History

VAN VOORHIS FIELD
A Legacy of Honor
Naval Air Station Fallon is known among the locals simply as 'the base,' and few are familiar with the airfield's real name or the man for whom the Weld is named. In fact, the airfield represents a memorial to a WWII naval aviation hero and recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Lieutenant Commander Bruce Avery Van Voorhis, the airfield's namesake, was born in Aberdeen, Wash., on Jan. 29, 1908. Shortly thereafter he moved with his family to Fallon, Nev., where he spent his childhood. His father served as the Indian Service Representative at Stillwater. Van Voorhis attended school at the Oats Park Grade School and later graduated from Churchill County High School in 1924 where his classmates also knew him as "Clint."

He was a 1929 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and earned his pilot wings in 1931. Van Voorhis served with numerous aviation units stateside and overseas. He reported for duty to Bombing Squadron 102 as Plane Commander of a PB4Y-1 at the height of conflict in the Pacific during WWII.

Van Voorhis died on July 6, 1943, near Hare Island of the Kapingamarangi Atoll in the southernmost area of the Eastern Carolina Islands in the Western Pacific. After a 700-mile flight alone, he launched successive bombing and strafing attacks on Japanese ground installations, destroying a radio station, anti-aircraft emplacement and at least four enemy aircraft in the air and on the water in six successive ground level attacks. He was caught in his own bomb blast and crashed into a lagoon, ending his heroic, single-handed strike.

The Air Station was dedicated in his name on Nov. 1, 1959. At that time the 14,000-foot runway was one of the longest in the world and remains the longest in the Navy. In 1956, 13 years after Van Voorhis' death, a destroyer escort was launched bearing his name (DD-1028) from the shipyard in Camden, N.J. The ship was in service throughout the world for 17 years, including participation in the naval blockade of Cuba in 1962, before being decommissioned in 1972. In 1982, then Governor of Nevada, Robert List, issued a proclamation designating May 31 as LCDR Bruce Avery Van Voorhis Day in the state of Nevada.

As the names of a new generation of heroes is written in the history books, Americans can look back gratefully at the heritage left by those who came before and know that this country is no stranger to the cost of freedom. The list of those willing to fight, and die, to pay that price is long and continues through every chapter of America's history. Among that list of names is Nevada's own LCDR Bruce Avery Van Voorhis.

Naval Air Station Fallon traces its origins to 1942, when the Civil Aviation Administration and the Army Air Corps began construction of four airfields in the Nevada desert. As part of the Western Defense Program, initiated to repel an expected Japanese attack on the west coast, runways and lighting systems were built in Winnemucca, Minden, Lovelock and Fallon.

As the war in the Pacific developed, the Navy recognized a need to train its pilots in a realistic environment using all the tactics and weapons currently being developed. Fallon was the Navy's choice. In 1943, the Navy assumed control of the two 5,200 foot runways. Construction soon began on barracks, hangars, air traffic control facilities and target ranges. On June 10, 1944, Naval Auxiliary Air Station Fallon was commissioned Training operations at N.A.A.S. Fallon reached a peak in the summer of 1945 when an average of 21,000 take-offs and landings were recorded and more than 12,000 flight hours logged at the station. Ironically, just as construction of the initial airfield project was completed and the training program was going full gear, the Japanese surrendered and brought an untimely end to N.A.A.S. Fallon. Eight months after the completion of a new 24-unit housing project, five months after a new gym was built and only three months following the opening of a new Commissary, N.A.A.S. Fallon was placed in a "reduced operation status." One month later, on Feb. 1, 1946, the facility was further reduced to a "maintenance status." On June 1, 1946 it was in a "caretaker status" and the official designation of Naval Auxiliary Air Station removed.

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