Baldsiefen Field

Baldsiefen Field
Baldsiefen Field; Eglin Air Force Base Auxiliary Field #8
	Located near: Valparaiso, Florida
	2006 USGS airphoto
	Baldsiefen Field
Coordinates	30°32′12″N086°19′27″W / 30.53667°N 86.32417°W Coordinates: 30°32′12″N086°19′27″W / 30.53667°N 86.32417°W
Site information
Controlled by	United States Air Force ; Eglin Air Force Base
Site history
Built	1940
In use	1941-present
Battles/wars	World War II

Last updated March 12, 2019

Baldsiefen Field, (Formerly: Eglin Air Force Auxiliary Field #8), is a closed United States Air Force field. It is located 10.2 miles east of Valparaiso, Florida.

Valparaiso is a city in Okaloosa County, Florida, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 6,408. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, the city had a population of 6,336. It is part of the Fort Walton Beach–Crestview–Destin Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Overview

Auxiliary Field 8 is named Baldsiefen Field for 2nd Lt. Richard Edward Baldsiefen, a gunnery instructor at Eglin, killed 4 March 1942 along with Lt. John W. Smith, in the crash of AT-6A-NA Texan, 41-528, which came down at Auxiliary Field 4.^[1] It is designated Site C-52C.

History

With the onset of World War II, the Eglin Field military reservation was greatly expanded when the Choctawhatchee National Forest was turned over to the War Department by the U.S. Forestry Service on 18 October 1940, and a series of auxiliary airfields were constructed from January 1941. The history of the Field is largely unknown, although the runways are pockmarked with craters and patches. Those are likely from either bombs or explosive charges being detonated, with civil engineering rapid runway repair teams using them for training.

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.

Choctawhatchee National Forest is a United States National Forest established by President Theodore Roosevelt on November 27, 1908. The supervisory headquarters was established at DeFuniak Springs and moved to Pensacola in September 1910. It remained there until 1936 when it was relocated to Tallahassee. The Choctawhatchee's two districts were separated by what is now State Road 85.

The United States Department of War, also called the War Department, was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army, also bearing responsibility for naval affairs until the establishment of the Navy Department in 1798, and for most land-based air forces until the creation of the Department of the Air Force on September 18, 1947.

Current status

The airfield was incorporated into Eglin AFB on 9 October 1959 and was inactivated. However, the airfield remains under the jurisdiction of the 96th Air Base Wing (96 ABW) as part of the active Eglin base and is not accessible to the public. Baldsiefen is located in an area of the Eglin base called Range 52. It is currently used for training involving rough field landings & takeoffs, cargo extractions, air assault landings & parachute drops.

It appears to be used as part of the Eglin target range, as aircraft airframes are visible from time to time on the ramp, likely used for ground targets. Current (2012) imagery shows two F-15s, two F-4s, an A-4 and a propeller-driven aircraft on the ramp, with one F-15 sitting out between the runways.

There also appears to be a vehicle R&M yard south of the airfield, along with a radio relay facility which is staffed by Eglin personnel.

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References

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

The Air Force Historical Research Agency is the repository for United States Air Force historical documents. The Agency's collection, begun during World War II in Washington, D.C. and moved in 1949 to Maxwell Air Force Base, the site of Air University, to provide research facilities for professional military education students, the faculty, visiting scholars, and the general public.

↑ Crestview, Florida, "Two Eglin Field Flyers Die In Crash Wednesday", Okaloosa News-Journal, 6 March 1942, Vol. 28, No. 7, p. 1.

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[1] Crestview, Florida, "Two Eglin Field Flyers Die In Crash Wednesday", Okaloosa News-Journal, 6 March 1942, Vol. 28, No. 7, p. 1.