During World War II, thousands of cadets attended various flight schools throughout the Central United States being trained as pilots for fighters, bombers and transports.

It also trained the navigators, bombardiers and gunners necessary for the bombers to attack enemy targets in the combat areas overseas.

Advanced training was held at Post Field, Fort Sill, Oklahoma for observers and pilots.

A number of the students in the early class, especially at Carlstrom Field, were naval officers not destined for Army squadrons.

It was decided to close March and Carlstrom and consolidate all flight training at Brooks and Kelly Fields.

[2] To be eligible to enter flight training, a candidate had to be an unmarried male citizen of the United States between the ages of twenty and twenty-seven and have a high school diploma or its equivalent.

Applicants took a physical and educational examination, and those accepted were assigned to a primary flight school class at Brooks Field.

[2] Flying Division, Air Training Command's origins begin in 1922 when the Army Air Service consolidated its center for primary training at Brooks Field, Texas, and its advanced center at Kelly Field, Texas.

[1] The decision in 1927 to continue the system of a hierarchy of training schools led to the search for another primary flying field close to the hub of activity and the good weather in Texas.

The Center developed an efficient, well-coordinated flying training program that focused on the quality of its pilots.

[4] The size of its aircraft inventory and the number of airmen who trained at Randolph Field failed to equal the compound’s magnificence.

By 1934 the school could graduate 150 cadets a year, although it had increased the number of flying hours by thirty-five and expanded the syllabus.

GHQAF gave the Chief of the Air Corps responsibility for overseeing individual training at the flying schools.

[6] In late 1937 Chief of the Air Corps Maj. Gen. Oscar Westover submitted to the General Staff a statement of Air Corps objectives that ratified pilot specialization and pinpointed desired stops in the now-established professional educational system along an upward path toward promotion and leadership.

[12] Funding of a 30,000-pilot training program was approved on 5 April 1941, and included new GCACTC bases at "Enid, Okla.; Perrin Field, Sherman, Tex.

[8] The Central Instructors School began at Randolph in January 1942, and the first "flying sergeants" graduated as combat pilots in May 1942 "at a civil contract flying school in the Gulf Coast Air Corps Training Center"[1] On 26 September 1942, the GCACTC's Advanced Twin Engine and Bombardier Training Center at Midland, Texas, was redesignated Midland Army Airfield's Army Air Forces Bombardier School (colloq.

Bombardier College) which operated 23 bombing ranges in West Texas[14] (the school had moved to Albuquerque Army Air Base by 28 February 1945).

This reflected the massive demobilization after the end of the war and the closure of the majority of the wartime training bases.

The single entity became Army Air Forces Flying Training Command on 1 January 1946, with its headquarters at Randolph Field, Texas.

This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency