Fort McClellan Army Airfield

Fort McClellan Army Airfield
Henry J. Reilly Army Airfield

2006 USGS airphoto
IATA: noneICAO: none
Summary
Serves Fort McClellan, Alabama
Coordinates 33°44′43″N 085°46′50″W / 33.74528°N 85.78056°W / 33.74528; -85.78056
Map

Location of Fort McClellan Army Airfield

Fort McClellan Army Airfield is closed military airfield located 6 mi (9.7 km) north-northeast of Anniston, Alabama.

History

The airfield was built in the 1930s to support Army activities at Fort McClellan, used by observation aircraft for artillery spotting and general surveillance of maneuvers. It was named to honor Henry J. Reilly, an American soldier and journalist. In 1942-1943, the airfield was phased down and left unused for many years.

During the 1960s Vietnam War, the Army reactivated the airfield for used by helicopters and light observations aircraft. It also hosted flights of CH-47 Chinooks from Fort Benning on maneuvers. It was used in support of the Chemical and WAC facilities during the late 60's until at least late 1973. In the period 1975-1999, the airfield was used for defensive driving training by the Military Police School at Fort McClellan. Although now unused, aerial imagery shows that the runways are very much intact.

See also

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency website http://www.afhra.af.mil/.

    External links


    This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 6/15/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.