Site of Old Midland Army Flying School
Midland, Midland County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Old Sloan Field, built 1931, in 1942 became Midland Army Flying School, for bombardier cadets. At one time it was called largest bombardier training center in the world. One of over 25 World War II airfields in Texas, its cadets flew 861,510 hours in Beech "AT-11" aircraft, dropping 1,245,107 bombs. Last class of cadets graduated in Jan. 1945. The field was used as an Army Air Forces instructor school (Bombardier) until World War II ended later that year. After military phase-out, 1947, commercial field opened 1950. (1968)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1931 as Sloan Field, this West Texas airfield became the Midland Army Flying School in 1942 and grew into what was called the largest bombardier training center in the world. One of more than 25 World War II airfields in Texas, its cadets logged over 861,000 flying hours in Beech AT-11 trainers and released more than 1.2 million practice bombs. The last class graduated in January 1945, and after the war the site transitioned to commercial aviation.
Why it matters
The field was a linchpin of the vast home-front training machine that prepared American airmen for World War II, part of Texas's outsized role in winning the air war.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the flat, wide-open country around Midland, the sky is the main event — and that made West Texas ideal for teaching men to fly. The field here began humbly in 1931 as Sloan Field, a small civilian airfield on the arid plains. Then the world went to war.
After the United States entered World War II, the vast, clear skies and sparse population of West Texas turned the region into one of the nation's great flight-training grounds. In 1942 the old field was transformed into the Midland Army Flying School, dedicated to a highly specialized craft: training bombardier cadets.
This was the era of total mobilization, when quiet places were suddenly conscripted into the war effort. Midland became one of more than 25 military airfields operating in Texas alone — a single node in an enormous, hastily built machine for producing airmen faster than any nation had ever done before.
People & events
What happened here was training on a staggering scale. Midland grew into what was called, at one point, the largest bombardier training center in the world — a place whose entire purpose was to teach young men the exacting art of putting a bomb on a target from thousands of feet up.
The cadets flew the Beech AT-11, a twin-engine trainer built for exactly this work, and the numbers they piled up tell the story better than any description could: 861,510 flying hours logged, and 1,245,107 practice bombs dropped over the West Texas ranges. Bombardier cadets across the country trained on the precision bombsights that made high-altitude bombing possible, learning to calculate wind, speed, and drift in the seconds before release.
The school's wartime mission wound down as victory came into view. The last class of cadets graduated in January 1945, after which the field served as an Army Air Forces instructor school for bombardiers until the war ended later that year. The military phased the base out in 1947, and by 1950 a commercial field had opened in its place.
Its place in the American story
The bombardier was one of the war's most demanding jobs, and the air campaigns over Europe and the Pacific depended on thousands of them trained to a high standard in a very short time. Places like Midland are where that human capacity was manufactured.
The home front was not only factories and shipyards; it was also a continent-spanning network of training fields turning farm boys and clerks into aircrew. The nearly one million flying hours and more than a million practice bombs recorded here are a measure of just how much effort went into readiness before a single cadet ever reached a combat zone.
Texas carried an outsized share of that burden, its skies busy with trainers from more than two dozen airfields. Midland's story is a piece of a larger national achievement — the way the United States, almost overnight, built the training pipeline that helped decide the air war and, with it, the war itself.
If you visit
This is a landmark of memory more than of standing structures, so come knowing what once filled these skies. Stand where the field was and picture the horizon dotted with twin-engine trainers, engines droning through the clear West Texas air on run after run over the bombing ranges.
The setting itself explains the history. The very things that make this country feel empty — the flatness, the endless visibility, the dry weather — are exactly why the Army chose it to teach precision from the air. Let the landscape do some of the storytelling.
If you're traveling through the Permian Basin, a stop here reframes the region's wide-open spaces as something more than scenery. For a few years in the 1940s, this ordinary stretch of Texas was one of the busiest classrooms in the world, and the numbers on the marker are worth pausing over to grasp what "the largest bombardier training center in the world" really meant.
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 events
- · World War II bombardier training
Themes & tags
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