Fairfield-Suisun AAB

  1942 to present

  United States of America

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CITY: Fairfield, CA

IATA/ICAO CODES: SUU / KSUU

COORDINATES: 38°16'N / 121°56'W

OTHER NAMES: Fairfield-Suisun AAB (1942-1947), Fairfield-Suisun AFB (1947-1951), Travis AFB (1951-present)

 

Right: barely more than a field, Fairchild-Suisun AAB back in 1942.
Photo credit: Mark Wilderman / Office of History, 60th Air Mobility Wing

Construction of an Army airfield near the cities of Fairfield and Suisun in California was ordered in December 1941, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor. On 22 April 1942, a spending $998,000 was authorized for the construction of two runways and a few temporary buildings on 945 acres of land. Receiving top wartime priority, construction began in the summer of 1942. On 17 May 1943, the Air Transport Command officially activated Fairfield-Suisun AAB. Fairfield-Suisun was used initially by Army and Navy fighter planes for takeoff and landing practice. For a few months, the outline of an aircraft carrier's deck was painted on the runway to help newly-commissioned Navy pilots practice landings. The strong local prevailing winds nearly duplicated those at sea.

Shortly after construction began, however, the base's potential as a major aerial port and supply transfer point for the Pacific theater led the USAAF to assign it to the newly-designated Air Transport Command. The  base officially opened on 1 June 1943, with the primary mission of preparing various military aircraft, mainly bombers and transports, for the Pacific war zone and ferrying them to that  region. The first host unit for the base was the 23^rd Ferrying Group. At the end of World War II, the base's primary mission became the airlift of troops and supplies to occupied Japan and Korea, and the processing of  war-weary returning GIs. On 1 June 1948, the Military Air Transport Service (MATS) took over jurisdiction.

After a brief assignment as a Strategic Air Command bomber base between 1949 and 1958, Fairfield-Suisun - now become Travis AFB - returned to military air transport duties. It became known, during the Cold War, as the "Gateway to the Pacific".

1504^th AAF Base Unit (Fairfield-Suisun AAB)

Air Transport Command, Pacific Division, West Coast Wing

2^nd Combat Cargo Group, 5^th Combat Cargo Squadron (transit October 1944)

2^nd Combat Cargo Group, 6^th Combat Cargo Squadron (transit October 1944)