End nears for former air base Harris Field

The following is an excerpt from the March 16, 1944, edition of the Southeast Missourian.

Only a small amount of flying remains to be done at Harris Field before the Army Air Forces program is suspended. Tentative plans are to complete the training this week, but present orders are that the field's services are to be discontinued March 24. Many of the cadets now here have already completed their work and the class is awaiting orders to proceed to a basic flying school.

Only a few of the flight instructors are left, others having gone to various other posts. Seventeen of the group were taken into the Air Transport Command and have gone to Memphis, Tenn., to report for duty. Fourteen of the instructors have gone to Sikeston as instructors, and four went to Tuscaloosa, Ala., to do similar work at the Alabama Institute of Aeronautics. Some of the mechanics have gone to LaGuardia Field, New York, to begin work with the American Export Lines.

Fred Lynch has captured images for the Southeast Missourian since 1975, in that time moving from black-and-white to color, from film to digital and to video. The blog title is a nod to an earlier era of news photography and the 4x5 Speed Graphic: It's more important to be there for the shot than to worry about technical details.