1940-1945

Air Transport Command builds airport off NW 36th Street

Miami’s role in the Air Transport Command

Following a three-day inspection tour of South Florida in February, 1943, Army Air Transport Command Major General Harold L. George declared himself not only satisfied with the progress he had found at ATC facilities being built in the area but announced that Miami could expect to see a major expansion of Air Transport operations over the coming year.

Strategic airfields of South Florida

In addition to Miami, General George had stopped at Morrison Field in West Palm Beach (the headquarters of the ATC’s Caribbean command and, along with Miami, a major embarkation point in Florida) and Homestead, where the former airstrip hacked out by Pan American Air Ferries shortly after its creation in 1941 had been improved by the Army after Pearl Harbor and activated as the Homestead Army Airfield on September 16th, 1942.

General George indicated that Miami expansion plans were already in progress with the recent government takeover of 1177 acres south and west of Pan American’s NW 36th Street Airport.

Presence of Pan Am is factor in choice of Miami location

The decision of the ATC to base its Florida facilities in the area south of Pan Am’s airport was almost certainly linked to the creation, in November of the previous year, of Pan American Airways’ Africa-Orient Division, operator of the “Cannonball” service contracted by the ATC to ferry men and supplies to allied war zones.

Building a wartime hub

The ATC had been authorized $20 million by the War Department to build runways, warehouses, barracks and machine shops at its Miami base. Additional purchases of land brought the total number of acres owned by the Army to approx. 1400. 1000 acres were dedicated to the establishment of an airfield and terminal on the east side of the field, at 20th Street. 400 acres were allocated for a huge Army supply depot on the west side of the field along 72nd Avenue.

In September, Pan Am turned over a just-completed twin-hangar/overhaul/ maintenance base to the ATC. Though providing needed additional facilities for Pan Am’s fleet, the huge double hangar and office building were initially put into service to support ATC operations.

By October of 1943, the Army’s Miami Army Air Depot (MIAD) was said to be almost 75% complete. Built on the west side of the airfield, and described as “25 acres under one roof,” MIAD included seven massive warehouses stocking over 200,000 items needed to keep Army Air Force planes flying, plus three massive engine maintenance and overhaul shops. Due to the shortage of an industrial workforce in Miami, thousands of workers and their families arrived in caravans from out of town to work at the facilities.

The Fireball

By late 1943, the ATC had created a “Fireball” service to complement that of its civilian, Cannonball, counterpart. The Fireball was an Air Transport Command express service focused on high-priority freight — especially critical spare parts and engines needed to keep aircraft flying in the China-Burma-India theater. It was headed by Lt. Col. Joseph C. Mackey of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as commanding officer of the First Foreign Transport group.

If the Cannonball service operated regularly scheduled runs from Miami to Africa and the Orient, Fireball was more like an emergency courier service for the war effort. It was typically flown by military ATC crews and emphasized speed, urgency, and reliability. Fireball was the rapid-response lifeline. A delayed shipment of spare parts could ground aircraft thousands of miles away; the Fireball helped prevent that. It kept transport planes, bombers, and fighters operational at a critical moment in the war. The accompanying Miami Herald article from November 12, 1944, provides additional information about the Fireball service. Both the Cannonball and the Fireball operations also used the facilities at Homestead Air Force base, as reflected in its November 1944 Thanksgiving Dinner menu.

The large Army base was a beehive for the remainder of the war. The ATC’s South Atlantic route to Africa and the Orient was a vital wartime air corridor transporting aircraft, personnel, spare parts and military equipment to the front across an air route that spanned 11,500 miles. As the war wore on, additional routes were created, linking Miami to Washington, New York, North Africa and Europe. By 1944, Miami had become an “air hub for half the world” (see Miami News article, below). After VE-Day, the ATC shifted its focus to returning aircraft and personnel to the United States.

From wartime base to Miami International Airport

The Miami air base was formally inactivated in 1947. In January 1948, the Army turned the base over to the Miami-Dade County Port Authority for the sum of $1.00 on the condition that it be used to expand the County’s existing airport facilities established at NW 36th Street after the war.