The Banana River Naval Air Station, 1940 to 1948
The Navy commissioned a seaplane base on the Banana River on October 1, 1940. It flew anti-submarine patrols in World War II, peaked at 278 aircraft and more than 2,800 officers and men, closed in 1947 and became the base for the missile range.
Before the rockets, the military presence near the cape was a seaplane base. Naval Air Station Banana River, authorized under the Naval Expansion Act of 1938, was commissioned on October 1, 1940, as a sub-base of Naval Air Station Jacksonville, according to the Museum of Florida History. It sat south of the cape, where Patrick Space Force Base is today.
The war years
When the United States entered the war in December 1941, the Navy began anti-submarine patrols along the Florida coast with PBM Mariner flying boats based at Banana River. In March 1942 the PBMs went back to training duty, and OS2U Kingfisher seaplanes took over the patrols. Landing strips were built in 1943, so the station could operate land-based aircraft as well. Free French naval officers trained in PBMs there.
The station did a good deal besides. The museum lists a blimp detachment, an aviation navigation training school, an experimental training unit called Project Baker, and a major aircraft repair and maintenance shop. Late in the war a small detachment of German prisoners of war from Camp Blanding worked on cleanup details. At its peak the station had 278 aircraft, 587 civilian employees and more than 2,800 officers and men.
From Navy to Air Force
After the war the station wound down, and the Navy inactivated it in 1947; the museum says it closed in September of that year. A year later it had a new purpose. The Navy transferred it to the Air Force on September 1, 1948, in anticipation of a missile test range that would run out over the Bahamas, and on June 10, 1949, it was renamed the Joint Long Range Proving Ground Base. It became the range’s headquarters and support base, and on August 1, 1950, it was named Patrick Air Force Base, after Maj. Gen. Mason M. Patrick, Chief of Air Service of the American Expeditionary Force in World War I. On December 9, 2020, it became Patrick Space Force Base.
Why the range came to the cape is on our proving-ground page. The county-wide story of the station is on Old Space Coast.
Further Reading
- Cape Canaveral by Ray Osborne
Sources
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