Historic California
Posts, Camps, Stations and Airfields
Santa Monica Municipal
Airport
(Clover Field)
B-18A
"Bolo" bombers being manufactured at Clover Field (National
Museum of the US Air Force)
Extract,
World War II Sites in the United States: A Tour Guide and
Directory by Richard E. Osbourne
In 1922, the Douglas Aircraft Company moved
to an abandoned movie studio in Santa Monica and began making
military planes. At nearby Clover Field, a 15-acre landing site
named for World War I pilot Lt. Greayer "Grubby" Clover,
Douglas tested their aircraft.
On March 17, 1924, he made history when
eight Army airmen took off from Clover Field in four single-engine,
open-cockpit Douglas World Cruisers. They intended to circle the
globe, but stopped by Seattle so they could designate it as their
takeoff point. That would trim time off their journey--two weeks,
as it turned out.
The aviators flew into sandstorms, driving
rain, Arctic winds and, once, a mountain. Two planes crashed,
but no one died. The two remaining aircraft returned to Clover
Field 28,945 miles and 175 days later, having gone round the world
and sealed Douglas Aircraft's reputation.
When the 115th
Observation Squadron, 40th Division Air Service, was formed
in 1924, the Unit held its meetings at Clover Field, Santa Monica,
using Reserve Equipment planes for flying. Later on, the Squadron
met at the National Guard Armory and also at the University of
Southern California. In 1925, several months after its organization,
the Squadron moved to permanent quarters at Griffith Park, Los
Angeles. The site also served as a site for training Organized
Reserve Air Corps units from its opening until 1 July 1929 when
the Organized Reserve Aerodrome activity moved to Long
Beach Municipal Airport.
Eleven years later, Douglas built the civilian
DC (for Douglas Commercial) models, revolutionizing air travel
as an undertaking for ordinary passengers, not just the daring.
The aircraft made its maiden voyage from Santa Monica.
Douglas held on through the Depression,
expanding Clover Field. But a world war loomed, sending him and
his production line into overdrive.
By now fiercely competitive with Los Angeles'
seven other major aircraft manufacturers, Douglas was forced to
suppress his competitive spirit and play nicely with his competitors.
The companies, which included Northrop and Lockheed, were required
to combine operations temporarily to meet wartime demand.
He hated it, but went along for the duration.
"When the dictators are finally bombed
off this Earth, we shall become rugged individualists and rivals
again," Douglas wrote in a 1942 magazine article.
In 1940, as a morale booster for his employees,
who were already cranking out warplanes and working round-the-clock
shifts, he opened the Aero Theater on Montana Avenue in Santa
Monica. He kept it operating at all hours so his workers and the
public could enjoy brand new Abbott and Costello comedies and
other Hollywood releases.
With World War II raging in Europe, Douglas
realized well before Pearl Harbor that his plant was a sitting
duck for an air attack. He didn't wait for the government to protect
him; he took the controls. Douglas asked his chief engineer and
test pilot, Frank Collbohm, and a renowned architect, H. Roy Kelley,
to devise a way to camouflage the plant. (Later, Collbohm would
found Rand Corp. and Kelley would design its headquarters.)
Together with Warner Bros. studio set designers,
they made the plant and airstrip disappear--at least from the
air.
Almost 5 million square feet of chicken
wire, stretched across 400 tall poles, canopied the terminal,
hangars, assorted buildings and parking lots. Atop the mesh stood
lightweight wood-frame houses with attached garages, fences, clotheslines,
even "trees" made of twisted wire and chicken feathers
spray-painted to look like leaves.
Tanker trucks spewed green paint on the
runway to simulate a field of grass. Streets and sidewalks were
painted on the covering to blend into the adjacent Sunset Park
neighborhood of modest homes that housed Douglas employees.
The tallest hangar was made to look like
a gently sloping hillside neighborhood. Designers even matched
up the painted streets with real ones.
When they were done, the area was so well
disguised that pilots had a hard time finding Clover Field. Some
of them landed at nearby airstrips instead, protesting that someone
had moved the field.
Douglas adapted. When planes were due, he
stationed men at each end of the runway to wave red flags like
matadors. Eventually, the signalmen were replaced with white markers
painted on the hillsides.
(The facade was such a success that Warner
Bros. replicated it, fearing that the studio looked like an aircraft
plant from the air.)
The simulated neighborhood became such a
part of the community that, when Douglas Aircraft shed its disguise
in July 1945, it was as if a landmark had been destroyed.
In the summer of 1943 Clover Field was chosen
by the AAF to be one of six locations in the country as a Redistribution
Center for veterans returning from overseas who were being assigned
to new state-side duties. The veterans were housed in local resort
hotels.
After the war Douglas moved away from Santa
Monica, but its memory is forever etched in the history of the
town.
An advertisement
touting the concrete runway at Clover Field.
Undated US
Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District History
The site, used by the Army Air Force,
consisted of a total of 392.48 acres. Of these, 18.958 acres
were acquired by condemnation (by Declaration of Taking with
judgements dated from May 1944 through November 1946) from private
owners and the City of Santa Monica, 373.214 acres by lease from
the City of Santa Monica and private owners, and 0.308 acres
by lesser interest (0.087 acres by two permits dated 25 September
1942 for a sewer line right-of -way and 0.221 acres by four easement
deeds dated October 1942). The Board of Public Works of the City
of Los Angeles gave revocable permission (dated 12 March 1945)
to the U.S. government to close the northwesterly 400 feet of
Cabrillo Boulevard and portions of Stanwood Drive and Santa Monica
Avenue, extending northeasterly from Cabrilio Boulevard.
The site was used by the Army Air Forces as a factory school
giving a 30-day course of advanced instruction in 1st and 2nd
echelon maintenance and field emergency repairs on C-54 type
army aircraft. The property was also used for housing and messing
of students. Improvements to the site included warehouse, dispensory,
hangars, bomb shelters, maintenance shop, school, and student
quarters.
The site was declared surplus by the Army effective 22 January
1946. The War Department sold 0.414 acres of the 18.958 acres
originally acquired by Declaration of Taking to the City of Santa
Monica (quitclaim dated 14 September 1945). Custody of the remaining
18.544 acres was assumed by the War Assets Administration (WAA)
dated 6 August 1947. Of the 373.214 acres originally leased to
the War Department, custody of 222.284 acres was assumed by the
WAA on 6 August 1947 and the leases on the 150.93 acres remaining
were terminated between January 1944 and January 1947. The 0.308
acres of land obtained by lesser interest by the War Department
became lesser interests of the WAA. Records of disposition of
the remaining property by the WAA were not available. The property
is currently owned by the City of Santa Monica and private ownership.
Land usage includes the Santa Monica Airport, single-family residences,
a school (Los Angeles Unified School District), Clover Park,
and some commercial (restaurants) and heavy manufacturing (Lear
Siegler Astronics Corp.) land uses.
Officers, enlisted
personnel and civilian staff, 35th Army Air Forces Technical
Training Detachment (Civilian Contract Factory School, Airframes),
13 November 1943.
US Army Corps
of Engineers Los Angeles District History (19 May 1999)
The site consisted of a total of 392.48
acres. The site was used by the Army Air Force as a factory school
giving a 30-day course of advanced instruction in 1st and 2nd
echelon maintenance and field emergency repairs on C-54 type
Army aircraft. The property was also used for housing and messing
of students. The site was declared surplus in 1946. The property
is currently owned by the City of Santa Monica and private ownership.
Usage includes the Santa Monica Airport, single-family residences,
a school, and some commercial and heavy manufacturing land uses.
Several buildings are located at the airport; a terminal, operations
and maintenance facilities, hangers, and a fire station. Most
of the buildings appear to have been constructed after termination
of Army property usage. Several old buildings, hangers and electrical
transformers are located along Airport Avenue, at the southern
end of the airport. However, these buildings and transformers
appear to have been in recent or current use.
The Douglas XB-19
at Clover Field, 6 April 1941 (California Military Department
Collection)
I
Known Army
Units at Clover Field
Data Source
Date(s)
Unit(s)
US Army
Order of Battle 1919-1941
1922-1929
Annual Summer Training:
California National Guard:
40th Division Air Service
115th Observation Squadron
Organized Reserves:
322d Pursuit Group,
Headquarters and Headquarters
Squadron
476th Pursuit Squadron
477th Pursuit Squadron
478th Pursuit Squadron
479th Pursuit Squadron
385th Service Squadron
US
Army Order of Battle 1919-1941
1924-1925
California National Guard
40th Division Air Service
115th Observation Squadron
Army
of the United States Station List
1
June 1943
Army Air Forces:
Training Detachment (Civilian
Contract Factory School, Airframes), Army Air Forces Technical
Training Command
Army
of the United States Station List
7
April 1945
Army Air Forces:
3707th Army Air Forces Base
Unit (Headquarters Los Angeles Civilian School Area)
3714th Army Air Forces Base
Unit (Factory School, Douglas Aircraft)
AAF - Army Air Forces
units | AGF - Army Ground Forces unit | ASF - Army Service Forces
units | WDC Western Defense Command unit
Extract of
January 1945 Airfield Directory
Site Maps
Extract, War
Department Inventory of Owned, Sponsored and Leased Facilities,
1945
Santa Monica Municipal Airport
Capacity:
Enlisted:
Permanent:
Mobilization:
Theater of Operations:
Hutments:
Tents:
Total:
Officers:
Station Hospital:
Acreage
Owned: 2
acres
Leases:
Total:
2 acres
Storage:
Covered:
Open:
Cost to Government Since 1 July 1940:
Land:
$25,150.00
Construction: $5,335.00
Total: $40,485.00
Remarks: Government
owned land includes 2 acres acquired for the removal of flight
hazards.
Army Air Forces Tecnical Training
School, Douglas Aircraft Corporation
