Lake Bridgeport WWII Training Site
Runaway Bay (Bridgeport), Wise County, Texas
Marker Inscription
When the U.S. was drawn into World War II in 1941 the federal government increased the number of training facilities across the nation. The area around Lake Bridgeport (built in 1931) made for an ideal site to train airmen and test equipment without undue impact on local residents. Lake Bridgeport served as an important military training site, designated as a bombing target area and auxiliary sea plane base for Eagle Mountain Lake Marine Corps Air Station (Tarrant County). Construction occurred generally in the northeast corner of the lake’s main body in September 1942, with an administration building, boathouse, seaplane ramp and parking, the ‘east hill stone target,’ and various floating targets. The site also hosted training and research activities including: amphibious troop gliders, night and day fighter-machine gun strafing, skip and dive bombing, and test area for the tdr (an early u.s. navy radio controlled assault drone.) Hundreds of U.S. Navy and Marine Aviation Pilots and Crewmen trained here. In tragic accidents during training in 1944, two marine aviators, lt. T. S. Wharton, Jr. And CPL A. J. Paleszewski, and later, a local guard, Thomas Troy Mitchum, died. Bombing runs were conducted daily at 10:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m. and 4:55 p.m., while night bombings could occur at any hour. Area-lit by magnesium flares suspended under parachutes, these flares would occasionally ignite a landowner’s pasture, which brought out neighbors to help extinguish the flames. Lake Bridgeport, as an auxiliary training site for Eagle Mountain Lake AIr Sation, provided valuable maneuvering room for aviators during the war. Both sites ceased operations after the war.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After the United States entered World War II in 1941, Lake Bridgeport became an ideal, sparsely populated site for military training, serving as a bombing target range and auxiliary seaplane base for Eagle Mountain Lake Marine Corps Air Station. Beginning in 1942, crews built an administration building, seaplane ramp, and stone and floating targets, and hundreds of Navy and Marine aviators trained here in strafing, dive-bombing, glider work, and tests of the early TDR radio-controlled assault drone. Training took lives, too — two Marine aviators and a local guard died in accidents in 1944.
Why it matters
The site is a reminder of how the World War II home front turned quiet rural lakes into vast training grounds that prepared a generation of aviators for the Pacific war.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When the United States was pulled into World War II in 1941, the country faced an enormous problem: how to train hundreds of thousands of airmen, fast. The answer was to blanket the nation — and especially the wide-open South and Southwest — with new airfields, ranges, and auxiliary sites.
Texas, with its long flying weather and vast, thinly settled land, became one of the great training grounds of the war. A reservoir like Lake Bridgeport, built in the 1930s and surrounded by open country, was ideal: aviators could practice bombing and gunnery without endangering many people below.
That is how a rural North Texas lake was drawn into a global war. It served as a bombing target range and an auxiliary seaplane base tied to a Marine Corps air station in a neighboring county — one node in a sprawling network built almost overnight.
People & events
The buildup here was concrete and fast. Beginning in 1942, crews raised an administration building, a boathouse, a seaplane ramp, a stone target on a hillside, and floating targets out on the water — turning a recreational lake into a working military range.
What happened here was strikingly varied. Aviators practiced strafing by day and night, skip and dive bombing, and even worked with amphibious troop gliders. The site also hosted testing of an early Navy radio-controlled assault drone — a genuinely experimental weapon that hints at how much of modern warfare was being invented in real time.
The training was relentless and dangerous. Scheduled bombing runs punctuated the day, and night raids could come at any hour, the ground lit by magnesium flares drifting under parachutes. Those flares sometimes set a rancher's pasture ablaze, bringing neighbors out to beat back the flames. And the danger was not only to property: the marker records the deaths of two Marine aviators and, later, a local guard in training accidents in 1944 — a sober reminder that the home front had its own casualties.
Its place in the American story
Behind every carrier deck and beachhead in the Pacific stood places like this — unglamorous ranges where pilots became competent enough to survive combat. The skills rehearsed over a Texas lake, from dive bombing to seaplane operations, were the same skills that decided battles an ocean away.
The drone testing here points to something larger still. World War II was a laboratory as much as a battlefield, and remote-controlled weapons trialed in obscure corners foreshadowed technologies that would reshape the decades to come.
Just as telling is how the war reached into daily rural life. Ordinary landowners lived beside daily bombing schedules and rushed out to fight grass fires started by military flares. The total mobilization of the era wasn't only overseas; it transformed quiet American landscapes into instruments of the war effort.
If you visit
Today this is a peaceful lakeside setting, and that contrast is the whole point. Stand near the water and try to picture flare-lit night skies and the crump of practice bombs where there is now only calm.
Let the marker do its work of memory. The names it records — two Marines and a local guard who died in 1944 — turn an abstract training site into a place of real sacrifice, and they deserve a moment's pause.
The stop fits naturally into a day around the lake, blending outdoor recreation with a hidden layer of history. As you enjoy the shoreline, remember that this ordinary-looking reservoir once helped prepare a generation of aviators for war — a small place with an outsized role in a very large story.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · T.S. Wharton Jr.
- · A.J. Paleszewski
- · Thomas Troy Mitchum
Related events
- · World War II
Themes & tags
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