Scope and Content Note

On May 22, 1941, the Lakeland City Commission passed a Resolution naming the Lakeland Airport No. 2, which was under construction, Drane Field in honor of Herbert J. Drane, one of Lakeland's outstanding citizens. The city had barely begun work on the new airport when, with war already raging in Europe, it leased the facility to the War Department. The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers improved the three existing runways and constructed the necessary buildings to operate a training facility to fly combat bombers and fighters. The new base, a sub-base of MacDill Field, Tampa, Florida, was named Lakeland Army Air Field. Thousands of men received part of their training here.

The organizations on the field at its inception consisted of the five squadrons comprising the 98th Bombardment Group, the Fourth Weather Squadron and the Fourth Airways Communications Detachments. A Flying Fortress group trained until 1942, then until 1944, tactical groups flying the B-26, B-25, B-24, A-20, P-51, and P-40 trained. Fighter reconnaissance groups flying P-51 Mustangs and a few Air Commando squadrons also trained at Drane Field.