CITY ACQUIRES WAR-TIME PILOT TRAINING BASE AT HARRIS FIELD

On April 22, 1947, Cape Girardeau voters approved a bond issue to purchase Harris Field, a pilot training facility during World War II, from the federal government.

The field, near what is Nash Road and Interstate 55, was rechristened Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport. Today it is called Cape Girardeau Regional Airport.

The $115,000 bond issue passed by a margin of nearly 5-to-1, with 2,401 votes for and 519 against. A two-thirds majority was required for approval.

The successful vote followed a two-week whirlwind campaign during which supporters touted the benefits a commercial airfield would have for the city and region.

The day following the vote, Cape Airport Board members C.A. Juden and Rush H. Limbaugh Jr. announced the board would immediately ask the War Assets Administration office in St. Louis for an interim permit to operate the airport until the government could formally transfer the 58.7-acre property to the city.

Immediate improvement plans called for expansion of a diagonal paved runway to 4,000 feet and construction of a 400-foot sod runway.

A $590,000 expansion project during the 1950s added lighted taxiways, a parking ramp and landing lights.

That expansion was financed through local bonds and matching government aviation funds.

Construction of Harris Field began in 1942 and was dedicated on Dec. 26 of that year.

Aviation pioneer Oliver Parks of St. Louis started the Cape School of Aeronautics at the field. It was one of five Parks schools, including one at Sikeston, in the Midwest and South.

The field was named after Lawrence Harris, a flight instructor at Parks Air College in East St. Louis, Ill., who died in a crash.

More than 25,000 pilots, including 2,500 at Harris Field, were trained at those schools, accounting for 10 percent of all U.S. Army Air Corps fliers who served during World War II.

Flight training lasted between six and eight weeks, with pilots soloing after only six hours of training.

About 30 percent of cadets washed out of the program.

Although civilians ran the program, it was supervised by the military.

Training at Harris Field ceased on March 17, 1944. The facility was converted to a base for storing surplus aircraft.

More than 1,200 planes were stored at the field, with most eventually being sold to private buyers.

The city's effort to acquire the field took off May 28, 1946, when the airport board was appointed to pursue the project. In addition to Juden and Limbaugh, original board members were H.I. Himmelberger, A.W. Zimmers Jr. and Frank A. Lowery.

By 1960, Cape Girardeau Municipal Airport was operating round the clock and was the third busiest in the state, behind only Lambert Field in St. Louis and Kansas City Municipal Airport.