Childress Army Air Field, a World War II bombardier training school under the Central Flying Training Command, occupied an area of 2,474 acres 2 and a half miles west of the Childress city limit. Construction of the field was announced on May 2, 1942, and began immediately thereafter. An activation ceremony was held in October, and Col. John W. White assumed command on November 24.
Subsequent classes arrived at three-week intervals through the rest of the war and participated in an initial training program of eighteen weeks, later increased to twenty-four. The first class of cadets began training in February 1943 and graduated in May. In 3and a half years Childress graduated 35 classes of bombardier-navigators; its 4,791 graduates made a tenth of the total World War II air force bombardier production.
A redeployment program for veteran bombardiers was instituted at the field to give retraining in line with development of bombing techniques. The War Department also established a prisoner of war camp at the base. Childress was renamed the 2,512th Army Air Forces Base Unit on July 1, 1944. After the field was closed on December 21, 1945, it was given to the city and transformed into a municipal airport.
Feature item of the CAAF exhibit is the Norden Bombsite, the great secret weapon of WWII, which was housed at CAAF during the war and was used to train bombardier pilots. It was stored in a vault in a small building which still stands (although in ruin) at the site of the airfield. | 
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