This geocache is part of the Historical Trail of GeoTour – Sebring Area Florida’s Hidden Gem (GT48D). Visit https://visitsebring.com/activities/geocaching/ for complete information. Print off passport from link provided and log codewords from each geocache part of the GeoTour to obtain a free trackable coin. Please be mindful of vegetation around the area.
Hendricks Army Airfield is a former USA Air Forces base and was used during WWII as a Heavy Bomber Training School for B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator pilots.
The base was named Hendricks Field in honor of First Lieutenant Laird Woodruff Hendricks, Jr. A native Floridian, Hendricks who was born in and graduated from the United State Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1939. Commissioned into the Army Air Corps, Hendricks completed flight training and received his aeronautical rating as an Army pilot. Lieutenant Hendricks was killed in a B-17C (RAF Fortress I) crash near RAF Polebrook, England on 28 July 1941, just three days after he arrived there to train Royal Air Force pilots.
With the end of the European War in May 1945, the pace of training pilots slowed down during the summer months. With the Japanese surrender of that year, training programs ended and flight operations at Hendricks began to wind down. Air traffic consisted of transient aircraft as de-mobilization was the order of the day, with most personnel being returned to civilian life.
In November 1945, HQ Air Training Command announced that Hendricks Field was one of the many wartime training bases that would be inactivated. The base was transferred to Air Technical Service Command (ATSC), whose mission was the transfer of any useful military equipment to other bases around the country. The base was closed on 31 December 1945 and declared as surplus in 1946, being was turned over to the War Assets Administration (WAA) for disposal.
On February 21, 1946, the city of Sebring received a permit to operate a civilian airfield on the site and on May 1, 1946, the abandoned airfield was turned over to the City of Sebring.
Placed with permission of Sebring Raceway and Sebring Airport.