Buckingham Army Airfield Special Event

Our annual  Special
Event at the Buckingham Field in Lehigh Acres was held on March  18th, 19th and  20th, 2025 to commemorate all of the men and women who trained at this facility during World War II, when it was called Buckingham Army Airfield.

                         

CONTACT:  Brian Darley    special_events@fmarc.net

To request a Certificate and/or QSL card, please send a self-addressed stamped envelope (letter-size or larger for a certificate) with a return address and your callsign to the club’s mailbox at:

P.O. Box 061183
Fort Myers, FL 33906-1183

(Click here to visit the ARRL’s Special Event page for more information (search for callsign W4LX))

Buckingham Field is the current home of Lee County Mosquito Control, and is located at:

15191 Homestead Rd, Lehigh Acres, FL 33971

MAP

“Buckingham Army Airfield is an inactive United States Air Force base, approximately 10 miles east of Fort Myers, Florida. It was active during World War II as an Army Air Forces Training Command airfield. It was closed on 30 September 1945. Part of the airfield is now in the Wild Turkey Strand Preserve.[1]
Buckingham Army Airfield was a training base, established in 1942 under AAF Eastern Flying Training Command, and when active, was the largest airfield in the State of Florida.
Its primary mission during World War II was to train the aerial gunners who would defend bombers. In 1942 and 1943, most American fighter planes didn’t have the range needed to keep up with the bombers. This would leave the bombers and their crews unprotected on lengthy flights over enemy territory. Sitting in turrets and standing behind openings in fuselage of the bomber, it was their job to shoot down attacking aircraft was critical to the United States’ success in both the European and Pacific theaters.
Besides the gunnery students, Buckingham AAF was also the primary training center for gunnery instructors at the Army’s other flexible gunnery schools, the term meaning that the aerial gunner had a flexible mount at the station or in the turret of the aircraft, rather than the fixed aerial gun of fighter aircraft.”
Dates open: January 1943 – September 1945
“During its operational lifetime, it graduated almost 48,000 aerial gunners.”
Source: Wikipedia