 1931, Maryland Adjutant General, Major General Milton A. Reckord announced he was "bringing home the boys" from Virginia. He obtained permission to have the 104th hold its 2-week encampments at the Frederick airport. The airport had three stone block buildings, which served as the tower, a snack bar, and latrine. The grass runway was situated almost west to east with a dogleg north. West 4th Street (now Rosemont Avenue) marked the western boundary. West 7th Street was the eastern boundary, where a tree-lined entrance greeted the National Guardsmen.

The 104th came equipped with its American-made DeHaviland O-38 Observation bi-planes, JN-4 "Jennies," cumbersome trucks, and squad tents. What the 104th did not have on August 10, 1931 was a squadron surgeon. Captain Detrick suffered three heart attacks and died on June 3, 1931. So great was the respect and admiration for Dr. Detrick that the unit unanimously voted to name the airfield "Detrick Field" during that August 1931 encampment. The name stuck, becoming Camp Detrick in 1943 and Fort Detrick in 1956.

The 1932 Frederick Yearbook highlighted the first encampment on August 14:

Plane from Frederick airport is 'shot down' in mimic battle over Hagerstown.

An air show would be staged for the city at the conclusion of each encampment. The 1932 Yearbook recounted:

August 17-Frederick watches spectacular exhibition of air maneuvers at Detrick Field....

August 24-Throngs of city goers watch guard planes end camp here by successfully 'bombing' Frederick.

Many residents have recounted how they flew for the first time in one of the 104th Aero Squadron's observation aircraft. The squadron supported infantry maneuvers from Pennsylvania to Virginia and took photographs, which later became the basis for maps and other land-use documents.

One of the first Army aircraft, designed by Wilbur Wright, was flown from Camp Myer, Virginia, to Frederick on August 21, 1911. Despite the similarity with scenes of the first encampment at Detrick Field, no one can say for sure where the actual location was in Frederick. A famous amateur balloon pilot flew a large aerial balloon from the Peaks of Otter in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains to Detrick Field in 1932.

Three bombers are known to have landed at Detrick Field. A Ford Tri-Motor was on display and gave rides in the late 1930s. An eight-engine Barling Bomber was photographed on the grass tarmac in 1933. On May 25, 1939, a B-17 Bomber being shuttled from the West Coast was forced down due to engine trouble. It stopped nose up in the ditch adjacent to the trolley tracks on West 4th Street. Pulled from the ditch and refueled, it took off without incident the next morning. A week earlier on May 19, the first Air Mail was received and dispatched from Detrick Field in conjunction with National Air Mail Week.

In 1938, Detrick Field was removed from the list of emergency airfields, but in 1939 the federal government renewed its lease. With World War II looming, Detrick Field became home for a Cadet Pilot Training Program. It built a large hangar (Building S-201) and a series of wooden, prefabricated cantonment structures for barracks and administrative buildings. Among those buildings still standing are the former Noncommissioned Officers Club (Building T-115), the former infant care center (Building T-116), Strough Auditorium (T-611), Post Exchange complex (T-713), Post Library, and other support offices including Inspector General and Equal Employment Opportunity offices (T-501), Community Activities Center (Building S-718), and Building 719, which now houses Company B, 4th Light Armored Infantry Battalion, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.

Construction also included the concrete tarmac. Now called Hamilton Street, it runs parallel to Military Road across from Buildings S-10, 11, and 12, the control tower complex. Steel bars embedded in the concrete tarmac allowed the pilots to secure their aircraft with ropes each night. Hamilton Street still runs directly to the old hangar, where it is covered in asphalt, but most of it remains as it was. It is used primarily for parking.

Quartermaster Corps soldiers from Fort Ritchie, approximately 26 miles north near Sabillasville, Maryland, were assigned to Detrick Field and kept the facilities operating in the years immediately preceding the onset of World War II.

The last airplanes departed Detrick Field in December and January 1941-42 after the Japanese Imperial Navy bombed U.S. Military forces in Hawaii on December 7, 1941. All aircraft and pilots in the 104th and Cadet Pilot Training Program were reassigned after the Declaration of War to conduct antisubmarine patrols off the Atlantic Coast.

But that wasn't the end of Detrick Field's aviation history. Irving Shuffler, a resident of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, wrote a letter to the editor of the Frederick News-Post in 1981 and asked why no one ever talked about the 2nd Bombardment Wing being at Detrick Field. He provided extensive information that was verified by the Office of the Chief of Military History.

The 2nd Bombardment Squadron, U.S. Army Air Corps, was disestablished at Langley Field, Virginia, in 1939. However, with the coming of war in December 1941, America was rapidly mobilizing its forces, establishing organizations and units to be deployed to all theaters of war. The 2nd Bombardment Squadron was reestablished in February 1942 and its colors brought to Detrick Field, which had been virtually abandoned except for the skeleton crew from the Quartermaster Corps.

Between February and September 1942, a cadre of soldiers with the squadron completely organized the reconstituted unit, ordering all supplies, equipment, and personnel. The squadron had no aircraft assigned to Detrick Field. It was later equipped with B-17 Bombers, which were flown to several air bases in the British Isles by women, contracted through the government as "ferry pilots." The unit was consolidated at the Military Terminal, Brooklyn, New York, in September and it deployed to England. The 2nd became the nucleus for the new 8th Air Force Headquarters and its lineage saw it becoming the 2nd Bombardment Division (Heavy), which was the primary division bombing deep in the heart of Nazi Germany. Among its commanders when World War II ended was movie star Major General James Stewart.

The only remnants of Detrick Field's role in aviation are the Blockhouse Tower, the hangar now used by the Directorate of Installation Services (DIS), Beasley Drive, and the wooden buildings, the last of these destined to be razed in the near future.

The grass runway is only visible on Blue and Gray Field. The parade field was dedicated in 1985 to the memory of the 29th (Blue and Gray) Division soldiers from Frederick who died during and immediately after the Normandy Invasion on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

The aircraft landing at Fort Detrick in 1993 were helicopters used for shuttling visitors to and from Washington, DC. Fort Detrick also is designated as an emergency landing site for the presidential helicopter should an on-board health emergency be experienced en route to Camp David. During the 1992 Armed Forces Day Open House, a North American Trainer, vintage 1943, became the first fixed-wing aircraft to land at Fort Detrick since World War II. It flew in over the helipad and quickly touched down in the grass behind the supply warehouse. There was just enough room for the landing and subsequent takeoff.

Visitors to Fort Detrick find it difficult to picture an airfield on this site. Older residents of Frederick will tell you the time period between 1931 and 1942 saw military aviation coming of age and the community was a part of that evolution.

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