With America entering into World War II, the Army Air Corps suddenly underwent rapid expansion.

The mild winter climate and the flat terrain of South Florida marked the areas as ideal for flying and aviation training.

Boca Raton AAF included 5,860 acres and stretched from Dixie Highway on the East to Military Trail on the West and from the current Spanish River Blvd.

Areas like Old Floresta remained in private hands and many of the houses in the subdivision were rented to air force officers and their families.

Beginning with the then existing Boca Raton Airport, 3,500 construction workers and $11 million in government appropriations converted the facility into the Army Air Force's only radar training station during World War II.

As the Army Air Force's only radar training station during World War II, the Boca Raton base grew to eight hundred buildings with a troop strength of more than 16,000.

Although planned as a radar training base from the onset, one of the first missions of Boca Raton AAF was anti-submarine patrols over the Florida Atlantic coast.

In addition to teaching the operators, Boca Raton AF was responsible for installing Radar in aircraft and for training pilots in the use of the equipment.

The Army Air Forces also took over the luxurious oceanfront Boca Raton Club to house trainees and officers from the radar training school.

The expensive furnishings had been replaced by standard army bunks housing eight to a room, the swimming pool was boarded over, poor water pressure made bathing difficult, and a rigorous schedule allowed no excuses.

African-American soldiers provided much of the necessary support staff for the operations of the base, and a school was initiated to teach them aircraft engine repair and maintenance.

With the end of World War II in 1945, the radar training for both American and allied troops continued at Boca Raton but the numbers in the program constantly declined.

As a cost-cutting measure, War Department officials in early 1947 were making plans to dispose of the facility, the radar training program was moved to Keesler Field, Mississippi in November.

Boca Raton AFAF was used by Research and Development Command used the airfield for various R&D projects, including testing of the Convair XB-46 Experimental jet bomber.

Boca Raton AFAF was one of many research sites scattered around the country, including Immokalee, Belle Glade, and Ft. Pierce in Florida.

When the wheat was about a foot high, it was sprayed with a fungus called “stem rust of rye,” which formed spores that multiplied rapidly.

Every three days, the men vacuumed up the resulting millions of spores and packed them in one-to-two gallon stainless steel containers, which were driven to the Avon Park Air Force Range, near Sebring.

In 1969, the chemically-treated wheat gathered from Boca Raton and related sites was destroyed by order of President Richard Nixon.

A 1994 United States Army Corps of Engineers survey found nothing harmful at the biological warfare test site in Boca Raton.

In addition, the former military north-south taxiway exists north of the FAU Stadium on the campus, part of it being used as a parking lot.

[2] Today a myriad of cars, trucks and SUVs park on the same concrete that during World War II, B-17s and other historic aircraft occupied.

East of the drainage canal, the former radar training base is now all but unrecognizable, the landscape being a mixture of homes, retention lakes and light commercial businesses.