| Peel Field Eglin Air Force Base Auxiliary Field #4 | |
|---|---|
| Located near: Valparaiso, Florida | |
 2006 USGS airphoto | |
  Peel Field | |
| Coordinates | 30°30′36″N086°35′23″W / 30.51000°N 86.58972°W |
| Site information | |
| Controlled by |  United States Air Force Eglin Air Force Base |
| Site history | |
| Built | 1940 |
| In use | 1941-1959 |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
Peel Field, (Formerly: Eglin Air Force Auxiliary Field #4), is a closed United States Air Force field. It is located 5.7 miles west of Valparaiso, Florida.
Auxiliary Field 4 is named Peel Field for 2nd Lt Garland O. Peel, Jr.,, USAAF, who died in the take-off crash of Martin B-12AM, AAF Ser. No. 33-262,of the 387th School Squadron, 2 January 1942, when he suffered engine failure. [1] He was a gunnery school instructor at Eglin. [2] Peel Field was utilized for the filming of scenes for the 1944 film Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo . [3]
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 onwards.
The history of Peel Field is largely unknown, and the exact date of construction is undetermined. World War II wartime temporary housing for NCOs located here was razed in the 1960s. In the early 1960s, while in a moribund state, one of the runways was used as an unofficial auto drag strip by local civilians.
The airfield was incorporated into Eglin AFB on 9 October 1959 and was inactivated. However, the airfield remains under the jurisdiction of the 96th Test Wing (96 TW) as part of the active Eglin base and is not accessible to the public. The ramp of the non-flight-rated facility now serves as a vehicle park for aircraft and armored vehicles before and after being expended as targets on the Eglin ranges. The Eglin AFB Aero Modelers flying club uses the south end of the north–south (18/36) runway for radio-controlled flying on weekends.[ citation needed ]
Eglin Air Force Base is a United States Air Force (USAF) base in the western Florida Panhandle, located about three miles (5 km) southwest of Valparaiso in Okaloosa County.
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Wagner Field,, is a component of Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. It is located northeast of the main base, 13.9 miles northeast of Valparaiso, Florida.
Eglin Air Force Base, a United States Air Force base located southwest of Valparaiso, Florida, was established in 1935 as the Valparaiso Bombing and Gunnery Base. It is named in honor of Lieutenant Colonel Frederick I. Eglin, who was killed in a crash of his Northrop A-17 pursuit aircraft on a flight from Langley to Maxwell Field, Alabama.
Pierce Field,, is a satellite airfield located northeast of the Main Base, 5.5 miles north-northeast of Valparaiso, Florida.
Piccolo Field,, is a closed United States Air Force field. It is located 9.3 miles northwest of Valparaiso, Florida.
Baldsiefen Field,, is a closed United States Air Force field. It is located 10.2 miles east of Valparaiso, Florida.
Biancur Field, (Eglin Air Force Base Auxiliary Field #6,, is a satellite airfield located northwest of the Main Base, 5.9 miles north-northeast of Valparaiso, Florida. It is also known as site "Test Site B6".
Epler Field,, is a satellite airfield located west-northwest of the Main Base, 18.2 miles west of Valparaiso, Florida. It is designated Site B-12.
This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency.
