It was active as a training base for both the United States Army Air Forces, as well as the USAF from 1941 until its closure in 1993.

During March 1941, some citizens of Mesa, Arizona, were actively working on obtaining a U.S. Army Air Corps facility located near their city.

One of the sites seriously considered for the new airfield was on the Gila River Indian Reservation located near Chandler, Arizona.

At the time, the land on which Williams would eventually be built was vacant and not used for agriculture due to a lack of irrigation.

Agreements were made for a railroad spur line, along with the appropriate electric, water, telephone and gas services.

The hard work paid off with the announcement in June 1941 that the War Department had approved the site for an Army Air Corps base.

[1] Lieutenant Williams died on 6 July 1927 when his Boeing PW-9A pursuit aircraft crashed near Fort DeRussy, Hawaii.

Known auxiliary airfields were: During World War II, Williams Field was under the command of the 89th Army Air Force Base Unit, AAF West Coast Training Center.

Later, a night fighter training program was established for pilots on the RP-322 for later transition to the P-61 Black Widow at Hammer Field, California.

The Air Corps conducted most of the training for the Chinese at Luke AFB, Williams, and Thunderbird Field in Arizona.

Training the Chinese presented some special challenges because, due to their small stature, some students could not reach all the controls.

After the end of the war in September 1945, most of the temporary training bases were put on inactive status and eventually closed.

Putting untrained jet pilots into a single-seat fighter endangered personnel and expensive equipment.

In addition, the 89th AAFBU was discontinued and the 3525th Pilot Training Wing (Advanced Single-Engine) was established as the host unit at the new Air Force Base.

Students from Taiwan began to arrive at Williams, and training of Taiwanese pilots continued until the closure of the base in 1993.

T-38s were used until the closure of Williams in 1993 along with the Cessna T-37 Tweet Both trainers were two-seat, dual-engine jet aircraft, the T-38 being capable of supersonic flight.

Initial deliveries, beginning in April 1964, were to the 4441st Combat Crew Training Squadron, which was activated to run the F-5 school.

This sudden request on the part of the USAF which had previously perceived no need for a lightweight fighter, was a result of heavier than expected attrition in Southeast Asia and because the F-5 promised to be available with a relatively short lead time.

In October 1965, the USAF "borrowed" 12 combat-ready F-5As from MAP supplies (5 F-5A-15s and seven F-5A-20s) and activated the 4503rd Tactical Fighter Wing (Provisional) at Williams for operational service trials.

The 4503rd TFS (Provisional) was formed on 29 July 1965 to conduct the evaluation, and their pilots underwent training at Williams AFB while Northrop modified the aircraft for duty in Southeast Asia.

Although the Freedom Fighter was judged to be a technical success in Vietnam, the Skoshi Tiger program was essentially a political project, designed to appease those few USAF officers who believed in the aircraft.

The Freedom Fighter was destined to have a relatively brief operational career with the USAF, and the DoD turned down a second request for F-5s, deciding instead to look at other types such as the U.S. Navy A-7 Corsair II.

After the Skoshi Tiger program, substantial numbers of Freedom Fighters were supplied to the Republic of Vietnam Air Force.

The USAF directed ATC to initiate immediately a training program for South Vietnamese F-5 pilot replacements.

Squadrons were re-designated as follows: One of the most dominant features on the ATC landscape in 1974 was the serious jet fuel shortage the command had to contend with for much of the year.

To conserve fuel, ATC made numerous adjustments to the Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) syllabus, including a reduction in the number of sorties and flying hours and an increased reliance on the use of synthetic trainers.

On 30 November 1976, Capt Connie J. Engle became the first female UPT student to solo in a jet aircraft when she took off in her T-37.

Today, Williams continues to serve the Phoenix area as a growing industrial park and commercial airport.

These are: Williams Field suffered its first fatal accident in the six months it had been open as an advanced training base on 3 June 1942 when Curtiss-Wright AT-9-CS Fledgling, 41-5867, of the 333d School Squadron, crashed five miles NE of the base, apparently flown into the ground,[10] killing John Clifford Eustice, 23, of Salt Lake City, Utah, and Irving C. Frank, 24, of Brooklyn, New York.

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