Training airfield

AAF Navigator School patch, 1943

Beechcraft AT-7 Navigators – 1944

Students learning inflight navigation training.

On August 11, a motor convoy from Turner Army Airfield, Albany, Georgia, brought the cadres of the first squadrons of ground troops to the post. On August 15, the AAF Pre-Flight School(Bombardier-Navigator) was transferred to Selman AAF from Maxwell Field, Alabama. The day after the arrival of the staff, enlisted men and cadets of the Pre-Flight School, classes were in session in improvised academic halls. The cadets had lost only one day of classes in moving nearly 400 miles, with the day spent on the train. Vultee BT-13 Valiants were flown for basic flying training, and TC-47 Skytrains and TC-46 Commandos were used beginning in late 1944 for various administrative needs by the Base Flight.

The last elements of the Advanced Navigation School arrived on the night of September 14, one day less than three months after the activation date. Selman Field was the largest navigation school in the United States in its time and the nation's only complete navigation course—from start to finish—during World War II. The vast majority of aircraft flown at Selman AAF were Beech C-45 Expeditors, also known as the AT-7. Of the hundreds of fields that were operated by the Army Air Forces, it was only at Selman that a cadet could get his entire training—pre-flight and advanced—and wind up with a commission and navigators wings without ever leaving the field.

Once in operation, the Navigator school expanded rapidly. Over 15,000 navigators were trained at Selman Field, who flew in every theater of operations during the war. Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) squadrons were assigned to Selman AAF in 1944. WASPs flew C-45s in navigational flying to train cadet

The curriculum consisted of teaching young men how to "get 'em there and get 'em back." The cadet had to know all aspects of navigation in order to determine where he was, where he wanted to go and when he would get there. The science of navigation offered four methods of accomplishing this. The first is pilotage or navigating by landmarks, using maps and charts. The second is dead reckoning, which consist of keeping track of how far you have gone and in what direction since you started, using instruments which measure various aspects of the plane in motion, such as speed, deviation, wind drift and so on. The third method is radio navigation which consists of "riding the beam" from one station to another until you progress to where you want to go. The final way to navigate is by celestial bodies. These are immutable, but you must be able to identify them in their different configurations in all quarters of the heavens at all times of the night and day. Armed with the best knowledge and training possible. The navigation cadets graduated and became members of combat crews.

On 1 May 1944, Training Command inactivated the Navigator School, being re-designated as the 329th Army Air Forces Base Unit (Navigation School). The 842d and 843d training squadrons were reorganized into Squadron "A" and Squadron "B" and assigned to the 2023d AAFBU. By November 1944, instructors at the navigation school were primarily combat veterans who had flown their required number of combat missions for rotation back to the United States.

With the end of the war in Europe, the school for a while continued navigation training. The navigation school increased to twenty-four weeks in May 1945, with new subjects including radar indoctrination, over water flight, and cruise control.

Closure

Shortly after the conclusion of hostilities with Japan, the Army Air Forces decided to concentrate all navigation training at Ellington Field, Texas, which previously had trained instructors and graduate navigators. Navigator training ended on 1 September 1945 when the school was closed. With the end of the war in the Pacific, students at Selman AAF were asked if they wanted to remain in the postwar Air Forces. Those who elected to remain were reassigned to Ellington to continue their training, and those who elected for separation were assigned other general duties on the field.

After the school closure Selman AAF was used as a separation center for returning overseas personnel. By mid-December the last of the training aircraft were flown to reclamation centers for sale or scrapping. In early July 1946 Selman received orders from Air Training Command to shut down operations as a separation center for returning overseas personnel, with a programmed closure date of the end of the month.

The airport was returned to civil control on 31 July 1946. However, it was reopened as a minimally-manned satellite field of Barksdale Field, Shreveport, Louisiana. Selman Field was officially deactivated on 30 June 1947.

Postwar use

The ownership of the property was transferred to the City of Monroe in September 1949. Monroe Regional Airport is now a public use airport in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, United States. The airport is owned by the City of Monroe and is located three nautical miles (6 km) east of its central business district. The airport is advertised as the birthplace of Delta Air Lines; the airport's logo is a variant on the Delta logo.

Today the wartime airfield is largely intact, the 04/22 NE/SW main runway being extended for jet use. The large parking apron remains intact, with the civilian air terminal being built on the concrete of the ramp. Several wartime hangars remain and are still in use. The buildings of the ground station were sold, removed or torn down over the years and the area has been totally re-engineered, the wartime streets removed and the base converted into a business complex with light industry. The only possible remnant of the base is a baseball field, and the Chennault Aviation and Military Museum.